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In hope we are saved--NEW papal encyclical |
An eye-for-an-eye
brings nuclear weapons to Korea: As the fourth anniversary of the Senate’s Iraq War authorization vote quietly passed, the world press found itself obsessed with a new threat. North Korea detonated what appears to be their first nuclear test explosion, and the Bush Administration was clearly delighted to have the public’s attention diverted from the spiral of violence in Iraq, new intelligence data showing that the Iraq War is making world terrorism worse, and the coverup of the Foley Affair by the Republican House Leadership. When life gives them lemons (Hurricane Katrina, the 9/11 attacks, the 2001 recession), no one makes lemonade like Karl Rove and the Bush Administration. The apparent rush to development of a nuclear capability in North Korea was superceded only by the Republicans’ rush to blame the Clinton Administration for the problem. Condemning the conciliatory behavior of Madeleine Albright and the Korean Sunshine Policy that won the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize, Senator John McCain and President Bush tried this week to shift the balance of public opinion away from dialogue and toward the use of threats in dealing with Kim Jong-Il. They seemed oblivious to the obvious: 6 years of Administration threats to build Korea-targeted missiles, to resume nuclear testing of our own, and to develop new “bunker-busting” nuclear weapons probably targeted at the Yong Byong nuclear facilities had successfully provoked the obvious self-defensive behavior on the part of the North Koreans. Rarely mentioned in press accounts is the fact that General Douglas MacArthur had sought to use nuclear weapons during the Korean War, and Pyongyang could easily have become the third Hiroshima. Mr. Bush began threatening North Korea as a presidential candidate in 2000. From a Catholic standpoint, the destabilization of the Korean peninsula under Mr. Bush is a classic illustration of how threats of violence only beget mutual threats of violence. It may be popular to portray the North Korean leadership as “unpredictable and unbalanced,” but in fact nothing is more predictable than the human instinct to fight back when threatened. It’s a story straight from Genesis--Cain-vs-Cain all over again—with the lives of millions of South Koreans and Japanese in the balance. As Catholics,
we must utterly reject the use of threats and the devaluation of
human life to solve our problems, big and small. The Clinton Administration
so clearly had this one right. The current Bush efforts to belittle
Madeleine Albright and Korean détente are a bald attempt
to follow that other deeply un-Christian human dictum: the best
rhetorical defense is a good offense. 13
Oct 2006
CIA confirms a Gospel truth: Jesus knew and cherished the meaning of the word “Freedom.” Yet in the last moments of freedom before his torturers dragged him to his trial and execution, he uttered his prophetic words in Matthew’s account, “All who take the sword will perish by the sword.” Apologists for the Bush Administration are suddenly shocked, shocked (!) to learn in the opening sentences of the newly reported National Intelligence Estimate that "the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse," according to one official quoted by the New York Times. Senator Edward Kennedy responded on the Senate floor, “Despite the conclusion of the intelligence community that the war has been a recruitment tool for a new generation of extremists, on numerous occasions since the document was prepared (five months ago), President Bush has claimed that the war has made America safer.” This compilation of the views of 16 intelligence agencies, entitled “Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States," apparently undercuts the repeated assurances by the Bush Administration that the Iraq War was making America safer, arguing in detail that exactly the opposite was true. Although these findings were approved in April by his Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte, Mr Bush has knowingly contradicted the report’s central assertions in numerous speeches ever since. But political leaders beating the drums of “freedom” didn’t need the CIA to tell them what Christ foresaw in the closing moments of his own freedom, namely that killing people only fuels a greater will toward retribution and more killing. When it comes to war, the only law that is never broken is the law of unintended consequences. To his great credit, Pope Benedict plainly stated in September 2002, before his election, that the “concept of a ‘preventive war’ does not appear in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.” He went on to say in 2003, shortly after the invasion, “There was not sufficient reason to unleash a war in Iraq...today we should be asking ourselves if it is still reasonable even to admit the existence of such a thing as a ‘just war.’” Conservative Catholics like Fr. Richard Neuhaus and Michael Novak jovially overlook pronouncements like these, indefatigably citing traditional (but non-Biblical) Catholic ‘Just War’ accomodations that more conveniently support Republican political aims. As the number of killings in Iraq has surged past 100,000, the Administration’s social engineers are busily mounting plans for a “military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities” that could result in vastly greater numbers of dead across Iran. As Catholics, we must immediately and unequivocally condemn any justification offered for the use of mass killing by this Administration to “advance the cause of freedom” in the name of the American people—particularly when, as the new intelligence report asserts, Mr. Bush so grossly miscalculated the consequences of his similarly “preventive” war in Iraq. Christianity
calls us to creative solutions, not violent ones, whenever a mob
assembles to stone a seeming outcast like Iran. Jesus led by his
example, which tells us pure and simple that we must no longer kill
or torture in the name of freedom—as we watch the headlines
increasingly chronicle how we are being led toward becoming the
evil we once aimed to overcome. 26
Sept 2006 The
Catholic Democrat view: “My
command to you is: love your enemies, pray for your persecutors.
This will prove that you are sons of your heavenly Father, for his
sun rises on the bad and the good, he rains on the just and the
unjust.” "Peace is always 'the work of justice and the effect of charity (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #2304).' It demands the absolute and radical rejection of violence and terrorism and requires a constant and vigilant commitment on the part of all political leaders." —Doctrinal Note on some Questions Regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political Life, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Nov 2002. "The Geneva Conventions have clear guidance about the responsibilities of occupying armies to the civilian population they control. The fact that more than half the deaths reportedly caused by the occupying forces were women and children is cause for concern. In particular, Convention IV, Article 27 states that protected persons “…shall be at all times humanely treated, and shall be protected especially against acts of violence…” It seems difficult to understand how a military force could monitor the extent to which civilians are protected against violence without systematically doing body counts or at least looking at the kinds of casualties they induce. This survey shows that with modest funds, 4 weeks, and seven Iraqi team members willing to risk their lives, a useful measure of civilian deaths could be obtained. There seems to be little excuse for occupying forces to not be able to provide more precise tallies.” --Roberts et al. “Mortality before and after the 2003
invasion of Iraq” showing as many as 194,000 deaths attributable
to the US invasion of Iraq, published online in The Lancet, 10/29/04.
In other headlines: The
Haditha Massacre: An eye-for-an-eye in Iraq, as reports emerge about killing of 24 unarmed people Murtha on the military cover-up ~ ~ ~
President Carter calls for end to Iraqi occupation ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Immorality
at the top: ~ ~ ~ Jesus' advice to the
warmakers: Bishop Bustros' remarks on Christians' obligation to reject war, to the International Conclave of bishops in Rome, September 2005 ~ ~ ~ Foreign Policy Failure, or just what
Bush wanted? North Korea test-fired six missiles this week in a show of defiance toward the Bush Administration. The US Government immediately responded with familiar threats to impose further economic sanctions and possibly to bomb selected Korean nuclear facilities. The stand-off continued the six year-long passion play initiated when Mr. Bush began threatening North Korea as a presidential candidate in 2000. From a Catholic standpoint, the destabilization of the Korean peninsula under Mr. Bush is a classic illustration of how threatening words and behavior on our part only lead to more threatening words and behavior on their part. It’s Cain-vs-Cain all over again, with the lives of millions of South Koreans and Japanese in the balance. Mr Bush made public remarks July 7 justifying his missile defense system as an essential response to the Korean missiles. Few analysts have commented publicly on the possibility that US "defensive" missiles might actually be used offensively against North Korea, commensurate with the repeated Bush references to "leaving all options on the table." Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, representing the government that possesses the world’s highest levels of ballistic missiles and deployed nuclear weapons, began arguing once again that the International Community wouldn’t stand for North Korea to fire off missiles and possibly deploy nuclear weapons. The irony of her position was not lost on many news analysts, recalling that this Administration had itself largely ignored the International Community in 2003 when tens of millions of people and virtually every other government around the world pressed the US not to invade Iraq. Meanwhile, mainstream media once again failed to place any of the blame on the militaristic policies of the Bush Administration, which has sent the message loud and clear to North Korean President Kim Jong Il that the only sure way to protect your dictatorship against a US invasion is to possess nuclear weapons of your own. No mention is made publicly of the Administration's six year campaign to deploy untested long-range missiles meant to attack North Korea from Alaska and California. The Administration is shocked--shocked!--to discover that pointing missiles at North Korea compelled the Koreans to test missiles of their own. Schoolyard bullies around the world are nodding in agreement, as North Korea merely reciprocates the threats that have been directed toward it. Is it reasonable to conclude that the Administration predicted that the North Koreans would respond with this kind of militarization of its own? Can a dispassionate observer come to any other conclusion but that the North Koreans have done exactly what this Administration predicted they would, and have thus obliged Karl Rove by becoming precisely the kind of "irrational" enemy that keeps returning Republican majorities to Congress? Human nature is something that Jesus understood: the only way to stop violence is by refusing to participate in it. The Sunshine Policy of cooperation between the two Koreas, encouraged by the Clinton Administration and sabotaged by the early Bush political posturing (as a justification for deploying their Star Wars system), represents perhaps the most Christian alternative to the current steady diet of threats and counter-threats. The time has come for truly creative solutions to these long-standing hostilities, to supplant 55-years of pointless and fundamentally anti-Christian dependence on the threat of violence by both sides. 8 July 2006
WAR: IT AIN'T OVER, WHEN IT'S OVER OVER THERE! Rev. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy In light of a new article from The American Conservative on the price of the war in Iraq, let's hear precisely how Christian Just War Church leaders (bishops, priests, ministers, deacons, superintendents, etc.) who support or who refuse to denounce the war on Iraq as murder, compare and evaluate how the evil done by this war is less than the evil that would have taken place if there was no war. The standard of proportionality is part of all Christian Just War Theories and must be met strictly, since the destruction of human life is at stake. How precisely was the enormity of the long range evil of this war, that is spoken of in The American Conservative article, weighed, calculated and evaluated in the equation that determined that the evil that will be done by this war will be less than the evil that would have been done if this war were never entered into? There is no question that in Christian just war theory, the evil that you cause has to be morally certain to be less than the evil that you are supposedly preventing. Christian supporters of this war on Iraq, especially Christian leaders who support this war, are playing the ostrich with its head in the sand, when they sally forth saying the standards of the Christian just war theory have been met. Indeed it may be argued that they have become so habituated to the osterich position in regards to war that they believe that it is the proper position for a Church leader to be in before powerful state political operatives in wartime. Equally, habituation from the Christian cradle through Christian seminary may cause them to believe that what they see with their heads in the sand is reality; and it is then this "reality" that they apply to the teachings of Jesus or to the watered-downed interpretation of Jesus teachings called the Christian just war theory. It is not! Much responsibility for the ocean of suffering presently being poured down on ordinary Americans and Iraqis by this so-called justified "preemptive" war (suffering that The American Conservative article makes clear will be hellishly tearing people and families to shreds for the next 20, 30 and 40 years) lies directly on the heads of Catholic, Protestant Orthodox and Evangelical Church leaders, who, for whatever reason, have misled those entrusted to their spiritual care into infernos that may never be extinguished in time. Where more is morally required, silence is evil. More than silence is morally required when mass murder (murder is the unjustified taking of human life) by members of the Christian Community (most of the U.S. military in Iraq are Christians) is occurring daily and when members of U.S. Christian Churches are daily bringing , not mercy, but decades of misery to other people--including their own loved ones and families at home. Parish unity and prosperity, diocesean unity and prosperity, or Church unity and prosperity built on the support of evil, or on silence about evil, is itself evil. That evil can unify people or maintain unity among people is clear. That achieved unity through evil does not transform evil into good in Christianity is equally clear. The excuse by a bishop, priest, minister, deacon, lay person, etc, that "I can't say anything about the war on Iraq because it would divide the community," is understandable, if one thinks that the Christian Community's unity and survival can be sustained by evil. Many have thought this and many continue to think this today. The consequence of this commitment to a faux Christian unity is that the anawim, the perceived "nobodies" of this world, pay for the evil of the Churches and their leaders by armless and/or legless lives, broken minds infested with horror, destroyed families and children, and memories that no human being was ever meant to have or have to live with. Read The American Conservative article and ask yourself, " Is this what Jesus wants His people to be causing or engaged in or supporting? Is supporting the creation of such misery, overtly by preaching or covertly by calculated silence, really what Jesus wants from the shepherds who are to care for His sheep as He, the Good Shepherd, cares for His sheep?" And after you ask yourself these questions , then ask your bishop, priest, minister, deacon, fellow congregant, superintendent, elder, etc. the same questions. It will take courage. But ask yourself also: How much courage could you summon up if one of your children or loved ones was slated in the next few months to become one of the statistics that is given flesh and blood in the article from The American Conservative.
Iran goes nuclear to counter US threat from neighboring Iraq; Americans "shocked, shocked" to learn that threats elicit reciprocal response A high-stakes game of tom foolery unfolded last week over Iran’s decision to break United Nations seals on research facilities there capable of pursuing bomb-grade enrichment of uranium. Iran’s leaders pretended to have no interest in developing nuclear weapons, and the Western world pretended to be shocked by Iran's behavior. Mr. Bush, Germany's Angela Merkel, and Britain's Tony Blair failed in their public statements to take any responsibility for Iran’s decision to take the nuclear path, and the mainstream media missed the story too. Although Iran has not yet violated the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Americans and Europeans moved toward imposing economic sanctions through the UN Security Council that could inflict significant suffering on the people of Iran. A prominent hard-line cleric, Hojatolislam Ahmad Khatami, was quoted in the New York Times as saying, “Thank God, our enemies are idiots. They threaten us. Their threats and sanctions have made us independent.” Once again, Jesus has proven himself to be the greatest political prognostician of all time. Threaten someone, and they are likely to respond in a like fashion. The Bush invasion of Iraq in 2003 placed a huge, permanent American military presence in the country bordering Iran. Mr. Bush further fanned the Iranian flames by repeatedly and publicly insulting Iran as being “evil.” Members of his Administration made no secret of their desire to accomplish in Iran what they had already done in Iraq, though Iran has a population that is three times as large. In other words, Iran feels threatened by the behavior of the Bush Administration, and the Iranians have responded in kind. The larger issue, of which no one is speaking, is the deep hypocrisy of an Administration that criticizes the clear Iranian initiative to develop these weapons at the same time that Mr. Bush is planning to develop new nuclear weapons of his own. The “robust earth penetrator” class of weapons that is under discussion for development would enable the Administration to destroy deeply sequestered underground bunkers using a field-authorized nuclear device. And who is the US Military likely to use such a weapon against? Iran and North Korea are the clear likely targets. Is it any surprise that both are now determined to develop nuclear weapons of their own? Add to this the Administration's disregard for international agreements, even as they complain about Iran's unwillingness to abide by international agreements, and one begins to see new heights of accomplishment in the hypocrisy department. In other words, the act of threatening others rarely makes one safe. It only makes one elicit reciprocal threats from the threatened party. The Bush Administration bears virtually 100% of the blame for the new militarism in Iran and North Korea, by virtue of the threatening posture they have taken in Iraq, in their rhetoric, in their military budgeting, and in their Pentagon planning. Jesus got this one right. “Love your enemies” is the only strategy that insures security. Or as he said to Peter, “Those who live by the sword are destined to die by the sword.” 15 January
2006 Special
report: Cheney and Torture in Iraq Cheney's Career Path of Brutality (James Carroll) Bush defends aide who lied to protect Cheney The True Cost of the Iraq War (Cindy Sheehan) 2000 American deaths in Iraq, and counting
Pres.
Jimmy Carter (Los Angeles Times): The Bush policy on war
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