How cigarettes can beat the terrorists.

Yes you read it right, we have an as-yet-untapped weapon in the war on terrorists (or as our more liberal friends call them "insurgents"). It is a known fact that terrorists are heavy smokers due to the stress of their profession, much like the stress a city bus driver experiences.

Imagine getting up in the morning and going to a job where you not only don't get a steady paycheck, but your perceived real rewards only come if you successfully blow your guts out and kill/maim innocent people. This is so your particular sect can gain control of what is left of your country or so you can kill non-believers using a bastardized version of your religion.

Well, let's hit them where they live, in the lungs. First we spray all tobacco fields which are known to supply the terrorists with their preferred variety of cigarettes. Then we bomb all local rolling paper-producing mills within 500 miles of known terrorist hangouts.

With their supply of cigarettes now cut off, they will be forced to either quit, smoke a cumbersome pipe which will weigh them down and easily give away their position, or fight with each other for whatever tobacco products they can get. Now we all know the signs of a person on tobacco withdrawal, you know, jittery, irritable, not to mention overeating and indulging in snack foods to compensate. As they (the terrorists) overeat, they naturally gain weight. Now we have them.

A fat, jittery terrorist cannot run as fast as usual, this makes it much easier to shoot them. Also, due to their increased girth, they cannot hide as easily.

If one of our brave soldiers sees a fat, jittery gut sticking out from a wall as they walk down the street, they can assume it is one of those overweight, jittery terrorists. Or, if airport security sees an odd-shaped protrusion jutting from a fat, terrorist-looking ticket holder, we can nab them before they can get their afterlife reward.

As you can see, we should be thanking the tobacco industry for their years of experimenting on us Americans.

We should also be thanking all those Americans who ignored the warnings on cigarette packs and voluntarily smoked them so we could collect this data and formulate this plan. And of course, we should thank those sympathetic jurors who more than compensated the voluntary smokers for their service. Next month, I will show you how coffee can bring about world peace.

J. SCOT COMEY lives in Attleboro.