Letter to Osama bin Laden

(originally published in Adbusters, Jan/Feb 2007) 

Thanks a lot, Osama. Thanks for turning my wife's birthday into the memory of people leaping out of a pair of ugly burning skyscrapers. Thanks for electing/re-electing Dubbya. Do you really hate us that much? Thanks for Bill C-36 and the PATRIOT Act. Thanks for Afghanistan, the Taliban and women who bump into walls. Crazy, man. Thanks for Iraq. For Zarqawi and his Gang of Beheaders. For Gitmo. For Abu Ghraib. For Lynndie England, the dogs, and naked prisoners stacked in pyramids. Thanks for Roberts, Alito and Anne McClellan. Thanks for the wiretaps. For racial profiling. For stealing our souls. For selling newspapers. For pushy customs agents waving wands between our legs at airports. Thanks for the War on Everything and Nothing in Particular. Thanks for all the dead people. Thanks for the 72 virgins in Paradise. (Who knew?) Thanks for the geography lessons. Thanks for helping us ponder Islam. For the Danish cartoons. For all the IEDs and one-legged soldiers. For Americans yearning for freedom in Canada. For Stephen Harper and the Fraser Institute. For giving Exxon its best year ever. Thanks for 9/11, 24/7, man. Sleep tight. Don't let the bedbugs bite.