Bush Urges Slaughter of "Terrorist" Trees

"I cut down trees, I skip and jump,
I like to press wild flowers.
I put on women's clothing,
And hang around in bars"

Monty Python: The Lumberjack Song

From Marine One, Bush surveyed the devastation left by wildfires that have scorched more than 100,000 acres around this mountaintop community in the last two summers and shook his head with disgust.

From a mountainside where visitors once beheld dense stands of conifers, President Bush on Monday expressed hope that the scene of wildfire devastation would inspire the nation to adopt his Kill The Trees initiative, otherwise known to the public as the Healthy Ha-Ha Forests Initiative Wink-Wink

"We need to "thin" our forests in America," he said to applause from more than 100 rabid Christians and logging company representatives with chainsaws in their hands. Hearing chants of "USA! USA!" from the forestry officials and lumberjacks, Bush took hold of a bullhorn, climbed to the top of a small pile of burned trees, and put his arm around a forest ranger. While the other members of the crowd gathered around complaining that they couldn't hear the magical President's words, Bush announced:

"I can't talk any louder. I want you all to know that America today -- that America today is on bended knee in prayer for the destruction of all the trees that are burning up and causing alot of unnecessary damage and alot of fire fighting expenses. This nation stands with all the good people of America who hate and despise terrorists and trees as much as I do." There were additional shouts from bystanders and complaints from some of the trees that they still couldn't hear the President, who grabbed the bullhorn again:

"I can hear you. I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. And the trees that burned these forests down will hear all of us soon!" As the crowd chanted: "U.S.A.! U.S.A.!," Bush continued: "Trees are the work of the devil! Just look at all the forest fires they cause! Americans are tired of having to put out all these fires of evil! Who needs trees! Destroy the evil forests!" he called out with a bullhorn like a male cheerleader.

"Kill them all!" the crowd shouted with vigor, starting up their chainsaws. "Cut down all the evil trees!" the chanted.

Bush said the Healthy Forests Initiative would help prevent destruction by reducing legal obstacles to logging projects in fire-threatened areas

Critics say the initiative will make it too easy for logging companies to cut down trees in national forests and will limit the public's input in forest management decisions. President Bush thinks that's a bunch of poppycock.

"Forest-thinning projects make a significant difference about whether or not wildfires will destroy a lot of property," Bush said. "Jesus told me there aren't any trees in heaven so what do we need them here in America for? We don't have many trees left in Texas and look how good Texas is doing!"

"We saw the devastation, we saw the effects of a fire run wild, not only on hillsides, but also in communities, in burned building, lives turned upside down because of the destruction of fire," Bush said. "Trees, in many ways, because of the destruction they cause, are like terrorists. They could start forest fires so we'd better cut down all the trees to protect America just like we cut down American privacy rights so terrorists can't hurt us and Jesus saves us all."

The Forest Service and Interior Department estimate 190 million acres are at risk for catastrophic fire.

The invited guests, from loggers to new homes builders to public officials to private homeowners, have a stake in preventing forest fires like the "Aspen" conflagration that roamed virtually at will for a month across more than 130 square miles of the Santa Catalina Mountains north of Tucson.

For many years, Bush said, well-meaning federal policymakers actually worked against the health of forests by opposing aggressive removal of small-diameter trees and other forest fuels.

"The decades of neglect, the decades of failed policy have meant that our forest fires are incredibly hot, incredibly catastrophic,"Bush said. "It's going to take alot of chainsaws and alot of killing to solve the problem, and we better get after it now with good, sound forest-killing practice."

He repeatedly referred to the plan as "common sense."

Not only common sense, but THE BIBLE says it's the right thing to do. Deuteronomy 20:19-20 says:

"However, you may cut down trees that you know are not fruit trees and use them to build siege works until the city at war with you falls."

See? These terrorist trees causing forest fires are not fruit trees and we can use the trees that everyone cuts down to fight terrorism.

US Attorney General John Ashcroft agrees. "The Department of Justice has a solemn obligation to ensure that terrorists, pretending to be forests, are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the remaining shreds of the Constitution. Trees should be destroyed as quickly as possible to prevent any possibility of terrorist infilteration or further acts of terrorist forest fires,” Ashcroft wrote in the memo issued July 28. "Further, the trees that have been killed can be used to build a giant tree wall that will keep all the terrorists out of God's America"

As the president flew by helicopter to the mountaintop, 250 environmentalists - among them state Rep. Phil Lopes, D-Tucson, several firefighters and Summerhaven residents - protested at the base of the mountain. They were sprayed with what appeared to be a liquid form of anthrax while President Bush laughed and gave them all the finger.

And two irrelevant Democratic presidential candidates weighed in from the campaign trail, whining and complaining about the plan that left-wing, terrorist-loving liberal critics claim puts too few controls on the logging industry. Senators Joe Lieberman and John Kerry, both of whom will do and say anything if they think it will help their election chances, minced no words.

Calling Bush's plan "an excuse for a timber industry giveaway," Lieberman, of Connecticut, said in a statement, "Unlike our first president, George Bush just can't come clean about his plan to cut down trees."

Kerry, of Massachusetts, said he agrees that thinning must be done near developed areas, but Bush's plan allows logging of federal forests hundreds of miles from communities.

Back on the mountain, the U.S. Forest Service's Larry Humphrey, incident commander for the "Aspen" fire, said, "You've got to thin the entire forest. Jesus told the President it was time to kill the trees. A one-mile buffer is not going to do it."

As Bush greeted well-wishers on the mountain, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said he believes the Senate will surmount two stumbling blocks and pass a bill along the lines of the one approved by the House.

The first question involves the diameter of the trees that can be harvested. Commercial loggers have little interest in clearing small growth unless they also can take large trees.

Legal constraints are the other issue, McCain said.

The Senate is trying to "work out a reasonable process where they (the public) get their day in court but it doesn't turn out to be three or four years in court."

Kerry complained that Bush's claims that environmental concerns delay logging projects are not true.

The president spent about three hours in southern Arizona before flying to Denver for a Republican fund-raiser.

He traveled from Tucson by helicopter to address and mingle with the gathering of Forest Service and law-enforcement personnel, firefighters, American Red Cross workers and property owners in the village of Summerhaven at the 8,000-foot elevation.