New Quaker Notebook

Saudi Warns US Iraq Facing Disintegration

WASHINGTON - Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, said Thursday that for several days he has been warning the Bush administration that Iraq was heading toward "disintegration." This development could drag the region into war, he said.

"There is no dynamic now pulling the nation together," Prince Saud told reporters at the Saudi Embassy. "All the dynamics are pulling the country apart."

His pessimistic statements were in stark contrast to the generally upbeat assessments that the White House and the Pentagon have been offering recently.

At the Pentagon on Thursday President Bush warned that the bloodshed in Iraq was likely to increase in the coming weeks, in anticipation of the Iraqi vote on their constitution in October and for a permanent government in December. Still he expressed long-term optimism and said that the US was resolved to "stay the course" in Iraq, even if "we have to bulldoze the entire country."

Shares in Caterpillar® increased in value in response to the president's comment, as did shares in Wax Lips when it was learned that Bush has ordered his White House staff and Pentagon officials to wear them now at all public functions.

Satire using a shortened, loosely re-written news article published in the New York Times, Friday, September 23, 2005. The news article is archived at Common Dreams News Center.

Run away! My oldest daughter A. with her husband and my two grandchildren are now in Victoria, TX, having fled from their second hurricane. They escaped Katrina in the general evacuation and finally moved everything from New Orleans to eastern Houston, but today were obliged to flee again, this time to get away from Hurricane Rita. My daughter tried to leave yesterday with the two children, but the traffic was so dense and slow that her van began overheating and she was forced to turn back. Today the whole family headed south. They couldn't go north on the two large routes because the traffic lines were too long and slow; it was the same story going west, to San Antonio, so they ended up going south. Highway 45, going north, was the worst, she said. There is no gas available anywhere, she reports, and just about everywhere they go the motels are full.

I think it's clear that the US needs to reassess its Civil Defense system. Oh, wait, I forgot ... we no longer have a Civil Defense system. That was traded for so many military adventures on foreign shores.

The world according to Joe Btfsplk. As a result of moving from the suburban Adirondacks to the suburban Catskills, I've had a full month of intermittent misery—from having Home Depot® drop off all my appliances on the front porch and leave them there in boxes for two weeks, having no hot water for a week, to having no water at all while the house sewer lines get replaced. A few good things have taken place, but sadly more bad than good. It's been a challenge for me, but more of a challenge as this all happened during far greater misery for other people around the nation and the world.

For this period I succumbed to that Christian phenomenon I would have to call naïve good fortune, a sense that the blessed Christian life should be without difficulty or struggle, that I am entitled to swagger bodaciously with a sunny cloud of sweetness above me, bestowing good upon myself and equally upon others. Precisely the opposite of the Li'l Abner character Joe Btfsplk. His name is pronounced like a Bronx cheer and he walks around with a visible dark cloud; he's hopelessly miserable and brings bad luck to everyone he encounters.

Living lingers at neither of these antipodes, so as Christians we shouldn't believe that we are Joe Btfsplk and certainly not naively fortunate as his opposite. I am reminded of Paul's words, "I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances," which he said to the Philippians:

I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.[1]

As human beings living our Christian life within this world, we walk with neither a cloud of darkness nor a cloud of good fortune above us; living within the world requires that we remain faithful to our Lord in spite of the onset of good and evil, and of their aftershocks. We should be not merely content but grateful for our daily bread.