Posted 4:37 PM by John Mallon | link

A Colleague Writes:

Dear John,
Well what do you think about what your Holy Father says?

My Reply:

Hi _______ !

Nice to hear from you!

Well, first, I'm obeying Holy Father's admonition to pray for peace.

Otherwise, I'm puzzled by some of it, and wondering if I've missed something. I know he urged Saddam to comply with the UN, which, of course was ignored. Surely I don't expect the Pope to endorse war. I heard Pio Laghi called the war immoral and illegal, but who is the legal authority? The UN? There is little doubt that the security council would have approved the action if France hadn't double crossed Colin Powell.

Dominique de Villepan was asked by Powell when they passed 1441, "Now you're not going to veto this are you, when it comes to the next step?" (paraphrase) de Villipan said he wouldn't and then did. Then went to Africa to lobby small countries to vote against the United States. France, Germany and Russia all have financial interests in Iraq. Russia has been selling military equipment to Iraq, even when it was clear that war with the US was coming. Putin denies knowing about it. Maybe it was the Russian Mafia-who knows?

Has the Holy Father made any formal statements? Someone suggested to me last night that perhaps the Holy Father knows something we don't. I ALWAYS believe that about the Holy Father. I have spent 20 years defending him, and I certainly don't dismiss him lightly.(I don't dismiss him at all.)

It is a gross understatement to say I take the Holy Father's word over the UN anyway. I have seen how the UN works, and know the mentality that prevails there.

If you have more material from the Holy Father on this war please email it to me.

I appreciate ______'s concerns and arguments because he is presenting the first cogent arguments I yet heard against the war. Have you been following the ongoing atrocities and propaganda going on in Iraq? There are too many to recount here, but if you'd like Ill forward them to you as I come across them.

Italy is an ally, what is the Italian news saying? Do you get the Fox News Channel there? To me it is the least anti-American agenda driven.

Much of what bothers me is the tendency I see to make the United States the very last to be given the benefit of the doubt.

What is the opposite of the benefit of the doubt? Knee jerk suspicion? Saddam is a proven war criminal, and the US, which has rescued the world repeatedly, gets the bad rap.

Has the Pope said anything about Poland sending troops?

The US gets the bad rap while:

• We and the Brits are bringing food and water to the people in southern Iraq

• Critics attack the US because the Iraqi citizens have not greeted allies as liberating heroes when the truth is that para-military thugs are threatening to kill Iraqi families at gunpoint if the men don't fight the Allies

• The same thugs put on US uniforms and gun down peasants who come to greet them or soldiers who try to surrender to them—in violation of the Geneva Convention

• British POWs are summarily executed, and parade other POWs before TV cameras in violation of the Geneva Convention

• The same thugs place women and children in front of them while they shoot at US forces in violation of the Geneva Convention

• The US gets wrongly blamed for killing civilians while bending over backward to avoid civilian casualties, even to their own endangerment

• Critics say there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq while the very scud missiles Iraq is firing at Kuwait are the missiles they said they didn't have. Reports say that Marine intel saw Iraqi troops in chemical suits unloading 55 gallon drums.

• Any Iraqi connection to Al Queda is denied, while intelligence reports that plans to attack US interests in two countries by Iraqis working with Al Queda were recently foiled.

• The war is called illegal when it could well be considered a resumption of 1991 war to enforce the surrender terms Saddam flagrantly (illegally) violated.

• Critics say "the inspections were working" while the UN failed in their enforcement of their own resolutions and while the US was stalled by the shilly-shallying Saddam had time to prepare for war.

• Can anyone doubt that if Saddam had nukes and the means to deliver them, which he could get, say, from North Korea, he would not promptly plant them in New York, Washington and Tel Aviv?

It goes on. The ideal scenario? I wish a group of Commandos--Iraqi if possible--could scoop up Saddam and deliver him to The Hague. I don't want war. But the blame for this one lands squarely at the feet of Saddam.

Our troops are there. I support them. The wisdom of putting them there is now a moot point. I also support the Iraqi people who have suffered untold atrocities and oppression under the current regime.

I kind of wish I could be there distributing food and water to the Iraqi people at the seaport there, and writing about it.

If someone can show me my position is wrong I'm open to hear it.

Sincerely,
John

Posted 8:29 PM by John Mallon | link

Swamped by Complaints, Group Cancels Sarandon Event

Posted 6:20 PM by John Mallon | link

My View

One thing about war is that it either increases or decreases one's cynicism. It tends to cut down on the labyrinth of "greys" conspiracy theorists tend to get lost in, like Chesterton's madman. Common sense can discern the overriding good and evil, while realizing that no one is perfect.

At this time of war I especially trust the president and have no inkling of any "secret sinister agenda" on the part of the government. Always looking for "agendas" is akin to the spiritual disease of scrupulosity. No explanation will suffice.

The United states is acting justly. A very wicked man and a proven sadist who kills and tortures his own people has been getting to the point of posing a threat to the whole world. He would not respond to dimplomacy after 13 years of trying to get him to. He needs to be stopped. If he can be taken alive and tried for him many war crimes, fine. If he cannot he made his choice.

The anti-war protesters utterly disgust me, trafficing as they do in stupid slogans and accusation instead of reasoned argument. I don't know how anyone can say "No blood for oil!" with a straight face. If the US was the kind of nation that would trade blood for oil, we could have just stolen it in 1991, instead of putting the fires out and returning it to its rightful owner. The protesters insult your intelligence.

If I saw a man beating his child, endangering his life, the law would require me to intervene. I think the same applies to a tyrant who murders his people. Charity, not simply justice, requires this: "I am my brother's keeper."

Or as the Psalm Operation Rescue is based on: "Rescue those being dragged to death."

A Jesuit recently wrote to me,

"John, Just war theory has become a disease and a shield so we did not have to fight any war, no matter how just. When the iraqi soldiers dress as civilians and use civilians as hostages, it is almost impossible to know who to shoot except everyone. Pray for me."

For too long Saddam's evil has flourished while good men have done nothing. True to it's own traditions, the United States has done something. If you want agendas, look to the UN. Bravo to Bush for taking action.

Posted 3:17 PM by John Mallon | link

Saddam had nothing to do with it!!

He just celebrates it.

CNN.com - Marines discover Iraqi 9/11 mural - Mar. 26, 2003

Posted 3:13 PM by John Mallon | link

Amnesty International > Library > Iraq: Fear of war crimes by both sides

Saddam is breaking every rule in the Geneva Convention, executing POWs, showing them on television, having troops pretend to surrender then ambushing coalition troops, storing ammunition and explosives in primary schools and hospitals, forcing peasants at gunpoint to fight, and Amnesty International puts out a press release because the allies blew up a TV station pumping out the outrageous lies and propaganda.

AI says they fear war crimes on both sides. Oh. Thanks for acknowedging that Saddam has some issues...

James Taranto at OpinionJournal.Com - Best of the Web Today Calls AI Anti-American. It seems appropriate for Left Wing so-called "human rights" organizations who only seem to notice the speck in America's eye.

Posted 2:47 PM by John Mallon | link

OpinionJournal - Best of the Web Today: Saddam the Terrorist

Posted 2:09 PM by John Mallon | link

St. Blog's Prayer Requests

Our Lady of Loretto Carmelite Chapel

Posted 7:26 PM by John Mallon | link

Catholic Just War - Archbishop O'Brien Responds to Bishop John Michael Botean

Posted 5:49 PM by John Mallon | link

Michael Novak's Rome Speech

"ASYMMETRICAL WARFARE" AND JUST WAR, February 10, 2003

Posted 5:25 PM by John Mallon | link

Catholic Just War

Posted 2:16 PM by John Mallon | link

Important Blog: After abortion

Posted 5:04 AM by John Mallon | link

Mallon quoted on As I wait

Posted 2:38 AM by John Mallon | link

I'm happy to say that Ping, of that sweet blog, As I wait tracked me down and is fixing her email link so Mr. Right can contact her!

Posted 2:08 AM by John Mallon | link

Ad Orientem has some interesting things to say regarding Dorothy Day, Chesterton and Pacifism

Posted 1:58 AM by John Mallon | link

Grow up

Marxist-Catholics

Do these people really think they can justify their vandalism with Catholicism? (They thew buckets of blood all over the inside of of a recruiting office.) This is pacifism? They don't consider their actions violent? Perhaps they should try this in Baghdad throwing blood on the everpresent images of Saddam everywhere. They'd learn a few things about spilling blood. I can only hope their bishop strongly condemns these actions.

Posted 12:46 AM by John Mallon | link

Ann, would you go out with me?

Ann Coulter: The [NY] Times yearns for Clintonian flatulence

Posted 12:20 AM by John Mallon | link

TownHall.com: Human shields-turned-hawks

Posted 12:10 AM by John Mallon | link

TownHall.com: Conservative Columnists: Marvin Olasky

The United States is a representative democracy specifically designed not to be what America's founders decried: a "mobocracy." Beyond that, in this case even some on the left have criticized demonstration leaders for backing dictatorship, not democracy. Georgetown University history professor Michael Kazin complained in The Washington Post last month about protest organizers who refuse to say anything critical of Saddam Hussein."

Posted 11:53 PM by John Mallon | link

My Friend's Brave Son

Pfc. Stefan Aleksandr McGuigan, 20

Posted 11:37 PM by John Mallon | link

"Impeach Sheen."

Michael Medved on the Academy Awards and Hollywood Ingratitude

Posted 7:44 PM by John Mallon | link

A Friend Sends This:

the Presidential Prayer Team
has established an "Adopt Our Troops in Prayer". You can sign up on their site
(link below) to adopt a US military person to keep in your prayer intentions
during this time of war. May Our Lord protect them as they fight against evil.
St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle!

Adopt Our Troops in Prayer: The Presidential Prayer Team

Posted 7:14 PM by John Mallon | link

Kelly the Pew Lady on aging hippy dissenting bullies

Posted 5:20 PM by John Mallon | link

Excellent Article by Fr. Jim Schall, SJ

Wars and rumors of wars Pt2, TCRNews.com

Posted 2:46 AM by John Mallon | link

What a sweet blog!


As I wait

(I wish there was a way to tell her her email link doesn't work.)

Posted 2:11 AM by John Mallon | link

I'm still your pal, Rod

Rod Dreher on War & Friendships on National Review Online

The Manhattan Institute's Myron Magnet is more hopeful that the incoherent rage of the antiwar left and right will burn itself out in the wake of a clear American victory in Iraq. There will always be unconvertible anti-Semites, as well as those constitutionally incapable of believing that anything good can come out of America. But they will be a marginalized minority.

"There are an awful lot of people whose politics are really nothing but attitude and fashion, as I learned very sharply in the sixties," Magnet says. "Attitude and fashion changes with the wind. As we go in and win the war, God willing, and begin to remake Iraq in a way that makes it a freer society, an awful lot of people who have no idea what they're saying now will find themselves saying something completely opposite, and will have no idea they've contradicted themselves."

Posted 1:39 AM by John Mallon | link

Just found this:

Disordered Affections

Posted 11:36 PM by John Mallon | link

Go get 'em Jacques

Yahoo! News - French government declares 'war on tobacco'

Posted 11:24 PM by John Mallon | link

An Awakening for More 'Human Shields'

United Press International: Lucky Break for Jordan

A group of American anti-war demonstrators who came to Iraq with Japanese human shield volunteers made it across the border today with 14 hours of uncensored video, all shot without Iraqi government minders present. Kenneth Joseph, a young American pastor with the Assyrian Church of the East, told UPI the trip "had shocked me back to reality." Some of the Iraqis he interviewed on camera "told me they would commit suicide if American bombing didn't start. They were willing to see their homes demolished to gain their freedom from Saddam's bloody tyranny. They convinced me that Saddam was a monster the likes of which the world had not seen since Stalin and Hitler. He and his sons are sick sadists. Their tales of slow torture and killing made me ill, such as people put in a huge shredder for plastic products, feet first so they could hear their screams as bodies got chewed up from foot to head."