Poor Donald Rumsfeld, the former US defence secretary, is in hot water again over messages his team at the Pentagon put on the cover of their briefings to President Bush during the Iraq war in 2003. Rather than send a dull-looking folder detailing the military situation that would test the president's notoriously short attention span, Rumsfeld's briefers stuck a photo on the front alongside an appropriate and uplifting quote from the Bible.
Thus, above a picture of Saddam Hussein, we get: "It is God's will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men" (1 Peter 2:15). Amen to that. Next to a photo of US soldiers at prayer, the Rumsfeldians offered: "Their arrows are sharp, all their bows are strung; their horses' hoofs seem like flint, their chariot wheels are like a whirlwind" (Isaiah 5:28). And as US tanks were shown rolling into Baghdad, passing under Saddam's Victory Arch: "Open the gates that the righteous nation may enter. The nation that keeps faith" (Isaiah again, 26:2).
These collages, newly exposed by GQ magazine, are thought in poor taste, given the sensitivity of a predominantly Christian country waging war on an Islamic one. Bush was dumb enough to call the war on terror a "crusade" and here, it seems, we have chapter and verse. But, in a world buffeted by recession, corruption and moral decline, Rumsfeld-style biblical aphorisms may yet offer consolation and hope, if applied with greater discrimination. For instance:
MPs: "They have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind." (Hosea, 8:7).
Gordon Brown: "Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." (Matthew 6:34).
Economists in general: "We walk by faith, not by sight." (2 Corinthians: 5:7).
Alistair Darling in particular: "Now we see through a glass, darkly." (1 Corinthians 13:12).
Newcastle FC: "Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch." (Matthew 15:14).
Jordan and Peter Andre: "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him." (Genesis 2:18).
Paris Hilton: "The fashion of this world passeth away." (1 Corinthians 7:31)
Fred Goodwin: "Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give." (Matthew 10:8).
Oh, and Donald Rumsfeld himself: "Blessed are the peace-makers: for they shall be called the children of God." (Matthew 5:9).
