Category: Culture War

Believe it or not, this fellow won an award for “art” from our Governor General after sticking a vial of his own blood….well, read the entry at Canadian Republic. As the Governor General is the Queen’s highest representative in Canada, this is just another reason why we so badly need a republic north of the border. (Thanks to Kathy Shaidle for the tip off.)

Father Andrew Greeley never presents his credentials for commenting on the Iraq War, so I presume he has no special credibility in the matter. As he is not a bishop, we are obliged to listen respectfully, but his words do not spring from any charism of infallibility. His field of expertise is sociology, which might help him understand why societies make war, but is a rather inexact guide to practical statecraft.
Father Greeley’s writing is not always devoid of charm or thoughtfulness, but it is here. You could spend days unpacking the ignorance:

One must support the troops, I am told. I certainly support the troops the best way possible: Bring them home, get them out of a war for which the planning was inadequate, the training nonexistent, the goal obscure, and the equipment and especially the armor for their vehicles inferior.

You could answer each of those clauses with facts — that months of planning went into the invasion and postwar phases (we received endless briefings on those subjects before the war); that when you hear we have the “best-trained” military in history, it’s not hyperbole, it’s demonstrably true; and as I wrote here, armor plating isn’t like a force field on the starship Enterprise.
But once Father has worked himself up into a lather, there’s no stopping him. He accuses American officials of being “criminals” but doesn’t get around to specifying the crimes, though to a left-wing audience I’m sure those crimes need no enumeration, they merely need to be asserted. You could try pointing out that “reasonable chance of victory” wasn’t part of just war theory at the beginning, and that the theory is just that — an ideathat describes the right use of force, but is not de fide or beyond modification. But it’s best to just let Father vent his spleen, and hope he takes a nap.
Now, Father might be right about the Iraq War and I may be wrong. It may well be unjust and immoral, although to the depth of my very soul I do not think Jesus looks unkindly on the liberation of the oppressed. But his (Greeley’s, not Jesus’) public life consists in authoring books with smutty elements, and running interference for pro-abortion liberal Democrats.
Occasionally, Father Greeley takes a stand for something the culture opposes, such as clerical celebacy. On balance, however, a fair observer could conclude that he has harmed the Body of Christ with his writings. Perhaps someone who knows him ought to say: “My friend, my fellow brother in Christ, you are a fool, and have no idea what you are talking about.” Someone like Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz:

No Catholics of any sense will take any pastoral advice from Father Andrew Greeley, a superficial writer who appears to spend his time promoting himself to various elements in the secular media….
In his self-important buffoonery, he has appointed himself as instructor to Bishops and to Catholics nationwide. In [writing an article defending pro-abortion Catholic politicians], he merely announces to every thoughtful Catholic that his views are totally self-serving and undeserving of any serious consideration….
My advice to any Catholics who would ask me about that Greeley article would be to give it the same view as you would the words and acts of a clown.

What this country needs is a grass-roots movement to take the “X” out of “Xmas.”

Xmas With All of the Exes

“He said, ‘Honey, will you please pass the potatoes?’ — and two women reached for the potatoes,” recounted Blackstone-Ford, who recently co-wrote a book — with her husband’s ex-wife — about her extended family experiences, “Ex-Etiquette for Parents: Good Behavior After a Divorce or Separation.”

I know people think Kathy Shaidle and I ought to be a little more patriotic–or at least cheerful–this time of year, but Canada really is like living in a Michael Moore dictatorship. Here’s several reasons why I hope Santa brings me a Green Card this year:
1) In Canada you can get a longer jail sentence for torturing a dog than for raping a child.
2) President Bush puts Middle Eastern dictators out of business, whereas our Prime Minister hob-nobs and conducts photo-shoots with them.

3) Although SCOTUS is far from perfect, it has better things to do than rule over whether or not “The Lone Ranger” is racist.
4) The Sharia carries no legal weight under the US Constitution.
5) Illegal Mexican immigrants is much more tolerable than in Canada’s policy of fastracking and special visa exemptions for strippers and prostitutes, as well as allowing Arabs to bribe citizenship judges.
Good grief, the corruption here is so bad up here that we would need to clean up our act before hiring Kofi Anan.

The New York Times continues its slanted coverage of detainees in the War on Terror. Reporting on such things isn’t a bad idea: the subject is legitimate, and if a government official did something wrong, he should be punished for it, whether he is a PFC or a major general.
That being said, this article is shoddy and dishonest even by NYT standards. The article conflates prisoner abuse in Iraq with detainee treatment in Guantanamo. I’ll save you the trouble of skimming the thing several times like I did. First, there is no doubt that enemy prisoners have been abused in Iraq. (Incidently, the word “enemy” doesn’t show up in the entire article.) Second, there is no doubt that the Guantanamo detainees are made uncomfortable before they are interrogated, as a way to break their wills.
But pooping on yourself or being exposed to cold temperatures isn’t like having a lit cigarette stuck in your ear. The former actions are uncomfortable and possibly humiliating, but the latter is potentially debilitating. Misleading the illegal combatants in Cuba (who are not, not, not prisoners of war!) by telling them you are an FBI agent isn’t even a crime; I question whether it’s a sin, unless you think al Qaeda members have a “right to know” who is questioning them.
The article says, “The documents are the most recent in a series of disclosures that have increasingly contradicted the military’s statements that harsh treatment of prisoners happened only in limited, isolated cases.” Not really — the Pentagon they’re investigating the abuse claims. These new documents don’t say much about the frequency or degree of abuse.
As I’ve said numerous times, the legal, just, and prudent thing to with unlawful combatants is to interrogate them, then execute them swiftly as an example to others. Bearing arms against a legitimate authority without wearing a uniform, not answering to a chain of command, and committing atrocities against civilians are each enough to place one outside Geneva protections. Al Qaeda members in Afghanistan and the insurgents in Iraq should have been punished for making private wars (a duellum, in classic Just War terminology) against legitimate authority.
I don’t say that because I have lost my love for human life. Quite the opposite: I love life so much that I want to see it defended with the maximum amount of vigor. Nothing but death will deter those who have descended below the level of beasts, and even then the threat of death may not be enough to stop them.
Question: do liberals have to bow several times a day in the direction of New York Times headquarters? Is that a requirement, or just a practice they encourage?
Also: why does the NYT pedantically put periods in “F.B.I.” and “D.O.D.,” even when quoting written documents that almost certainly didn’t have periods within the acronyms?
And finally: The New York Times offers a summation of its case against the Iraq War, including “the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, the death of civilians in American attacks, the arrest of Sunni clerics, the absence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the illegality of the U.S. invasion.”
Whoops, sorry: that was a Iraqi Sunni preacher encouraging the terrorist thugs and murderers who bomb Muslim schoolkids and assassinate election workers. My bad — it’s hard to tell the difference.