The Return of the King [Nov 10, 2002]

Friends, fans, lovers of opinion, I have returned. Many thanks to Lizz Westman, alcoholic and marginally employed, for filling in during my absence and for covering perhaps the most important election in the history of the fragile straw man known in this country as democracy. Yes, she is a real person, not a pseudonym. Someone should give her a good job, or at least a bad job where she gets free CDs.

You are now free to begin sending me emails again, or, even better, sexual come-ons. The address is npblog@aol.com. Alas, the Orwell discussion has shut down. After Hitch bit Brian Lamb's nose on CSPAN last week, I decided the topic was getting a little too hot for this kitchenette of ideas. However, you are free to continue sending me questions and comments about Avril Lavigne and/or punk rock. I'll field them alone. Hitchens hasn't bought a record since 1965, and Sullivan only has eyes for The Pet Shop Boys.

Now for the difficult part. As you may have learned by now, I spent all of last week and much of the previous in the Afghan province of Omar-E-Shareef, on assignment from the British London Daily Independent Telegraph Statesman. I left my home a rabid warbird, but I've returned a knock-kneed pacifist. For what I witnessed and experienced in Afghanistan has transformed me forever. I'm fully persuaded that the grand imperial adventure disguised as the War On Terror, a war that I encouraged and to some extent caused through my writing, is an evil sham. The burden of my journey weighs on me like an anvil with a flag attached.

Upon arriving in Afghanistan, the first man I interviewed wept into my microphone, even after I told him not to. "The Americans have given us nothing!" he said. "And their oil pipeline goes right through my bedroom!"

The next afternoon, I was enjoying a soak in a local hot spring with two women who, under the Taliban, hadn't even been able to bathe. Suddenly, an explosion, and the distinct aroma of burning taffeta. I saw a half dozen veils whisked along on the breeze. Wrapping myself in a towel, I rushed into the street. An emancipated woman was ululating.

"An American bomb has destroyed my wedding-dress factory!" she said.

From somewhere, I heard the shout, "There is an American! He will pay for the decimation of our nascent marriage industry!"

A dozen men ran up to me and shook my hand.

"Salaam aleikum, my brothers!" I said.

One of them hit me in the face with a bag of rocks.

"Ow!" I said.

Then someone punched me in my back. Not my back! My precious back!

"Get his Strokes CD!" I heard someone say.

The bag of rocks rained down on me. I could feel the blood pouring into my nose and my mouth. It didn't taste that bad, really, but it was still blood, and that meant trouble. The more I bled, I bled more, and the crowd, which was mostly men but also there were some animals, kept on me. I flailed. A couple of the men went down when my thunder-kicks connected. Still, I was soon overwhelmed.

But even then, I understood. I couldn't blame them for what they were doing. They were just noble brown-skinned Third-World victims of the imperial war machine. And to them, I might as well have been Donald Rumsfeld.

"He is Donald Rumsfeld!" said one of them. "Kill him!"

"No!" I said. "I exist with you in solidarity!"

And then, darkness.

Remarkably, I woke up in the arms of my hot-springs companions.

"You are so mangled," said one of them. "Like a handsome piece of meat."

"Yes," I said. "Still, I identify with my attackers. For I now know that this, and all military actions that my country undertakes, are phony and unjust."

That got me a blowjob.

This may be difficult for some of you to accept, but my previously rabid pro-war stance has now been completely replaced with an equally rabid anti-war stance. I will not rest until I reveal the entirety of the truth about our government's agenda for world domination, which is my duty as a leading American novelist and social critic with a good reputation in Italy. My beating is a symbol for this filthy war. And I will not let you forget it.