Had only the Bee Gees never existed, this world would be a much better place.

It is quite possible that the human species would have reached peaceful harmony, rather than the cacophonous high-pitched harmonies of disco.

The Bee Gees ushered in the age of disco excess, and big spending on drugs, alcohol and clothes while the country was in a recession. Thus spawed stagflation, directly attributable to the Bee Gees:

In Iran in 1979, a CIA puppet-leader, the Shah, is busy boogying to his advanced copy of the Bee Gees, when he makes the mistake of letting the Ayatollah Khomeni hear just enough of the Brothers Gibb crooning to call for a fundamentalist revolution, which led to the capture of U.S. hostages. President Jimmy Carter is then blamed for stagflation and the hostage crisis, paving the way for the Ronald Reagan revolution to hit Washington.

Reagan and his team of neo-conservatives storm the White House and pretty much every jungle country between Mexico and Argentina. Ironically, many of these neo-cons were turned away from their happy hippy ways by the sight of John Travolta in a leisure suit. The Bee Gees change these doves into the most hawkish of foreign policy makers.

To stave off the worldwide communist surge, the United States begins a campaign of steamrolling threats before they have a chance to develop.

We arm both sides of the Iran-Iraq conflict, take over the island fortress of Grenada, and send supplies and CIA operatives to help the Taliban fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. Then we leave all of these places high and dry, with the exception of Afghanistan.

The CIA guys manage to leave behind only their Bee Gees albums. Afghan women find inspiration in "More than a Woman," and the Taliban tightens its fundamentalist grip. They also begin to harbor a sincere disdain for American culture.

Among the Afghan jihadists, a young Osama bin Laden is intensely angered, as he witnesses the almost hypnotic way Bee Gees melodies begin to poison the brains of his fellow freedom fighters. The Bee Gees fuel bin Laden's hatred for the infidel.

In Israel, disco clubs spring up throughout the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. America's own illegitimate stepchild opens the floodgate of American culture to the Middle East. Initially, Israel's Arab neighbors are equally entranced with the synthetic beats of "Stayin' Alive." That is, until devout Muslims find themselves doing their morning prayer with the soundtrack of Saturday Night Fever blaring from surrounding all-night discos. The Palestinians get upset, demand some space as a sound buffer zone, and any hope for a peaceful settlement of the land dispute dissipates faster than disco died in America.

Ten years later, disco finally permeates the cultural shield of Islam. Bin Laden returns to his homeland, only to find his Arab brothers in Riyadh bumping to the beats of the Bee Gees.

Saddam Hussein, an ardent Bee Gees hater, orders that any Iraqi caught with a Bee Gees album face the penalty of torture until death. He oppresses millions just to keep the Bee Gees out. Unfortunately, just across the vast oil fields, Kuwait City is bouncing to the Bee Gees beat so loud that the sound filters directly into Iraq.

Hussein invades and incurs the wrath of coalition forces, who set up camp in Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden's hate for America is sealed, as infidel forces occupy the holy land. Al-Qaida gains strength and uses the Bee Gees as a tool, forcing young Arabs to endure 72 straight hours of the Bee Gees looped while locked in a room with the rest of their jihad classmates. Needless to say, they all come out of that experience with an intense hatred for the country that created the evil music.

Eventually, America is attacked. George W. Bush, who no doubt endured his own coked-up Bee Gees phase, becomes determined to chase down all who hate the Bee Gees, in pursuit of liberty and disco for all.

Then again, maybe this is not the prevailing view of history.

The Bee Gees probably didn't cause terrorism and preemptive strikes. As bad as they suck and as annoying as their music is, it didn't cause world chaos.

There is some truth, however, to be recognized within this ridiculous scenario. As capitalist economies must undergo continual expansion in order to survive, new markets must be created. Raw materials can only be packaged and re-packaged so many times.

Ideas, on the other hand, need no packaging and can be sold at will with little cost of shipping. Western culture has bombarded the world with its philosophy, politics and products to the point of alienation. Analysts often wonder why America is so hated in so many circles. One common answer is cultural imperialism, or the placement of product in such a way to subvert the indigenous culture to the point of assimilation.

The Western world exists under an assumption that our values and ethics are correct in any environment. However, our morals cannot be practically applied to cultures that possess divergent views from our own without backlash.

While America may not be forcibly taking territory with troops, we are with ideas. As the moral leader of the world, America needs to understand that cultural outputs must be kept to a responsible level. For as we flood the world with our likeness, the hatred of that likeness grows stronger.

And I really do hate the Bee Gees.