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Surveillance technology crafted in Monda Behinou continues to startle the world. US officials are convinced that the resourceful city-state's native skills will play a decisive role in the War on Terrorism. Since Monda Behinou is also a magnet for well-heeled hedonists foraging for sex (see Monda Behinou, April 1999), diplomatic relations between the Bush administration and the Hakipoutch regime have, however, been edgy.

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"We hugely admire the people of Monda Behinou," insists State Department spokesperson Lester Buntlock III. "We just wish they'd button up." Devotees of Monda Behinish culture are beginning to express concern that American pressures, made more acute by the newly signed Gradomet Accords, are eroding the Monda Behinish tradition of sexual freedom.

Sexual considerations aside, the Bush Administration has a strong affinity for the minuscule nation, whose name means "good world" or "world as it should be." Structured to facilitate surveillance, Monda Behinou is laid out according to the Panopticon prison model created by 18th-century utilitarian thinker Jeremy Bentham. Monda Behinish residential and commercial neighborhoods surround a central citadel, Gradomet, whose walls are topped with sentry boxes at six-meter intervals. Gradomet contains a labyrinthine complex of government offices, elaborate research facilities, and the official residence of Gegbar Hakipoutch, yougaho (leader-for-life) since 1964.

In Gradomet's Beetou Pentaxou (Surveillance Room), security police keep watch on 32 tiers of closed-circuit television (CCTV) monitors displaying views of every city street. Outside the citadel, enforcers armed with nine-pronged sticks keep civilians in line. Billboards emblazoned with slogans like "Gwebouni behinouni nadajouba koudakout" ("Righteous people like to be seen") adorn the sides of buildings. Everywhere there are surveillance cameras, hidden microphones, metal detectors, tracking instruments, face recognition devices. Every telephone is tapped. Intercept systems eavesdrop on cellular phones, beepers, fax machines, and photocopiers. Everybody watches everybody else.

Last January 15, when Monda Behinians celebrated Squepdansha Yougaho, Hakipoutch's 67th birthday, an urgently motivated diplomatic and trade mission journeyed from Washington DC to Monda Behinou for the festivities. The party included US Attorney General John Ashcroft, Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge, Undersecretary of State Gaylord Biddle Mutsford III, representatives of both the FBI and the CIA, and a bevy of surveillance industry executives.

Among the VIPs were several US citizens with Monda Behinish roots, notably National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, whose first name, like that of her younger sister Twagourina, reflects her Afro-Monda Behinish heritage. In Monda Behinou, where the name is commonplace, prominent Condoleezzas include transportation minister Condoleezza Doudapata, clothing designer Condoleezza Condoleezzeezzi, and television actress Condoleezza Bougamarounou, star of the hit series Goumi Borcouni Mounouni ("My Many Onions").

Attorney General Ashcroft, a devout member of the Assemblies of God, had privately expressed reluctance to visit a country where communal mud baths, sex clubs, casual nudity, and public urination are taken for granted. Jesse Helms, Ashcroft's former colleague in the US Senate, calls Monda Behinou "morally putrescent." On a recent 700 Club broadcast, Reverends Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell concurred that Monda Behinou must share responsibility with feminists, abortionists, and homosexuals for the disasters of 9/11.

Department of Justice troubleshooters sent to Monda Behinou to pave the way for Ashcroft's arrival returned with assurances that Monda Behinish depravity was no worse than that of The Hague, which the Attorney General had recently visited without incident. Meanwhile, DOJ staffers had extracted promises from the Monda Behinish government that all cats with calico markings, which Ashcroft considers demonic, would be quarantined throughout his stay, and that the born-again law enforcement official would have minimal exposure to naked people or nude statuary.

Of special concern was a likeness of Yougaho Eegabar Fegourouni, author of the constitutional revisions of 1913 that served as a template for recent American antiterrorist measures. The Eegabar Fegourouni Monument, modeled on Paris's Colonne Vendôme, stands in Twegmatouna Square near the gates of Gradomet. Atop an 18-meter column stands a life-sized statue of Fegourouni, nude, with an nine-inch erection. Fortunately, the DOJ advance team found a solution readily at hand. At Ashcroft's insistence, $16,000 had been allocated for custom-made curtains to mask the bare-breasted Spirit of Justice sculpture that has stood in the atrium of DOJ headquarters since 1936. The actual drapery cost only $8,650; this left the DOJ $7,350 to spend on a temporary slip-cover for the Fegourouni Monument.

Not everyone accepted the official story that the statue was veiled to prevent Fegourouni from upstaging Hakipoutch on his special day. "I bite my thumb at these intruders," grumbled baggage handler Boudagar Fefnetchi as the American visitors deplaned at Yagobundi International Airport. "They arrive to celebrate our Leader's birth by tossing blankets on our way of life." Other Monda Behinish citizens, fearing reprisals, expressed their displeasure to The Guide anonymously. "When I can't pull my hamagouna out of my trousers and twirl it in public, the world is not as it should be!" complained onion merchant Wegbou Snieto (not his real name).

Fefnetchi and Snieto fondly remember President Clinton's ambassador to Monda Behinou, Timothy "No Pants" O'Bannion, who eagerly patronized Monda Behinish nightspots like the clothing-optional mud spa Youmpouni Twegabouni (Perky Elbows), and openly conducted an affair with porn actress Boumbalina Wekkagougou (the same Boumbalina Wekkagougou whose antics with a cigar in Oingou Kroupt were emulated in the Oval Office).

O'Bannion's Republican replacement, Lagobar Budbrick III, claims Monda Behinish ancestry through his maternal great-grandmother, but his cultural identity is hardshell Southern Baptist. Budbrick's predecessor enjoyed greater popularity among the Monda Behinish public. "This Mr. Budbrick is not as he should be," complains Goumbou Goumetch, owner of Pletou Yaumou (Flesh Trough), a gay sex club. "We are glad we don't see him."

But on January 15, Ambassador Budbrick had high visibility. After introducing arriving American dignitaries to Monda Behinish Security Minister Fafnar Dibindibdou, Budbrick escorted the party to the annual Squepdansha Yougaho reception at the US embassy. American officials mingled with the Monda Behinish elite over deep-fried onion rings and Sprite until 6 p.m., when the festivities shifted to Gradomet. In the palatial Beetou Koudakout (Room for Being Seen), Budbrick formally presented Ashcroft, Ridge, Rice, and their entourage to Gegbar Hakipoutch and his wife Smegmina.

In his birthday address, the Monda Behinish head of state took pains to please his American guests. "We are happy to welcome you into our country," he told them, "for now we may see you." Playing to the visitors' erotophobia, Hakipoutch echoed the pro forma expression of distaste for sex tourism he had slipped into his New Year's message two weeks earlier, and followed it up with a paean to abstinence. "Happy is the sleeping penis," he asserted. Hakipoutch went on to praise American and Israeli intelligence policies, describing Monda Behinou, the US, and Israel as a "stekpou behinou." (Translated in the American press as "axis of virtue," the phrase literally means "bargepole as it should be.")

Following Hakipoutch's speech, which received a five-minute standing ovation, Condoleezza Rice read a statement from President George W. Bush reaffirming American-Monda Behinish friendship. Tom Ridge spoke briefly, praising Monda Behinou for setting global standards for national security. The American portion of the program concluded with a carefully scripted speech in which John Ashcroft expressed the hope that an American-Monda Behinish pact would be finalized within the next two days.

In the Beetou Kroupt Yougahoni, the banquet hall below Gradomet's northern escarpment, dignitaries dined on Monda Behinish-American fusion specialties created by master chef Woktiko Bounfougi: baked rutabaga garnished with collard greens, yoghurt-braised chitlins on beds of caramelized pearl onions, mesquite-grilled boar, and maple walnut ice cream topped with deep-fried cheese nuggets. After-dinner entertainment peaked with an appearance by Monda Behinish recording star Pipti Wegdouna, who sang Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Pleaf Nousht Tchou Moun, Argentina" and her own signature song "Sousa Boulbarina Mounou" ("Nurse My Turnip"). Translations of the latter were tactfully withheld.

After a night at the elegant Houstouria Richard Nixon, the Americans returned to Gradomet for closed meetings with Hakipoutch and his cabinet. Their goal was to iron out kinks in the Gradomet Accords, which had been moving toward completion for five months. President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell participated remotely by speaker phone from Camp David and Yemen.

Sources report that except for a tense few minutes during which President Bush attempted to sell 5600 shares of Enron stock to the Monda Behinish government at 17 cabourgani ($156) a share, the talks went smoothly. Hakipoutch politely ignored American suggestions that Monda Behinou, which lacks a permanent location, select a fixed geographical place to exist, preferably near St. Croix. (As one member of the White House staff points out, "President Bush has enough trouble locating countries that stay put.")

After an uninterrupted six-hour session, Gegbar Hakipoutch led a smiling group of American and Monda Behinish officials into the Beetou Koudakout to present a completed, signed agreement to the press. While all participants in the negotiations seemed pleased with the result, the Gradomet Accords, which address both trade and defense issues, include features that instantly raised eyebrows on both sides.

The accords expand and formalize information-sharing that has been going on between the two nations for decades. In exchange for military hardware, the United States will receive an astonishing volume of state-of-the-art surveillance technology, including microscopic camcopters. All FBI and CIA field operatives will henceforth undergo periods of training in Monda Behinou.

Within five years, surveillance systems across America will be upgraded to Monda Behinish levels of efficacy. Monda Behinou, meanwhile, will begin a program of moral rearmament aimed at keeping order. Asked about curtailments of freedom embedded in the accords, Ashcroft replied, "To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: your tactics only aid terrorists."

Word soon reached the streets outside Gradomet that Hakipoutch had caved in to American demands regarding recreational sex. As Ashcroft and his colleagues returned to the airport, a few intrepid citizens screamed curses like "Blunch pranja ba scatou kousou gouthou!" ("Go wash your hair with shit!") at the passing motorcade. Activist Yumbou Doubetch, who bounced a Bermuda onion off the roof of Ashcroft's limo, was frog-marched into Gradomet and gently executed.

Political analysts note that for Americans, the Gradomet agreement implements the Patriot Act of 2001­ also known as the "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act," a phrase whose wording betrays direct translation from the Monda Behinish. The Patriot Act, a 342-page chunk of legislation giving the executive branch of the US government sweeping and unprecedented powers to spy on groups and individuals at home and abroad, borrows freely from the Monda Behinish constitutional reforms of 1913. It was rushed through Congress with minimal scrutiny last October. "It's all part of the ongoing Monda Behinization of America," says the ACLU's Nadine Strossen, voicing the concerns of many civil libertarians.

Bush Administration attempts to Americanize Monda Behinou may progress faster, however. "While Monda Behinish culture has a lot to teach us," says Prentiss Cheevy III, a Heritage Foundation Fellow in Monda Behinish Studies, "we in turn have lots to teach the Monda Behinish people about moral comportment. We look forward to helping them rethink their behavior." In other words, as Ashcroft stated upon his arrival in Washington on January 17, "All that sexuality has got to go."

The Gradomet Accords repudiate a trade agreement between Monda Behinish and American adult video producers that has facilitated US distribution of pornou, Monda Behinou's indigenous erotic cinema (see Pornou Behinou, April 2000). Other efforts percolate covertly. Cancellation of Yakadansh Phallouni (Penis Week), a traditional summertime celebration of the male member, now seems probable. This April, revelry during Yakadansh Boubla (Mud Week) will be sharply toned down.

Cold, wet blankets loom

Government observers backed by nine-pronged-stick wielding police have been turning up at venues like the gay SM emporium Squeejeekahoutch Zezzabar (Zezzabar's House of Pain), and warning patrons to avoid penetration and refrain from orgasm. "This is outrageous," complains Bill Dobbs of Queerwatch, a frequent American visitor to Monda Behinish clubs. "What is Monda Behinou without public sex?"

"The Bush Administration just doesn't get it," says bestselling author George York Plutrelle (My Five Years in Monda Behinou). "What do they expect? New York under Rudolph Giuliani? If we introduce American-style sexual shame, we'll make the Monda Behinish as neurotic as we are. Pretty soon they'll want privacy." Plutrelle maintains that Monda Behinish attitudes toward nudity and sex are natural byproducts of a surveillance culture. "The Monda Behinish have quite simply eroticized their age-old negation of privacy," he explains.

Chicago anthropologist Justin Fructus, who heads the Field Museum's Monda Behinou Project, disagrees. "The sex came first," he says, "Their repudiation of privacy was motivated by the primal urge to wave one's genitals at one's neighbor reciprocally and with impunity." It is certainly true that in Monda Behinou, voyeurism and exhibitionism maintain a relaxed reciprocity that American conservatives find, along with Monda Behinish elbow fetishism, highly unnerving.

"Whichever came first, the sex or the surveillance, the culture of looking is submerged in Monda Behinish language and thought," notes ethnologist Sheila Saperstein-Bintbeit. "A wealth of words and expressions pertain to sight. The expression for 'good night' is 'Nabishfa joum gouthou dapouninou ban okouni'­ 'May your night grow eyes.' If you like someone's looks, you say, 'Goupoutch tweekou li yezhouli mounouni'­ 'You place eyes in my crotch.'"

Attempts at preserving that cultural mind-set are stirring up civil unrest. The Americanization of Monda Behinou is causing ripples of dissent that the Monda Behinish police are hard pressed to stop. In December 2001, four members of the radical Wekabangou Monda Behinouni were apprehended in an attempt to firebomb the Burger King on Strouna Skipitina. Despite the ubiquity of spy cameras, vandals have managed to spray-paint "Amouricou behinousht"­ "America is not as it should be"­ on outlying walls. On February 28, naked demonstrators marched from the heterosexual swingers' club Tuptarama­ which has been ordered to covert to a juice bar or close­ to the Eegabar Fegourouni Monument. "We will be seen!" they shouted.

And they are. Monda Behinou, with 6.6 square miles, contains 34,653 surveillance cameras. (Manhattan, with 22.4 square miles, has 2,397.) This statistic comes as no surprise to anyone who strolls down any street in Monda Behinou. Light poles bristle with clusters of cameras. Intersections are arenas of surveillance. Outside every business establishment, moving cameras pan back and forth; inside shops and offices, stationary cameras aim at every nook. Private residences have cameras in rooms from attic to basement, along every hallway, above every door. Most Monda Behinish hotels offer guests pay-per-view CCTV enabling them to gawk at people in adjacent rooms or neighboring buildings.

Cameras on waist-high tripods can be glimpsed through glass urinals in Monda Behinish men's rooms and on public streets. Monda Behinish rest rooms contain no stalls, but do contain cameras poised above the entryway, over the sinks, and over each commode. Within the walls of Gradomet, miniature camcorders have been built into toilet bowls below the water level. "Whatsoever substances are flushed," says Security Minister Dibindibdou, "we must see them."

Nudity safeguards citizenry

Thanks to technological exchange agreements dating back to the Nixon Administration, Monda Behinish know-how has been part of the American landscape for years. In the 1980s, Monda Behinish surveillance technicians developed listening devices that enable the FBI to eavesdrop on conversations at 600 yards. The CCTV monitors now in widespread use in American convenience stores have Monda Behinish origins. Microsoft's Media Player, which keeps a clandestine record of which DVDs a user plays, then transmits the information to Microsoft, was the invention of expatriate Monda Behinish software designer Fegbar Stougina. Carnivore, the FBI's email monitoring system, was largely Stougina's invention.

Monda Behinish systems of personal identification may soon be made mandatory in the US, beginning with a national library card. Beetoukubla, the Monda Behinish library awareness program­ a scheme for watching who reads what­ originated with the American FBI. The system has, however, been embraced and improved upon by the Monda Behinish police force. Every Monda Behinish book-borrower's card, or cartou kubla, now contains a microchip that stores a wealth of information about its owner, including literary preferences, credit history, and arrest records.

The cartou kubla contains only a fraction of the data stored within the cartou behinou, the national identification card that every Monda Behinish citizen must carry at all times. The cartou behinou provides Monda Behinish authorities with a nude holographic photo and a DNA profile of each cardholder. This "smart card" system has attracted a growing number of proponents in the United States. "The times demand a society that has its head up your ass instead of its own," insists attorney Alan Dershowitz. "These cards have extremely practical uses. They'll help judges issue torture warrants fairly."

Dershowitz, a frequent visitor to Monda Behinou, was recently spotted examining crotch tongs and face wrenches at the Monda Behinish torture industry's annual trade show. He has also been seen at some of Monda Behinou's still-functioning sex clubs, especially the popular Venemita Boulbarina (Turnip Girl). Reached by telephone, Dershowitz refused to discuss his Monda Behinish activities on the record, and would neither confirm nor deny rumors that he was providing legal counsel to Monda Behinish sex entrepreneurs.

"Not all Americans hate sex," says Woshtigou Soubwouf, executive director of the BLPTV (Bourou Lesbounani, Pouftahouni, Tweetuptouni, ou Venephalmani, or Office of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered Affairs). "During Squepdansha Yougaho, I sucked off at least six of them." Soubwouf describes leading a gaggle of gay Republicans on a club-hopping expedition that began quietly over onion soup at Goumouria Mamou Goumajoumi, then turned into a riotous pub crawl that ended in the basement of Oink Boy. The DOJ and the State Department deny that any of its employees took part in the debauch, but embassy attaché Scott Wextish III's reassignment to Mauritius is believed to have stemmed from his Monda Behinish indiscretions.

Some Monda Behinians seem to have made a calculated effort to document Americans' indiscretions. At the Houstouria Richard Nixon, US officials had requested that all surveillance cameras be disabled while Ashcroft, Rice, and others were on the premises. But by accident or design, the request was not honored.

For some, the embarrassment was minimal. Ms. Rice, who prudently changed into a flannel nightgown under a blanket she had brought with her for that purpose, was observed lying in bed for an hour reading The Present Danger by Norman Podhoretz, then switching her light off and going to sleep.

Reports that Tom Ridge was spotted at Madame Yipta's Spanking Tent were strenuously denied, but surveillance tapes indicate that someone closely resembling the Homeland Security chief was an interested observer at Madame Yipta's annual Squepdansha Yougaho bondage party. CCTV tapes at the Houstouria Richard NIxon indicate that Ridge spent the night at another location.

John Ashcroft spent the evening in his room, however. Video footage circulated on the Internet­ but now suppressed­ shows John Ashcroft entering his hotel room, dropping his trousers to his knees, sliding his right hand down the back of his white Sears briefs, and furiously scratching his rectum. Relieved, he telephones the White House. While talking with President Bush, he resumes scratching. After the half-hour phone conversation, Ashcroft kicks off his trousers, sings "Let the Eagle Soar!" (his own composition), and performs a sort of cakewalk while zestfully digging at his backside. A Monda Behinish CCTV technician who saw the tape suggests, "This may be where he keeps his turnips."

Justice Department sources deny that Ashcroft has ever suffered from rectal itch, or that he ever scratches portions of his torso. The existence of the tape, which might have jeopardized the Gradomet Accords, emerged only after American officials had left the country. Plans to run it on Bondouni Guffahouni Zahak Ecmun Monda Behinou (Monda Behinou's Funniest Surveillance Tapes) were nipped in the bud. Gegbar Hakipoutch has apologized for the incident and offered assurances that the Ashcroft tape has been destroyed.

Ashcroft, who has threatened never to set foot in Monda Behinou again, seems not to have understood that "Blunch ou koudakout"­ "Come and be seen," the slogan of the Monda Behinish tourist office­ is intended to be taken literally. "When you know you are being observed," says restaurateur Mamou Goumajoumi, "you must simply say, 'Thanks for observing me.' People who make a big fuss show they are not brought up as they should be." Nevertheless, with obstinate disregard for Monda Behinish sensibilities, Ashcroft has told underlings to "think outside the box" when dealing with Monda Behinou. "This proves that Mr. Ashcroft is, as we suspected, out of his box," observes Bill Dobbs.

To many Monda Behinish citizens, the Ashcroft flap exposed American hypocrisy and showed the darker aspects of the Gradomet Accords. Diplomats on both sides will face a challenge in the months ahead. Meanwhile, Zezzabar Blenk, proprietor of Zezzabar's House of Pain, speaks for many when he says, "Amouricou, zvouki glouk mounou!­ America, get off my cheese!"