My latest nightmare.

(painting by Ivan Berryman)

It was just before the sunset on September 11, 2007, that four replica World War II Stukas, posing as an entire carrier force of dive bombers, dropped from the golden rimmed skies just off the Oregon coast. Launched from an offshore German aircraft carrier in a surprise attack upon the United States, their target was Bill's Tavern and Brewhouse in the small resort town of Cannon Beach. No one knew why. No one knew the strategic significance of Bill's that would warrant military targeting. No one, in fact, had ever thought Bill's Tavern and Brewhouse had any strategic importance -- until 8:00 p.m. the evening of 9/11/2007.

Actually, no one thought about it that evening on 9/11 either. That's because, sadly, in the dim light of their sunset attack, the bombers overflew Bill's Brewhouse missing their target by two blocks, demolishing instead the local kite shop, "Once Upon a Breeze," which people now refer to as "Once, Once Upon a Breeze". (Fortunately, no injuries were reported.)

To a couple of observers present during the brief attack, the replica German dive bombers looked remarkably like the four Stukas they had seen perform three weeks earlier in the annual Hillsboro International Air Show just west of Portland.

As it turned out, they weren't German aircraft at all. And there was no German aircraft carrier just off the Oregon coast from which they had launched. But that was how it was reported by CNN's Wolf Blitzer, Paula Zahn, and Fox News' Sean Hannity. No, the four dive bombers and their act of terrorism were actually sent by Anheuser-Busch's Busch-Light Beer division as a secret black op sanctioned by the White House's National Security Agency.

But none of that came to light until after the confusion and ensuing panic that followed the next day on 9/12/07 when vice-president Cheney linked the "German" Stukas to Iran resulting in the entire U.S. Congress standing once again on the steps of the capitol reciting the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag as F-15s, 16s, 18s, F-117 Stealths, F-22s, B-1s, 2s and 52s and a plethora of unmanned missiles began pounding the shit out of Iran.

Meanwhile, those mysterious German Stukas continued their unchallenged dominance of the Northern California, Oregon and Washington skies (second only to Southwest Airlines) by successfully attacking micro breweries - manufacturers of the nation's best craft beers - up and down the northern west coast.

Eventually, Syria, Lebanon, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, as well as the eastern halves of Turkey and Egypt were implicated in the ongoing terroristic brew pub attacks, thus joining Iran as targets of the U.S. Air Force, Navy and Strategic Air Commands. Latest quarterly reports from Anheuser-Busch reveal their share of the U.S. beer market sales climbed to 51.3% vs. 50.2% from a year earlier.