WASHINGTON • The forces of anti-progress, anarchy and anachronism tried to kidnap and blackmail our cherished ceo-cratic institutions in Washington this weekend, including the World Bank and IMF. Although the Battle of Seattle has been described as Globalizationıs Vietnam, careful planning ensured that Washington was its Gulf War. Like the barbarous Iraqi hordes in 1990, the neo-saddamite Rabble from Seattle were ready to rumble. The tofu-eating terrorists invaded the US capital en-masse in an overt attempt to destroy corporate truth and justice and entrench despotic mob rule.

But fortunately, order and civilisation prevailed in Washington and the government's Operation Deserted Streets was a complete success. The IMF/World Bank alliance started with a massive, hi-tech airwave bombardment, including smart soundbites and laser-guided interviews, which knocked out the protestersı mainstream infostructure support.

The IMF hand-picked eligible media-pools to exclude any scruffy pseudo-journalists attempting to ride alternative-press credentials into cocktail-junket nirvana. The well-managed, well-behaved real journalists were superbly wined, dined and press-conferenced into positive coverage of the be-suited meetings. Free-speech was never so glitteringly and so impressively circumscribed.

Meanwhile, outside of the cameraıs unwatchful eye, Washington officials could effortlessly suspend the constitution and international human-rights conventions in a ninety-block area surrounding the meetings. This gave their overwhelming ground forces a free hand to perform a mopping-up operation. What came billed as the Protest of the Century went out as the Whimper in Washington.

Thanks in part to new anti-terrorist laws, the Washington police were also able to effectively use pre-emptive strikes to keep the economic-terrorists from disrupting the lawful proceedings. Before the criminal protesters had waved their first placard, hundreds of the revolting thugs were arrested and charged with serious crimes including: felonious possession of duct tape, criminal incitement to use chicken-wire in a non-agricultural setting, conspiracy to disobey traffic signals, flagrant stepping off the sidewalk without a valid permit, unlawful possession of controlled puppet-making materials and failure to return for deposit a soft-drink bottle that could be used to make a molotov cocktail.

At a press conference, World Bank president James Wolfensohn rebutted the protestersı absurd claim that the bank was impoverishing poor countries by lending them money. "These misguided protesters obviously havenıt done their homework, because we specifically target the poor with programs such as structural adjustment," he stated.

Wolfensohn claimed that if the World Bank and IMF didnıt force these countries to open-up their markets, the poorest of the poor would not have access to modern advances such as Pepsi, Marlboros, Nikes and Levis. "The poor people may not be able to afford these items, but at least it gives them something to strive for," he said.

"By facilitating free-trade manufacturing zones, we create an incentive for the ultra-poor to leave their dirty and dangerous subsistence farms to work in safe, clean factories producing running shoes that their childrenıs children may one day be able to wear," Wolfensohn noted.

"We are determined to help them escape their backward rural rut, so they can move to a modern city where they can enjoy all the basic necessities of life: hot and cold running toxic-waste, affordable shanty housing, and the convenient, all-you-can-eat garbage buffets at the near-by dump," he added.