War, what is it good for?

'Imagine if the network of book-reading clubs had been set up by someone like Osama bin Laden. It would be uncatchable, irresistible'

What I want to know is: are we still at war? Last year, President Bush declared war. It was right after what the Americans call "9/11" and everyone else calls "11 September", except Osama bin Laden, who calls it, "The day everything went right, before it all started to go a bit wrong, let's be honest." That was when President Bush declared war on terrorism. There is a war against terrorism, he said, and we shall not cease until we have won that war.

So I am just asking: have we won the war yet? And have we ceased?

I know the Americans said that they were pursuing the war against terrorism by going into Afghanistan and bombing the hell out of everywhere until the Taliban collapsed and then handing the government of the country over to the warlords who had been ravaging the country so much previously that the Taliban felt they had to step in and stop it.

If you prefer warlords to terrorists, that is certainly a step forward. And George Bush certainly prefers the company of warlords to terrorists, being a warlord himself.

But does it mean we have won the war? I mean, if we had won the war, Osama bin Laden would now be in captivity, would he not?

But Osama bin Laden is still free and making home videos, and the al-Qa'ida chain of command is still said to be intact. This is the wonderful thing about al-Qa'ida; that when you cut it in half, both halves go on living and doing damage, like the snakes in the myth.

Or perhaps a more modern parallel would be the book-reading clubs that have sprung up all over the place. They appear to have no central command, and yet their inner network is such that magically, simultaneously, they all start reading the same Nick Hornby novel at the same time, from Falmouth to Aberdeen. What an underground organisation that is! Imagine if that network had been set up by someone like Osama bin Laden. It would be uncatchable, irresistible...

(As long as they did not recruit the wrong sort of person to their reading club, that is. I am thinking of the woman I saw the other day on The Weakest Link who, when asked which famous modern author had written About a Boy and How to be Good, had thought for a moment and then answered, "Enid Blyton". Or was she perhaps making some satirical, post-modernist point, which I wasn't clever enough to catch?)

Sorry. Are we still at war?

The Americans would like us to think so. They have done what the Americans always like to do when an enemy is located, and I don't mean get Sylvester Stallone to make a film about our boxer beating the biggest and strongest terrorist boxer in the world. I mean that they have got their marketing division on to it.

You can imagine the high-level debate at the White House...

"I think, sir, we have to focus the hatred of the coalition on our enemies by giving them a name. We can't just go on referring to them as 'these evil folks' or 'our enemies'."

"Right..."

"That's where Reagan was so clever in calling the USSR this 'evil empire'. That was just right. It combined two things the Russians hated being accused of; it sounded like something the baddies in Star Wars would be called, and it was alliterative."

"Alliterative, hey?"

"Yes, sir. So I thought if we could think of a name for all those countries like Iran and Afghanistan and North Korea and Libya that harbour terrorism...

"Right... And have you thought of a name?"

"Yes, sir. The Axis of Hatred."

"The Axes of Hatred, huh? They're using axes now, are they?"

"No, sir. Axis. It's a singular noun meaning a grouping, with baddie overtones from the Second World War."

"I don't want overtones from the Second World War. I want overtones from Star Wars. Let's go with Axis of Evil, huh?"

"Right, sir. Nice semi-assonance."

"Right... So what do we do now? Invade them all?"

"No, sir. We can keep the thing going by arresting people now and then just before they are due to commit terrorist outrages."

"Would these be real terrorists or our agents pretending to be terrorists?"

"It wouldn't really matter."

"Right. Meanwhile, what is the Access of Evil up to, hey?"

"Well, according to our latest intelligence, and you won't believe this, they are all reading a book by a British author called Nick Hornby..."

Sorry again. Got side-tracked there. But all I want to know is, are we still at war? If anyone knows, get in touch.