KILLING IN THE NAME OF GOD

I have never understood the concept and I don't know how I got on this mailing list, but this is the most eloquent quote on the subject I have ever seen. I've been trying to put my turmoil about this war into words and this arrives unexpectly in my inbox and just about sums it up.

peace unites,

LA Stone
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Oh 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 guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; ...help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land.... We ask it, in the sprit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love."

- Mark Twain, after viewing a pre-emptive war in the Philippines a century ago. Cited in the March 30, 2003, New York Times magazine.