INTERESTING SUMMARY OF THE VATICAN'S ATTITUDE TO THE AMERICAN PRESENCE IN IRAQ

The Vatican opposed the American invasion but now supports the American presence!

So during the months of the war in Iraq, various and sometimes opposing approaches operated at the highest levels of the Church, under the insignia of pope Wojtlya. But these different approaches were essentially reconciled beginning in the autumn of 2003. The turning point was the terrorist bloodbath in Nassiriya on November 12. And the new orientation was marked by cardinal Ruini's homily at the Mass for the nineteen Italians who were killed:

"To love even our enemies: this is the great treasure that we must not permit to be stolen from our consciences and our hearts, not even on the part of the terrorist assassins. We will not run away from them, but will face them with all the courage, energy, and determination of which we are capable. But we will not hate them; on the contrary, we will not grow weary of exerting ourselves to make them understand that all of our effort, including our military effort, is aimed at safeguarding and promoting a humane coexistence in which there is room and dignity for every people, culture, and religion."

From that point onward, beginning with that memorable "we will not run away," the Holy See consistently defined, not as an "occupation," but as a "mission of peace," the presence of Western troops in Iraq in defense of the nascent democracy.

This same realist line, which had forcefully opposed the war at the Vatican, now defended its results and demanded that the soldiers remain in Iraq as long as necessary, to safeguard the formation of a new order, free and peaceful, which, as precarious as it might be, is seen as much more acceptable than leaving this crucial country to its own devices.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

Projection again: It's the Leftists who live in a "bubble": "To a remarkable degree, America's liberal elites have constructed for themselves a comfortable, supportive, and self esteem-enhancing environment. The most prestigious and widest-reaching media outlets reinforce their views, rock stars and film makers provide lyrics and stories making their points, college professors tell them they are right, and the biggest foundations like Ford fund studies to prove them correct. It has been a disaster for them..... As a result, liberal discourse has become an in-group code, perfectly understandable and comforting among the elect, but increasingly disconnected from everyone else, and off-putting to those not included in the ranks of the in-group. Rather than focusing on facts, logic, and persuasion, liberals find it easier to employ labeling ("That's racist!") and airy dismissal of contrary views to sway their audience, and because their authority figures in the media and academia accept this behavior, they assume it is persuasive to the rest of us. Even worse (for them), the self-reinforcement they experience in their geographical, academic and media strongholds encourages more and more extreme expression of their worldview. Within the in-group, such strong expression of group norms earns prestige. But to the rest of society it becomes stranger and stranger, until it becomes repellant".

The Democrat love-affair with evil: "So what is the real reason the Democrats seem so eager to help Al Qaeda? There are two reasons: they like America and Republicans even less than they like Al Qaeda. Bleeding heart Democrats were once known to be pro criminal, and now they are know to be pro terrorist. They were and to a large, but quieter, extent still are pro criminal because they believed an evil, capitalist, individualistic, Republican America produced criminals, and so they did everything they could to coddle criminals and blame America for producing them. Fortunately, as crime then rose, the Democrats descended. But now the Democrats are back at the same concept with their pro-terrorist theme".

Canadians bow down to Islam: "On December 2, the Liberal candidate for Mississauga-Erindale, Omar Alghabra, made his victory speech after winning the nomination. In that speech, he reportedly exhorted his audience, "This is a victory for Islam! Islam won! Islam Won! ... Islamic power is extending into Canadian politics". Alghabra's victory speech was delivered to an audience of several hundred in the Coptic Christian Centre of the Church of the Virgin Mary and St. Athanasius in Mississauga. David Ragheb, a member of the congregation, reported that following Alghabra's victory speech, Markham Councillor Khalid Osman took to the stage and declared, "We have the east, we have the west, and now we have Mississauga!" to cheers and applause from the audience. Ragheb also reported that Rogers Cable was present throughout and may have filmed the event. "A member of parliament is supposed to represent my concerns about taxes and roads in Mississauga, not promote an Islamic agenda," said Ragheb. Victor Fouad, a Coptic Christian, was disturbed to hear of such Islamist rhetoric from a Liberal who could easily become a Canadian parliamentarian. Mr. Fouad assumed that Paul Martin would likewise disapprove of such incitement by a Liberal candidate, and so wrote to the Prime Minister detailing what had happened. That message was ignored. The event took place over 2 weeks ago, and Paul Martin's silence since that time can only be interpreted as approval of Mr. Alghabra's rhetoric".

With liberty and cacophony for all: "Last month's riots in France reminded me -- not that I needed reminding -- that I'm glad I emigrated to the United States and not to France. As is known by now, the Paris rioters went on a rampage because they, the children of immigrants, had long felt like second-class citizens in France, the land of their birth. After decades of being discriminated against and shut out from the mainstream, the dam apparently broke recently. Across the Atlantic here in this country, it is a different, more positive story. A group of us Indian-American immigrants sat around recently, talking, reminiscing, all with similar backgrounds: all had had a middle-class Indian upbringing, had been in this country for a decade or more, had come here with essentially the same things -- a good education, two suitcases and the proverbial 10 dollars in our pockets. And all had, through a combination of frugality, resilience, positive attitude and hard work, pursued and achieved the American Dream, more or less. Lest we get self-congratulatory, however, one in the group put it in proper perspective: Yes, we had done well, he said, but the credit goes, in large part, to the country and society in which we live."

In response to my recent posts about the U.S. birthrate a reader has sent me some interesting anecdotes and observations about which groups in the U.S. population are having the babies. I have posted the email here

China Hand has just put up his Christmas wishes together with some festive photos from China.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here).

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Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

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