Hartley NeitaIN HIS book of essays (which a former friend has borrowed from me for over 30 years), Mark Twain interprets the story of Ezekiel and the priests of Baal, boasting as to whose was the greater God.
Twain says that when Ezekiel asked the people to pour seven barrels of water on the calf he was going to burn as a sacrifice to his god, it was not water, but oil from the region (now Iraq). Ezekiel, he said, then scratched a match on his buttocks and lit the oil.
His cow was roasted. Theirs, on which real water was thrown, was not.
I recalled the story this week when I saw the oil fields burning in Iraq and wondered who was Ezekiel and who were the priests of Baal. I came to no conclusion.
I think, of course, that God and Allah are ecumenical friends, if not relatives. They are also obviously embedded with each other, and are probably torn between their respective disciples. Being wise and experienced, however, they have probably decided not to interfere and influence the outcome of this conflict between Iraq and the United States coalition, one way or the other.
In fact, while watching television this week I saw a group of U.S. soldiers in the desert reading verses from the Bible. Later that same day I saw an Iraqi General praying along with the faithful in a mosque. In addition, I have noticed that while 'Saddaam' if he is alive is calling for a Holy War in which Bush and his apostles and disciples will 'burn in the fires of hell', Bush has merely called on the forces to march to victory to Baghdad.
So on the hit parade in Iraq, they say, is:
A who say Saddaam dead
A who say Saddaam dead,
Him no dead-O.
A who say Saddaam dead,
A lie dem-a tell
A who say Saddaam dead,
Him no dead-O!
Anther interesting report from the front about which rumour informs me, is that condoms taken by the coalition forces to Iraq are called Freedom Letters. France, after all, cannot be given credit for preventing American babies being born nine months after the GIs have 'invaded' the maidens and returned home.
I have also been wondering if the soldiers have been instructed on how to protect the environment of the desert from human waste, and was shocked to see this has not been done. For, to my surprise, I saw a soldier shaking his pants and zipping it up in the background of a scene being shown on television. That has led me to wonder where they do their other thing. For while there are trained personnel to find land mines and destroy them, no such training has been given to remove this other thing and so prevent boots stepping onto human excretion.
Can you imagine how the inside of tanks smell after pit stops by the columns. What is worse is that after the troops have left the desert there may well be an invasion of flies. Maybe our exterminators such as Kilopest should submit a tender to the 'Rumsted' Government which is about to be installed to get rid of these pests.
I have also noticed that reference is rarely made to the killing of Iraqi and especially the Republican Guard soldiers. Instead, words such as 'degraded' and 'decimated', and phrases like 'wiped out' and 'no longer credible' are used. These are kind euphemisms; As to 'Saddaam', he was and remains 'a target of opportunity'.
War, of course, is a sad thing. To see the eyes of little children, full of fright when they see the freedom fighters searching the vehicles in which they are travelling to hoped-for safety, is heart-rending. And when I hear of 400 and 500 Iraqi soldiers being 'wiped out', I wonder who takes care of their bodies as they lie burning and rotting on the hot sand of the desert. Who are there to give them last rites and pray for their souls? Maybe they do not need rites and prayers as they have merely moved from the room of earthly life through a door into the room of Paradise where tantalising young virgins are waiting to give them eternal pleasure.
And by the way, did you see the scene where British soldiers kick open a door in Basra and rush inside a house, while two others are prevented by a mongrel yapping at their feet? Maybe we could earn some foreign currency by rounding up our thousands of dogs and sending them to 'Saddaam'. And with no barking in my neighbourhood at nights, I would be able to sleep and dream, perchance, of tantalising young virgins anxious to pleasure me.
