If it’s George W. Bush vs Osama bin Laden, who can be the moderator but Pervez Musharraf?

“They’re both my friends and I’ve played them off against each other for years,” the former Pakistan President assures all.

To get round the tricky problem of safe passage, the trio arrive in Nepal, fly to Bangladesh and cross the famous “porous” border into a neighbouring country. The ISI, for old times’ sake (Musharraf once commanded it), arranges a safe house in a city that shall remain unnamed. The debate gets under way:

Musharraf: Hi W, hello (salutes), here I am to help you decide who between you is the greatest of the decade, although neither of you could solve the Kashmir problem, which I nearly did by scaling icy heights....

Osama: Jabber, jabber, jabber, as always. Oh, only if that jammer in your convoy had failed when my boys put a bomb under your tail!

Bush: Yo, Obama! Ha, didn’t I say I would hunt you down to the end of the world?

Osama: Obama! (To Musharraf): He’s mixing up his nemeses.

Mush (slyly): I say, since you two hardly speak the same language, why not let me be the interpreter? I can be the go-between, like the good old times, eh?

Osama: Back off smartypants. (To Bush): Have you learnt to speak English?

Bush: Read my lips.

Osama: Eh?

Bush: No more syntaxes.

Mush: What’s that supposed to mean?

Bush: Syntaxes are like taxes, the less the better. That’s what we believe in Taxes, sorry Texas.

Osama: No sin taxes? No wonder the West is so immoral.

Bush: Hey, I was joking, Laura has been teaching me humour. I can even read English — when the Twin Towers fell, I was reading The Pet Goat to schoolchildren.

Osama sniggers.

Mush: Silence! Let the debate begin.

Osama: In the opinion of the cave, I’m the greatest, dead or alive.

Mush: Now W, state your position.

Bush: Someplace east of Texas. (To Osama) Look Oz, I’m not only the best of this decade but of the whole millimetre, er... millionaire. It will all become clear when Don Rumsfeld writes the authoritarian history of our times, turning all knowns into unknowns and all unknowns into knowns.

Osama: Can I offer you a pretzel?

Bush: No, thanks.

Osama: As you wish. Look Bush, you devastated two countries but couldn’t lay your hands on me, though all you had to do was ask this guy here to hand me over.

Mush (alarmed, to Osama): Hey, hey, hey, this is the problem with you unconstitutional authorities. No sense of diplomatic discretion.

Bush: But I did catch Saddam and hanged him in public like… like dirty linen. Why, that poor devil would make a better Man of the Decade than you, he even looked more decayed. Ha ha, my little joke.

Osama: You’re comparing that Godless bully with me? Listen you Man of the Decadent, Saddam picked on the weak and gassed his own people while I took on an enemy far more powerful than myself and shook it to its core.

I had no country and no army, only a dream and Mullah Omar. I didn’t have an air force, not even any passenger planes — I had to borrow yours. (Grins) And when they struck, as the world knows, you continued reading that book about goats for the next 20 minutes. You indecisive goatherd!

Bush: On the contradictory, Dad and I had decided right then that Saddam had to pay for it. I was just trying to scare the kids about the goat — a bit of practice before frightening their parents about Saddam’s WMDs.

Osama: You are a failure, your country has disowned you, the Nobel committee scoffs at you. Why, you cannot even eat a pretzel without nearly killing yourself. Even that sissy Obama is more deserving of this award than you.

Bush: Sure, stick up for your own. All that pointy-head does is talk and appear on TV and all you pointy-beard have been doing for eight years now is talk on video. Obama indeed! Pretending to be so clever… as if he’s that scientist fellow Abdul whatshisname…

Osama: Abdul Qadeer Khan? Now that is a truly great man.

Mush: Eek! No, no, I don’t know him, honest.

Bush: No, not Abdul — Albert. Albert Eisenhower, no ISI, no Wine, Ein....

Mush: Phew!

Bush: Look me in the eye, Oz. You only destroyed the World Trade Center but I ruined the world economy by putting all my trust in the market. I created the greatest recession since the Second World War; I started two wars and killed more people than you did.

Osama: Now listen. Because of me, you cannot carry after-shave inside planes — though good Muslims won’t need to (strokes his beard smugly). Because of me, so many airlines went out of business — wasn’t that the first hint of the recession? Because of me, schools are issuing I-cards to children, libraries have installed metal detectors, and bombs are going off from Bali to Madrid.

Bush: Never heard of these places… but Oz, I still won. I didn’t let you strike America a second time.

Osama: I didn’t need to. Because of the fear and suspicion I sowed in every mind, democracy was on the deathbed in your country. Even now, can anyone anywhere listen to the sound of commotion without wondering: is that a terror attack?

Bush (pricks his ears): What’s that din? Is that a terror attack? No, seems like thousands stomping on the street. What are they shouting — maa, maa, maa — is a public reading of The Pet Goat on?

Mush: Relax, it’s a political rally. These people are shouting “Maa, maati, manush”. In the local tongue that means “Mother, earth, man” — I know a smattering of the language; had to deal with those backstabbing East Pakistanis once.

The lady who leads these people could beat the two of you hollow in this contest, except that her glory moment comes a year and a half after this decade gets over. (Wistfully) What I like best about her is her constant cry: “President’s rule, President’s rule.” What a contrast with Benazir, and with that wet blanket Manmohan!

Bush: Oh yes, Singh, my best friend....

Mush: Whaaat!!!

Osama: “Sing my friend”? You’re asking me to sing? You decadent cowboy!

Bush (struck by an original thought, a rare occurrence): I say, Oz, you remind me of Singh a lot — the same facial hair and… and turbanator. (Stares hard at Osama) Are you a friend or an enemy? Are you for me or against me?

Osama: Is he nuts? Wait, let me think. No, that’s a profound question actually. Imperialist Satan, I’m impressed.

Bush: Ha, you misunderestimated me.

Mush (bends towards Osama and whispers): Manmohan his best friend? I thought I was. That’s why you can’t trust these Americans… (takes neatly folded pink handkerchief out of his pocket and dabs his eyes).

Bush (irritated, to Musharraf): Stop whimpering. Are you for me or against me?

Mush: I’m against all terrorists…

(It’s unclear if Osama raises his eyebrows because his turban hangs down almost to his eyelids)

Mush: … and for all freedom fighters.

Bush (delighted): Ah yes, I love freedom fries too. Let the French be against me, I have my freedom not to eat French fries but only freedom fries. I understand freedom.

Osama: Yes, you nearly fried all of Afghanistan and Iraq in the name of freedom.

Bush: And all the while you were cowering in your cave, sending videos to Al Jazeera, and getting dull asses after dull asses for liver failure....

Osama: Getting Dallas? I never hit Dallas, only New York and Washington.

Mush: No, he means dialysis. (To Bush) It’s given for kidney failure.

Bush (to Osama): Yes, Delhisis, and nobody even knew if you were dead or alive.

Osama: How could I have left my cave, where could I have gone? I wasn’t safe anywhere.

Mush: Why, you only had to ask and I would’ve put you under house arrest in Lahore — you could have travelled anywhere you liked. And with a US-made dialysis machine too — gifted by the UN.

Bush (fails to grasp the incriminating remark): Oz, you are no cowboy, you are a cowherd, er, coward. Why, this Indian militant my friend Singh told me about is so much braver. He covers his face with a towel and speaks all day to all TV channels, why should he be not a better Man of the Decade than you?

Mush: Don’t, please don’t mention the Maoists, it brings tears to my eyes. These are the only freedom fighters in India who would have no truck with me. Oh, what great things we could have achieved together! Oh, how much more I could have wangled from Comrade Hu!

Osama: Well, this militant guy can be the Man of the Decade for the handloom industry then. These godless Maoists are no better than the Hindu holy cows. They may live in jungles and resist the temptations of money and the flesh, but put a microphone in front of their noses and just watch them blow!

If being wrapped in towels is all it takes, why shouldn’t your Paris Hilton be the greatest of the decade?

Bush (puzzled): Freedom Hilton?

Osama: Doesn’t she represent all that is shallow and dissolute in the West? Isn’t she more popular than you in your country and everywhere else though she’s as bird-brained as you are?

Bush: Dissolute? That’s a bit rich coming from someone lusting after the houris he wants to meet in heaven.

Hey, don’t compare me to that girl. My presidency was based on a commitment to God and family values. That’s what I stood for.

Osama (sneering): Family values? I know more about family values than you. Do you know how many wives and children I have?

Bush (smugly): You think I can’t count? I learnt counting at school.

Mush (whispers to Bush): Some people say he has four wives and 26 children; some say he has only 12 children.

Bush: Poor chap! No wonder he ran off to a cave.

Osama: Family values, huh! I know how you got drunk and drove home with a garbage can wedged under your car and then challenged your father to a… I forget what....

Mush: A mano-a-mano, which means a man-to-man fistfight.

Osama: And don’t you talk about God, either. You spent your life drinking and suddenly claimed to have found religion. Pshaw! It’s you who should have liver failure, you and Hilton and all the people of your depraved country.

Bush: Deprived? Oftentimes I’m asked: is America deprived? No, I always say, ours is a land of opportunists. Isn’t our bankers and hedge fund managers making us proud? Isn’t our nerds turning into Billy Goats, sorry, Bill Gates?

Mush: Oh yes, Osama, what about the Internet? What about the mobile phone? Aren’t these the real newsmakers of the decade, considering how they have changed lives worldwide this past 10 years?

Osama: Mobile phones? Umm, yes, they are handy for triggering blasts — for small fry like the Lashkar-e-Toiba, ha ha. I prefer aeroplanes, cars.

Furious at the insult to Lashkar, Musharraf mutters under his breath

Osama (grows thoughtful): But the Internet, yes there’s something in that. Where would al Qaida be without the Web’s thousand eyes and ears? But don’t expect me to endorse the GPS, gave me nightmares in my cave and put me off my dialyser.

But the Internet, aha, how I enjoyed those gamesites inviting people to hurl shoes at this cowboy here. More fun than car bomb strikes -— you can hit the same target again and again and again....

Mush: By the way W, why is that thing named www after you? Did you invent it?

Bush: Me? Isn’t it that fraud Al Gore who claimed to invent it? Lot of good it did him too — he would have been better off inventing more efficient ballot-punching machines. Remember how the Florida Democrats made a mess of punching their chads? Hee hee hee.

Osama: Everybody knows you stole the election.

Mush: Yes, like me. Jolly good show, W.

Bush: But I won the next election too....

Osama: And who do you think won you that election after all the mess you made over the WMDs, after the bodybags from Iraq and Afghanistan? It’s me, my boys and my videotapes.

Bush: You owed me one. Didn’t I recruit more terrorists for you across the world than you could ever have done by yourself? See, we are on the same side. Southerner and Southie Arabic, we rise and fall together… like the Twin Towers.

Mush: Then what happens to the debate? (Conspiratorially) I say, why not declare me the winner?

Bush: No way, let’s have a vote.

Mush: Vote? Absolutely not. Voting is against my constitution, er, the Pakistani constitution. I shall have to declare an Emergency.

Osama: Yes, a vote it will be. We’ll have a worldwide poll on the Internet, there will be no chads or recounts.

Bush: Have it your way. This poll will be about who’s more hated, so every virtual shoe hit on me will count as a vote for me.

Osama: Allah, this guy is devious. Don’t tell me you thought of it yourself?

Bush: No, Dick Cheney briefed me before I came.

Mush: Sorry to disappoint you, but Internet votes can be rigged. So we can only have a vote in this city, where rigging is unheard of and the people are politically conscious. So each of you hurry up and think of a slogan.

Bush (pulls out a piece of paper from his pocket): Ha, I came prepared for this too. Karl Rove wrote this for me: Dad, Oil and Pet Goat.

Mush: Hmm, let me see if Ican translate this for the local voters: Baap, Tel,Chhagol.

Osama: This cowboy sure suffers from juvenile disorder. Here’s mine: The Sky is No Limit (if you know how to hijack planes).

Mush: Let the voting begin.