Larissa
27th March 2003, 23:51
Don't Think Twice, It's All Right
Jimmy Breslin
New York Newsday, March 18, 2003
In the Port Authority terminal yesterday, a place I now frequent because I consider it an almost certain battlefield, a woman arriving on the first bus from one of the hinterlands - she didn't stop to let me find where she was from; buses were arriving at once - handed me this reproduction of a Sunday sermon at her church that I print promptly and thus prominently:
GOD IS AN AMERICAN GENERAL
God, in the knowledge of how good and just America is, we ask you to give special help to our brave pilots if any of their bombs blow up a schoolhouse in Iraq. Please make our pilots know that they are not to have some bad feeling just because they kill a lot of children in the schoolhouse. They should feel good that we at least hit something and didn't waste the bomb hitting the ground. If the children get their bellies blown open and they go running around with their hands trying to stuff their intestines back into them, we ask you to make sure the pilots don't have bad reactions about it.
On account of we need them to bomb again tomorrow and they have to be prepared to hit a school by accident again.
Please let us remember that little girl in Vietnam running naked down the street after being hit with napalm. Her young little body was flaming. She was wailing so much, they said it would bother our boys forever. Well, God,
well, Our Lord, I haven't heard one person bring that little girl up at this time. I'll bet the pilot who dropped that napalm and burned her all up hasn't heard anything either.
Oh Lord, our America is so just that we allow people to worship in any church. We don't restrict people to one church. But these mosques they have, they're not churches. They tower up in the sky, and they are not churches. Some man up in a tower calling out prayers that aren't prayers, just yelling from a steeple. Well, Lord, I think we all can be safe in bombing those mosques right into sand. And we shouldn't even blink if we see a lot of bare feet flopping around after the bomb. In fact, what's so bad about it? They were worshipping a false God and that is in your Commandments, "Thou Shall Not Have False Gods Before Me." They are pagans and there is nothing wrong
with bombing them. If they pass from the bombing, then they pass.
Oh, Lord, we understand that babies burn up. They do it fast because they are so little and the fire don't have so much to cover. Then some little boy is going to be squatting there with one small leg blown off. Holding the
stump. The mother next to him screaming her head off. Lord, you have to help our boys get over that because we are right and just. We who worship you here today know it is probably for the good because when the boy dies he won't be able to be the father of any boys to theaten us someday.
Besides, Oh Lord, we want our boys to go in there at the real enemy, the Iraqi adults, we want our boys whoopin' and hollerin' and we want to feel that way too when the boys go in to blow these people right smack out of the desert.
Please allay any fears that we are doing something wrong because we have planes and the Iraqis do not. We need the planes to drop the bombs.
If we are killing women and children then, dear Lord let us realize that's what our boys are supposed to be doing, killing everybody, so why worry if you kill children with a woman and leave her weeping in the ruins. Nothing we can do about it. It's war. It's every man's game. Don't let crying mothers get in the way. She shouldn't have been out walking with children to begin with.
Lord God, Heavenly God, when our tanks go smashing and thrashing into some town, let them drive right through some building and we don't care if they mash families. Because that's what a tank is supposed to do and oh, Lord, we hope they drive that tank with a real big thrill, like we get watching it on television.
Oh, Lord, we are not like the Germans, we are not invading countries and occupying them. We can't be doing anything bad because we have you on our side. You are the one most holy, you are the one who blesses our every effort. You know that we are good and everybody else is Evil. You are on our side and that is why we are just. Thank you, Lord. Amen.
Hope some of you can "meditate" better from now on.
Jimmy Breslin
New York Newsday, March 18, 2003
In the Port Authority terminal yesterday, a place I now frequent because I consider it an almost certain battlefield, a woman arriving on the first bus from one of the hinterlands - she didn't stop to let me find where she was from; buses were arriving at once - handed me this reproduction of a Sunday sermon at her church that I print promptly and thus prominently:
GOD IS AN AMERICAN GENERAL
God, in the knowledge of how good and just America is, we ask you to give special help to our brave pilots if any of their bombs blow up a schoolhouse in Iraq. Please make our pilots know that they are not to have some bad feeling just because they kill a lot of children in the schoolhouse. They should feel good that we at least hit something and didn't waste the bomb hitting the ground. If the children get their bellies blown open and they go running around with their hands trying to stuff their intestines back into them, we ask you to make sure the pilots don't have bad reactions about it.
On account of we need them to bomb again tomorrow and they have to be prepared to hit a school by accident again.
Please let us remember that little girl in Vietnam running naked down the street after being hit with napalm. Her young little body was flaming. She was wailing so much, they said it would bother our boys forever. Well, God,
well, Our Lord, I haven't heard one person bring that little girl up at this time. I'll bet the pilot who dropped that napalm and burned her all up hasn't heard anything either.
Oh Lord, our America is so just that we allow people to worship in any church. We don't restrict people to one church. But these mosques they have, they're not churches. They tower up in the sky, and they are not churches. Some man up in a tower calling out prayers that aren't prayers, just yelling from a steeple. Well, Lord, I think we all can be safe in bombing those mosques right into sand. And we shouldn't even blink if we see a lot of bare feet flopping around after the bomb. In fact, what's so bad about it? They were worshipping a false God and that is in your Commandments, "Thou Shall Not Have False Gods Before Me." They are pagans and there is nothing wrong
with bombing them. If they pass from the bombing, then they pass.
Oh, Lord, we understand that babies burn up. They do it fast because they are so little and the fire don't have so much to cover. Then some little boy is going to be squatting there with one small leg blown off. Holding the
stump. The mother next to him screaming her head off. Lord, you have to help our boys get over that because we are right and just. We who worship you here today know it is probably for the good because when the boy dies he won't be able to be the father of any boys to theaten us someday.
Besides, Oh Lord, we want our boys to go in there at the real enemy, the Iraqi adults, we want our boys whoopin' and hollerin' and we want to feel that way too when the boys go in to blow these people right smack out of the desert.
Please allay any fears that we are doing something wrong because we have planes and the Iraqis do not. We need the planes to drop the bombs.
If we are killing women and children then, dear Lord let us realize that's what our boys are supposed to be doing, killing everybody, so why worry if you kill children with a woman and leave her weeping in the ruins. Nothing we can do about it. It's war. It's every man's game. Don't let crying mothers get in the way. She shouldn't have been out walking with children to begin with.
Lord God, Heavenly God, when our tanks go smashing and thrashing into some town, let them drive right through some building and we don't care if they mash families. Because that's what a tank is supposed to do and oh, Lord, we hope they drive that tank with a real big thrill, like we get watching it on television.
Oh, Lord, we are not like the Germans, we are not invading countries and occupying them. We can't be doing anything bad because we have you on our side. You are the one most holy, you are the one who blesses our every effort. You know that we are good and everybody else is Evil. You are on our side and that is why we are just. Thank you, Lord. Amen.
Hope some of you can "meditate" better from now on.