Saturday, December 5, 2015

Mark Twain's War Prayer

Now that the FBI (etc) is "investigating" the San Bernardino massacre as "an act of [adjective deleted] terrorism", Walt guesses some folks in San Berdoo (and Washington, Arlington and surrounds) are thinking about what degree of revenge would be sufficient to appease the Americans who think the Prez has been soft on Muslim fanatics.

It's all a bit like South Park: The Movie, isn't it? Let's see... Who should we attack? The Islamic terrorists -- for that's what they were -- were Pakistanis. OK, he was born here -- a Paki-American -- and she was in the USA on a K1 (fiancée) visa. So should we bomb Pakistan?

And how many should we kill? It is a time-honoured principle that 1 American life is worth at least 100 foreigners' lives, and usually more like 1000 or even 10,000, as in the First Iraq War. The Muslim fanatics killed 14 Americans, so...

While we wait for details of the coming retribution, let us all bow our heads and repeat the following War Prayer, composed by Mark Twain.

O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writing in pain; help us to lay waste to their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst. Amen.

Source: Mark Twain on the Damned Human Race, ed. Janet Smith (Hill & Wang 1994)

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