Aesop on Iraq

There was once a bear in the woods who got stung very badly by a wasp. The sting soon became swollen and very painful. The bear in a bitter rage, found the nearest bees’ nest intent on revenge.

‘Hold on’ said a couple of the other forest animals, ‘If it was a wasp that stung you why are you attacking a bees’ nest?’

‘They’re all buzzing, stripy little bastards’ replied the bear ‘And I happen to know that that the bees’ conspired with the wasps in stinging me.’

‘Really?’ said the forest animals ‘Where’s your proof?’

‘Shut up. I’m bigger than any of you, so don’t question my word.’

‘Listen Bear’ said a rabbit ‘If you attack the bees, they’re going to get really pissed off and go around stinging everyone. Could you just stop and think it over for a while?’

‘Puny rabbit, you’re either with me or you’re with the bees, em..I mean the wasps. If you’re not going to help me here, you’d better leave or I might get angry with you too.’

The rabbit skittered off quickly and a cheeky fox spoke up.

‘Mr. Bear, you wouldn’t by chance just be using this sting as an excuse to get your hands on the bees’ honey? I mean, if you were really upset about the sting, shouldn’t you be dedicating more of your efforts on hunting down wasps?’

‘And you can shag off too!’ said the bear and without wasting anymore time he strode up to the nest, made his paw into a fist and punched it right in the middle. Now a bear is the most powerful animal in the forest and a bees’ nest is a soft target, so the paw drove straight into the middle of the hive without much effort and was soon amongst the soft rich honey and the very, very angry bees. Immediately, the bear turned to the other animals with a smug smile on his face.

‘Mission Accomplished!’ he announced.

It took only a few seconds for his face to change expression as the bees began to work on the intruding paw with their stingers. The clever fox was the first to see the potential danger.

‘Don’t remove your paw, Mr. Bear! If you do the bees will swarm out of the hole in the nest and sting you all over. If you don’t want all Hell to break loose, you’ll have to keep your paw in there.’

‘Not a problem’ said the bear with an agonized smile and a face that was growing redder by the minute ‘This doesn’t hurt much and I’m just glad to have done the right thing.’ He was too proud to show the other animals the results of his disastrous miscalculation.

‘Well, it’s getting dark now, Mr. Bear so we’d better be getting back to our burrows.’

‘You go ahead, I’ll be fine here.’

And as the last of the forest animals disappeared down the trail and the air began to get a little chillier, it suddenly occurred to the bear that it was going to be pretty difficult to get the honey out of the hive as long as the bees were so furious. And they were not going to get any calmer as long as his paw was stuck in there. He gazed pensively at the yellow orb of sun slowly sinking behind the hilltops.

‘Oh, bugger.’



The moral: Pretty obvious actually. It’s not that difficult to put your fist into a bees’ nest, but it’s advisable to think of an exit strategy before you try it.