[SOC] America's one-sided prayers

[Lloyd Lachow]

America's one-sided prayers

By Derrick Z. Jackson, 4/9/2003

GOD HAS ROLLED into Baghdad. Our jihad is almost 
complete. Back home, 
from the halls of Centcom to the fields of Camp 
Lejeune, President Bush 
has invoked the name of the Maker to help us 
disassemble and remake Iraq 
in our image of freedom. God bless America. God bless 
our troops.

In one press availability, Bush said: ''I pray for 
God's comfort and 
God's healing powers to anybody, coalition force, 
American, Brit, 
anybody who loses a life in this -- in our efforts to 
make the world 
more peaceful and more free.'' At his speech at 
Central Command, he 
said: ''People across this country are praying. . . . 
We pray that God 
will bless and receive each of the fallen, and we 
thank God that liberty 
found such brave defenders.'' Some soldiers believe 
this so much that 
someone at Centcom shouted, ''God bless you, sir!''

There is an ugliness about this. Although it is so 
easy and appropriate 
to note the cynical use of God by Saddam Hussein, it 
is striking that 
not a single time during this first-strike war has 
Bush ever asked God 
to bless however few or many Iraqi civilians our 
attack has killed and 
maimed.

On the night he announced the war, Bush said: ''The 
families of our 
military are praying that all those who serve will 
return safely and 
soon. Millions of Americans are praying with you for 
the safety of your 
loved ones and for the protection of the innocent.''

That is as close as he has gotten. He has not cited 
Iraqi citizens by 
their country's name. Bush claims that the freedom we 
are giving to the 
Iraqi people is ''God's gift to humanity.'' But the 
Iraqi people are not 
quite human enough for him to say ''God bless the 
fallen civilians of 
Iraq,'' or ''God bless the innocent of Iraq,'' or even

''God bless the 
children of Iraq.'' It is always, God bless our 
troops. God bless our 
country. God bless our fallen. We pray that our 
families will receive 
God's comfort and grace.''

This sends a strong message to the world that in God's

eyes we are 
better than you, so much better that you do not even 
deserve our 
prayers. We are still stuck in a locker room, behaving

no more maturely 
than two football teams trying to outpray each other.

We can kid ourselves that our prayers are less 
fanatical than Iraq's 
information minister, Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf, warning

American soldiers 
that ''God will grill their bellies in hell.'' That is

small comfort to 
the families of Iraqi civilians whose bodies were set 
aflame and grilled 
beyond recognition by our bombs and bullets. For them,

the brave 
defenders of liberty denied freedom forever.

The arrogance of American power by the bomb and the 
bullet allows us to 
forget that history offers no evidence that those who 
pray the hardest 
to their God are right. The Europeans who baptized 
Africans into 
slavery, the Christians who prayed as they 
exterminated North American 
Indians, the Klansmen with their crosses were 
indisputably on the wrong 
side of history.

As much as many of us believe God was with us in World

Wars I and II, 
God was more neutral in Korea and was a POW in 
Vietnam. So many people 
are still tearing each other up in the name of God, 
from the poorest 
nations in Africa to once again, America, that only 
the most blind can 
see that religion does not necessarily equate with 
reason, resolve, or 
resolution.

As evil as Saddam Hussein is, it is interesting to 
note that the same 
politicians who ask God's blessing for the troops have

nothing to say 
about God when reports come in of scared US soldiers 
-- many of whom 
look like babies under their pot-sized helmets -- 
gunning down entire 
Iraqi families. This week, a US soldier in Iraq said, 
''It really gets 
to me to see children being killed like this, but we 
had no choice.'' 
Perhaps it gets to him because despite all the prayers

and 
proclamations, soldiers know far better than the 
politicians that the 
charred bodies of the innocent cannot possibly be 
God's work. If we are 
to pray, perhaps it would be better to wish that 
soldiers like him are 
not mentally disabled by the deadly choices of our 
leaders.

America will never truly be a beacon of global freedom

as long as it 
prays only for itself. In the New Testament, Jesus 
said, ''Love your 
enemies and pray for those who persecute you.'' God is

rolling into 
Baghdad promising to make the world more peaceful and 
free. A nation 
that has chosen to kill innocent Iraqis in a 
''preventive'' war has a 
lot of talking to do with God.

It is hard to love Saddam Hussein, but in our hate of 
him, we failed to 
deliver God's love to the innocents. All that many 
Iraqis have felt from 
the God-blessed troops of the United States is 
preventive vengeance.

Derrick Z. Jackson's e-mail address is 
jackson@globe.com.

This story ran on page A19 of the Boston Globe on 
4/9/2003.
� Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.




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