If only Haiti had oil, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide would have enjoyed the support of the international Left. After all, there is no practical reason America should care about that country, except the prospect of Haitian refugees flooding into Florida.
By contrast, the Left’s reaction to the Iraq war was nothing short of hysterical: to them, it was, is, and ever shall be about oil, and oil alone. The U.S. imports oil, some of that oil is from the Middle East, and therefore there can be no honorable reason for military action anywhere in the region. The idea that there were legitimate security and humanitarian reasons is irrelevant. But invading the poorest country in the hemisphere to stabilize the government? That’s perfectly fine.
For the Left, America is only virtuous if it acts when it has absolutely nothing at stake. For too many people on the Right, the U.S. should never act militarily unless vital national interests are at stake.
I disagree with both groups. Generally, we should be reluctant to take action unless some entity threatens our security, but we have a duty — a God-given duty, in my view — to intervene in certain dire circumstances. Anarchy, genocide, and mass starvation are three of those circumstances, and Haiti was headed for the first of them. We aren’t, and shouldn’t be, the world’s policeman, but we are the strongest country on Earth and that strength should benefit humanity at large.
UPDATE: It’s official! The Democrats say that not only do we not need a U.N. mandate to deploy combat troops, it’s George Bush’s fault for not acting pre-emptively to stop Haitians from hurting each other! Nevermind that the “international community” has been pressuring Aristide for the last four years, including depriving that country of aid money.
For the future, here’s what you need to remember:
1. Bush goes against the consensus of the “international community” and France: BAD BAD BAD.
2. Bush pursues a policy reflecting the consensus of the “international community” and France: BAD BAD BAD. Even when it’s a policy carried over from your predecessor.
The Left is not a serious moral force in the world any more. What’s more, increasingly you can’t even argue with them because they aren’t operating rationally.
Author: Eric Johnson
“Passion” plays well
Two years ago, Mel Gibson said he was going to make a movie about the suffering and death of Christ. The dialogue would be in ancient languages, spoken by obscure actors. People started snickering, saying this was an art-house movie nobody would want to see.
Next, they said people would want to see it, but they’d immediately start bombing synagogues and beating up Jews. The result? None of the major film studios wanted to bankroll the movie, and all the major film distributors rejected it.
On the first day of its release, “The Passion of the Christ” earned back nearly all of its production costs. By Friday, it will start turning a profit. And there are six more Sundays in Lent.
In a serious case of wishful thinking, the New York Times says, “New Film May Harm Gibson’s Career.” Riiiiight. Not with God and Mammon on his side.
Ebert on “The Passion”
I’ve been perusing reviews of “The Passion” for the last few days, and Roger Ebert’s is particularly good. Some excerpts:
…What Gibson has provided for me, for the first time in my life, is a visceral idea of what the Passion consisted of. That his film is superficial in terms of the surrounding message — that we get only a few passing references to the teachings of Jesus — is, I suppose, not the point. This is not a sermon or a homily, but a visualization of the central event in the Christian religion. Take it or leave it.
…Gibson’s film is not anti-Semitic, but reflects a range of behavior on the part of its Jewish characters, on balance favorably. The Jews who seem to desire Jesus’ death are in the priesthood, and have political as well as theological reasons for acting; like today’s Catholic bishops who were slow to condemn abusive priests, Protestant TV preachers who confuse religion with politics, or Muslim clerics who are silent on terrorism, they have an investment in their positions and authority….
…”The Passion of the Christ,” more than any other film I can recall, depends upon theological considerations. Gibson has not made a movie that anyone would call “commercial,” and if it grosses millions, that will not be because anyone was entertained. It is a personal message movie of the most radical kind, attempting to re-create events of personal urgency to Gibson. The filmmaker has put his artistry and fortune at the service of his conviction and belief, and that doesn’t happen often.
Read the full review here.
The Man of Peace?
I’m not going to see “The Passion of the Christ” for a while, so I can’t comment on the movie itself. The reviews are quite interesting, though. I’ve noticed that most of the reviewers who did not like it are not religiously observant, and that their criticism almost uniformly faults Mel Gibson for dwelling too much on the physical sufferings of the event.
Such criticism is not always uninformed. One negative critic on the Today show said that the movie downplayed the Resurrection. A fair comment, if true. It is ironic that committed Christians are enthusiastic about seeing a movie where the God-man they worship is tortured to death, but secular people are offended by it.
Many secular commentators have said that they wished Gibson had more of the Sermon on the Mount, and less of the brutality. They seek to reduce Jesus to their dessicated conception of what a religious leader should be, saying things like “Blessed are the peacemakers.” Someone ought to remind them that Christ also said, “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword.” (Matthew 10:34)
Why nobody should vote for Kerry: the military explanation
Public officials should work for the public good, the Church says. It is the primary duty of the state to safeguard a well-ordered peace, and to repel threats against that tranquility, whether those threats arise from within or without. That duty, not confiscating and redistributing wealth, is the first function a state must provide.
In my judgment, Senator John Kerry does not have the qualities necessary to hold the office of the president. If he were elected, he would be entrusted with the solemn duty of defending the nation against foreign threats (the states are the main bulwark against domestic offenders.) His record in the Senate shows that he lacks prudence, and would be unwilling to risk his own political career to assure the safety of America.
Hyperbole, you say? I thought so, too, until I saw this. It’s a list of defense projects that Kerry wanted to cancel 20 years ago. If he had his way, he would have ripped most of the vertebrae out of the military’s backbone. Tomahawks, F-14s, F-15s, Apache gunships, Patriot anti-missile defense batteries — in short, major components of the American forces that are feared by our enemies — would have been cancelled by the senator.
(Speaking of backbone, I note that he did not propose reducing the number of ships the Navy wanted to build, which are much more expensive than dinky little airplane projects. Could the reason be that the Navy spent billions in Massachusetts shipyards during the 1980s? Principle often takes a backseat to protecting local industries, as when Joe Lieberman campaigns for stricter gun control while standing up for Colt Firearms.)
“We are continuing a defense buildup,” Kerry wrote, “that is consuming our resources with weapons systems that we don’t need and can’t use.” While our regiment was fighting in Nasiriyah, and we heard the “needless” Harriers flying close air support missions to destroy the people trying to kill us, it sure sounded necessary to us. But then, none of us had been in Vietnam, which according to the senator makes you an expert on the necessity of weapons systems. Even questioning whether we should have shelved advanced air-to-air weapons systems — which ensured our pilots’ success over Iraq in two wars — is apparently “questioning his patriotism.”
Voting against a military program does not mean you’re against the military, nor does it mean you’re imprudent when it comes to national defense. One item on Kerry’s list, the rehabilitation of WWII-era battleships, was expensive and unnecessary, just as he said. The Pentagon budget is often used for pork barrel spending. Some weapons systems, such as the ludicrously heavy and unwieldy Crusader howitzer, result from a military service’s ideology instead of a keen appreciation for real-world defense needs.
However, when you explicitly criticize the Reagan military buildup as “wasteful,” “useless,” and “dangerous,” and imply that the world is more dangerous because America was better able to confront the most murderous regime in human history — a government that manufactured over 20,000 nuclear warheads to obliterate Western democracies — you deserve to have your judgment questioned.
Kerry doesn’t deserve special criticism: all of the leading Democrats said the same things. In 1984, he was campaigning in the state that sent the corpulent (but amusing) Tip O’Neill to the House and lady-killer (pun intended) Ted Kennedy to the Senate. Events showed that they were all fools, at least in these matters. The former heads of the Soviet Union confirmed that it was the Reagan buildup that bankrupted their evil empire, giving that doomed system one of its deathblows. (The other proximate cause was the Holy Father.)
If John Kerry and his cohorts had his way, there would still be a Soviet Union disturbing the peace and repressing peoples around the world. To use one of Bill Clinton’s smarmy phrases, nuclear missiles would still be “pointed at America’s children.” The American military would still be using the technologies of the 1960s.
On policy as well as procurement, Kerry was a reliable voice against any robust measures against American enemies. From Grenada to Nicaragua to Iraq, and whenever America tried to help communism’s victims, Kerry boldly excused the actions of the oppressors.
Senator Kerry served his country with honor in Vietnam. I will leave it to Vietnam veterans to deal with his later treachery against them. John Kerry’s entire career in the Senate demonstrates that he cannot choose the proper tools for the military, and that he is incapable of identifying real threats against the United States and acting against them. His presidency would not likely produce a just and lasting peace; indeed his presence in the White House would invite murderous mayhem, as he has promised a tepid, “internationalist” response to any future threats. For those reasons, Kerry ought to be rejected on military terms alone.
COMING SOON — Why nobody should vote for Kerry: the Catholic explanation