In a chilling address to the nation last Thursday, U.S. President George W. Bush continued to milk his wartime popularity and added a few more nations and people to the ominous "Axis of Evil", namely Libya, Syria, a few obscure Asian nations that have oil reserves that his Vice President’s pals would like to exploit, the state of Oregon (who recently knocked his home state of Texas out of the NCAA basketball tournament) and Fireaxe. Standing on the still smoldering remains of the World Trade Center and holding up a few charred but partially intact pieces of New York firefighters, the President milked national sympathy while delivering the sermon, or rather speech, in his usual grammatically bizarre fashion.

"We as a people know there’s no doubt in my mind that there are evil people in the world planning to do evil plans with evil weapons and we’re not going to let them do it. Evil countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Crudeoilistan, evil people like Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, and Senator Tom Daschle, evil weapons of mass destruction like nuclear and chemical and that aren’t evil when we have them but become evil when evil people gets their evil hands on them. America stands united, and divided we fall, but we will not fall or falter when it comes to dealing with evil, like those evil referees who made evil calls in the Texas/Oregon game. That’s why we have military tribunals that are fair."

Bush then paused for applause and, receiving none from a confused crowd, went for a tried and true response.

"God Bless America!", Bush declared and the crowd roared in approval.

"And evil musicians with evil guitars in evil studios recording evil music onto evil CDs, America is divided against them!"

One of Bush’s aids started towards the podium to correct the president but W. was on a roll, "Evil like Fireaxe who says that he’s an evil athnostic neitzscheist and if that’s what he says that’s what he is then he is and we should bomb him. And we are because I gave the order this morning."

In a press conference later that day, Attorney General John Ashcroft gave more information about the Fireaxe bombing campaign.

"Our intelligence sources indicate that Fireaxe is linked to the terrorist organization Al Qaeda. One of Fireaxe’s CDs was played on the air in a country that has people named Muhammed in it which is the same name as one of the hijackers, Muhammed Atta!", Ashcroft said triumphantly, speaking catch words like Al Qaeda and Muhammed, loudly in an attempt to sound impressively authoritarian, "And, there are a lot of men named Muhammed who’ve been trained by Al Qaeda in Afghanistan!"

One reporter spoke up, "Dude, that is like, totally weak."

Taken aback, Ashcroft quickly added, "Uh, and there’s more evidence that’s all top secret that we can’t share because it’s a matter of national security. Lots of secret evidence that conclusively proves his guilt!"

And the audience believed every god damned word he said.

Fireaxe creator, Brian Voth, responded to the allegations outside of his apartment in the recently bombed city of Chula Vista.

"Just because I scare the crap out of John Ashcroft doesn’t make me a terrorist.", said the fugitive musician. "Seriously, we’re talking about someone who lost his Senate race against a dead man. What kind of qualification is that to be Attorney General? And the guy is a nut. He’s intimidated by the nudity of statues."

"And what’s the deal with all these bombs they’re dropping on my neighborhood? They’ve hit everything but the target. I’ve been watching them all morning. So far they’ve hit the other side of the apartment complex, the hospital next door, and the old folks home across the street. Nothing’s hit me yet. Are their maps up to date? Have they bombed the Mexican embassy yet?

Brian added, "Just turn your cameras around and take a look.", but the camera man replied that he couldn’t show any "war footage" since it could possibly compromise national security.

"Oh, for shit’s sake. Like Americans learning what’s really going on is some kind of threat to national security.", said Brian.

The reporter and camera man slowly nodded their heads.

That evening at a press conference Donald Rumsfeld vehemently refuted Brian’s statements.

"We’ve got him on the run. He’s scared. He’s got nowhere to hide. We hit everything that we wanted to hit and killed everyone that we wanted to kill. He’s lying about those other buildings. One was an Al Qaeda training camp and the other was an Al Qaeda weapons stash. We believe that they were trying to make weapons grade anthrax there. That so-called ‘hospital’ was full of chemicals and equipment that they were using to manufacture weapons of mass destruction. They weren’t cooking cookies in those bunkers."

"Um, he said he was baking a pizza. And he doesn’t live in a bunker, he lives in an apartment", added a reporter who was then taken outside and beaten for talking back.

The next day the bombers returned, hitting the old folks home for a second time and blowing up a bus full of children on their way to school. Rumsfeld later described the victims as "Taliban commanders and their families". The following day a B-1 bomber dropped a load of cluster bombs on the nearby playground and destroyed a Fed-Ex truck driven by a man with a foreign sounding name and dark skin.

"Ok, ok, enough already.", replied Brian after the fourth day of continuous erroneous bombing. "I surrender! Just stop killing my neighbors and wasting my tax money."

Filled with an intense desire to inflict justice and an even more intense desire to distract the media from Enron, Ashcroft announced that Voth would be stripped of his citizenship so that he could be tried in a military tribunal.

"He’s guilty. We know he’s guilty. His parents are from Canada for Christ’s sake (Praise be unto him). But if we try him in a normal court he might get off on a technicality, like the fact that there’s no evidence against him, so we have to try him in a military court."

The trial moved swiftly and the prosecution presented loads of Fireaxe lyrics taken out of context and used to demonize the defendant.

"Look at this song, ‘I Am the Destroyer of Dreams’. That’s what terrorists want, to destroy our dreams. He’s a terrorist. Kill him."

Brian was allowed to cross examine but found it difficult with his hands bound and mouth gagged. The jury of three military officers deliberated for an hour and then came back with the verdict. Brian looked dejected at first, but soon had reason to celebrate.

"Not guilty on all counts.", the judge was dumbfounded. The prosecuting attorney watched CNN’s offer to him to host his own talk show go up in smoke. Brian’s eyes lit up, but then he realized that it probably wasn’t over as a civil trial would surely follow in an attempt to convict him of something.

When reached for comment later, the jurors said that they has listened to a few rough cuts off of the upcoming Fireaxe CD "Food for the Gods".

"It was great stuff.", said one. "’Chariot’ is like the most balls out metal battle hymn that I’ve ever heard. I’m going to blast it out of my chopper when I charge into combat."

"Yep, and my Israeli friends are going to go nuts over ‘My Name is Joshua’. It rocks like a beast. That should remind them of what they’re fighting for when they’re doing targeted assassinations and beating up Palestianian refugees. It’s for the glory of God."

An indifferent Brian Voth had this to say, "Those songs are supposed to show how fighting for god just ends up plunging the world deeper into violence and suffering. They’re not supposed to glorify death and encourage war. But then, the whole point of it is that people will use whatever excuse they can to justify atrocities in the name of their god. So I guess I should have expected this."