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Perspective, Political,

Campaign for Liberty

I encourage you to check out Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty, and if you are so inclined, to join. I have joined, and support the cause, because its aims go beyond party politics to core issues that of concern to all Americans.

In his organizational statement , Ron Paul explains:

The work of the Campaign for Liberty will take many forms. We will educate our fellow Americans in freedom, sound money, non-interventionism, and free markets. We’ll have our own commentaries and videos on the news of the day. I’ll work with friends I respect to design materials for homeschoolers.

We’ll keep an eye on Congress and lobby against legislation that threatens us. We’ll identify and support political candidates who champion our great ideas against the empty suits the party establishments offer the public.

We will be a permanent presence on the American political landscape…

People frustrated with our political system often wonder what they can do. I have founded this organization to answer that question, to give people the opportunity to do something that really makes a difference in the fight for freedom. Please join me by becoming a member of the Campaign for Liberty. Our goal is 100,000 members by September…

—In the final analysis,— I wrote in my new book The Revolution: A Manifesto, —the last line of defense in support of freedom and the Constitution consists of the people themselves. If the people want to be free, if they want to lift themselves out from underneath a state apparatus that threatens their liberties, squanders their resources on needless wars, destroys the value of their dollar, and spews forth endless propaganda about how indispensable it is and how lost we would all be without it, there is no force that can stop them.—

More here…

Perspective, Political

You must go and die for me. Must! must! must!

Shall many die for a another country’s whim? From today’s Washington Post: Pushing Bush to Attack Iran

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is expected to use his White House visit today to push President Bush to take a more aggressive approach toward Iran — and there are some signs that he’ll have a receptive audience.

Both Olmert and Bush are badly wounded and looking for salvation. Olmert is facing corruption allegations that could drive him from office. Bush is wildly unpopular, desperate to salvage his legacy and fighting irrelevance as the general election begins in earnest — with even the Republican candidate trying to keep him at a distance.

It’s in this environment that the Jewish Telegraph Agency reports: “Ehud Olmert will urge President Bush to prepare an attack on Iran, an Israeli newspaper reported.

“Citing sources close to the Israeli prime minister, Yediot Achronot reported on its front page Wednesday that Olmert, who is due to hold closed-door talks with Bush in Washington, will say that ‘time is running out’ on diplomatic efforts to curb Iran’s nuclear program.

“The United States should therefore prepare to attack Iran, Olmert will tell Bush, according to Yediot.”

Olmert certainly telegraphed as much in public last night. Matti Friedman writes for the Associated Press that “the Israeli prime minister told thousands of Israel supporters at the annual convention of the pro-Israel American Israel Public Affairs Committee on Tuesday that the Iranian threat ‘must be stopped by all possible means…’

I have a better solution. The truth. Iran is no threat beyond its own borders, and cannot even control several regions within its borders. It may be a thorn in Israel’s side, but that is their regional conflict, not ours.

Haven’t enough U.S. Service people died? Haven’t enough innocent bystanders died? Those (un)fortunate enough to have survived with horrific injuries will bear witness for decades. Do we want to add nuclear holocaust to our list of recent errors by nuking Iran (as administration officials are advocating, also see articles here and here)?

Those who will not learn from their mistakes, or who never acknowledge making a mistake, are doomed to repeat the mistake.

From the Australian: Former aide Scott McClellan attacks George W. Bush in book

At one point, Mr McClellan also discusses rumours of Mr Bush’s possible cocaine use in his younger days — a charge that dogged him on the campaign trail for the presidency in 1999. Despite public denials, Mr McClellan says Mr Bush told him privately he “could not remember” if he used it.

“I remember thinking to myself, how can that be?” Mr McClellan writes. “How can someone simply not remember whether or not they used an illegal substance like cocaine? It didn’t make a lot of sense.”

Mr Bush, he said, “isn’t the kind of person to flat-out lie.

“So I think he meant what he said in that conversation about cocaine. It’s the first time when I felt I was witnessing Bush convincing himself to believe something that probably was not true, and that, deep down, he knew was not true,” he writes.

“And his reason for doing so is fairly obvious – political convenience.”

He described this “penchant for self-deception” would have devastating consequences in the US’s foreign policy — saying Mr Bush was too “stubborn to change and grow” in the White House…

At least Ca’iaphas didn’t advocate wipping out an entire country…

First they led him to Annas; for he was the father-in-law of Ca’iaphas, who was high priest that year.
It was Ca’iaphas who had given counsel to the Jews that it was expedient that one man should die for the people.

Perspective, Political

Perpetuating lies

From Time Magazine: Perpetuating the al-Qaeda-Iraq Myth

In an interview with the Washington Post last week, CIA Director Michael Hayden claimed we’re beating al-Qaeda. As Hayden put it: “Near strategic defeat of al-Qaeda in Iraq. Near strategic defeat of al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia.”

I’ll defer to Hayden on Saudi Arabia, but when it comes to Iraq, Hayden betrayed his belief in the neo-con lie that Iraq was one of al-Qaeda’s bases before the 2003 invasion and still is today. Can no one drive a stake into a lie that suckered us into a war we didn’t need? Probably not.

A friend of mine at the White House complained to me the other day that the Bush administration and the Pentagon until this day believe we are fighting al-Qaeda in Iraq. They “stand up” al-Qaeda as the enemy in Iraq, he said, even behind closed doors. In the teeth of the facts, they ignore that the enemy we’re fighting in Iraq is a half a dozen homegrown insurgencies, an incipient civil war, and criminal gangs. They ignore the fact that although a handful of Osama bin Laden’s followers showed up in Iraq after the invasion, in a futile attempt to hijack the Sunni resistance, al-Qaeda is not the main enemy in that country.

It should be clear by now, but apparently it isn’t: al-Qaeda is an idea, a way of thinking. Al-Qaeda thinks the world is divided between believers and nonbelievers, and the believers are divinely obliged to destroy the nonbelievers. It is a simple idea that has attracted tens of thousands of Muslims, but it is neither a political prescription nor the makings of an army. The Sunni Arabs who drifted into Iraq after the invasion and the Iraqis who embraced al-Qaeda were never an organization. They were never an army. They were never the main enemy. They numbered, what, a couple of thousand? They nearly triggered a civil war, but even that they failed to accomplish.

The success we’re seeing today in Iraq has nothing to do with rooting out terrorist cells. What we’re seeing instead is a shriveling of grassroots support, Sunni Muslims turning against al-Qaeda and its messianic, dualistic way of looking at the world. It hasn’t gone unnoticed in the Middle East that al-Qaeda has killed more Muslims than nonbelievers. Or that al-Qaeda has failed to take an inch of ground in the name of Islam. With this kind of record how could the Iraqis not turn against al-Qaeda?

…So why should we now mischaracterize the enemy?

The tendency will be to leave it at the lie: We fought and beat al-Qaeda in Iraq. But it’s a lie we’ll pay for later. By mischaracterizing the enemy in Iraq, we mischaracterize the enemy in Pakistan. Whether the car bomb that destroyed the Danish embassy in Pakistan on Monday was the work of an actual member of al-Qaeda or not does not matter —” what does is that al-Qaeda’s way of thinking is not defeated.

A good testament against the lies we have been told and those who are perjuring themselves in perpetuating those lies. The fact that so many have suffered and died, that so much has been destroyed, including our economy, for no real purpose, is the lasting price of the lie. I personally hope that our country’s leadership finds a moment of clarity and leaves the lie behind, that they hold the liars accountable, and that they promote healing for the people of this country and of Iraq.

Perspective, Political, , , , ,

The Democratic Republic of the United States

Our President and those with him, along with at least some section of our militaryYes, yes, support our military, but when will they support their constitutional duty. They should have “eliminated” the Chinese interrogators rather than take orders from them. have turned our country into a communist stooge state. From ABC News: Report: U.S. Soldiers Did ‘Dirty Work’ for Chinese Interrogators. Alleges Guantanamo Personnel Softened Up Detainees at Request of Chinese Intelligence.

U.S. military personnel at Guantanamo Bay allegedly softened up detainees at the request of Chinese intelligence officials who had come to the island facility to interrogate the men — or they allowed the Chinese to dole out the treatment themselves, according to claims in a new government report.

Buried in a Department of Justice report released Tuesday are new allegations about a 2002 arrangement between the United States and China, which allowed Chinese intelligence to visit Guantanamo and interrogate Chinese Uighurs held there…

Didn’t we stand in opposition to communism not too long ago (at least outwardly)? Didn’t we call small countries and some people communist stooges? Now it’s just a business deal I guess. We have become communist stooges.

And on the Uighurs (from Wikipedia):

Following 9/11, China voiced its support for the United States of America in the war on terror. The Chinese government has often referred to Uyghur nationalists as “terrorists” and received more global support for their own “war on terror” since 9/11. Human rights organizations have become concerned that this “war on terror” is being used by the Chinese government as a pretext to repress ethnic Uyghurs. Uyghur exile groups also claim that the Chinese government is suppressing Uyghur culture and religion, and responding to demands for independence with human rights violations. These include mass abortions of Uyghur children and forced termination of marriages between Uyghur people. Uyghur children who are born unauthorized are denied food and shelter by the government.

The war on terror being used as a pretext? Who’d have thought…

Perspective, Political, ,

A nuclear wait a minute here

From the Scotsman (as well as other sources): Clinton: I’ll obliterate Iran if it launches nuclear attack on Israel

THE Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton warned Tehran yesterday that if she were in the White House, the United States could “totally obliterate” Iran in retaliation for a nuclear strike against Israel.

On the day of a crucial vote in her nomination battle with fellow Democrat Barack Obama, the New York senator said she wanted to make clear to Tehran what she was prepared to do as president in the hope that the warning would deter any Iranian nuclear attack against the Jewish state. “I want the Iranians to know that if I’m the president, we will attack Iran (if it attacks Israel],” she told ABC’s Good Morning America programme.

“In the next ten years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them,” she said…

This is really really sick, coming from a person who wishes to be the President of the United States.

This issue first emerged during the last Democratic debate, and I thought it was sick when Ms. Clinton said it then. Now this?

The person elected as President usually tasks a rather reticent approach toward such issues. They make general statements, things like, “We will consider our options,” or “We will defend our allies,” etc. Even our current president, while engaging in a lot of rhetoric that is unfortunate, doesn’t promise actions like this.

For my part, let Israel take care of itself. Israel has nuclear weapons, and tons of military hardware provided by this country. Why should we get involved. Are we, as a county, so bent on defending a foreign land that we would initiate a nuclear holocaust on their behalf?

A 2006 census pegs Iran’s population at over 70 million, with about 10.5 million being age 15 or under. We would kill them all, either in direct nuclear hits or in the radioactive aftermath? Really? The United States would do this? This is what we want from our leaders?

Beyond the obvious meaning of obliterate, we would irradiate the Middle East – Saudi Arabia, Turkey, much of the Persian Gulf, Pakistan (they have nukes too), Armenia, and he former Soviet Republics. Do we think that Russia and Pakistan and India would say, “Ok, you’ve irradiated our populations and now they are going to die horrible deaths, but we won’t do anything about it?”

That radioactive cloud won’t stay there either. We better lay in a big supply of iodine because our sons and daughters, right here in North America, will be dying in their 20’s from bone cancer and leukemia.

Our politics are sick and sad if our leaders can casually say that they will obliterate a country – and no one calls them to account for saying it. I lived through enough of the Cold War to know that living under the specter of a nuclear holocaust was no fun. Living in Western New York meant we were target one in a dual nuclear hit. As a former member of CAP I used to take part in radioactivity monitoring exercises – to prepare for the day. In reality I would have been dead – and even as a child I knew that. No child should have to live like that.

It may take a village to raise a child, but only one crazed leader to obliterate the village.

Christian Witness, Perspective, Political,

George Bush – Convert, Heretic, Both?

I ran across a rather interesting (in the sad sense) point of view expressed in a blog post at Good Jesuit, Bad Jesuit called George W. Bush’s Warm Embrace Of The Catholic ChurchIt also links to an article from the Deacon’s Bench. The comments below that article are of note.. It delivers the typical neocon Roman Catholic fringe thinking you find in certain R.C. blog circles. These folks are typical Bush supporters, or people who believe that politics and politicians are our saviors. What is unfortunate is that they fail to see they they are supporting a president who has told their Church and its leader, the Bishop of Rome (large picture attached to the post – I guess he’s giving Mr. Bush a blessing?) to go jump in the Tiber.

The Bishop of Rome has elucidated – very clearly – that the things Mr. Bush is engaged in are improper and sinful. Mr. Bush chose to ignore the Bishop of Rome on issues surrounding Iraq and the Just War doctrine. He chose to tell the Bishop of Rome’s delegation to get lost. He has ignored Rome on torture and other issues as well.

Perhaps Mr. Bush would be a perfect fit for the “American Catholic Church.” He certainly holds to the Americanist Heresy, condemned by Leo XIII in Testem Benevolentiae. He refuses to subjugate himself (as many Roman Catholics in the U.S. do) to the authority and teaching of the Church, preferring rather his own “enlightened” point-of-view. Just a recap of Rome’s teaching on the issueSee also: Pope John Paul II calls War a Defeat for Humanity: Neoconservative Iraq Just War Theories Rejected:

The basis of these opinions is that, to make converts, the Church should adapt herself to our advanced civilization and relax her ancient rigour as regards not only the rule of life but also the deposit of faith, and should pass over or minimize certain points of doctrine, or even give them a meaning which the Church has never held. On this the Vatican Council is clear; faith is not a doctrine for speculation like a philosophical theory, to be relinquished or in any manner suppressed under any specious pretext whatsoever; such a process would alienate Catholics from the Church, instead of bringing converts. In the words of the council the Church must constantly adhere to the same doctrine in the same sense and in the same way; but the rule of Christian life admits of modifications according to diversity of time, place, or national custom, only such changes are not to depend on the will of private individuals but on the judgment of the Church.

So when Mr. Fromm writes:

If George Bush becomes a Catholic it will be a great day, if not then I will have lived under a President who prays to Jesus Christ and does his best to live his life as a Christian first and politician second.

…he should remember that an embrace of the Roman Catholic Church requires that the person doing so hold to the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, on war, abortion, torture, the death penalty, truth, contraception, and on… An embrace of Christianity entails a whole set of life choices that go against everything the world teaches.

In other words Mr. Bush is about as Roman Catholic as ____________? Well, at a minimum, an Americanist heretic.

The real fact is that there is no single issue by which we must decide. None of the politicians who are on road to the White House are Catholic or truly Christian in any sense of the word, especially in the sense of faithful citizenship. None are for true freedom. None will desist from government intervention in our lives at home or from interventions overseas. Those who promise an end to abortion do nothing to actually stop abortion. As the Young Fogey might point out, they simply fan the flames of controversy, doing nothing in reality, but perpetuating their agenda and power above all else.

The answer is always found in the deposit of faith. I believe my Church to be correct on every issue because it teaches the true faith. That trumps politics, my country, the world, and especially my personal desires. Is it easy to be a Christian in the face of the world? No. It only happens when we take our desires, our needs out of the picture – focusing them and aligning them with Jesus Christ’s way. With that we bear witness to our faith and win true converts.

Poland - Polish - Polonia

Remembering Katyn

From writer and poet John Guzlowski’s Lighting and Ashes blog: KATYN: The Forest of the Dead

April is the month when many of the killings at Katyn Forest took place during World War II. Poles try to remember this every year, and I’ve been thinking about Katyn recently. I’ve been thinking about Katyn and my father.

When I was a child, he told me a lot of stories about what happened in the war, about things that happened to my mother’s family and his family and to Poland. One of the stories that he came back to repeatedly was about what happened in the Katyn Forest near the Russian town of Smolensk in 1940…

I recommend you read the rest of his story and his new poem, Katyn.

Christian Witness, Current Events, Perspective, Political

Why are we doing this?

Check out the photo from Iraq at the Young Fogey’s site — vastly sad, vastly disturbing.

This is what it is all about. It is not mysterious “terrorists” lurking in the shadows. It is not about a few bad apples in a large society. It is about killing, and the vast number of innocents, in the vastly larger context of a society, all of whom are suffering.

It is these three children today. There will be more tomorrow, more the day after, more every day on into the future. Perhaps John McCain is right – it will be 100 years.

Whether we personally pulled the trigger, dropped the bomb, placed the mine or not, we got the ball rolling based on lies, false pretense, and a concerted effort to keep citizens of the United States in a state of fear. We went against the advice of world leaders and the pope. We initiated a war of aggression, not of defense. We gave those who harbor evil the excuse they needed, just as we have provided the excuse for the fathers and uncles of those children. Therefore we must admit our mistake. We must extricate ourselves. We started this war. Certainly we cannot end it just by leaving — but if one less dies because we leave then something real will be achieved. If one moment of truth emerges because we leave, then something real will be achieved.

God forgive our complacency in the face of the evil we are doing.

Perspective, Political

4,000

From the Albany Catholic blog: 4,000

Terence L. Kindlon, an Albany lawyer and a Marine veteran of the Vietnam War, writes in today’s Times Union, after American casualties in Itaq hit the 4,000 mark:

“If I were slightly younger … I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines. … It must be exciting … in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger.”
— President Bush, March 13

On the day after Christmas in 1967, I found a young Marine quietly lying on his back near the perimeter wire at our temporary base south of DaNang. He was just a boy, maybe 18, and he looked relaxed, as if he had drifted off to sleep under a warm sun while fishing. But he wasn’t asleep. He was dead and gone, taken down by a sniper’s bullet shot through the center of his chest. When I checked for a pulse he was still warm.

The same day I found that dead Marine, another young man, George W. Bush, then a senior at Yale, was probably home for Christmas vacation. Mr. Bush, 21 and just a few months from graduation, was at an ideal age to enlist in the military, where he could have had — to use his words — the fantastic, exciting experience, in some ways romantic, of confronting danger as a second lieutenant on the front lines of Vietnam. If he wanted, he could have actually had the exact same kind of combat experience he rhapsodized about just a few days ago.

Unfortunately, after graduation in 1968, he decided to cut and run instead…

The rest of his op-ed piece is here. We at Albany Catholic recommend it.

As do I. The op-ed was entitled: Bush’s view of war an insult to all

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