Leili on Fri, 8 Mar 2002 12:12:48 +0100 (CET)


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<nettime> FW: French Intellectuals to be deployed in Afghanistan



http://www.michaelkelly.fsnet.co.uk/exis.htm
French Intellectuals to be deployed in Afghanistan


New Twist in Afghan Conflict: Waiting for Godot Redux
French Intellectuals to be deployed in Afghanistan To Convince Taliban of
Non-Existence of God

The ground war in Afghanistan hotted up yesterday when the Allies revealed
plans to airdrop a platoon of crack French existentialist philosophers into
the country to destroy the morale of Taliban zealots by proving the
non-existence of God.

Elements from the feared Jean-Paul Sartre Brigade, or 'Black Berets', will
be parachuted into the combat zones to spread doubt, despondency and
existential anomie among the enemy. Hardened by numerous intellectual
battles fought during their long occupation of Paris's Left Bank, their
first action will be to establish a number of pavement cafes at strategic
points near the front lines. There they will drink coffee and talk
animatedly about the absurd nature of life and man's lonely isolation in the
universe. They will be accompanied by a number of heartbreakingly beautiful
girlfriends who will further spread dismay by sticking their tongues in the
philosophers' ears every five minutes and looking remote and unattainable to
everyone else.

Their leader, Colonel Marc-Ange Belmondo, spoke yesterday of his confidence
in the success of their mission. Sorbonne graduate Belmondo, a very intense
and unshaven young man in a black pullover, gesticulated wildly and said,
"The Taliban are caught in a logical fallacy of the most ridiculous. There
is no God and I can prove it. Take your tongue out of my ear, Juliet, I am
talking."

Marc-Ange plans to deliver an impassioned thesis on man's nauseating
freedom of action with special reference to the work of Foucault and the
films of Alfred Hitchcock.

However, humanitarian agencies have been quick to condemn the operation as
inhumane, pointing out that the effects of passive smoking from the
Frenchmen's' endless Gitanes could wreak a terrible toll on civilians in the
area.

Speculation was mounting last night that Britain may also contribute to the
effort by dropping Professor Stephen Hawking into Afghanistan to propagate
his non-deistic theory of the creation of the universe.

Other tactics to demonstrate the non-existence of God will include the
dropping of leaflets pointing out the fact that Michael Jackson has a new
album out and Oprah Winfrey has not died yet.

This is only one of several Psy-Ops operations mounted by the Allies to
undermine the unswerving religious fanaticism that fuels the Taliban's
fighting spirit. Pentagon sources have recently confirmed rumours that
America has already sent in a 200-foot-tall robot Jesus, which roams the
Taliban front lines glowing eerily and shooting flames out of its fingers
while saying, 'I am the way, the truth and the life, follow me or die.'
However, plans to have the giant Christ kick the crap out of a slightly
effeminate 80-foot Mohammed in central Kabul were discarded as insensitive
to Muslim allies.

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