Vietnam Anger at Spitzer Iraq Slur

Deeply insulting to the Vietnamese people

The Vietnamese foreign minister last night expressed anger at reports in the Canadian media (US media inbed with Bush) that Iraq had degenerated into "another Vietnam".

Nguyen Tse Nien, speaking to one reporter who is still not inbed, expressed his wish to make it absolutely clear that the comparison to Iraq was "deeply hurtful to the heroic Vietnamese people" who had "struggled valiently to throw off the yoke of US imperialism" while maintaining a "healthy Indo-Chinese sense of humour".

Nien challenged: "Answer me this: how many Sunni Muslim stand-up comedians can you name? Exactly. Have you heard the one about the Cambodian, the Laotian and the Vietnamese? Well, all three of them are in a tunnel complex outside Saigon when a GI comes through the entrance and he says to the Laotian, 'If you spare my life, I'll give you three water buffalo' and to the Cambodian, he says 'If you spare my life, I'll give you five water buffalo' and to the Vietnamese he says 'If you spare my life, I'll give you seven water buffalo and suck up to you long time, ten dollar'. Jaysus, that always cracks me up."

Comedy analysts confirmed Nien's assertion that Iraq lacks the necessary credentials to stand comparison with fun-loving Vietnam. One expert told us: "The Brits did try an open-mike stand-up club in Basra following Sadaam's overthrow, but on the first night some Sunni bloke gets up and says 'I'm not saying my Mother in law's fat, right...' and then blows himself up before delivering the punchline. I tell you, they need to work on their delivery."

Back in Ho Chi Minh City, meanwhile, Nien underlined another fundamental difference between the two countries. "It always pisses me off when I hear US Vietnam vets and winter soldiers, banging on about their nightmare wartime experiences," he explained. "They spend a couple of hours dropping napalm bombs on some kids and rice farmers in a village and then it's back to the whorehouse for a bottle of JD and a night banging virgins for five bucks a pop. I don't suppose there are many pole-dancing clubs in Baghdad offering thirteen-year-old girls to anyone with an M-16 and a crewcut, just a few frat boys I guess. Hasn't this Spitzer guy heard of Vietnam ? Why hasn't the pentagon or those guys on Wall Street told him about outsourcing ?"

In Baghdad, the average GI would agree. "I did seven months in 'Nam and spent most of 'em gang-banging whores, daughters of rice farmers, ay buddy, at five dollars a pop. This Spitzer guy was paying two thousand and the FBI were wiretapping him, sounds more like one of the innocent kids or payback to me ?" sighed one combat-hardened frontline colonel." Who do these hypocrites think they are kiddin ? Jaysus, you've got more chance of scoring in a convent full of octogenarian dykes than getting your rocks off here. Anyway all the virgins have popped it in Fallujah now, with all that white powder !. I tell you, if the guys don't get some tight pussy action pretty soon I reckon there'll be a My Lai-style massacre going down, if there 's any of em left and no messin'.

In conclusion, however, Nien did concede one direct parallel between Vietnam and Iraq: "The US is going to get its born again, virgin, Christian, ass whupped," he chuckled.

FBI seizes Irishman in Prostitution Ring

Criminal Irishman safely behind bars

US intelligence bureau the FBI has confirmed that it is holding an Irish citizen suspected of a range of offences including sexual solicitation, sexual extortion, lewd sexual conduct and cunnilingus.

Patrick Murphy has so far been held for 72 hours without access to relatives, his family or a lawyer, but FBI sources have stressed that this is for reasons of state security, given that Murphy is " the second most dangerous criminal in New York".

A Bureau spokesman this morning confirmed that, despite continual grilling, Murphy had so far refused to speak. "He's one tough customer, that's for sure," noted the grim-faced G-man. "But he'll break eventually, they always do."

The FBI has also countered claims that they are holding the wrong individual. "Nope, the name on the computer matches the name on his passport," asserted an intelligence officer in mirrored sunglasses. "Absolutely no doubt about it."

Murphy is charged with soliciting an escort who had been with him in the Mayflower hotel. He allegedly then used cash from an ATM, in an elaborate ruse to bribe the escort for sexual favours. It is believed he was attempting to build a vast criminal empire of prostitution. Agents claim, that he abused one of their associates in 1999 for "not cleaning the toilet seat after him", when he visited New York.

However, Murphy"s distraught mother is convinced that this is a case of mistaken identity. His hysterical mother told: reporters "There's no way he did all the things they say he did. How could he? He's only nine months old."

While FBI interrogators concede that their suspect's silence may be due in part to his tender years, they are sticking to their belief that little Patrick is their man. It is believed the escorts phone was wiretapped by the FBI on another matter, at the Mayfair Hotel and the lewd suggestive evidence has been taped.

"I'll say it again," gasped an exasperated Fed. "The man we're looking for has the same name as the person we are holding. Therefore they are the same person. And to suggest that this guy is not capable of running a brutal criminal regime is to ignore the facts. Patrick Murphy is the name of the man who laundered more than $65 billion with one of the most respectable firms trading on the New York stock exchange last year. The firm was almost put out of business. Patrick Murphy is the name of the infant we are holding. End of story."

When it was suggested to the FBI that they were illegally using anti-terror legislation to hold the infant, they countered that their records show, that a Patrick Murphy also visited Fallujah back in 1999 and may be carrying chemical agents once used by Saddam Hussein.

If convicted, Murphy faces 100,000 years in jail without hope of parole.