Bush, Religion, and War

Sobran.com ^ | April 22, 2003 | Joseph Sobran

[The_Expatriate]

Bush, Religion, and War
by Joseph Sobran

The hawks got their war, but it came at a heavy cost to America’s image and reputation in the world. As they tell it, France, Germany, and Russia were the petulant spoilers who tried to ruin the party. But this ignores the war’s huge unpopularity nearly everywhere, not so much with governments (which can be bullied and bribed) as with ordinary people. It also ignores the real spoiler: Pope John Paul II, who, in his measured words, made his own opposition to the war very clear.

Robert L. Bartley of the Wall Street Journal couples the Pope with “the voices of liberal Protestantism, which once again finds itself out of step with the pews.” He adds, “The Pope has the same problem, of course.” And he quotes polls to prove it: “62 per cent of both Catholics and mainline Protestants backed the war.”

Bartley forgets to mention one little fact: these are polls of American Catholics, a small fraction of the world’s vast Catholic population. So the Pope is only “out of step” with American pews.

“As for the Iraq war,” Bartley concludes, “what do the Pope and liberal theologians make of the cheering crowds in Baghdad and Saddam’s torture chambers? The president’s success has confounded his critics.... Somehow it’s better, I suspect, for a president to talk to God than to talk to pollsters.”

The non sequiturs are running almost too fast to keep up with here. How is the Pope’s moral opposition “confounded” by the war’s success? Did he suggest that the war would be justified if the United States won? Since when is “success” the Christian standard of righteousness?

Note too the implication that the Pope — of all men on earth! — should be attentive to opinion polls, while a president should disregard them (even though they favor him — in the United States, anyway). And now the war is justified by cheering crowds and torture chambers? What about 9/11, terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, and all the other urgent reasons we were still being given only a few weeks ago?

Ah, success! Americans are rather notorious for measuring all things by the “bitch goddess, success.” If you win, it must mean you deserved to win. America loves success stories, from Reader’s Digest to Business Week to Vanity Fair. You too can be a success! That’s the American gospel.

The Four Gospels tell a different story. They weren’t taking polls yet on the first Good Friday, but if they had, Jesus Christ would have been rated a pretty abject failure. He died a miserable criminal’s death, covered with the mob’s spit, and his followers had scattered in fear. It didn’t look like the beginning of the greatest success story in human history.

Unlike the modern CEO, Christ didn’t surround himself with successful men. He chose poor fishermen and despised tax collectors, and he kept company with rather flagrant sinners. The Sermon on the Mount doesn’t read like a modern motivational speech to a roomful of ambitious executives. It wouldn’t do as a think piece in Bartley’s paper.

Ever since, Christians have been taught to be wary of worldly success — indeed, to sympathize with the poor and to glorify the martyr. Bartley implies that President Bush talks to God rather than pollsters, but whom has he surrounded himself with? Big businessmen and, if not tax collectors, men who are eager to spend our taxes, especially on war.

It’s one thing to defend the president on political grounds. It’s another to offer him as a model of the Christian virtues. Only God can judge his heart, but the appearances suggest a man of worldly aptitudes rather than supernatural virtues. When a Christian is praised for “success” in the Wall Street Journal, it may be time for him to take a good look at himself. It’s possible he’s succeeding with the wrong crowd.

Bush is the most famously religious president since Jimmy Carter; yet we know little of his specific religious views, especially as they bear on his foreign policy. As Bartley mentions, about 40 per cent of Americans believe that these are the last days before Christ’s return. Does Bush share this belief, and has it shaped his views on war in the Middle East?

These aren’t nosy questions. Bush’s theology, like the Pope’s, may affect the fate of millions.

[Aloysius]

When a Christian is praised for “success” in the Wall Street Journal, it may be time for him to take a good look at himself. It’s possible he’s succeeding with the wrong crowd.

That says it all. Any endorsement of one's actions by the WSJ should be a wake-up call to any God-fearing individual.

[DreamWeaver]

Bump

For later reading.

[JWinNC]

"That says it all. Any endorsement of one's actions by the WSJ should be a wake-up call to any God-fearing individual."

Why?

JWinNC

[Aloysius]

Why?

Because it's a neo-con (liberal), new world order, Godless rag.

[ultima ratio]

This is nonsense. We won because we deposed a tyrant. The Iraqi people won, because after thirty years of suffering somebody gave a damn and helped rescue them. If we had listened to the Pope, the Iraqi people would have been doomed to another three decades of Hell--under Saddam's "kids"--as Tom Brokaw called them in a revealing slip of the tongue on live camera. The Pope usually sides with the despots, as he does now with Castro, as he did with Saddam, as he does now with his own corrupt prelates. How this opposition to the war can be justified is beyond me. All the polls show is that the world--as usual--is corrupt and doesn't give a damn for the little guy so long as the status quo is maintained. The Pope agreed. Thank God Bush has a whole lot more sense--and humanity.

[Proud2BAmerican]

The Pope usually sides with the despots

What a steaming pile of bullshit.

[ultima ratio]

Nice turn of phrase on your part. But what I said is still true. He sided with Saddam. He sides with Castro. He sides with Mahoney, for that matter. He loved Law and Weakland. The people never mattered, not in Iraq, not in California. This is a pope who sides with authority--whether it has the approval of the masses or not. That is the record. Check it out.

[ultima ratio]

I will grant one caveat: he will condemn authorities--when they rule from the right.

[Proud2BAmerican]

Baloney. I must have a sado-masochistic streak to talk with you about this subject -- your hatred of the Pope has been made abundantly clear numerous times -- but he did not SIDE with tyrants. Are you on crack?! Can you honestly believe that the Pope sits there and thinks, "Hey, you know, this Saddam guy, he ain't all that bad -- so what, a few hundred thousand, maybe more than a million, murders...What's the biggie? I think I'll try taking his side and see what happens."

I know you can't be thick-headed enough to realize the complexity of the situation, and that accusing the Pope of "siding" w/ these tyrants would be like trying to paint the Mona Lisa w/ a paint roller.

The Pope does not favor tyrants. He does not favor dictators who oppress and murder his people. He does however, believe in the power of God, Jesus Christ, and that peaceful avenues of resolution had not been exhausted.

[Proud2BAmerican]

Who has a more murderous regime -- the United States or Iraq? (murderous meaning, who has murdered more innocent lives)

[ultima ratio]

Last count Saddam murdered over three hundred fifty thousand plus--not counting the million Iranians he gassed in one of his wars of aggression. This doesn't include tongues cut out, ears sliced off or women raped. Nor does it include the thousands of innocent men, women and children imprisoned without trial and tortured at will. The US liberated Iraq at a cost of around 2000 Iraqi civilian lives--unfortunate, but inevitable, even in a war as careful of protecting civilians as ours was. Iraqis continue to thank us for being liberated.

[ultima ratio]

This pope favored Saddam over the United States. He invited Saddam's envoy, Tariq Aziz to the Vatican in a deliberate effort to undermine Bush's diplomacy at the UN. By doing so, he gave legitimacy and stature to a tyrant and undermined any effort to get Saddam to step down peacefully. It was the Pope's Secretary of State, moreover, that accused Bush of waging a war of aggression and it was the Vatican that published the accusation that the United States coveted Iraqi oil. The Pontiff--like other leftists, including Chirac and Shroeder--viewed the United States with more alarm than Saddam's Iraq which had already waged two wars of conquest against neighbor states and had held its own people in horrific bondage for three decades. The pope has reason to feel shame.

As for the ridiculous accusation that I "hate the Pope"--I have only this to say: there is a difference between hate and legitimate criticism. I criticize the Pope because he has been harmful as a leader of the Church and has a reputation far in advance of what he deserves, given his lack of accomplishments in ecclesiastical affairs. I say again, he has elevated apostates and charletans, men of little faith and quirky libidos. I will grant the Pope helped galvanize the Poles which eventually brought down the Soviet Union, but I will not grant he has ever done anything comparably constructive within the Church. He has not protected the Deposit of Faith and has allowed belief to dwindle and for this he is answerable.

[ultima ratio]

What "complexity"? Liberals always mock the clarity of right and wrong. For them everything is complex, shades of gray--except where the US is concerned, in which case we're always wrong--no shade then except black.

The Iraqis suffered horrific evil for thirty years. Saddan violated a UN truce for twelve. France and Russia and Germany--supported by the Pope--would have been content to spend another twelve chasing after moonbeams while they cynically raked-in billions through sweetheart deals with Saddam. Meanwhile people were being shoved alive into giant shredders. Kids were tortured before their parents, wives raped before their husbands.

And while we're at it, what is the "complexity" behind the Pope's failure to condemn the despotism of Castro, do you suppose? The Cuban dictator is going around giving life sentences to librarians for speaking against the government--not ten, twenty years, mind you, but LIFE. He is executing people for the crime of wanting to leave the giant prison of which he is the warden forever. What gives Castro his legitimacy except brute force? Why is the Pope not outraged, why doesn't he support his own Vatican agency which calls for him to condemn Castro--tapping the tyrant on the wrist in a weakly worded letter?

[ultima ratio]

"tapping the tyrant on the wrist in a weakly worded letter" should read "INSTEAD OF tapping the tyrant, etc."

[Proud2BAmerican]

This pope favored Saddam over the United States.

Wrong.

He invited Saddam's envoy, Tariq Aziz to the Vatican in a deliberate effort to undermine Bush's diplomacy at the UN.

Bull again. You don't know the Pope's intentions.

By doing so, he gave legitimacy and stature to a tyrant and undermined any effort to get Saddam to step down peacefully.

Wrong yet again. You act as though JPII had Tariq over to play Scrabble and drink beers.

The Pontiff--like other leftists, including Chirac and Shroeder--viewed the United States with more alarm than Saddam's Iraq which had already waged two wars of conquest against neighbor states and had held its own people in horrific bondage for three decades. The pope has reason to feel shame.

Possibly he does. But compare Saddam's brutal regime with our nation that has murdered millions and millions of unborn babies. The U.S. *definitely* has Saddam outscored in the murder category. The Pope may indeed have reason to feel shame, but it's not for anything that you or I are aware of.

I criticize the Pope because he has been harmful as a leader of the Church and has a reputation far in advance of what he deserves, given his lack of accomplishments in ecclesiastical affairs.

It's harmful for him to be a tireless defender of the dignity of human life and the sanctity of the unborn, the elderly, the infirm? Sorry, you're wrong here again. No other contemporary voice has done more to articulate and speak out for those who are unable to speak out on their own behalf. Try reading his book "Crossing the Threshold." See if you still feel the same way. He's a living saint. We're blessed to be Catholics with him as the vicar of Christ.

He has not protected the Deposit of Faith and has allowed belief to dwindle and for this he is answerable.

Wrong. He hasn't allowed it -- he has fought to increase that faith. His words and actions have electrified millions of Catholic youth worldwide. His words have helped bring untold numbers back to the barque of St. Peter - myself and many of my friends included, and from what my friends and family have told me, many of THEIR friends and family too.

[Proud2BAmerican]

And I guess Eugenion Pacelli should have come out of the Vatican to meet the Nazis, guns blazing, huh? You remind me of armchair quarterbacks who just KNOW that if they were the coach, their team would have prevailed. Never mind the fact that if the armchair quarterback was capable -- or even RIGHT -- he'd be the one on the sidelines w/ the Motorola headphones on.

What "complexity"?

The complexity that maybe the Pope had in mind a peaceful plan that might have been able to effect a solution without resorting to war that would have resulted in the deaths of innocents. You dont' have much faith in God, but the Pope does.

France and Russia and Germany--supported by the Pope--

Direct me to the quotes of the Pope coming out and saying how great he thought Russia and France are for their position on the Iraq war. Or are you meaning to say that the Pope, like France and Russia, were opposed to war? There's a difference you know.

Why is the Pope not outraged, why doesn't he support his own Vatican agency which calls for him to condemn Castro--tapping the tyrant on the wrist in a weakly worded letter?

For one thing, you and I do not know how the Pope truly feels about Castro -- we're not privvy to his thoughts. We're not even privvy to private conversations of the Pope. The irony in all of this is that using your line of reasoning, St. Paul should have been decapitated while he was still Saul, thus depriving us of the great evangelist, apostle, and tool of the Holy Spirit in authoring Scripture. But miracle of miracles, God converted him to Christ. Oh, but miracles don't really happen anymore, right? God's power to convert the heart has a 12-year expiration date.

[Proud2BAmerican]

Last count Saddam murdered over three hundred fifty thousand plus-

He's a one-car auto wreck compared to the U.S.'s nuclear detonation of abortion.

[ultima ratio]

It is better to be free in a land that permits abortion than a slave in a land that does not. Freedom brings with it a lot of moral depravity--we can't control the behavior of free people. But still for all its imperfections it is the best system there is.

You need to read the following from today's Wall Street Journal:
____________________________________________________________

AFTER THE WAR

Thank You
An Iraqi poet celebrates the dictator's fall.

BY AWAD NASIR
Thursday, May 8, 2003 12:01 a.m. EDT

Let me confess something: I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw Saddam Hussein's statue toppled in Baghdad.

I am a poet and know that eyes can, and do, deceive.

For three decades, part of them spent in prison, part in hiding and part in exile, I had often dreamed of an end to the nightmare of the Baathist-fascist regime. But I had never dreamed that the end, that is to say Iraq's liberation, would come the way it did.

Again and again, I watched the footage showing the fall of the statue. It was as if I was afraid it might slip from the realm of my memory. But it was not until my sister, whom I had not seen for years, phoned me from Baghdad that I was convinced that "The Vampire" had fallen and that we were free.

"Hello Awad," my sister said, her voice trembling. "The nightmare is over. We are free. Do you realize? We are free!"

It was not the mullahs of Tehran and their Islamic Revolutionary Guards who liberated the Iraqi Shiites.

Nor was it Turkey's army that came to rescue the Iraqi Turkomans from Saddam's clutches.

Amr Moussa, the Arab League's secretary-general, and the corrupt regimes he speaks for, did not liberate Iraqi Arab nationalists.

Iraq's democrats, now setting up their parties and publishing their newspapers, were not liberated by Jacques Chirac. Nor did the European left liberate Iraq's communists, now free to resume their activities inside Iraq.

No, believe it or not, Iraqis of all faiths, ethnic backgrounds and political persuasions were liberated by young men and women who came from the other side of the world--from California and Wyoming, from New York, Glasgow, London, Sydney and Gdansk to risk their lives, and for some to die, so that my people can live in dignity.

Those who died to liberate our country are heroes in their own lands. For us they will be martyrs and heroes. They have gained an eternal place in our hearts, one that is forever reserved for those who gave their lives in more than three decades of struggle against the Baathist regime.

It is not only the people of Iraq who are grateful for the end of a nightmare. A majority of Arabs and Muslims are also grateful.

The chorus of lamentation for Saddam consists of a few isolated figures espousing the bankrupt ideologies of pan-Arabism and Islamism. A Moroccan Islamist tells us that the American presence in Iraq is "a punishment from Allah" for Muslims because of their "weakening faith." But if the toppling of a tyrant is punishment, then I pray that Allah will bring similar punishments on other Arab nations that endure despotic rule.

The U.S. and its allies should not listen to those who wished to maintain Saddam in power and who, now that he's gone, are trying to find a clone to put on a throne in Baghdad. Those who are urging the coalition to leave Iraq as soon as possible wish none of us any good. A precipitate departure could trigger intervention by Iraq's predatory neighbors and foment civil war.

Replacing one of the most vicious tyrannies with a working democratic system is no easy task. But it is a task worthy of the world's bravest democracies.

The U.S. and its allies took grave risks and showed exceptional courage in standing up against powers such as France and Russia, and their unwitting allies in the "peace movement," who tried their desperate best to prolong Saddam's rule. We now know that many of those "peaceniks" were actually in the pay of Saddam. Documents seized from the fallen regime are being studied by Iraqis and will expose the professional "peaceniks" everywhere.

The U.S. and its allies should be prepared to take a further risk, and ignore the supposedly disinterested advice of France, Russia and the Arab regimes to salvage the political and social legacy of the dictatorship. Last February, the U.S. and Britain stood firm and insisted that Iraq must be liberated, regardless of whatever anyone might say. Today, they must remain equally firm in asserting that Iraq must be democratized. They should not leave Iraq until they are asked to do so by a freely elected Iraqi regime in Baghdad.

In the meantime Jacques Chirac, Vladimir Putin, Kofi Annan and others have no authority to speak on behalf of my people.

[ultima ratio]

You show your ignorance of history. Pius XI and Pius XII both spoke out forcefully against Nazism from the very beginning. Pius XII muted his opposition only after Hitler had conquered all of Europe--and did so at the request of the Jews themselves who feared Hitler would step-up the persecutions out of spite. But no one ever doubted where he stood. Besides, Pius XII operated behind the scenes all during the war, producing fake passports and safe passage for hundreds of thousands, hiding almost a million more, providing food for around 800,000 refugees, some of them hiding in the Vatican.

As against that, what had this Pope done for the suffering Iraqis except talk perfumed words about peace? You mention that maybe he had a "peaceful plan". This is laughable--there was no "peaceful plan" except more endless debates in the UN, more years of pointless resolutions, more dithering over actions that never materialize, more Hell-on-earth meanwhile for the Iraqis waiting to be liberated. One man acted: George W. Bush. The Pope joined the ditherers--as he is doing right now with Cuba. Apparently you fancy the idea Iraqis should have been content to have their family members slaughtered for the next twelve years or beyond--until the Pope might possibly convert Saddam. What a lot of nonsense. I say the Pope should have been outraged that one evil man should hold twenty-four million citizens hostage to his terror. That he showed no outrage at such pure despotism, but was willing to let it go on for years longer--was unconscionable. Instead of wagging his finger at Saddam, he wagged it at US--and that spoke volumes.

As for his supporting France and Germany--who do you think was orchestrating all those marches everywhere around the world? The Pope horned right in on all of it, inviting Tariq Aziz to the Vatican in the midst of all the hoopla. He became a hero among the same people swooning over Chirac. It was all of a piece--France, Germany, Russia and the Vatican against Bush and Blair. Nobody gave a damn about the Iraqis--the big animus was against the US.

You're right about not being privy to the Pope's thoughts. This Pope is very tight-fisted about disclosing anything about himself or about what he thinks. He explains nothing. He elevates a cardinal who is an apostate, who openly and publicly doubts the Resurrection ever happened--but he doesn't explain such a horrendous act. He is silent about the recent crackdown in Cuba--but doesn't say why. He allows men like Mahoney to flourish everywhere and doesn't lift a pinky to reign in their excesses. So you're right--he doesn't explain--ever. People read into his silence all sorts of things--from sanctity to great wisdom. All I see is someone who has an innate distaste for confronting evil.