President Bush gave his State of the Union address on Tuesday, and he apparently found out where all the evil comes from. He said 'with states like Iraq, Iran and North Korea, who needs enemies?' or something to that effect. This Axis of Evil and the terrorists who love them are supposedly responsible for all the bad things going on.

I agree that these three nations are not really conducive to the American way of life, but we're already accustomed to their brands of evil. North Korea has their mountain of nuclear weapons and sells weapons freely (much like my hometown of Albuquerque), Iran has their freaky religious fanatics (much like Utah), and Iraq has Saddam (sounds just like Sodom to those in the Bible Belt). These three nations and all their evil put together could not muster much of a fight against our effective bomb-them-from-the-sky strategy.

President Bush is trying to put a face on evil, but this is not World War II. Saddam is not Hitler, Iran is not Italy, and North Korea is not Japan. I know he is incorporating the tough talk rhetoric, but our problems as a nation and world have less to do with rogue nations and more to do with the lack of basic needs.

Axis of Evil should have names like War, Pestilence, Famine, and Death. We've already declared an ambiguous war on terror. Why don't we have a war on something like corruption. Ken Lay is still walking around a free man, even though he and his executives have committed horrendous atrocities to the American people. But the corporate malevolence isn't considered evil, that's just bad business.

In Albuquerque, the school district is shot to hell. The superintendent admitted in a letter to the media this week that he had been abusing alcohol and prescription drugs due to the stress of dealing with school board. Is this considered evil? Not really; it's just a delicate situation. Right now, he has been suspended with pay until someone figures out what to do.

Where is the evil? According to President Bush, they are in states like Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. Not in our corporations. Not in our school systems. Not in our back yard.

The truth is that Americans commit more atrocities to Americans than the rest of the world combined could even imagine doing to us. What's worse is that we don't even care about it as much when we do it to ourselves. If some towelhead or slanty-eyed bastard encroaches on our freedom, however, then by God, we're going to give them what for and then some. If our millionaires and billionaires pay off our government to have outcomes benefit them more than the rest of us, well, that's okay and worthy of a handshake.

Evil is everywhere. I've seen it in the fanciest places in town. I've seen it in the worst places in town. I've seen it on street corners, in cars, shopping centers, the post office, churches, parks, front yards and sporting events. It may not be as blatant or detrimental as a terrorist attack, but the collective power of what we do to ourselves makes the new Axis of Evil look lame.

Instead of a war on hunger, we will fight in the Philippines. Instead of doing battle with Ignorance, Racism and Intolerance, we will impose sanctions on Iran. Instead of taking a proactive approach to pollution and depleting water supplies, we will be proactive about stopping Iraq. Instead of fixing ourselves, we will fix the world. We will eliminate evil. How? By killing it.

Killing evil. That's our plan. Somewhere, the real evil is laughing its destructive head off.

Chris Jungle has lived with evil for years, and evil never pays its share of the rent.