More stuff gathered from the electronic subconscious

Why loud sex can be bad for you http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/833250/loud-sex-led-to-assault-charge-for-teens

Conspiracy theory for the week, are we in Iraq to protect Israel’s Archeological Penis Substitution? http://heidilore.wordpress.com/2009/07/29/babylons-ancient-wonder-lying-in-ruins/

Evolution occurring at speeds that can easily be seen http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080417112433.htm

The depths of depravity humans will sink to in the name of religious dogma http://filipspagnoli.wordpress.com/2009/08/21/the-most-absurd-human-rights-violations-5-the-rape-of-young-iranian-girls-prior-to-their-execution/

Fighting back against the influx of Hello Kitty and Death Note, Australia exports its own cultural icons http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/25/2752536.htm

How to deal with burglars 101 http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/09/15/samurai.sword.killing/ 

 Blast from the Past, a book review of Dragons of Autumn Twilight http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news/bargain-book-bin.php

Disclaimer: Links may vanish without warning

PS Yes I would leave you for her

Alicia Witt

Three Kings takes place in a far away place a long time ago: Iraq and 1991.  the (first) Gulf war has just ended officially but there is still much chaos on the ground.  as American soldiers disarm some surrendering Iraqi soldiers, the American soldiers find a document.

a war movie that is a heist movie that is a comedy movie.
a sharp critique of Bush I war, its victims, and those who became victims after the war.

trailer

THREE KINGS – Trailer – HQ

we have all wondered how cows manage during wartime

Three Kings – cows and war

what a gunshot does.  NOTE:  this kind of scene is commonplace now in CSI shows and others. but this was the first

Three Kings – gunshot wound scene

a great, funny movie.  ’tis sad to consider that at the time it was made, the Gulf war was a fast receding memory.

Nablopomo 2009 badge

Hello Marines, families, and friends in Northwest Indiana! I am proud to report that we had a great time celebrating our 234th Marine Corps Birthday Ball in Schererville, Indiana on the 14th of November.

Our guest speaker this year was GYSGT Nick Popaditch, who you may know as “The Cigar Marine.” Nick gave a very motivating presentation dealing with his career as a United States Marine, his injuries that forced his medical retirement, and his life of recovery that followed. Nick joined us with his beautiful wife April, and his unsurprisingly polite son Nick Jr. I came to know Nick after seeing him speak in Hammond, Indiana and cooresponding with he and April in preparation for the ball. In doing so, I read his book, Once A Marine, which chronologicals his experiences. What an honest, very motivating read.

Back to the ball…

This year we were joined by 368 of Northwest Indiana’s finest United States Marines, their families, and friends as we celebrated with a great dinner, awesome music by Partytime DJ, dancing, and of course raffles galore! Thanks to the generous contributions of those who attended, we were able to raise close to 10,000 for our Marine Corps Charities that include the Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund, The Marine Corps Scholarship Fund, and others that support all things Marine.

Nick Popaditch was so very generous with his time, stopping and sharing his experiences with all who wanted to visit. His humble character was further validated with me after the following happened…Nick, my wife and I were driving to my house for the “after party” when I was thanking him for coming. I asked Nick if he ever had an experience whereby he looked forward to spending time with a person and hoped that they were “the person” that he hoped that they would be. (I have been let down so many times by posers or those who put on airs) He replied that he had. I further said…well, that happened to me tonight…he paused for about 30 seconds and said “wait…are you talking about me?” I said of course! What a great example of a Marine’s Marine!

Nick joined a group of us back at my house where the fellowship continued until nearly 4 am. Stories were shared and enjoyed by all!

Tim Johnston (28/11/09)

The British government has, once again, been seduced by the rhetoric of impetuosity, inflexibility and outright stupidity.  This is no small matter.  Failure to contain Iran’s nuclear programme (if there were such a need) without further action i.e., force, would be far better than allowing Israel or the United States, or the complicity of the British armed forces, to bomb Iran.  Even if Iran was developing a nuclear bomb, it would never use it.  There would be far more destruction through the prevention of creating a nuclear weapon than in Iran possessing one.…[Continue Reading]

CLICK HERE TO OPEN THIS CHAPTER

There were protests outside the inquiry yesterday featuring a 'Tony Blair' and fake blood

By Peter Biles
BBC world affairs correspondent

The sceptics might say the Iraq inquiry, chaired by Sir John Chilcot, is another pointless investigation, a colossal waste of time, and likely to be a whitewash.

But in the first week, some fascinating evidence has already emerged from these public hearings into the background to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

It is perhaps too early to say if it will be a definitive account of the war. But for those predicting some sort of cover-up, the initial signs suggest otherwise.

Given the controversy over the Iraq war in 2003, and the confusion at the time, it is good to be able to join up a few dots in what is still an otherwise incomplete picture.

Relatives of Britons killed in Iraq have long made it known they are seeking “truth and honesty”.

Six years on, some are still filled with the pain of loss and the anger fuelled by what they regard as “an illegal war”.

[Read more...]

Q&A: Iraq inquiry
A guide to the long awaited probe into events before and after the 2003 invasion

[ARTICLE]

So the Republicans have released a list of 10 policies their 2010 candidates should adhere to. Let’s just cut to the chase and take a look.

“(1) We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama’s “stimulus” bill;”

Great! Or at least it WOULD be great if it were true. But Bush and the Republicans in congress spent more money than any President before him (and Obama is even worse). Republicans are NOT for smaller government. They only say they are when Democrats are in power. But time and time again, it’s Republicans who outspend Democrats. Don’t get me wrong, both sides are big government scumbags and I’ll never vote for either of them. But at least Democrats don’t pretend to be for smaller government. At least they’re honest about their scumbaggery. And I like how they call it the “Obama stimulus”. If I remember correctly, the first stimulus bill went through during Bush’s term. McCain pushed for it and voted for it. Have you forgotten already? He tried to cancel a live presidential election debate so he could go vote for it. It was a big deal. Man, Americans have short memories. And when the first stimulus Bill was voted down in the House (before it was later passed), Bush went ahead and authorized his own little bailout with an executive order. Look it up. Republicans ARE NOT for fiscal responsibility. They just want it to be THEM wasting all the money on big flashy programs rather than the democrats.

“(2) We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run health care;”

Again, great!…if it were true. Sure “Obamacare” is going to be awful when it finally passes (and it WILL eventually pass), but so is “RomneyCare”. That’s right, Mitt Romney had his own little statist healthcare program as the governor of Massachusetts. Under his plan it was against the law to NOT have healthcare. No government sponsored healthcare, just a mandate that said you had to buy it yourself. So the democrats’ plan (government-run healthcare) is socialism and the republicans’ plan, (government-mandated private healthcare) is fascism. Whoopie. I can’t wait to vote on which party I want in office.

“(3) We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;”

I actually can’t really comment on this. I oppose cap and trade as well but I haven’t taken the time to research what Republicans plan to do about energy reforms. But judging by their past records, I’d be willing to bet it’s just a different but equally bad option.

“(4) We support workers’ right to secret ballot by opposing card check;”

Unions. Ugh. I don’t like them but I also think that people have the right to associate with whomever they want and in whatever way they want…and that right extends to employers and business owners. They should be able to fire whoever they want for whatever reason they want. It’s their damn property.

“(5) We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;”

At least they’re honest about this one. I disagree with them, but at least they’re not lying.

“(6) We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;”

And this is the #1 reason that Republicans are bigger spenders than Democrats. They like war more….or do they? WWI, WWII, Korea, Clinton’s Yugoslavia nonsense; all started while democrats were in power. Both parties love their wars. Yes. Even Obama. On to Sudan! Save (bomb) Darfur!

“(7) We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat;”

Blah Blah Blah more warmongering.

“(8) We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;”
Screw you Republicans! If you are religious, then marriage is a religious ceremony. If you’re not, marriage is a contract between two people. Neither of those areas are any of the government’s business. Legalize gay AND straight marriage!

“(9) We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion; and”

Finally something I could agree on…if I knew they didn’t have a statist healthcare scheme of their own.

“(10) We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership.”

One more time, say it with me: GREAT!….if I knew it wasn’t a lie.

Look up H.R. 1022 sometime. It didn’t pass, thank goodness, but it was supposed to be another Clinton-style assault weapons ban but this time it was written and sponsored by Republicans. I will agree that more republicans seem to understand and support gun rights but don’t trust someone just because they have an (R) after their name. In fact, never trust ANY politician until you get to know them and their positions because, as we can see, they’re all liars and scumbags to the last….yes that includes YOUR pet politician.

Of course I agree with Gil here, but if anything, he’s actually understating the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan by a significant measure in failing to account for the hidden, long-term liability costs of the present conflicts that could tally more than $3 trillion — that of course is in addition to the combined initial outlay of $1 trillion, which is, of course, supplemental to the projected $5 trillion in “defense” expenditures over the next ten years.

But hey, Americans don’t want any of that nasty, intrusive and wasteful “big government” mucking up their individual “freedom” and “liberty” with crazy, unaffordable schemes like socialized medicine, right?

Comment at end

28th November, 2009

MR PARRIS – I SALUTE YOU – MORE OR LESS

Parris: “But, no, Mr Blair surely didn’t lie about WMDs. He did what we all do: sure in our mind that a conclusion is true, we overstate the evidence for it, and expect to be vindicated.”

I have had my differences with Matthew Parris. I am most annoyed with him for removing from the internet an excellent article which he wrote a few years ago titled, something like “Why I love Blair’s Britain”. I have no idea why he removed it … well I have some suspicions. It didn’t serve his political party, the Conservatives. But I DO wish he’d send it to me, though of course he won’t.  He knows I would ask him if I could use it.

The reason I’d wish to use it? It was the truth about Blair’s Britain and the good that came from those ten years.

Today Mr Blair needs the truth like many people think he needs a hole in the head.

Today’s article of Parris’s, once you get past the headline, is remarkably empathic to Mr Blair. It doesn’t get full marks from me for a couple of reasons, but something tells me that in time Mr Parris may well come round to getting a score nearer 100%.

The shortcomings in his analysis?

One, I do NOT agree that the Iraq invasion was in itself a bad decision. No-one argues that thousands of deaths are good; of course they don’t. We need to remember that the war was over in one month and that the deaths, largely since that date, have been due to insurgent groups working and fighting AGAINST the Iraqi people. The allied forces have been there since April 2003 NOT to attack the local people but to defend them and are under the auspices of the UN, not a colonially-minded west. I predict that in a handful of years this war will have altered the balance of power in the Middle East to something that could NEVER have happened had Saddam been allowed to continue his murderous 30-year reign of terror.

Two, Parris’s last paragraph is unfortunate. As in my previous point, I do believe Blair will be seen to have calculated correctly. I am not sure what Parris means by saying “he just miscalculated”.  Especially after he had spent 95% of his article showing that Blair had no choice but to make the decisions he did. Surely if the former prime minister believed that WMDs existed as did many (I still believe they did and do exist, somewhere) he did NOT miscalculate.

The miscalculation that Parris refers to may have been in expecting that the British people and press would accept that he DID believe WMDs existed.

So, Blair’s alternative? To expect them NOT to believe something he believed would be vindicated, and in that expectation to withdraw his support from America?

As Mr Parris says – a no-brainer.

Tony Blair was a leader, not a follower.

If that thought had entered Blair’s head, which it surely did since he had already seen a million march against the war, he did not succumb to it for reasons of retaining domestic popularity. Instead he put his job and reputation on the line. He did, as he said he did, what he “thought was right for this country.”  And two years later he won a third historical general election.

Still, under relentless attack, many in the country, encouraged by the press and anti-war groups, have decided he had lied.

I believe those people are wrong. They have been misled to that conclusion despite the evidence by a politically motivated all-pervasive press.

To me Mr Blair was and is a hero for all sorts of reasons and not just because he realised that he could be writing his own epitaph in blood. But he was not a prophet, expecting the worse, nor above all was he a villain.

As for the post-invasion period, I have never heard Mr Blair laying blame at anyone’s feet.  He does not seem to “do” blame, certainly not over the Iraq decisions. This despite the fact that on the ground the post-war situation was completely under the control of the Americans. If anyone miscalculated THEY did.

Watching the aftermath after Saddam’s statue fell, must have had Blair tearing his hair out. I certainly recalling thinking “What on earth …” as the police and US army stood by and watched as people looted shops and properties for all they were worth after the initial bombing. “No orders to stop them”, said the AMERICAN security forces.

Still, for most of this article, Mr Parris is to be commended.

We did not have a warmongering evil bastard as our prime minister for ten years. We did not have a man obsessed with mass murder when he agreed to go into Sierra Leone, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan.  We did not have a man who lied over the existence or otherwise of WMDs.

Blair was and is a good man, who like all of us, makes mistakes.

But for me Iraq was NOT a mistake and it will not be written in the fullness of time on his political tombstone. The aftermath, if it had been different, would have led to a whole different post mortem or perhaps to no post mortem at all.  As it is, right now, the aftermath is regarded as the main challenge to the war’s legitimacy. The many deaths and ongoing issues are laid at the feet of those who tried to put an end to this, and seldom at the feet of the Iraqi dictator. This has led to questioning of the motives of the allies in the first place. This, wrong-headed as it is, has been its downfall, and perhaps even Blair’s.

Saddam, if he were able, would be enjoying watching the crucifixion of his enemies by his enemies.

Parris’s Times article follows:

Going to war wasn’t heroic: it was a no-brainer

Tony Blair saw only victory when he sided with the biggest boy in the playground, not an ugly wound to his reputation

It is 160 years since Thomas Carlyle wrote On Heroes, Hero Worship and the Heroic in History, but the treatise was in my mind as I watched Sir Jeremy Greenstock, our former Ambassador to the United Nations, give evidence on Iraq to the Chilcot inquiry yesterday. Another time came flooding back. You could almost hear the drumbeat of war. Could Britain, could Tony Blair, have chosen to march to any other drum?

The invasion of Iraq at the beginning of our century provides a canvas so richly painted with the clash and convergence of interests, and so crowded with large and lurid personalities, that there is scope here for Carlylians (who believe individuals determine history) to do battle with Marxians (who see leaders as the playthings of larger forces) until the crack of doom. But narrow the focus on to one corner of the canvas: the heroism or otherwise of our own Prime Minister at the time.

I do think that a man can show heroism in a bad cause. I’ve argued consistently that the Iraq war was a rotten idea, but minds on both sides have more or less closed on that; and there’s a different question about Tony Blair’s role that still remains open. Did he act heroically — in the sense of the moral courage that makes a man grip fate by the lapels and, rather than let the flow carry him, swim against compelling circumstances, knowing that he takes a serious risk for himself or his career? A case, at least, can be made for Mr Blair as a hero in this sense.

He makes it himself all the time. It has become his mantra to close down discussion of the war itself with the remark that “you can argue” (I paraphrase) “about whether my decision to support George W. Bush was right or wrong, but please accept that at the cost of making many enemies I did what I believed to be right”.

He is asking all of us — pro or anti war — to acknowledge his heroism in the Carlylian sense: to accept that he made a call that took great guts, and that at an important national crossroads he set Britain down a road that we did not have to travel, but which he personally believed was right.

This is, in a sense, Mr Blair’s last resort: his final appeal to the court of history and potentially a potent one, as I’m sure he senses. Mr Blair is fond of repeating the cliché about Margaret Thatcher — “love her or loathe her, you knew where she stood” — and would like his own story to put us in mind of Martin Luther’s “Here I stand; I can do no other”. This is what that weird conference speech in 2000 about his “irreducible core” was all about.

And watching Sir Jeremy before the Chilcot committee yesterday, a remarkable paradox struck me. Tony Blair’s claim to heroism can indeed be securely rooted. But only in the belief that he was lying about the weapons of mass destruction.

Sir Jeremy was (rightly) reminding us that most people did at the time of the invasion think it quite likely that Saddam Hussein might have WMD. I certainly did. Colin Powell, then the US Secretary of State, appeared to have convinced himself too. Yesterday Sir Jeremy revealed that the representatives even of nations opposing the war had privately told him that if or when the “smoking gun” was found, they would reconsider.

So think yourself back to where Mr Blair was before the war started. He led a country tightly bound to supporting its close, senior and long-standing ally, the United States. He knew privately that George W. Bush was determined to invade Iraq, come what may. He had not a scintilla of doubt that (with or without British involvement) it would be a military success. He was untroubled by worries about the post-invasion running of Iraq: nobody at the top seems to have been troubled. And he believed that during or after the invasion, concealed weapons of terrible destructive power would be uncovered, and the world would see with its own eyes the evil and the danger of Saddam. And then opposition would melt away and all would concede that the invasion had been right.

The Tories believed this too. Wouldn’t any British prime minister conclude that to support Washington was obvious: the default option, the line of least resistance? There was a cost, of course — to be pecked at in the United Nations and suffer the French pouting for a couple of months; but Sir Jeremy was paid to endure that. As for public opinion, a minority was queasy, but the public are queasy about wars until they are won.

In these circumstances Britain’s response to Mr Bush’s plans was almost a no-brainer. By siding in the playground with the biggest boy — the US President — Mr Blair expected to emerge as a stalwart ally and war-winning prime minister, quite quickly gaining permanent admiration at the cost of a little immediate embarrassment.

Mr Blair didn’t dive into this war to swim against the tide. He simply mistook the tide. He didn’t contemplate for a moment the cost to his reputation, when he was exposed as having misled the nation on WMDs and cornered into a bloody and intractable counter-insurgency operation.

All that flak came later. In inviting us to see Mr Blair as having acted heroically, his supporters are conflating the trouble into which he finally and unexpectedly landed with the downside as it appeared when the decision was made.

Unless, that is, you think he knew that there were no WMDs, and simply lied, fully expecting Britain and America to find themselves in cruel and long-term international isolation. And that he foresaw the mess the allies would make of the occupation itself, and the years of carnage that would follow. In which case he deserves the name of prophet, and of hero, and of villain too.

But, no, Mr Blair surely didn’t lie about WMDs. He did what we all do: sure in our mind that a conclusion is true, we overstate the evidence for it, and expect to be vindicated.

Sadly, Mr Blair wasn’t. It was a sort of Oops. He wasn’t a hero and he wasn’t a villain. He just miscalculated. And that’s the most inglorious epitaph of all.

So then, the Iraq Inquiry is finally on.  Just for sport let me predict what the Inquiry’s headline conclusions will be:

• Those at the top genuinely did believe an active WMD program existed in Iraq
• This false belief was hardened by political interference in intelligence analysis.  Anything that seemed to raise the possibility of an active WMD program was given more weight than anything that contradicted it. This cemented the ‘group-think’ faith in the WMD case.
• We did not plan sufficiently for the post war ‘occupation’,  Or at least we didn’t protest enough to the Americans that they were not planning sufficiently.
• We faced a greater threat from Afghanistan/Pakistan and our energies would have been more usefully spent there.

There you go, Inquiry done.  Millions of man hours and tax payer’s money
saved.  I’ll link back to this post when the Inquiry is done and we can see how close I got…

I’m always very sceptical of these quasi-judicial show pieces. Think Bloody Sunday, think Arms-for-Iraq, think Diana, think Butler.  Millions is spent, much is said, the documentary record is completed – but then what?  Don’t get me wrong – I will avidly follow the Inquiry for two reasons:  First, you hope that at least a small grain of genuinely new information comes into the public domain. Second there is a guilty schadenfreud.  Watching people being grilled by armchair generals who have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight is like picking a scab.  You know it is of little benefit but you can’t stop yourself doing it.

Sadly, the outcome of these things rarely has a material impact – those who had inklings before the Inquiry that align with the final judgement will jump up and down saying ‘I told you so’, those who leaned the other way will reject the outcome and use the words ‘government white-wash’.  The lessons learned that are produced will be filed, then ignored, then forgotten, then repeated.  It was ever thus.

Dana Perino, who so far as I can tell is dumber than Sarah Palin, was on TV recently saying that, during George W. Bush’s presidency, the US had no terrorist attacks. I guess she has forgotten the attacks of 9/11 and the subsequent anthrax attacks. Or maybe she’s just lying, hoping that the public is stupid—and some are, God knows.

But Greenwald reminds us that the anthrax attacks were in fact important:

Britain is currently engulfed by a probing, controversial investigation into how their Government came to support the invasion of Iraq, replete with evidence that much of what was said at the time by both British and American officials was knowingly false, particularly regarding the unequivocal intention of the Bush administration to attack Iraq for months when they were pretending otherwise.  Yesterday, the British Ambassador to the U.S. in 2002 and 2003, Sir Christopher Meyer (who favored the war), testified before the investigative tribunal and said this:

Meyer said attitudes towards Iraq were influenced to an extent not appreciated by him at the time by the anthrax scare in the US soon after 9/11. US senators and others were sent anthrax spores in the post, a crime that led to the death of five people, prompting policymakers to claim links to Saddam Hussein. . . .

On 9/11 Condoleezza Rice, then the US national security adviser, told Meyer she was in "no doubt: it was an al-Qaida operation" . . . It seemed that Paul Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld’s deputy, argued for retaliation to include Iraq, Meyer said. . . .

But the anthrax scare had "steamed up" policy makers in Bush’s administration and helped swing attitudes against Saddam, who the administration believed had been the last person to use anthrax.

I’ve written many times before about how the anthrax attack played at least as large of a role as the 9/11 attack itself, if not larger, in creating the general climate of fear that prevailed for years in the U.S. and specifically how the anthrax episode was exploited by leading media and political figures to gin up intense hostility towards Iraq (a few others have argued the same).  That’s why it’s so striking how we’ve collectively flushed this terrorist attack down the memory hole as though it doesn’t exist.  When Dana Perino boasted this week on Fox News that "we did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush’s term," most of the resulting derision focused on the 9/11 attack while ignoring — as always — the anthrax attack.

What makes this particularly significant is that the anthrax attack is unresolved and uninvestigated.  The FBI claimed last year that it had identified the sole perpetrator, Bruce Ivins, but because Ivins is dead, they never had the opportunity — or the obligation — to prove their accusations in any meaningful tribunal.  The case against Ivins is so riddled with logical and evidentiary holes that it has generated extreme doubts not merely from typical government skeptics but from the most mainstream, establishment-revering, and ideologically disparate sources.  Just consider some of the outlets and individuals who have stated unequivocally that the FBI’s case against Ivinis is unpersuasive and requires a meaningful investigation:  The Washington Post Editorial Page; The New York Times Editorial Page;The Wall St. Journal Editorial Page; the science journal Nature; Senators Pat Leahy, Arlen Specter and Charles Grassley; physicist and Congressman Rush Holt, whose New Jersey district was where the anthrax letters were sent; Dr. Alan Pearson, Director of the Biological and Chemical Weapons Control Program at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation; and a vast array of scientific and legal experts in the field.

Here we have one of the most consequential political events of the last decade at least — a lethal biological terrorist attack aimed at key U.S. Senators and media figures, which even the FBI claims originated from a U.S. military lab.  The then-British Ambassador to the U.S. is now testifying what has long been clear:  that this episode played a huge role in enabling the attack on Iraq.  Even our leading mainstream, establishment-serving media outlets — and countless bio-weapons experts — believe that we do not have real answers about who perpetrated this attack and how.  And there is little apparent interest in investigating in order to find out.  Evidently, this is just another one of those things that we’ll relegate to "the irrelevant past," and therefore deem it unworthy of attention from our future-gazing, always-distracted minds.

Here’s a story about my recent new book release, written by Emily Christensen of the Waterloo Courier. It was originally posted here on Thanksgiving Day.

Ed Stoddard of Reuters’ religion blog Faithworld carries a roundup of the skirmish between Congressman Patrick Kennedy, the son of the late Senator Edward Kennedy, has claimed that Rhode Island Bishop Thomas Tobin.

In conclusion, Stoddard asks:

This leads to a question about the consistency of views in the U.S. Catholic Church leadership. The Church opposes abortion and therefore liberal politicians who support abortion rights risk being refused communion. The Church supports a healthcare overhaul that would make the system more equitable. So does a conservative Catholic politician who opposes this reform risk being denied communion for ignoring the Catholic social teaching that justifies it?

How about support for capital punishment, which the Vatican says is unjustified in almost all possible cases, or for war? In the build-up to the Iraq war, Pope John Paul was so opposed to the plan that he sent a personal envoy to Washington to argue against it. Did bishops threaten any measures against Catholic politicians who energetically supported that war despite Vatican opposition?

The author’s questions reveal an elementary ignorance concerning the moral issues in question and their relationship to varying levels of Church teaching. While I am disappointed by his answer (Faithworld is generally one of the better and more educational “religion blogs” in the secular media), it is understandable — as even many Catholics find themselves confused on this matter.

The basic difference between abortion and capital punishment (or the waging of armed force) is that the Church has firmly and explicitly taught that the former is an intrinsic evil: the direct taking of innocent human life to be opposed everywhere and at all times, while the moral worth of the latter two measures are contingent upon specific criteria and circumstance.

In the case of capital punishment, see the Catechism of the Catholic Church’s discussion of the fifth commandment, specifically the matter of “legitimate defense” (sections #2263-2267); on the matter of the waging of armed force, the Catholic tradition’s criteria for a “just war” (sections #2307-2317).

But is it not true that the Church has explicitly opposed contemporary instances of capital punishment or war? — If so, why have the Bishops not sought to impose similar restrictions on communion on those officials in public life favoring the use of capital punishment, or expressing their support of U.S. foreign policy in Iraq — a conflict on which both Pope John Paul II and even our present Pope (then-Cardinal Ratzinger) made their opposition known? Aren’t such figures not in open dissent and in a state of obstinate sin against the Church as well?

It seems to me that the response lies in the following teaching of the Catechism on the delineation of responsibility:

With regards to the determination of moral criteria, the Catechism maintains “The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.”

As to the nature of “prudential judgment”, Russell Shaw — himself a vehement critic and opponent of the Iraq War — provided the following explanation in “Iraq, Weigel and the Pope” (Catholic Exchange. March 31, 2003 — defending the ‘Catholic neocons’ legitimate right to disagree with John Paul II):

The notion of prudential judgment may need explaining. “Prudential” refers to prudence, and prudence these days has a bad name with people for whom it signifies lack of courage and failure of nerve. In the tradition, however, prudence is one of the cardinal virtues upon which other virtues depend. The function of prudence in this sense is to keep us in touch with morally relevant facts.

Given the limits of human knowledge, even prudential judgments by prudent people can be mistaken. In the present instance, the pope and Catholics who differed with him — conscientious and informed people like Novak, Weigel and Hudson — based their stands on an assessment of likely consequences of different courses of action. Since the assessments of what was more or less likely to happen in the future were different, so were the conclusions about what course of action to take.

To disagree with the pope in this manner is not dissent. It’s not as if Pope John Paul II had taught a definitive moral principle (e.g., direct attacks on noncombatants are ruled out) which the disagreeing Catholics rejected. They agreed with the principle. They disagreed about something contingent and by no means certain: what the future outcome of complex, competing scenarios was likely to be.

I believe that such an exercise of prudential judgment could equally be made in the exercise of capital punishment — where, for example, a Catholic public prosecutor might be compelled to respectfully disagree with a bishop in judgment of the means required in legitimate defense of society.

It is presumed that in such cases those who disagreed with the Pope on the justness of the Iraq war or the exercise of capital punishment were not disputing Catholic principles governing the dispute. George Weigel or the late Father Neuhaus, for example, while differing with the U.S. Bishops’ reading and application of just war criteria, could not be described as seeking to challenge or dismiss the criteria altogether.

Contrast this with Rep. Kennedy’s disparaging remarks about the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for their recent letter to the House of Representatives, reminding them of the Catholic Church’s opposition to any legislation in health-care reform that would include funding for abortions or fail to include conscience-protections for health-care providers — a position which he explicitly ridiculed (warranting Bishop Tobin’s response). In such a case, the words and oftentimes legislative actions of Kennedy (or like-minded figures as Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden or Kathleen Sebelius, to name a few) stand in clear and direct opposition, in what is aptly described by Tobin as an obstinate rejection of Church teaching on abortion.

As then-Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, put it succinctly in a 2004 letter to the U.S. Bishops articulating “general principles” on this very matter:

Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.

4. Apart from an individual’s judgment about his worthiness to present himself to receive the Holy Eucharist, the minister of Holy Communion may find himself in the situation where he must refuse to distribute Holy Communion to someone, such as in cases of a declared excommunication, a declared interdict, or an obstinate persistence in manifest grave sin (cf. can. 915).

5. Regarding the grave sin of abortion or euthanasia, when a person’s formal cooperation becomes manifest (understood, in the case of a Catholic politician, as his consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws), his Pastor should meet with him, instructing him about the Church’s teaching, informing him that he is not to present himself for Holy Communion until he brings to an end the objective situation of sin, and warning him that he will otherwise be denied the Eucharist.

In light of which, it would appear that Thomas Tobin was fulfilling his obligations as a Bishop of the Catholic Church in responding to Representative Kennedy in such a manner.

Robert Koehler, SC:

In the cradle of civilization, young women have become terrified about having children.

This is the news I take with me into Thanksgiving and the season of gratitude and family togetherness: that doctors in Fallujah, the Iraqi city we devastated in two military assaults in 2004, have begun documenting a startling rise in birth defects — about 15 times the pre-invasion occurrence of early-life cancers and brain and nervous-system abnormalities, according to the U.K.’s Guardian.

A group of British and Iraqi doctors have petitioned the United Nations to investigate the situation, which is clearly related to the U.S. invasion and occupation. According to their letter: “In September 2009, Fallujah General Hospital had 170 newborn babies, 24 percent of whom were dead within the first seven days (and) a staggering 75 percent of the dead babies were classified as deformed.” In comparison, the letter said, in August 2002 — before the invasion — 530 babies were born; six of them died within the first week, with a single birth defect reported.

Young women in Fallujah, the doctors wrote, “are terrified of having children because of the increasing number of babies born grotesquely deformed, with no heads, two heads, a single eye in their foreheads, scaly bodies or missing limbs.”

What might be causing this nightmare? The most likely factors are chemical or radiation poisoning, according to the Nov. 14 Guardian article, which noted: “Abnormal clusters of infant tumors have also been repeatedly cited in Basra and Najaf — areas that have in the past also been intense battle zones where modern munitions have been heavily used.”

Comment at end

27th November, 2009

One of the most entertaining things to watch these days is ‘worthy’ journos flailing around to try to find the “smoking gun”. Not WMDs. We ALL KNOW they’re under the Syrian desert.

The “smoking gun” in this case is nothing less than the reason(s) WHY Mr Blair took this country into the war in Iraq.

Steve Richards, a kind of occasional on-and-0ff Blair supporter thinks he knows here. Somebody told him about a meeting with Blair where it seems that Blair said he didn’t want to be like previous Labour leaders.

R-I-I-I-ight. Can’t blame him for that.

And also something about getting Britain into the euro, and getting rid of Brown.

R-I-I-I-ight. Can’t blame him for those either.

What makes me smile about this kind of analysis is that it takes a certain position, here it’s Blair’s determination NOT to be a typical anti-Europe/anti-war/anti-American/anti-Tory Labour leader – and builds from it a ’smoking gun’.

Though believable in places this article is far too facile. It seems that the “evidence is being built around the policy” as it were.

Richards says:

“Blair led the domestic coalition of support that he felt most comfortable with, partly because he thought he would challenge it once: when he took up what he regarded as his historic mission to join the euro. It was in this context that he was uncharacteristically relaxed about media attacks that portrayed him as “Bush’s poodle”. He told allies: “At least they wont be able to accuse me of being anti-American when we have the referendum on the euro.

“Shortly after the war, in the summer of 2003, Blair turned his mind to the euro and was livid when Brown as Chancellor placed impossible obstacles in front of him. He wanted to prove then that he was as much a pro-European as he was pro-Bush.

Once the strategic decision was taken, that a new Labour PM would stand shoulder to shoulder with a Republican President, the course was set.

What of the substance of the issue? We know the answer to that. Recently Cherie Blair described her husband’s decision on Iraq as a “close call”. The substance of the issue was finely balanced, as it was for many, but as far as Blair was concerned the domestic calculations pointed overwhelmingly in one direction. They have not been considered by the succession of inquiries into why Britain went to war.”

1. Nick Clegg has MADE it! Someone agrees with him? Who? Hizb ut-Tahrir, no less. Well, Lib-Dems, already on the wrong side of history over Iraq, have to take support where they can find it. (HuT schools supported by Government. You decide on this one. Even Blairless Labour can’t be THAT mad, surely? SURELY?!)

2. This Telegraph commenter at the Mad George Pitcher’s site mentions something which is counter-intuitively in tune with another reason WHY ‘Blair and the Smoking Gun’. I doubt that the commenter meant this interpretation to be taken on the oft-used “oil” conspiracy. But it has the benefit of showing a wider picture, if a little skewed, in opposition to the picture he really meant us to see.

My picture from this?

A prime minister who had concerns over us continuing to live the life we’d voted him in to protect. Cold anyone?

As a point of clarification – this is not to say that Blair DID go to war in order to secure the warmth in our homes and fuel in our vehicles – I don’t accept that he did. But it is so say that there were many considerations feeding into the decision. Geo-politics DID play a part, there can be litttle doubt.

Relevant comment follows:

‘I think the big question is less to do with the personalities of Blair and his cabinet, and Bush and his admin and more to do with why the whole lot of them bent the evidence.

I don’t agree that it is a settled fact that the war was legal. The British Attorney General certainly changed his mind on that; but it is a side issue. Much the most important question is did anyone really believe that Saddam had WMD? I can’t believe the evidence was as clear and unambiguous that war was justified if there were absolutely non to be found after the invasion. There were not none as in a few but not usable, or as in a whole working programme but no stocks due to lack of materials: There were none as, all destroyed long ago and the programme a myth.

It seems information regarding the closure of the WMD programme was out and the lie was that the opposite was kept going to justify a war. Why? What was the real reason for the war? The Americans seem to have been going to attack anyway and Blair may have gone along for any number of reasons but he cannot have done that alone so how did he and the intelligence agencies convince so many people of the necessity? Even if Saddam had WMD he had that capability for years before and was no more dangerous by 2003; so could have been contained. Why not invade North Korea?

This is probably the only chance left of exposing the truth about the reason for the invasion which has to be oil and the American desire for a Middle East client state and the creation of new bases in the region to control the last viable carbon energy reserves outside Iran and Russia and the Caucasus. That truth may be so bloody obvious people are taking it as read but I think it should be exposed because it is more immoral than anything else. It is the truth that dare not be spoken because we all know it. We all know Blair and Bush were doing it to keep our lives as we like them. They did the unspeakable so that the petrol for the school run remained affordable.’

3. Another Know-All, the most unpleasant Paul Routledge at The Mirror

‘But the only person most of us want to see in the dock is the former Prime Minister who took us into an illegal war in 2003 on the basis of lies.

Early testimony has shown that Blair KNEW Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction and had NO links to al-Qaeda

The fibbing ex-Premier may not be called until the New Year, so the investigation into what went wrong in this ill-considered military adventure will cast a long shadow over Gordon Brown’s bid to recover public trust.’

“In the DOCK”? What? You mean it IS the Trial of Tony Blair as I have been warning for months and Anne McElvoy has just cottoned on to?

McElvoy quotes:

‘Gordon Brown hopes to escape a grilling on the grounds that as Chancellor, he was peripheral to the critical decision-making.

His predecessor, however, will be at the centre of the proceedings. “No one is on trial here,” said Sir John in his opening remarks. But for many the inquiry is the long-awaited trial of Tony Blair.’

[...]

‘Lord Falconer captures the ambivalence in the old Blair team about the investigation. “I fear public opinion won’t be satisfied until some form of inquiry condemns Blair.

“I hope that this one is sufficiently authoritative to deal with that anxiety.” At the same time, he says, Blair remains convinced that he was right to go to war.’

4. Another one of the DECIDED, Scott Ritter here at The Guardian probably sees no irony in THIS remark:

‘In short, Saddam had been found guilty of possessing WMD, and his sentence had been passed down by Washington and London void of any hard evidence that such weapons, or even related programmes, even existed. The sentence meted out – regime termination – mandated such a massive deployment of troops and material that all but the wilfully blind or intentionally ignorant had to know by the early autumn of 2002 that war with Iraq was inevitable.’

Whereas, of course, Tony Blair has been found guilty of NOT having found WMDs and therefore his sentence has been passed down by the press – freedom termination – mandated by, so they tell us, public opinion.

Touche?

Good.

Now go hang yourselves.

Tim Johnston (26/11/09)

One of the most blatant follies of this inquiry is that of its very heading – it is an “inquiry”.  This should not be an “inquiry”.  There has been a mountain of evidence inquired after through government programmes in the past, along with the stacks of evidence that have come out not necessarily of government-run enquiries, but from the UN, HRW, Amnesty International, intellectuals, politicians, newspapers, medical journals etc.  The evidence is there. 

In fact, one has to try very hard indeed in order to ignore it.…[Continue Reading]