As the civilized world holds its breath, hoping against hope that yesterday's bloodless Unity Tele-op will not be followed with another of a more "robust" nature, in the US a man who is not Agent Osama bin Laden (CIA, sabbatical) but who does play him, rather badly, on TV, has captivated his audience, as simple in their faith as in their zeal for bloodshed.

Within minutes of the mediocre actor's stilted delivery of a script so hastily and thoughtlessly written that to call it "phoned in" would be a kindness, the heartbreakingly small number of Americans who had managed to hold on to their faculties despite the Goebbelathon of the past three years had dropped their 911 timelines, their patient repeated explanations that colonialist wars of aggression are seldom welcomed by the victims, that whether in the schoolyard or on the world stage, he who would keep his sweets or loved ones safe will best achieve that by refraining from mauling, maiming and slaughtering the sweets and loved ones of others, and run into the streets chanting "evildoers who hate freedom" and cheering on to greater slaughter the bestial hordes of torturers and sexual predators that have come to represent the United States in the civilized world.

What had been a loose but closely held collection of beliefs, in the space of a few moments, coalesced into a religion, complete with all the blind faith in contradictory tenets that religions are famous for.

Thus it is perhaps appropriate that even from this, the ragged isolated pockets of heresy who wait, in varying degrees of silence, bound to their stakes, as the faithful pile the kindling, fittingly ironic that these wretches can snatch a small, if pyrrhic victory: the bloodless Unity Op was every bit as effective as a bloody one would have been.

And probably prudent, in a grotesque sort of way. As the public participation phase of the US "election" process roars to a close, it is expected that the courts will not be likely to reach a decision on who will be selected as US policy spokesmillionaire until spring, if then.

Spring is months away, and important months they are, schedule packed with massacres, desecrations, mutilations, and other expressions of how American taxpayers want their money spent.

With such an agenda, there can be no Kerry, no Bush, no polarized populace, only Unity, only KerryBush.

It's the policy, stupid! It will stand, and it will be implemented, and the houses of Raytheon, of Blackwater, Halliburton, shall rejoice at the dollars in their pockets, and the taxpayers shall rejoice at the blood flowing sweet over the civilized world, money well spent, they nod to each other. Bet it's more than a hundred thousand now. Forgive me for suggesting that Kerry would not kill so many. No, forgive me for suggesting that Bush was not killing enough. Let us work harder, every hour of our work can buy the liberation of an Iraqi child from her little feet.

Non-violence can indeed achieve the same aim as violence.

The restless soul of Goebbels has finally passed into Heaven.