I never met an Iraqi who didn’t have a dead relative because of Saddam Hussein. From Adil, my civilian colleague in London, who had a brother gunned down in the street by the Republican Guard, to the scores of Iraqis I met in their cities and towns, everyone was closely related to at least one of Saddam’s victims. Many parents were missing two, three, four children because of the tyrant. It was as if a plague like the Black Death had visited the country, striking down men at random.
That explains the visceral reaction that the Iraqi journalists showed during the press conference announcing Saddam’s capture. When they showed him undergoing a medical examination, they started yelling and screaming at the television, as if he were in the room with them. (Maybe the Western journalists can lecture them privately about how the press is supposed to live in a world beyond good and evil.) It was gratifying, to me at least, seeing him treated like a common criminal on his way to arraignment.
Whatever you might think of the Iraqi war, you would have to be spiritually blind not to be happy for the Iraqi people on this day. They will have the opportunity to put their tormentor on trial for his monstrous, scarcely believable crimes. Today, let’s pray that the Iraqi citizens get the quiet, normal existence that they deserve.
Author: Eric Johnson
Separated at birth?
Judicial tyrants strike again
In case you’re keeping score, the following is free speech:
— Computer-generated child pornography;
— Burning the American flag;
— Making rap songs about injuring women’s genitals while having rough sex.
The following is not free speech:
— Contributing money to a political party you favor; and
— Speaking out against a political candidate.
When are we going to realize that the Supreme Court, along with many of the lower courts, are mainly comprised of petty tyrants? Sooner or later, we must (bloodlessly) remove them from power. They are a threat to our liberties, and we have to deal with them as Americans have traditionally dealt with tyrants. It’s time to remove them from their judicial thrones.
Recipe for ginger snaps (a.k.a. molasses cookies)
(from my great-grandmother)
Technically, these are really molasses cookies – but my family has always called them ginger snaps. They don’t have the acrid, overly intense spiciness of many ginger snaps. Rather, like good bread, they have a pleasant outer crust and a moist, satisfying crumb beneath.
You can chill the dough in the freezer for about an hour, or let it refrigerate for up to two days (wrap the dough in wax paper to keep it from drying out). If you refrigerate it, for easier handling you can take out the dough 20-30 minutes prior to forming the cookies.
Rolling the cookies in tubinado sugar – you know, Sugar in the Raw – gives the cookies a little more initial flavor, and compliments the molasses taste. That is my one minor improvement to this classic Johnson family recipe.
INGREDIENTS
3/4 cup butter
1 c. sugar
1/4 c. dark molasses
1 egg
2 1/2 c. flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1/8 tsp. ground cloves
1/4 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
additional sugar for rolling, preferably turbinado
DIRECTIONS
- Preheat the oven to 375F.
- In a medium-sized bowl, melt butter in the microwave until it is warm, but not hot.
- Add sugar and molasses to the butter; add the egg.
- Put all dry ingredients in a large bowl and whisk them together.
- Add the liquid mixture to the dry mixture and stir until well-combined.
- Chill the dough.
- Form the dough into 24 small balls.
- Roll the cookies in sugar until their entire little bodies are completely covered.
- Put the cookies on two 13×18” ungreased cookie sheets. Parchment paper is optional. If you like a flatter cookie, you may gently press down on their tops with the heel of your hand.
- Bake 8-12 minutes. If they still have that “raw” look on top, they aren’t done. If they’re stiff, they’re overdone. Remember, they will harden somewhat after they come out of the oven, so take them out when they’re still moist.
- Remove them from the sheet to a cooling rack.
- Consume.
Is there a statute of limitations on genocide?
This just in: Mark thinks he’s been “overly snippy [in] the last few weeks”. An occupational hazard of full-time blogging, I suppose. Daily visits of Mark’s blog will resume forthwith. However, the point about just war remains valid.
Mark Shea continues his snide attacks on Iraq war supporters on a near-daily basis, which has caused me to discontinue my daily visits to his site. He, and many other faithful Catholics, continue to question the motivations behind removing Saddam Hussein and his merry band of sadistic murderers.
I must ask: does 61,000 dead people in Baghdad count for anything? Between 300,000 and 1,000,000 people were executed under the previous regime. Do they count, either?
Mr. Shea, a man whom I respect, and at least one of whose books I own, comments, “Yes. Saddam is a monster. So as long as the country in question is ruled by a monster, Just War questions can be dispensed with and we can simply invade?”
The just war theory — it’s not doctrine, keep in mind, it’s a theory, as Shea himself has reminded us — must have room in it for a foreign power to intervene in the case of genocide. If it doesn’t, then it needs to accomodate it. The theory is useful because it describes the circumstances under which a state may use military force to restore justice. If it is used to make excuses for inaction in the face of a crime that shrieks to God for intervention, then there’s something wrong with it.
I don’t happen to think that there’s anything wrong with the just war theory, and I think it does cover instances where a foreign state is not the wronged party, yet acts with force. This isn’t the time to go through it, as others have, and it’s past my bedtime. I simply want to point out that saying, “So what about the tens of thousands of dead? There aren’t any weapons of mass destruction found yet” is perverse. Human lives are less important than observing the just war theory? How Christian is that?
BONUS LINK: to a story about all the great work civil affairs soldiers are doing in Iraq. As a civil affairs Marine, I wish them well and pray for their work & their safety.