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When Christians Kill
By TESS HARPER

"Our troops" (preferred term. Avoid "military" or "bombs", as those words can get people upset) seem to have, regrettably, killed nine children inside a home in another inevitable accident in Afghanistan. This is going to present us with yet another challenge, linguistics-wise, because as you surely know by now, we have a very, very Christian President, which means that everything he orders his military to do, and everything his military orders our troops to do, is of course consistent with Christian principles.

I've been on the horn all morning with Washington on this potential PR disaster, and I know that my readers are concerned as well, lest our military missions or our rules of engagement be questioned (Tess Tip: "rules of engagement" reliably quells opposition, as it sounds too official and sophisticated for the average reader to dare question). But not to worry, Tess is on the case. A bit of shuffling around is in order, but if we work fast, we can prevent the usual whining about how "US aggression" has led to more civilian deaths, etc., blah blah blah.

Never fear, Dear Reader: As long as we get the words right, people will have forgotten all about those nine juveniles by, oh, Tuesday at the latest.

You see, when Christians kill, we have to have certain-wording. The right wording has been brilliantly used by our leaders these last two years to nip in the bud any dangerous notions that killing is somehow un-Christlike. I mean we all know that Jesus would be the first to commend the bombers for their good intentions after all, they were trying to kill "the enemy" and rid the world of evil, and just had a little, well, accident....

..."Prayer"! That's the ticket! It's on the cover of dozens of bestsellers-believe me, it's highly persuasive at this time. You see, as long as you link the word "prayer" with any kind of activity, and I do mean ANY kind of activity, it becomes "sanctified", in a sense: If you pray that the President's decisions will be right, then, well, think about it! Whatever decision he subsequently makes will bewhat? Correct, of course, and Godly, too! You wouldn't want to question God, would you?

That's why www.presidentialprayerteam.org is so successful. When you tell citizens to pray for political figures, this gives millions of well-intentioned Christians the subliminal message that, after praying for their President, whatever their President does or does not do is, ipso facto, the will of God Himself. Could you ask for anything more perfectly designed to squelch doubts or questions or pangs of conscience?...