G. Jefferson Price III: 'Bush, like his enemies, needs a wrathful God' Date: Sunday, February 02 @ 09:03:41 EST Topic: Commander-In-Thief

By G. Jefferson Price III, Baltimore Sun

God is everywhere in these frightening times, His name and his blessing invoked by an astonishing variety of conflicting forces.

God is invoked by al-Qaida and the Taliban. He is invoked by the Hezbollah in Lebanon (Hezbollah means Party of God). He is invoked by Islamic Jihad in Israel and Palestine. The Jihad's chief enemies, Israeli settlers in the West Bank, assert they are there because God promised the land to Abraham, their religious ancestor - no matter that Abraham also was the religious ancestor of Islam.

Saddam Hussein of Iraq, a barbarian if ever there was one, invokes the name of God in his exhortations. So does his chief enemy, President George W. Bush of the United States.

Ending his State of the Union address to Congress last week, Bush called on Americans to place their "confidence in the loving God behind all of life and all of history. ... May He guide us now, and may God continue to bless the United States of America."

The president is said to be a devoutly religious man. He must believe that God supports the mission which he spelled out for America in the State of the Union - to topple Hussein's regime by force if he does not very quickly uncover and hand over all the weapons of mass destruction he has accumulated - whether he has them or not.

Some Americans might argue that God should be left out of this war talk altogether either because they do not believe in God or, even if they do, are tired of presidents asking God to bless them, especially when they're getting ready to send them off to war.

But because the president has brought God into this, it's interesting to note that God's mainstream ministers in this country are not supporting Bush.

Last week, I heard two important people talking about the practically inevitable war against Iraq. One was my pastor, the Rev. Bill Watters, a Jesuit who runs St. Ignatius Roman Catholic Church in Baltimore. The other was the president. I preferred what Father Watters had to say.

He compared America to the Roman Empire at the brink of its decline and demanded: "Why should a republic take on the risks of empire? Won't it run a chance of endangering its identity as a free people?" Speaking as a Christian, he cited the Gospel - "a Gospel of truth, not deception or deceit; a Gospel of love, not of belligerence and hostility; a Gospel of justice, not of power and hubris; a Gospel of peace, not of war and aggression."

Well, some might say, the president is not a papist. He is a Protestant, a Methodist.

But the leaders of his own denomination have taken a stand in opposition to war against Iraq under the current circumstances.

They are taking their opposition public this month with television commercials featuring Bishop Melvin G. Talbert, chief ecumenical officer of the United Methodist Church, denouncing war against Iraq as a violation of "God's law and the teachings of Jesus Christ.

"Iraq hasn't wronged us. War will only create more terrorists and a more dangerous world for our children," says the 30-second commercial, which the Associated Press reported is scheduled to appear on CNN and Fox networks in New York and Washington as part of a $1 million media campaign against the war.

These religious men have a sort of Armageddon in their nightmares. They see a holocaust in which many innocent people may die - most of them Iraqis, but many Americans, too - if a full-scare war is unleashed against Iraq.

It's not that they don't recognize Hussein as a genuine brute. Father Watters called him "wicked and evil." The evidence of Hussein's brutality and moral corruption is overwhelming; though he was brutal and corrupt when he was America's ally, too. Their resistance is to war as a solution, as opposed to taking more time - without war and its own awful consequences - to isolate Hussein, surround him, contain him, outlast him.

For how long?

The United States and its allies effectively contained the Soviet Union for almost half a century until it collapsed from the weight of its economic and intellectual bankruptcy.

Does the despot of Baghdad pose a greater threat?

A former president of the United States, Jimmy Carter, also a devoutly religious man, had something to say about this Friday, asserting the force arrayed against Iraq is as strong a deterrent as war would be, without the price in human suffering on either side.

"With overwhelming military strength now deployed against him and with intense monitoring from space surveillance and the U.N. inspection team on the ground, any belligerent move by Saddam against a neighbor would be suicidal," Carter said. "An effort to produce or deploy chemical or biological weapons or to make the slightest move toward a nuclear explosive would be inconceivable. If Iraq does possess such concealed weapons, as is quite likely, Saddam would use them only in the most extreme circumstances, in the face of an invasion of Iraq, when all hope of avoiding the destruction of his regime is lost."

The national passion for a war against Iraq has been nurtured by the terrorist attacks against America on 9/11. But those attacks were not launched by Iraq. They were launched by an Islamic fanatic bent on destroying America to fulfill his vision of God's will. Invading Iraq will not bring America any closer to finding Osama bin Laden or closing down the al-Qaida terror network.

God help us if war against Iraq makes us lose sight of who did attack America and kill its citizens. Reprinted from The Balimore Sun: http://www.sunspot.net/news/opinion/oped/bal-pe.column02feb02,0,6964270.story

-- Josh (JCarten@mwix.com), February 02, 2003

Answers

We Americans do everything so that the whole world would hate us. The war in Afghanistan is nowhere its end (or its final purpose) and here we go to another war. Europe is not with us? Do we care? Blair is Europe, enough for us. Does he have a population approval for the war? Why should he or we care? Does the Pope condemn our war? Who cares about him! Well, everyone gets what he deserves. So do we...

-- (AndyQue@hotmail.com), February 03, 2003.

My mind goes to three words upon reading this thread. Society - culture - civilization. Society is able to come into being in a very short time frame as in the Society of...... being recognized by a number of inhabitants of an area.

Culture is that mode of being in which a society has attempted to base it identity. To date it appears the U.S.A. is a culture of war/greed and self-righteousness.

Last but not least is Civilization which takes a period of perhaps five hundred years to become part of accepted history. The U.S.A. is still building towards a civlization.

As to the Fall Of an Empire that is folly for perhaps the only ones who consider themselves an empire are the Americans who are still in the cradle of development in so many areas of intellectual formation.

I was offended by Mr. Bush bringing God into this mess. These words have been spoken in many forms by others in history. He sounded to me like a Religious Fundamentalist and very dangerous to world peace.

Thinking peoples are fully aware this upcoming war is about OIL!! Also Mr. Bush is attempting to rectify the error made by his own father a decade ago. It is all vanity.

Christ was/is the last blood letting to the Father for sins of Man. The further bloodletting is simply man's love of himself and nothing and nothing more.

History has shown us many despots who have attempted to re-structure cultures/societies and civilations using the word of whatever God they follow.

Mr. Bush is offensive to the thinking population of this world. Christian - nahh! - despot maybe?

-- jean bouchard (jeanb@cwk.imag.net), February 03, 2003.

One thing our pacifists [sic] fail to consider is that some regimes can not be toppled except by military force. You could have embargoed the South for a hundred years but they would not have freely let go of slavery. Hitler's 3rd Reich would still be standing had Russia, the US, and Britain not invaded militarily.

Why is it that "wars of liberation" are OK, but liberating Iraq from its current regime is automatically wrong?

I think your animus against an invasion is simply a knee-jerk anti- American reaction: anything the US does is evil (unless it's OKed by the world Council of Churches which BTW had nothing to say about the UN Cairo conference in which the Clinton Administration tried to foist abortion on all the countries of the world).

But that assertion begs the question. The UN is the body that embargoed Iraq - NOT the US. If children starved there - something not provable by the way given the autocratic nature of the regime, it would have been soley Saddam's fault, not the UN or the US. He certainly had enough money to build 72 presidential palaces and continue to import weapon components...

Secondly, it was the UN that sanctions the "no-fly" zones - to protect the Kurds and others from Iraqi malfescance, as well as to keep them from re-arming. But no one hears leftists/socialist complaints against the UN.

Finally, after the USA takes over Iraq, it will establish democracy and human rights where before none existed. Cf. South Korea, West Germany, and Japan for examples of this. If you know of any Vietnamese refugees as I do, you can also throw in South Vietnam - which was not perfect, but was a heaven of a lot better than any alternative in that region.

The simple matter of fact is, the USA has done more good for more countries on earth than any and all empires combined, including Rome.

This doesn't make us perfect, it doesn't make our culture less a challenge or less troublesome, but it does go to show that you are asking us to simply STOP while not pointing to any viable alternative course of action.

-- Joe Stong (joestong@yahoo.com), February 03, 2003.

Oh and another thing....

We are in Afganistan and probably will be (along with 20 other nations of the UN) for a decade. Why is this considered a failure? The very same people who accuse the Bush administration of "failure" in Afganistan claim that it was the US' fault in the first place because the US "pulled out" of Afganistan after the Russians left in 1991! So the US is damned if we leave and damned if we stay!

There is no oil in Afganistan...

It'll take a generation to heal the wounds of people in that Muslim country - and who's doing the healing? Americans, thank you very much.

Or isn't Christianity about healing, feeding, clothing, and educating people? I think some of you see the nightly news of helicopters and immediately go off the deep end supposing they only hurt people and break things.

As for "containing" the Soviet Union....well I suppose YOU think it's better to simply sit here and let 24 million Iraqis grow up and die in a dictatorship or 22 million North Koreans slowly starve while we play nice diplomatic games with their tyrants, propping up bad regimes.... well I don't. I believe in liberating people from bondage and slavery - from sin as well as from political persecution. But the first liberation is from ignorance. And our gutless wonders on the Left show remarkable ignorance of history, theology and philosophy.

You don't rescue slaves from their master by saying nice things to them and "containment". You liberate them by arresting the man...

But this is all academic. The real reason why people complain about the USA is because they CAN. There's no point in complaining about Fidel Castro or Saddam Hussein, or Kim Il Sung. Just as there is no point in complaining about Communists in general - they control 100% of the media in their countries, so our complaints have no "resonance" - so people feel free to vent their anger at democratic regimes and other institutions that don't control everything.... I dunno why this is. cowardice and laziness are two possibilities though. It's better to complain about the US than work to save foreign "neighbors" whose plight is so awful it just might make our little "issues" seem silly.

-- Joe Stong (joestong@yahoo.com), February 03, 2003.

Wow! Now I get it - the Americans are just going to liberate the world form evil (by their just war, of course, how otherwise?) and the stupid rest of the world just doesn't get it! I think the Holy Father he too is in this rest of the world with lesser intelligence. Never mind, at least we have this forum and the right catholics to explain to the rest of us what's wrong and what's right.

-- (judywool@hotmail.com), February 03, 2003.

Pardon my wierdness, but in so many ways the character of Boromir seems to represent the Republics, and the modern American mindset with all the accompanying nuvo-virtues:

"So it is true... the Ring of power." (The Doom of Man).

"It is a gift, a gift to the foes of Mordor. Why not use this Ring? Long has my father, the Steward of Gondor, kept the forces of Mordor at bay. By the blood of my people are your lands kept safe. Give Gondor the weapon of the enemy. Let us use it against him."

"Gondor has no king, Gondor needs no king."

-- Emerald (emerald1@cox.net), February 03, 2003.

I think that the Holy Father showed us an alternative to this immoral war. Is his voice not heard by us, American catholics? How sad!! We have to let his desire be known!

-- (RoseB@vox.com), February 03, 2003.

Emerald,

Surely then the Democrats would be like Denethor then, sitting in their haven watching and despairing as evil grows stronger daily, hoping it will go away. At some point, if freedom is not defended, it will be lost.

Frank

-- Someone (ChimingIn@twocents.cam), February 04, 2003.

You got me, Frank. Shoot. I haven't read the actual books yet... I'm a slave to the movies.

I knew this would be my downfall.

-- Emerald (emerald1@cox.net), February 04, 2003.

BTW, does anyone believe that the continuing racial conflict in the South means that we should not have fought the Civil War? Maybe those "Imperialist" Northerners should have minded their own business. LOL.

Pray for peace. Pray for the conversion of our Nation and it's leaders to live morally. And pray that our nation always have the ability to defend itself from immoral despots.

Mateo

-- (MattElFeo@netscape.net), February 04, 2003.

OK, so the Holy Father is against war...so what ALTERNATIVE have we to pursue for world peace? Hmmmmm? No one has any concrete ALTERNATIVE solution to the problem of terrorism or Iraq apart from "let's just pray".

I'd be totally happy if any of you proposed and if the Bishops were making CONCRETE proposals to go over there and convert the Iraqis... but no one is. No one is offering any strategy much less any tactics to solve the root problem!

And as Our Holy Father reminded us in his message of World Day of Peace 2003, the root cause of all this is the mind-set and belief of the rulers in these lands! And "[U]ntil those in positions of responsibility undergo a veritable revolution in the way they use their power and go about securing their peoples" welfare, it is difficult to imagine how progress towards peace can be made".

So tell me, how do YOU propose we Peace-makers and sons of God go about helping this "revolution" take place?

We can't embargo Iraq - because starving a whole people is immoral. We are NOT talking about Christianizing ANYONE in the Middle East. What real-life solution do any of you propose?

You can't just say "No" to War and leave it at that! War would and will topple the regime and liberate the Iraqi people. So would having Saddam go into exhile, so would an Iraqi coup... sure let's pray for peace and justice, but until you stand up to defend the defenseless (the Iraqi citizens currently enslaved by a tyrant), your words are empty platitudes.

-- Joe Stong (joestong@yahoo.com), February 04, 2003.

Just because American government and culture is not perfect and squeaky clean doesn't mean that everything we do is ipso facto immoral. And just because we're the world's lone superpower does our enemies automatically become the "underdogs" and innocent.

The Ring of Power is moral relativism - exactly that noxious idea that the USA was founded to destroy! Might does NOT make right - but this does not mean that might is equal to guilt either.

We have a right to self defense. We have a duty to liberate those countries whose people are currently slaves to dictators whose published will and desire is to plot our destruction. If America does not stand for the defense of freedom and human rights what do we stand for? And how do all you "peace-niks" propose we "defend and secure human rights"?!

We're already feeding and clothing vast numbers of people around the world - including the North Koreans, whose government officially hates us! Individual Americans already have done plenty of works of mercy and charity among Muslims to prove we have no imperial ambitions over their sand dunes... and it's pointless for us to conquer their lands for the sake of oil (because on the open market, they have to sell it to SOMEONE - so we can get it without the hassel of occupying anyone.)

If we hadn't been attacked, we would not have invaded and liberated Afganistan or now Iraq. Peace is not the absence of war but the situation of justice with mercy. When has the conquering US not been both just and merciful?

-- Joe Stong (joestong@yahoo.com), February 04, 2003.

Thanks to the U.S. Military, the women in Afghanistan are now back in the work force, practicing medicine again, going to school, and 'driving!' Women are now getting their driver's licenses...Can you imagine not being able to drive, not being able to work, not being able to show your face, or walk the streets alone, having to have your face covered - always in fear of leaving your home, of being beaten to death?

Well, the U.S.A. gave the women of Afghanistan their lives back. How come we don't hear very much about that accomplishment?

And, yes, Joe Strong is so right when he says that "Peace is not the absence of war......"

Why is everyone giving so much confidence to the enemy? Why is everyone turning this into another Viet Nam? It is not Viet Nam all over again. This war is about our salvation. If Saddam had no problem killing his own people and children, he certainly will have no problem killing us.

Why is everyone forgetting what happened on 9/11. President Bush did not start this. Remember Hitler? Everyone thought he should be given more time and look what happened.

-- MaryLu (mlc327@juno.com), February 04, 2003.

Even Vietnam was no "Vietnam"! The whole quag-mire myth is just that: a myth. Talk to ANY vietnamese refugee about what life was like in the South from the end of the Tet offensive (which we won) till the summer of 1973 and they'll tell you there was largely peace... Only after the North broke its word and invaded in 1973, and the US congress broke faith and did not fulfill its part of a treaty did all hell break loose and a million civilians died at the hands of the communists.... a million more drowned at sea trying to flee... millions more are still slaves to this day and the LEFT peace-niks have forgotten their plight!

The Peace symbol...an upside down cross - you see it every Sunday on the back on your parish priest, right side up! And no one noticed! How many WARS HAS THE PEACEMOVEMENT STOPPED? 0. How many wars has NATO stopped? 3. (Turkey vs. Greece, USSR vs. everyone, Croatia.)

How many countries and captive peoples have been liberated by the PEACE MOVEMENT? 0. It wasn't the PC Movement that lead to the fall of the Berlin wall, it was a Catholic Poland filled with courageous and truly faith-full (morals and faith) Catholic laity.

The so-called Peace Movement is a front and an affront.

As for a just war I refer you to the First Things website, or January edition www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0301/articles/weigel.html

There is a big difference between dueling and war. Good Christians must not duel but good Christian states may wage war. Thomas Aquinas also confronts this issue in the Summa, II-II. q.40, as does Augustine in his City of God....

In other words some people DO have concrete things to say besides "I just think war is icky and we shouldn't wage it...for any reason."

Nobody seemed to complain much when BILL CLINTON lobbed a couple cruise missiles at Bagdad... Funny how the Peace Movement reserves all its anger not towards tyrants and dictatorships but towards those who would dare overthrow them and liberate their people... very funny indeed.

John Paul II obviously is against (as am I) indescriminate slaughter, and widespread civilian death. I don't know a single Military man who wants to kill just for the sake of it. If Saddam had fulfilled his side of the treaty which ended the 1st Gulf War, we would not now be talking about this. If he had a metanoia and became a benign king, we'd all heave a sigh of relief.... but what do you do when a totally powerful, dictatorial meglomaniac repeatedly fools the UN, breaks his word, and continues to amass deadly weapons which are totally offensive in nature? You pray for his conversion, certainly, but you also "lock and load for bear"....

-- Joe Stong (joestong@yahoo.com), February 04, 2003.

I do hope that those who know me on this forum do not misinterpet my post about Afghanistan as has been done by Judywool....

I think everyone knows what I was talking about..and Judy, you chose to focus on the driving license and left out the other important issues in my post. Women in Afghanistan can now live like human beings, without fear of being beaten to death, etc.. (of course these things are more important than DL's,)...I only mentioned that because it was newsworthy enough to be shown on ABC, NBC, CBS, Foxnews, and MSNBC - the first women in Afghanistan to get her driver's license - yes, that is an 'historical moment.'

None of us wants to see another war. We are not happy warriors, as you seem to suggest.

I have said my peace and will no longer respond to any of your posts. You are obviously on a one-way street, refusing to take any turns. You do not wish to hear what others have to say. You want only your voice to be heard.

Well, we got your message - or, I should say 'all' of your messages posted under several different names today. You are angry, very angry about the war against Iraq. Have you let Saddam know how you feel? I'm sure you will make him very happy that you support him and his views.

-- MaryLu (mlc327@juno.com), February 04, 2003.

Andy,

My you have lots of "friends" here who agree with your way of thinking, Judy, Rose, Lou...

You said:

"The solution of conflicts is a dialogue bringing a change of mind and hearts."

Perhaps you can tell the Bush Administration how to dialogue with Saddam, how to dialogue with a Dictator who has no regard for human life, even the lives of his own people (whom he killed)...Do you have any ideas how to do that?

You are so smart, so diplomatic, why don't you apply for that job? Perhaps Saddam will listen to you. He doesn't listen to the U.N., or U.S. diplomats, or British diplomats...maybe someone like you can get him to have a change of heart, just maybe.

Maybe someone should have 'waited' a little longer than we did to see if Hitler would have had a change of heart. We didn't give Hitler enough time, did we? No one thought Hitler would do what he did either...

-- mlc327@juno.com (mlc327@juno.com), February 04, 2003.

mlc, you wrote: Andy, My you have lots of "friends" here who agree with your way of thinking, Judy, Rose, Lou...

LOL - a Rose by any other name ... seems to have *many* other names! ;-)

-- Christine L. :-) (christine_lehman@hotmail.com), February 04, 2003.

andy, judy, etc. Please read the threads on conduct. Posting under multiple names is not acceptable and will result in the deletion of your posts.

Moderator

-- moderator ("Catholic_moderator@hotmail.com"), February 05, 2003.

Moderator, what do you mean - multiple names??? Is it a new trick of yours so that you could happily delete what you don't like??

-- (AndyQue@hotmail.com), February 05, 2003.

mlc, I don't mind if people agree with my opinions. Do you? Sorry for you then. As to the rest of your snide remarks - comparing Hitler with Saddam shows clearly your personnal level of the political undrestanding of this world. A question for you - the Holly Father doesn't see it as you. Why?? In your opinion he must be perhaps blind no to see the new Hitler from whom our great army must liberate the world? Or do you think a dialoque is possible just when everyone agree with us? Why are you bothered then that people on this forum agree with me?

-- (AndeQue@hotmail.com), February 05, 2003.

Christine, what do you mean by "many names" of Rose? Could you explain this to me, to Rose? Or do you just make foolish remarks and then run away in a childish way?

-- (AndyQue@hotmail.com), February 05, 2003.

The Pope is known as the Holy Father - H o l y...not Holly Father and that is all I have to say to you.

I am a Bill O'Reilly Fan, and Sean Hannity fan, and also like Bob Grant and Rush.....I agree with them, not you...Ande..and whoever said you bothered me or the people on this forum agreeing with you bothered me...? You don't bother me, Ande - sorry to disappoint you.

-- MaryLu (mlc327@juno.com), February 06, 2003.

Who said cultural relativism was passe?

-- ("""@""""".com), February 07, 2003.

What's the matter MaryLu? You have never made a spelling mistake on this forum? Yes, my keyboard is old and has its will sometimes, so what? Can't your touted catholicism stand that?

-- (AndyQue@hotmail.com), February 07, 2003.