You can count me among the people who think that Mark Twain has something to
say about the "liberation" of Iraq:


"Among Iraq's civilians, about 1,300 men, women and children are believed to
have been killed, although no one knows the exact number of civilian
casualties. Families grieved as hospitals overflowed with the injured. With
missing limbs and flayed skin, they lay on dirty floors, clutching their
intravenous tubes."

Atlanta Journal-Constitution, April 13

Red Cross doctors who visited southern Iraq this week saw "incredible"
levels of civilian casualties including a truckload of dismembered women and
children, a spokesperson said yesterday from Baghdad.

Montreal Gazette, April 4

"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to
battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from
the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. 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,
writhing in pain; help us to lay waste 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 little children to
wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and
thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter,
broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the
grave and denied it -- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their
hopes, blight their lives, p!
 rotract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way
with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet!
We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who
is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek
His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen."

Mark Twain

Terry Ballard, Automation Librarian
Quinnipiac University, Bernhard Library