Terrorism, intimidation, bombing, violence, terror campaign, carnage, terrorization, sadism, aggression—these words all have one element in common: they are terrifying, and it is vocabulary we rarely find turning up at the family dinner table.

“Daddy, what’s a ‘terror campaign?’” is a question a child might ask, but it is not a childish question—especially today, when America’s children are spending most of their waking time watching television or surfing the Internet, coming in direct contact like never before with events that shape our world. From the backyard tree houses filled with lighthearted screams as children re-enact the torture of Iraqi prisoners, and on to the playful cries of agony during the pretend beheadings of U.S. and British soldiers, we can observe our children trying to understand world events through dramatic re-enactment; this is the same amusing play that allowed previous generations to empathize and comprehend other historical exchanges, such as those between the ‘cowboys’ and the ‘Indians’ or the ‘Green Berets and the ‘krauts.’

However, a terrorism re-enactment produced and directed by children does not truly demonstrate how they might fight during the event of a real attack. With the intimidation, bombing, violence, terrorization, fear, carnage, sadism, and aggression that takes place on every street corner—even in towns so small they boast only one—it is time our society begins teaching our young to battle the scourge on the brink of eradicating us from the planet.

I know it may seem overwhelming to have to teach your children offensive anti-terrorist procedures when you are already spending countless hours reiterating social lessons about how to mistrust members of your own community, but just think how our children take for granted that every second of the day, they are a hair’s breadth away from being raped, tortured, dismembered, eaten alive, and raped again. We now also must teach them that they might only be a mere second away from being beheaded, dragged naked behind a truck by their genitals, or blown up by a homemade “dirty” bomb.

Luckily, teaching offensive anti-terrorist procedures is as easy as teaching our nestlings neighborhood xenophobia and community paranoia. If we can train children to view people who are kind to be potentially wicked, so, too, can we train them to view the same people to be potential terrorists. Moreover, it sure can be fun when you combine the same instruction with popular children’s games, food, or television programming!

Move #1: PB & J
The first move, called PB & J, is an undemanding anti-terrorist technique, and the child hardly has to do anything but simply allow himself to be disemboweled.

First, describe for your child a generic terrorist scenario, for instance, in which an 85-year-old white woman from Iowa hijacks a plane with fingernail clippers. At this point, your child might query you about your choice of terror suspects, but it is very important that he understands how everyone, especially Americans, are potential terrorists. Let him or her know that the very same people who smile, are also people who put razor blades in Halloween candy, or rape, dismember, and eat children inside of white Chevy one-ton vans and are likely to hijack airliners with personal grooming implements.

Instruct your child to rush boldly toward the suspect, and, despite how the fingernail clipper’s pinch might sting, insist that he accepts the pain in the name of free toys and peer popularity. You might quickly mention that the pinchers will eventually sink fast into his soft flesh and disembowel him, but brush over that and get right to the fun part: instruct your child to allow his innards to cascade over the infidel—like a layer of peanut butter!

During this procedure, the child should cry out for one more patriotic child warrior. Have him exclaim something like “Child of Zion, it is a good day to die!” (With a bit of luck, an alert parent will have already thrust his or her own child into the fray.)

With the arrival of a second patriotic child warrior, surly the audacious terrorist shall again viciously arch out and snip, snip deep and to the quick, tearing forth from the second child’s body both of its tiny lungs, lungs flush pink and frothing, like raspberry jam whipped in a food processor. Now the terror monger is doomed! The old woman will try to dodder away, but with their last ounces of strength, the children should fall upon her, the first child’s entrails smeared on her backside, and the second’s lung guts draped over her front. Within minutes, the coupon-clipping cretin will choke and die on their patriotic innards like a fly trapped in the center of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich!

(Some cunning terrorists might be prepared to deal with this scenario, and advanced U.S. military intelligence has gathered evidence that some of these extremists carry “bendy” straws that they may breathe through if covered in choking volumes of guts. However, even if this is the case, the surprise offensive should disorientate the terrorist long enough to give the pilot or first officer enough time to shoot the old woman in the windpipe with a sawed-off shotgun.)

Move #2: Rock, Paper, Scissors
Again describe for your child a generic terrorist scenario, for instance, in which a group of disabled Vietnam veterans from California hijack a plane with crisp pieces of 8 ½” by 11” paper. Surly your child fears a searing paper cut as much as the next person, but in order to embolden your child in a manner that allows him to charge the wheelchair-bound men fearlessly, teach him to meditate on the game Rock, Paper, Scissors. Mention that he cannot always be the winner in a standard game of Rock, Paper, Scissors, but that in this particular game he will always win, since he will know what the other “players” are holding: paper!

By rushing the goons with their hands outstretched, their index and middle fingers mimicking the clipping motion of scissors, the children should be able to make the terrorists realize they have lost this particular “game.”

(Although such a hijacking by Americans, or military veterans at that, has never occurred, advanced U.S. military intelligence has concluded that nine out of 10 disabled Vietnam veterans from California would give themselves over to the authorities if confronted by this move. But even if the radicals attempted to make a daring swipe and lacerate the tender webbing between the children’s fingers, hopefully the surprise game of Rock, Paper, Scissors will give the pilot or first officer enough time to shoot the vets all in the face with a sawed-off shotgun.)

Move #3: Terror Tubbies
Children cannot get enough of those little fuzzy cosmic Tele Tubby creatures, and that spells “bad news” for terrorists! Although space aliens trying to suck the will and intelligence out of our offspring secretly produce the show so they will be able to eventually enslave a dim-witted future generation with our own machines (like in the franchise Terminator), the program is clandestinely teaching our children to fight terror!

If you find this claim outlandish, you must understand that if terrorists win and destroy the Western world, they will be thrusting humankind back into the dark ages. We will return to an era without science and technology, an age where superstition and fear will again rule the hearts and minds of men--maybe forever--and that would spell “bad news” for the aliens that produce Tele Tubbies. Forced to forego all of our advances in technology, we would never produce those very machines that are tentatively supposed to enslave us, machines the aliens need us to create so they can rule over us. (Although an age of Islam might bring advances in the hookah, this instrument would not be complex enough to be a ruling device of a totalitarian technocracy.)

The aliens, then, have a two-fold reason for producing Tele Tubbies. The first is to continue to debilitate our offspring, so that they will be vulnerable to a machine-instigated revolution. The second is to teach our offspring to fight terrorism to ensure the survival of Western man—to guarantee the creation of the machines that shall rise!

To begin teaching the Terror Tubbies move, again describe for your child a generic terrorist scenario, for instance, in which a group of bearded, towel-headed, girlie-gown-wearing Saudi Arabian males, armed with anti-tank weapons, hijack a plane. Although your child might question your choice of terror armament in light of some minor amplification in U.S. airport security, quickly explain that the average American eats two pigs, 800 slices of bread, and one whole cow a year, and that nobody has a problem with those figures. (Actually, the “fun food facts” are just a decoy—you are simply trying to make your child as brave as possible and prepare him for any obstacle, any weapon, and any scenario.)

Instruct your child to rush toward the terrorists, lie on the floor in front of them, and then have him simultaneously giggle, rub his belly, and spin around on his back. This should immediately cause the terrorists to fall into a mindless, hypnotic state that will give the pilot or first officer enough time to shoot the terrorists in the back of their necks with a sawed-off shotgun.

As you now can see, it is both easy and fun to teach your child to be a diligent terrorist warrior! Armed with these three moves, your child should be ready to confront terror in the air, on the playground, or even in the local nursing home! Certainly adults, too, could learn these offensive moves and fight terror, but sacrificing an emboldened child, one worth nothing more than a boxful of plastic toys and whose mental capacities are already stunted by a dependence on electronic media, will allow wealthy, successful adults, who have worked hard for their money, to continue to live and invest heavily in IT.

Good luck and God bless!
Dr. J. McCarthy, M.D.