Today, the President addresses the American people on his reasons for taking us to war against Syria. In short order, Congress will vote either giving him the authority to pursue military action to do deny him such.
It is vital that all people of good will stand today with the people of Syria and do all we can to convince our Congressmen and Senators how truly unjust a military action would be.
They say politics makes strange bedfellows. The following statement was put out by the Orthodox Peace Fellowship, a group of Orthodox laymen and theologians led by Jim Forrest who are against war as a general principle. One of the draftees of the following statement is Fr Alexander F C Webster, a Chaplain (Colonel) US Army Reserve (Retired) who is not a pacifist. He is a PhD in religion/social ethics and has written books and monographs on the proper use of military force. Therefore he finds himself almost always on the other side of the OPF.
The speciousness and lack of necessity in this action, combined with the horrendous repercussions of this impending action has caused good men like Fr Webster to join forces with Jim Forrest. Please take the time to read this fine essay and in the meantime, call your Congressman and Senator, gather together at Church if you can, pray with friends, or at the very least pray alone so that this foolhardy action will not take place.
Orthodox Christian Statement Opposing Military Action Against Syria
Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, oh God! Psalm 51:14
Dear members and friends of the Orthodox Peace Fellowship and all Orthodox Christians:
On August 21, 2013, a robust chemical weapons attack took place in Damascus, Syria, which US intelligence alleges was carried out by the Bashar Assad government and killed over 1400 civilians.
On August 30, 2013, President Obama asked the United States Congress to approve a limited, punitive military assault against Syria and the government of President Bashar Assad.
On September 3rd, President Obama declared that his goal is to degrade the Assad regime’s capabilities and to upgrade those of the opposition forces to help “set Syria free,” signaling escalatory intentions even before the first missile is launched and his readiness to interfere in the outcome of the civil war.
We agree that any use of chemical weapons is abhorrent and unreservedly condemn their use. However, while many pragmatic arguments against the contemplated military response are circulating, we ground our opposition to a military response, unilaterally or together with one or more international partners, on moral grounds consistent with Orthodox nonviolent, justifiable war, and pacifist traditions.
We urge you to consider our appeal alongside the unprecedented emerging coalition of Orthodox, Catholic, and other Christian jurisdictions and organizations calling on their faithful to oppose the contemplated US military action.
We urge our American members to contact your elected representatives in the House and Senate and ask them to vote no on any resolution authorizing such action, limited or otherwise.
We urge you to contact President Obama and urge him not to attack Syria.
We ask you to lend your signature to this statement adding your voice to our plea.
Note: If you disagree or do not feel you already have sufficient grounds for opposing the contemplated military attack, or if you simply want more information, please visit our website for a narrative foundation for our appeal, supporting material, an appended bibliography, and related resources: www.incommunion.org.
Thank you,
Jim Forest, OPF International Secretary
Alexander Patico, OPF North American Secretary
Pieter Dykhorst, OPF editor of In Communion
Archpriest Alexander F.C. Webster, Chaplain (Colonel) USAR (Ret.)
To sign this Statement, read the Supporting Narrative, or find more resources concerning Syria, please visit www.incommunion.org.
Eastern-rite Melkite Patriarch Gregorios III has also issued a statement that provides analysis and specific alternative actions:
http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/melkite-leader-says-u.s.-attacks-on-syria-would-worsen-the-conflict/
Address given by His Grace Bishop Basil of Wichita to the parish of St Mary Orthodox Church in Wichita, Kansas regarding the crisis in Syria, September 8, 2013.
This week will be a very important week, an historical week, one way or another–our church, our Patriarchate in particular, and this world in general. This week our elected representatives will be asked to vote either for or against supporting aggression in the Holy Land. As I said it’s important first and foremost for our church. It’s where our spiritual roots are, the roots of all Christians. Not just us, but we as Antiochian Orthodox in particular, as our Father in God (Patriarch John of Antioch) lives there along with a million and a half Orthodox Christians.That’s more than we have total in the US. The Orthodox in Syria and Lebanon is not negligible, it’s 10 percent of the population. In our country, we’re less than 1 percent, our country being the United States.
Syria in particular but Lebanon as well, which is an integral part of greater Syria just by its geography and the majority of its history, is dotted with holy places. Holy places made holy by the presence of our Savior. Remember his conversation with the Canaanite woman, the Syro-Phoenician woman when he visited Tyre and Sidon in south Lebanon. It’s not in Disney World or Never Never Land. Its a real place with real people with real Orthodox Christians living there. You’ve heard of Caesarea Philippi, where our Savior went and had conversation with his 12 apostles saying, “Who do men say that I am?” and then to Peter “Who do you say that I am?” Caesarea Philippi is in Golan Heights, what now is the occupied portion of the Golan Heights. It belongs to our sister archdiocese, the archdiocese of Bosra-Hauran. And the Golan Heights itself is dotted with now empty, they were depocketed by the Israelis, Christian villages, Orthodox villages, whose churches during the occupation have been totally desecrated. Stripped. Not only of the icons and the chandeliers, but of windows, and water faucets. Their dead in Konetra were taken out of their graves, and teeth–gold teeth–taken from their mouths and wedding rings taken from the corpses’ fingers. These are holy places. Our Saviour walked there, the apostles walked there. Sweida, Bosra-Hauran in south Syria is where Timon, one of the original seven deacons as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, one of the original seven deacons was the first bishop. Paul the apostle made his way from Jerusalem up to Damascus, and the road is still there, the spot where he was knocked off his horse by the presence of our Saviour Jesus Christ when he was struck blind. There’s a monastery there, an Orthodox monastery. These are not just places in books, brothers and sisters. These are holy places where Christians, your spiritual ancestors, and for many of you your physical ancestors have lived the Holy Orthodoxy for the past 2,000 years. It’s why what happens this week is important. It’s important.
We ask your prayers first and foremost for our president. That God might speak as we say in the liturgy “good things to his heart. That God might speak reasonableness and peace to the heart of our president. That he might speak peace to the heart of our elected officials, that they indeed become our representatives, that they speak the voice of the people. God speaks through his people, not through a congressman alone, or a president alone. He speaks through his people. May God hear our prayer for our armed forces. Men and women who sit on the edges of their seats to know whether they will be going to war or not. And don’t believe this “no boots on the ground.” It’s impossible. We’ve heard the promise many times. May God give strength to the parents. The spouses first and foremost of those soldiers, and their children, and their parents and their families, that he might grant them grace during these next coming days to prepare for the tension that must be laid upon them. And God be with the people of Syria. All of them, whether they’re Muslim, they’re Druze, Christians, Orthodox and not. May he be with our Father in God (Patriarch John of Antioch) who has already lost thousands of his people, and priests and deacons and monks and nuns in the war already. Whose monasteries and churches have been occupied and many destroyed by the so-called Free Syrian Army. Whose own brother was kidnapped and still remains kidnapped, Metropolitan Paul along with Archbishop Yohanna, since April 22 by freedom fighters. Freedom fighters–people who rape women, abduct bishops, desecrate churches, open peoples’ chests and pull their beating heart out and eat it in their presence. That’s the Free Syrian Army and their allies, Al Qaeda.
Two days ago I received a call from our Metropolitan Saba Esper, who you know, he has visited here. He is the archbishop of our own Wichita diocese’s sister diocese in south Syria. He spoke by telephone, right before he called me, with Mother Belagia. Mother Belagia is the abbess of the monastery of Saint Thekla in Maalula. It’s only like a 20-30 minute drive north of Damascus. It had been occupied for 3 days (the town). The town is one of three where they still speak Aramaic–Aramaic which our Saviour spoke. The only 3 towns left in the world. The majority of the people in Maaloula are Christians–Orthodox Christians. There’s a smattering of Catholics there, and there’s also some Muslims there, and they live there in peace. The beginning of this week they were occupied by the Free Syrian Army. It turned out to be Al Qaeda, and they turned out to be Chechens–the same ones who abducted our 2 bishops. The nuns took the children there, orphan girls there of St. Thekla, and they and the nuns, many who are aging, into the caves of the village to hide for 4 days. They didn’t even go out to buy bread. The villagers didn’t leave their homes for 4 days. And if you’ve never been to the Middle East, they don’t shop like we do. They go every morning to buy their bread and food for the day. So they were locked in their homes for 4 days. Those who went out were shot, so they knew to stay in their homes. Saba called me on Wednesday. Mother Belagia, and they were ringing all the bells in the town’s churches–the Syrian Army, you know the one that we’re told is so bad. The Syrian Army finally came and drove Al Qaeda out. And what did they find? They found 2 churches in the village completely destroyed. St. Thekla, which is ours, the Orthodox church in the village, and St. Sergius, which is a Catholic church in the village–completely destroyed. On the inside, the icons, the holy books, everything had been desecrated. Not just ripped off the walls, but covered in urine. Real desecration by that wing of the Free Syrian Army. God knows what the people of Syria, and by extension the people of Jordan, the people of Lebanon, the people of Turkey and the people of Iraq–because if there’s a war there’s a regional war–God knows the burden they may have to carry this week. Lighten their burden as you can. And that’s by your prayers. Have a soft heart towards the people. Wrongs were done on both sides–vicious wrongs on both sides. But as we’ve heard from some honest politicians this past week, there’s really no good armed force over there. No one we can trust. None. So the choice is between the evil that we know and that we’ve had for 30-40 years in that part of the world, or another evil we don’t know about except what they’ve shown us in this awful civil war for the past 2 and a half years.
So this week, really pray. Thank God that we live in a country that is safe. Where we can send our children to school, where you can go out and buy your groceries. But realize that that blessed country where we live can also be a disruptive force in other parts of the world, as it has been. Remember Bosnia. Remember Kosovo. Remember what happened in Belgrade, the capital of an Orthodox country, bombed by our armed forces on Pascha night, while people were going to church for the midnight service. God bless America–but a lot of evils have been done in her name. We pray that God will restrain our leaders from being the cause for any more evil and sorrow and hurt in this world. That we might extend a healing hand, to bring enemies together like we’re supposed to. Where we teach people to turn the other cheek, where we teach people to bless those who curse them, to love our enemies. That’s the gospel we preach, the gospel we die for. It’s the gospel which Orthodox Christians have been and I guess will continue to die for. Remember them in your prayers, and as I said, most especially our leaders, who will make the decisions. That God might pour out his Holy Spirit on them, and speak good things to their hearts.
There is mounting evidence that Assad’s government had nothing to do with that recent use of gas. Here is the latest:
I append Bishop Basil’s sermon from last Sunday:
The following is the address given by His Grace Bishop Basil to the parish of St Mary Orthodox Church in Wichita, Kansas regarding the crisis in Syria, on the morning of their patronal feast of the Nativity of the Theotokos, September 8, 2013.
This week will be a very important week, an historical week, one way or another–our church, our Patriarchate in particular, and this world in general. This week our elected representatives will be asked to vote either for or against supporting aggression in the Holy Land. As I said it’s important first and foremost for our church. It’s where our spiritual roots are, the roots of all Christians. Not just us, but we as Antiochian Orthodox in particular, as our Father in God (Patriarch John of Antioch) lives there along with a million and a half Orthodox Christians. That’s more than we have total in the US. The Orthodox in Syria and Lebanon is not negligible, it’s 10 percent of the population. In our country, we’re less than 1 percent, our country being the United States.
Syria in particular but Lebanon as well, which is an integral part of greater Syria just by its geography and the majority of its history, is dotted with holy places. Holy places made holy by the presence of our Savior. Remember his conversation with the Canaanite woman, the Syro-Phoenician woman when he visited Tyre and Sidon in south Lebanon. It’s not in Disney World or Never Never Land. Its a real place with real people with real Orthodox Christians living there. You’ve heard of Caesarea Philippi, where our Savior went and had conversation with his 12 apostles saying, “Who do men say that I am?” and then to Peter “Who do you say that I am?” Caesarea Philippi is in Golan Heights, what now is the occupied portion of the Golan Heights. It belongs to our sister archdiocese, the archdiocese of Bosra-Hauran. And the Golan Heights itself is dotted with now empty, they were depocketed by the Israelis, Christian villages, Orthodox villages, whose churches during the occupation have been totally desecrated. Stripped. Not only of the icons and the chandeliers, but of windows, and water faucets. Their dead in Konetra were taken out of their graves, and teeth–gold teeth–taken from their mouths and wedding rings taken from the corpses’ fingers.
These are holy places. Our Saviour walked there, the apostles walked there. Sweida, Bosra-Hauran in south Syria is where Timon, one of the original seven deacons as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, one of the original seven deacons was the first bishop. Paul the apostle made his way from Jerusalem up to Damascus, and the road is still there, the spot where he was knocked off his horse by the presence of our Saviour Jesus Christ when he was struck blind. There’s a monastery there, an Orthodox monastery. These are not just places in books, brothers and sisters. These are holy places where Christians, your spiritual ancestors, and for many of you your physical ancestors have lived the Holy Orthodoxy for the past 2,000 years. It’s why what happens this week is important. It’s important.
We ask your prayers first and foremost for our president. That God might speak as we say in the liturgy “good things to his heart. That God might speak reasonableness and peace to the heart of our president. That he might speak peace to the heart of our elected officials, that they indeed become our representatives, that they speak the voice of the people. God speaks through his people, not through a congressman alone, or a president alone. He speaks through his people. May God hear our prayer for our armed forces. Men and women who sit on the edges of their seats to know whether they will be going to war or not.
And don’t believe this “no boots on the ground.” It’s impossible. We’ve heard the promise many times. May God give strength to the parents. The spouses first and foremost of those soldiers, and their children, and their parents and their families, that he might grant them grace during these next coming days to prepare for the tension that must be laid upon them. And God be with the people of Syria. All of them, whether they’re Muslim, they’re Druze, Christians, Orthodox and not. May he be with our Father in God (Patriarch John of Antioch) who has already lost thousands of his people, and priests and deacons and monks and nuns in the war already. Whose monasteries and churches have been occupied and many destroyed by the so-called Free Syrian Army. Whose own brother was kidnapped and still remains kidnapped, Metropolitan Paul along with Archbishop Yohanna, since April 22 by freedom fighters. Freedom fighters–people who rape women, abduct bishops, desecrate churches, open peoples’ chests and pull their beating heart out and eat it in their presence. That’s the Free Syrian Army and their allies, Al Qaeda.
Two days ago I received a call from our Metropolitan Saba Esper, who you know, he has visited here. He is the archbishop of our own Wichita diocese’s sister diocese in south Syria. He spoke by telephone, right before he called me, with Mother Belagia. Mother Belagia is the abbess of the monastery of Saint Thekla in Maalula. It’s only like a 20-30 minute drive north of Damascus. It had been occupied for 3 days (the town). The town is one of three where they still speak Aramaic–Aramaic which our Saviour spoke. The only 3 towns left in the world. The majority of the people in Maaloula are Christians–Orthodox Christians. There’s a smattering of Catholics there, and there’s also some Muslims there, and they live there in peace.
The beginning of this week they were occupied by the Free Syrian Army. It turned out to be Al Qaeda, and they turned out to be Chechens–the same ones who abducted our 2 bishops. The nuns took the children there, orphan girls there of St. Thekla, and they and the nuns, many who are aging, into the caves of the village to hide for 4 days. They didn’t even go out to buy bread. The villagers didn’t leave their homes for 4 days. And if you’ve never been to the Middle East, they don’t shop like we do. They go every morning to buy their bread and food for the day. So they were locked in their homes for 4 days. Those who went out were shot, so they knew to stay in their homes.
Saba called me on Wednesday. Mother Belagia, and they were ringing all the bells in the town’s churches–the Syrian Army, you know the one that we’re told is so bad. The Syrian Army finally came and drove Al Qaeda out. And what did they find? They found 2 churches in the village completely destroyed. St. Thekla, which is ours, the Orthodox church in the village, and St. Sergius, which is a Catholic church in the village–completely destroyed. On the inside, the icons, the holy books, everything had been desecrated. Not just ripped off the walls, but covered in urine. Real desecration by that wing of the Free Syrian Army. God knows what the people of Syria, and by extension the people of Jordan, the people of Lebanon, the people of Turkey and the people of Iraq–because if there’s a war there’s a regional war–God knows the burden they may have to carry this week. Lighten their burden as you can. And that’s by your prayers. Have a soft heart towards the people. Wrongs were done on both sides–vicious wrongs on both sides. But as we’ve heard from some honest politicians this past week, there’s really no good armed force over there. No one we can trust. None. So the choice is between the evil that we know and that we’ve had for 30-40 years in that part of the world, or another evil we don’t know about except what they’ve shown us in this awful civil war for the past 2 and a half years. So this week, really pray. Thank God that we live in a country that is safe. Where we can send our children to school, where you can go out and buy your groceries. But realize that that blessed country where we live can also be a disruptive force in other parts of the world, as it has been.
Remember Bosnia. Remember Kosovo. Remember what happened in Belgrade, the capital of an Orthodox country, bombed by our armed forces on Pascha night, while people were going to church for the midnight service.
God bless America–but a lot of evils have been done in her name. We pray that God will restrain our leaders from being the cause for any more evil and sorrow and hurt in this world. That we might extend a healing hand, to bring enemies together like we’re supposed to. Where we teach people to turn the other cheek, where we teach people to bless those who curse them, to love our enemies. That’s the gospel we preach, the gospel we die for. It’s the gospel which Orthodox Christians have been and I guess will continue to die for. Remember them in your prayers, and as I said, most especially our leaders, who will make the decisions. That God might pour out his Holy Spirit on them, and speak good things to their hearts.
German intelligence reports that they had a ship off of the coast of Syria that picked up radio messages from Assad ordering against using poison gas.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/08/syria-chemical-weapons-not-assad-bild
I agree. It would have been insane for Assad to order a chemical weapons strike, especially since he was handily winning the war.
Assad is not handily winning the war. While in some regions there has been a momentum shift in favor of the regime, it is not total. Parts of Damascus, including the neighborhood that was hit with the gas attack are (or in the case of that neighborhood, were) under rebel control.
If you take a particular scrap of intelligence information and use it to justify a pre-existing belief and ignore everything else that challenges it, you are Doing It Wrong. SIGINT intercepts of release denial is not very impressive. You seriously would expect Assad to do something as stupid as personally authorize over a probably compromised communications channel? No, if you’re doing something bad, you send the equivalent of a runner and then issue a plausible denial over the compromised channel. The Syrian government has a fair bit of experience with compromised communications. Heck, Assad has personally: his personal, private email account was hacked not by a foreign intelligence service, but by the Anonymous hacker collective.
There is also a bit of selective absorption here regarding information analysis from the European intelligence organs: people are latching onto the lack of any conclusive evidence that Assad personally ordered the attack (pretty much based on SIGINT, which has severe limitations), and are ignoring the parts where analysis of the scale and nature of the attack make it highly dubious that it was performed by anyone but units attached to the Syrian chemical weapons corps. When the UN team analysis is complete, it will likely bolster this opinion as it looks like the August 21 attack was the result of significant quantities of sarin. There is plenty of open source analysis of the probable delivery mechanisms. The Syrian government has the sarin, the hardware for handling and deployment, and the personnel expertise to use the stuff. Establishing the corollary for a rebel group is a tough hill to climb.
None of this is to support the idea of a US intervention (horrible idea), pretend that there aren’t Really Bad Actors in elements of the rebels against the Assad regime (there are), or claim certainties (can only speak in probabilities). However, with what is currently known, it is extremely unlikely that the August 21st attack was conducted by rebel forces. And there is a pretty high burden of proof in presenting concrete evidence considering the materials involved. It might be comforting to grab onto blog conspiracies about Saudi Arabia or Obama orchestrating a false flag attack, given vested interest in trying to put the best face on the Syrian government, but in the long run it doesn’t do a whole lot of good for one’s ultimate credibility or intellectual integrity. This was a large enough operation that it’s more than likely in the fullness of time, some of the people directly involved will probably survive to recount details later.
There is no question Christians in Syria are better off under the Assad regime. At the end of the day, however, there may come a point of moral reckoning where honesty requires the admission that the the advocated position boils down to one of the ends justifying the means. However, in saying that, I do not wish to direct it at, criticize, or second-guess anybody living this out in Syria and second-guess those choices. People observing from the outside trying to pretend they aren’t advocating self-interested realpolitik and not stepping away from the moral principals of the religious faith they are an advocate for is another matter entirely. It would kind of be refreshing to hear, just for once, “if 100,000 Syrians dead from nerve agents is the price to pay for preserving Christianity in Syria, so be it”.
Actually, he was rather “handily” winning the war. Whereas two months ago there were non-incredible rumors that Assad and his family had evacuated Damascus and were living on a Russian ship, the tide has since turned in his favor. He even set up a “reconciliation board” which invited rebels who are disaffected by the Islamist brutality of the main rebel forces a way back into Syrian society.
No, there were not rumors two months ago about Assad hiding out on a Russian boat, and they were also not ‘non-incredible’. There was a singular rumor eight months ago based entirely off a supposed anonymous intelligence leak to a Saudi newspaper. Which had no basis in reality whatsoever. Where do you get this stuff?
Considering you can’t even get the facts about your rumors right, it shouldn’t be surprising that I find your opinion that Assad is “handily” winning the war rather detached from the real world. You seem to lack the self knowledge to ask yourself whether or not you actually possess any of the relevant information in your head to be able to make an informed opinion about a conflict before spouting hard certainties. Such minor details as disposition of forces, current strategic objectives of sides and where they are in attaining them, who controls what part of the country, etc. etc.
It’s pretty much like if you were boldly proclaiming the Cubs were going to win the World Series this year, only you hadn’t actually bothered to look at the standings in the newspaper for the past several months.
Regardless, Assad seems to be winning now.
There is corroborating testimony in this morning’s La Stampa
that thesoi disantFree Syrian Army is responsible for the recent gassing.It is instructive to see that the European news services are able to get information on Syria that our American outlets don’t know about.
This report is backed up by a first-hand report in La Stampa this morning.
European reporters seem able to find out things in Syria our American news agencies—to say nothing of Senator McCain and the State Department—-don’t know about.
That may be because one of their primary advisors is 26-year-old Elizabeth O’Bagy — an analyst with the Institute for the Study of War, who also happens to be the political director for the Syrian Emergency Task Force (SETF), a group that advocates within the United States for Syria’s rebels.
http://dailycaller.com/2013/09/05/woman-informing-kerry-mccains-opinions-on-syria-also-an-advocate-for-syrian-rebels/#ixzz2ebmqrGn6
There are intelligence reports that the Islamist rebels are withdrawing from the front-line and consolidating their forces in the north of the country, which seems to point to some sort of attempt at annexation.Would Turkey tolerate an Islamist break away state on its border? Even with an elected Islamist govt, I suspect not. That would mean the Islamist rebels would have to contend with Turkish air-strikes from the north, Kurdish harassment from the east and government forces from the south. Things could well have turned for Assad.
just watched President Obama on This Week with George Stephanopoulos and it was just one lie after another. For the President to say that one one in the world takes seriously that the rebels used Gas instead of Assad was just incredible. Lie after lie after lie. Unbelieveable. I am truly shocked.
Peter
Peter! Calm down!!!!
“Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God: for God is up in heaven , and thou down on earth: therefore let thy words be few.”
Looks more and more like you were right . . .
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread, Peter and Colette. Could I make a friendly suggestion? Get a clue.
Who do you imagine you are? Got Top Secret Level III security clearance? SCI? Need to know, do ya? Seen all (or any) of the relevant intelligence? For some reason, I doubt that.
How is it possible for you not to see how ridiculous such stupid and ignorant blather is? What motivates you to chatter like this? Neither of you shows any signs of being remotely competent and informed enough to justify such reckless speculation. I think an Orthodox Christian ought to demonstrate a minimal degree of the most elementary discretion and common sense in public discourse; the qualities of discernment and judgment that too many of you reveal here on George’s blog are a scandal. After two millennia of the Law and Prophets and two more in Christ’s Grace, this is unacceptable. So consider my words a stern warning.
I’m wondering whether both of you voted for Bush 43? His Administration is primarily responsible for the huge mess in the region (‘building’ on the efforts there of the Reagan administration, of course), but you have the gall to blame Obama? That’s really sick and twisted.
Mike, eventually Obama is going to have to put on his big boy pants and stop laying the blame for everything at his predecessor’s feet. Bush, for all his faults, never said an unkind word about his predecessor (and there was a lot to say). Nor for that matter did Clinton.
Nobody begged President Lightworker to take the office, he ran hard and won, fair and square. It’s his party now. You would do well to stop blaming others for voting their consciences. As long as we have the right to vote, it ain’t none of your business.
A warning to those who still have ears to hear:
. . . Race d’Abel, voici ta honte:
Le fer est vaincu par l’épieu!
Race de Caïn, au ciel monte,
Et sur la terre jette Dieu!
May God forbid it.
Wake up, readers and other little children of God. We cannot know* the day or hour, and we must be vigilant. And we must subdue them, in holiness, truth and charity. Now. Don’t kid yourselves about the gravity of this χρονου. It is great.
*More accurately, I confess that I don’t know it, anyway.
Mike, this is beyond tendentious. Do you think that your knowledge of French is designed to impress us, when it merely alerts us to the possibility that you have no counter-argument?
Don’t actually have any French, I’m very sorry to say. I wasn’t writing or citing for you, though. It was directed way, way over your head.
Only an idiot would venture to debate you, George.
And yet you do. Or try to.
Father Washburn, I have good reason to hope I’m communicating just fine with those I cared to in the post you pose to chide me for. The assumptions evident in your first sentence are unwarranted and imaginary. And great poetry often can’t be translated adequately. If this is news to you, well, you heard it here first. Oddly enough (this joint ain’t exactly Montparnasse).
With respect to annoying the Monomakhos “‘reader’ship,” I certainly hope so. If it goads some of them to think outside the moralistic and partisan ruts they’re so sadly mired in, that’s just peachy with me. “Looking silly” in contemporary America, of all places, is far down my list of concerns. Being silly is another matter.
If you find my posts generally incomprehensible, though, I’m afraid that would be more your problem than mine. They ought to be clear enough to any rational and minimally informed person capable of reading competent English prose at an adult level.
https://www.monomakhos.com/pat-bartholomew-no-to-homosexual-marriage/#comment-62774
Anything in there you find difficult to comprehend or objectionable? If so it would be my pleasure to elaborate, or to entertain any substantive critique.
Question: is it possible that you fail to discern the moral madness gross confusion irrationality brazen, shameless ignorance spite scapegoating and social sorcery in George’s posts and “essays”? I’ve noted only a few very timid, warm and fuzzy rebukes-lite from you — completely inappropriate nerf balls mainly, nothing remotely near what his Vanity Pundit act merits from an Orthodox clergyman. Your implicit nihil obstat is what I’m getting from that. It looks to me as if Nate and I are just about the only two posters here who consistently get the gravity of George’s dereliction of an Orthodox Christian “opinion maker’s” duty to demonstrate moral sanity and elementary rationality, and who expose his unspiritual imposture in detail (It represents an abyss of subreason; but life is short.) Neither of us are priests. Bishop Tikhon occasionally lets him have it, but he’s retired. What’s your excuse?
Mike, I’m sure Fr George can respond to your criticism on his own. As for me, I’m glad that “looking silly…is far down your list of concerns.” You don’t have to worry about “looking silly.” (With pretension though, you’ve got a problem.”
Regarding your first paragraph, Montparnasse ain’t exactly the place it used to be. Paris’ schtick was always overrated as far as being the philosophical center of the universe went. At least once we knew that frauds like Sartre were collaborating with the Nazis while they were drinking their Pernods and then bragging that they were part of the Resistance once the Germans were safely on the retreat.
As for your criticism of Fr George that he may have a “problem” finding your posts “incomprehensible,” well, he’s not the only one.
Finally, your statement that great poetry “often can’t be translated adequately” is true as far as it goes. It’s still a trite excuse. This same argument has been used by people in the GOA for decades to prevent worship in the vernacular. One reason of course was to keep the GOA insular and keep out the xenoi. I imagine that something along these lines is operative in your non-responses: I get called out on “X,” “Y,” or “Z” so I better make fun of “Bozo” because he can’t speak French. That’ll intimidate the conservatives and serve as a dog-whistle to the liberals that we’re much superior. Because we know where Montparnasse is. And we can Google a French poem.
Tell you what, tell me exactly what argument of mine it is you find objectionable, state the reasons (not assertions) why, and then let me respond.
Fr.
FranklyGeorge,The late comedian Richard Pryor (RIP) told the story of his first trip to Africa and the profound impact it had on his life. On one occasion, he was invited for dinner to home of a guide who had led him on his first safari. During dinner, the guide asked asked him, “What language do you speak at home?” “Pryor answered, “English.” His host responded, “I understand you speak English, but what language do you speak in your home?” Another guest explained that, while Zimbabwe had an “official” language, and most also English, at home one spoke spoke one’s customary tribal dialect. Pryor turned to his host and said, “Jive.” There you have it.
This reminds of the day that the sweetest woman I ever met, Alexandra Chetverikova, daughter of the renowned Russian theologian Protopresbyter Sergei Chetverikov, former Chairperson of the Dept. of Russian Language at Indiana University, and who taught Russian Language at SVS, took off her glasses, smiled at me, and laughing said, “Misha, you love Russian language! But you are stupid!” And there you have that…
Oh, and as for Baudelaire, read Matthew 23. “It’s all of the facts when you’re down to brass tacks…” Mr. Meyers? Yup. TS Elliott. Aucune traduction nécessaire!
Father Washburn, the biggest imaginary assumption explicitly represented here is that I “must have some motive in mind *other than actual communication.*” An interesting speculation on many levels and fronts, though asserted without “ANY particulars” in its support. Interesting, given all the communications I’ve posted to this typically silly and, far too often, gravely deceptive, disinforming, malignantly destructive, libelous and scandalous blog (although it must be repeated that, IMO, the charitable contributions by some posters here are consistently & reliably huge exceptions indeed to this composite estimation of mine. I think their posts should definitely be bracketed far off as precious and relatively very valuable. Again, IMO. FWIW. I hope it goes without saying that every human soul/spirit present here is very precious and valuable. Their “cyberworks” perhaps not so much, sometimes. Or often. Or nearly always in a few lamentable cases.)
But maybe you’d care to engage me, or exhort me, or rebuke me — or even accuse me — by identifying the motive(s?) you hint at suspecting in me, with particulars? Go for it, if so. I’m sure it would be very entertaining and possibly even beneficial and edifying for both of us. And who knows, perhaps for others also.
From the mere fact that you yourself, apparently, got little or nothing (?) out of that little assemblage of a) my own words, b) a citation, and c) a boldfaced emphasis on a couple of its verses (and on what they might signify to various parties), it doesn’t logically follow that there was nothing in it to get, of course. (I don’t presume to know whether this is a fact, yet.) But if by some chance it should comfort you to imagine that, it’s OK with me. For this reason: Because none of us is much of anything at all merely on our own, in Christian principle, if it should turn out that you and I aren’t (and cannot be) in any real synergy of authentic communication, in this specific instance, then you’d be missing out on nothing of value here. And, if you glean little or nothing from my words & citation, as a unit, and are uninterested in trying to get anything out of the post, via respectful and competent dialogue with me — either because you have prejudged the effort as likely to prove barren and therefore fruitless, or you think I might not be a person substantive enough to merit the required effort on your part, or for some other reason(s), then I don’t really matter much, in this particular cyber-encounter between thee and me, by definition. Almost regardless of the accuracy of your estimate of me as a person. QED.
Another unwarranted assumption is that the number of individuals (and even persons) who actually read (and/or “read”) this questionable blog is, in and of itself, an especially important or relevant criterion in judging the merits of my allegedly pretentious post. I should note too that another quite unwarranted assumption may be embedded deep in that one, at least as you wrote it: about the phenomenon of reading itself. I refer to the assumption some might make that reading is a simple, unitary, one-size-fits-all, on-or-off-toggle kind of thing. That would be most unwarranted and imaginary. In fact, many, many levels of literacy are found in human beings. A hierarchy is present here.
You wrote:
Once again: at this juncture in the development of my infantile nepsis, I don’t believe, think or feel that the number or percentage, per se, matters so much, necessarily. I hasten to add that I don’t claim to know that this is true. What I do know, however, is that talk of “strong majorities,” in such contexts, can set off certain alarums, at least in me, and I’d wager it might do in others, too. Frankly.
The silliest, most unjust, most unwarranted, most imaginary and most rebuke-worthy assumption of all. So far. In fact, it’s very possible, but I caution you that its possibility is not something you ought to smugly take for granted will actualize, in our case. We’ll see. Caveat lecter.
I’ll respond to your fourth assumption if and only if your reply to this offering is satisfactory. I’m increasingly selective about how and with whom I spend time in these latter days. I have a decided preference for the poor in spirit and the genuinely humble. But I do also take some pleasure in persuading those who think and/or feel otherwise to reconsider what I see as a dangerously erroneous rupture from Reality. As I hope you do, too.
Mr. Meyers,
Have you ever visited the United Nations in New York? Really quite an experience, it is. But quite an oddity as well: you enter a room where officials, delegates, guests, and visitors are all seated and wearing headphones; a sort of precursor the the insidious iPod “implants” that distract everyone from human interaction today. But in this case, the intention is to foster communication, allowing you to understand what that non-English speaker is saying. Imagine! And it is easily thirty years I have wondering what that concluding phrase of the translator means, “Waive free translation.” And so it goes…
And, of course, we have that whole business of St. Paul indicating that words spoken without translation/interpretation are pointless – and if I’m not mistaken, you didn’t just make a statement, you pulled the FIRE ALARM, Wake up, readers and other little children of God. Only, you don’t speak French and fail to see the significance that the overwhelming majority here do not likewise. And suddenly I hear the voice of RP McMurphy, “You’re not not gonna’ play this henhouse [crap], Nurse Rachett, it’s the World Series!” Now I confess, I was never a fan of Baudelaire to begin, so when I read your post then read that you do not speak French, not only did I conclude it was pretentious, but it lacked creativity & imagination. If you are serious about administering the $5 smack-down to me, brother, at least put the effort into making me earn it.
And just when I thought my harlequin days were finally past, no, you emerge to blame Fr. George for your error(s,s,s,s). Dust off. Buy yourself a nice sweater as Autumn is upon us. Rouge for men. Whatever it takes, but lighten the hell up. If this forum is unbearable, ride the last bear out. Aye.
GEORGE, PLEASE DELETE THIS ONE AND POST THE ONE WITH THE LINK TO THE SONG. THANKS!
I KNOW WHAT I LIKE (IN YOUR WARDROBE)
Michael RUTHERFORD, Peter GABRIEL & Phil COLLINS
It’s one o’clock and time for lunch,
When the sun beats down and I lie on the bench
I can always hear them talk.
There’s always been Ethel:
“Jacob, wake up! You’ve got to tidy your room now.”
And then Mister Lewis:
“Isn’t it time that he was out on his own?”
Over the garden wall, two little lovebirds – cuckoo to you!
Keep them mowing blades sharp…
I know what I like, and I like what I know;
getting better in your wardrobe, stepping one beyond your show.
Sunday night, Mr Farmer called, said:
“Listen son, you’re wasting your time; there’s a future for you
in the fire escape trade. Come up to town!”
But I remebered a voice from the past;
“Gambling only pays when you’re winning”
I had to thank old Miss Mort for schooling a failure.
Keep them mowing blades sharp…
I know what I like, and I like what I know;
getting better in your wardrobe, stepping one beyond your show.
When the sun beats down and I lie on the bench,
I can always hear them talk.
Me, I’m just a lawnmower – you can tell me by the way I walk!
And just when I thought my harlequin days were finally past, no, you emerge to blame Fr. George for your error(s,s,s,s). Dust off. Buy yourself a nice sweater as Autumn is upon us. Rouge for men. Whatever it takes, but lighten the hell up. If this forum is unbearable, ride the last bear out. Aye.
I KNOW WHAT I LIKE (IN YOUR WARDROBE)
GENESIS — Michael RUTHERFORD, Peter GABRIEL & Phil COLLINS
It’s one o’clock and time for lunch,
When the sun beats down and I lie on the bench
I can always hear them talk.
There’s always been Ethel:
“Jacob, wake up! You’ve got to tidy your room now.”
And then Mister Lewis:
“Isn’t it time that he was out on his own?”
Over the garden wall, two little lovebirds – cuckoo to you!
Keep them mowing blades sharp…
I know what I like, and I like what I know;
getting better in your wardrobe, stepping one beyond your show.
Sunday night, Mr Farmer called, said:
“Listen son, you’re wasting your time; there’s a future for you
in the fire escape trade. Come up to town!”
But I remebered a voice from the past;
“Gambling only pays when you’re winning”
I had to thank old Miss Mort for schooling a failure.
Keep them mowing blades sharp…
I know what I like, and I like what I know;
getting better in your wardrobe, stepping one beyond your show.
When the sun beats down and I lie on the bench,
I can always hear them talk.
Me, I’m just a lawnmower – you can tell me by the way I walk!
I saw Genesis once, when I was about 19 or so. Phil Collins looked cool with long hair.
Let us be clear, you think he lied because you are prone to accept conspiracy theories lacking in hard evidence as credible. Therefore, because the president doesn’t believe crackpot things you may give weight to, he is a liar.
Of course, when Obama says ‘no one in the world’, there is a presumptive context of people that matter in a geopolitical sphere. Not you. And make no mistake, the case for the Syrian government is quite stark for those who draw their conclusions from hard forensic evidence instead of blog conspiracy theories.
Hint: despite what is said in presidential op-ed pieces, the post 8/21 actions of the Russian government rather strongly suggest that they know full well that the gas attack was conducted by government forces. Whether or not Assad personally authorized it is almost irrelevant because the implications for the Russians if he didn’t are just about as bad as if he did.
Even if it is proven that it was Assad who ordered the use of sarin gas, that is not a casus belli for the United States. Israel used white phosphorus (I think it was) during Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. And it was we who armed Saddam Hussein with the sarin that he used against the Iranians during the Iran-Iraq War.
Yesterdays conspiracies and todays current events. so what’s your point? As to hard facts, they were given and reported upon by news agencies outside of this country that are just as reputable as any American news agency. Now if you believe that ONLY American media is credible then that is your issue not mine.
Peter
By the way Nate that UN Report, which I did read the day it came out, only states that Gas was used NOT who used it.
Further before August the BBC was running reports that the Rebels were using Sarin. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22424188. I think the BBC is pretty credible unless you think they are a conspiracy blog.
Peter
The UN report does more than confirm that ‘gas’ was used:
* It confirms that it was, in fact, sarin.
* It provides analysis of the composition that indicate stabilization agents (suggesting the sarin was pulled from a controlled storage stockpile)
* It identified traces on suspected depleted munitions (munitions and delivery systems the Syrian government is known to have, but not ones demonstrated by any rebel group)
* Rough trajectory analysis estimates (were the munitions likely to have been launched from government controlled areas of Damascus)
The point of the report was not to assign blame or finger a culprit, it was to document fact. And the reality is: those facts point to the Syrian government. Attempting to prove that a rebel group in the 8/21 attacks had the sarin and had the munitions and had the launch equipment and had the personnel with the experience to operate all of the above is a tall order. On the other hand, there is no question the Syrian government possesses all of the above. On top of that, they also possessed motive.
The BBC article you link is reporting an allegation based on personal testimony. With Carla Del Ponte explicitly admitting to the possibility that it was actually the Syrian government. Those earlier allegations are part of why OPCW/WHO ended up in the country for further investigation and forensic/medical examination of sites, munitions and people.
For the record, Sarin is not one of those chemical agents that need governmental resources to manufacture (like Anthrax). There was a messianic cult in Japan that released homemade Sarin gas in the Tokyo subway system several years ago. It was the equivalent of bath-tub gin, chemical weapon-wise.
As always George, I agree.
Peter
Peter, President Obama was careless with his language in the part of the interview I emphasized above. Obviously, some say that elements of the opposition to Assad were the direct agents of this atrocity. But just as obviously, the President knows that. Don’t be too obtuse. What he clearly must have meant is that, aside from Putin — who’s compromised by his support of Assad’s regime even after its brutally violent crackdown on peaceful protests more than two years ago — evidently few if any other relevant principals who’ve been briefed on known facts takes it seriously, now. If you know of anyone in civil authority anyplace outside the Kremlin claiming this, I’d like to see a cite or URL, from any remotely reliable and authoritative source. I’m interested in evidence, not hallucinations. What I know for sure is that I haven’t seen the intelligence. I’m almost as certain you haven’t, either.
You’ve charged the President with “lie after lie after lie.” It isn’t adequate for an Orthodox Christian to merely assert such a thing. Here’s the transcript — explain yourself.
IMHO, the ongoing bane of previous Republican administrations’ foreign policy in the region, food prices there, water shortages, and opportunistic terrorist Islamo-nihilist malefactors (from Chechnya, for example) taking advantage of all this as well as of the brutal and incompetent government responses to mainly peaceful protests are far more to blame for the violence and chaos than anything President Obama has done or not done. And guess who’s partly to blame for those crazed Chechen terrorists spreading like apocalyptic locusts?
I think the brazen attempts to scapegoat this President for the sins of his predecessors — and the horrible consequences of those sins — is perfectly obvious to the sane, rational and just here and abroad. I think too many of you are morally and intellectually deranged. You seem to feed on lies and propagandistic distortions and manifest political and social sorcery. If I were you, I’d do a lot more fasting and prayer and almsgiving, and I’d beg God for clean, healthy eyes to see through.
Careless? So carelessness almost got us into bombing another nation? So that’s the choice carelessness or dishonesty? Neither option is good and bespeaks much about this President’s character. As for other Presidents – Clinton got us involved in IMHO a lie of a war in Serbia, Bush goy us involved in Iraq over the WMD lie and Obama did the same with Lybia that led to Bengazi where the “Rebels” turned on us and killed 4 of our own with our own weapons.
Why did we go into Lybia, why?
Now Syria? Carelessness? More like premeditaed lies. Why are we so hell bent on Bombing and going to war with all of our past allies from Saddam to Mubarek to Quaddafi? Why? If you want the answer to that question then you better be prepared to except an answer that has America being the bad guy.
Peter
Peter, yes, the President’s language was less than laser-focused in that key phase of the interview. I could point to a few other significant problems here and there, too. But under the circumstances, I won’t. (It occurs to me to wonder about something: did GWB submit himself even once to something comparable to this, before or especially after the ides of March, 2003? If so I’d like to review the tape(s) or whatever. Also: have you seen Prime Minister’s Questions on C-SPAN? If so, try out in your head this counterfactual scenario: picture President Obama in the place of the British PM. Then picture GWB there. Then ponder well the disparity. I offer this as a recreational “aside,” and something more.)
Is it too much to ask some of you to exert a minimum of effort here? Maybe you could see a man under billions of atmospheres of pressure, on many fronts, in a world more peril-wracked by the day, face to face with one of the more astute, well-informed journalists in America who was asking tough, hardball questions? To write that he was lying is just barely to skirt libel. Not to mention to be as petty as hell. You and I both grok the general vicinity of what he meant. Don’t dissemble in front of me.
You can click on my name to read my posts here if you have any interest in what I personally think and feel about our nation’s history with respect to the blasphemy of “. . . the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air.” If you did, I think you might readily infer my views on this general matter. I’ll have more to say later. I have to run at the moment.
I’m back. Not taking a firm position at this juncture on who’s guilty of using CW and/or sarin gas in this particular atrocious incident. I’m aware of the starkly conflicting reports that suggest various possibilities of direct (and indirect) agency in this most recent instance, as well as in less recent incidents, in Ba’athist Syria. I’m also all too well aware of proven abuse and all-too-credible reports of abuse, in our name (i.e., the American people — and God help those who imply, however cagily, in His name) by the US military of agent orange/jet fuel, agent blue, white phosphorus, napalm, depleted uranium, usw. I’m also aware of accusations by Lebanese President Emile Lahoud of the use of white phosphorus by the IDF in Southern Lebanon, in the summer of 2006, and in Gaza City in 2008 or so.
May I say how fascinated I am by some loudly, echt Republican correspondents here, who have grown so very fastidious, all of a sudden, and, if I may so, belatedly conscientious. Better late than never, ever.
Again, your biases beclown you. When Bush the Younger was president, the US was attacked for only the second time in its history. It was a shattering experience. Both parties were united in taking the war to Al-Qaida. That doesn’t mean we were right to invade Iraq, although there was compelling evidence that Iraq was a state sponsor of international terrorism.
In The Third Terrorist, compelling evidence was brought forth which proved the existence of an Iraqi cell in Oklahoma City and that one of its operatives was in the cab of the U-Haul rental truck along with Timothy McVeigh. Whether this cell was independent of Saddam is not known.
Having said that, there were many in the Conservative movement who were against the invasion of Iraq. Names like Bob Novak, Pat Buchanan, Taki Theodoracopulos, Milton Friedman, etc. were unalterably opposed. The so-called Paleo-conservative movement along with Paleo-libertarians like Murray Rothbard and Lew Rockwell, and of course Neo-confederates were by and large opposed to that war.
Even establishment conservatives like the late William F Buckley came to view the Iraqi invasion as an impeachable offense.
So no, not all in the GOP were on board. In the interest of full disclosure, I took the same position as Hillary Clinton, Jay Rockefeller, and the odious Andrew Sullivan and supported the overthrow of the Hussein regime. Nor did I cry any tears for him when he took the long drop. In all honesty, I don’t know if the world would have been a better place with him in power.
Unlike Assad however, Saddam provided us with many provocations and was in material breach of several UN resolutions (seventeen). One provocation of course was his attempted assassination of Bush the Elder.
Obama has sent arms and aid to the rebels who are killing Orthodox Christians and desecrating our Churches in Syria. The rebels are heavily infiltrated with radical Islamists with ties to Al-Qaeda who plan to set up an Islamic state that will persecute Orthodox Christians. They have already driven the Christians out of Homs, kidnapped the Greek Orthodox Metropolitan and Syriac Orthodox Bishop of Aleppo and killed their driver while they were on an humanitarian mission. They tried to assassinate our Antiochian Orthodox Patriarch, John X, by firing on St. Mary’s Cathedral in Damascus while the clergy were distributing food to the needy. In Maaloula, they terrorized the nuns and orphans at St. Thekla’s Monastery and destroyed both churches in the village, one Catholic and one Orthodox.
The German Intelligence Agency intercepted a message from Assad ordering his troops not to use chemical weapons. Thus there is legitimate reason to doubt that Assad was responsible for the poison gas attack. Remember in Bosnia the Muslims fired on a Muslim funeral themselves to blame it on the Serbs.
Well Fr. Morris, you have swallowed hook, line & sinker. First, not all the rebels are radical Islamists bent on destroying Christianity. And, the CIA is not arming radical Islamist factions. Second, Assad and his brothers & cousins in the military are MASS MURDERS of their own people, Muslim & Christian. Third, the poison gas used at least 10 times in Syria in the last 2 1/2 years, all came from Assad’s military stock pile. The rocket delivery systems were Syrian military. The launch areas were Syrian military. If ANYONE is responsible for Christian deaths in Syria it is Putin who allows the war to continue. THANK YOU, RUSSIA!
I think that you should read some of the accounts of the atrocities committed by the rebels against the Syrian Christian Community before you make such statements. I admit that I have no trust in Obama, because I think that he is either incompetent or is deliberately trying to destroy our nation and help the Muslim radicals in the Middle East. You obviously do not understand the true nature of Islam. Just the last few days radical Muslims have killed dozens of people in acts of terrorism in Africa and the Middle East. A religion that produces such crimes against humanity shows the truth in the statement of St. John of Damascus that Islam is the forerunner of the Anti-Christ.
The same St. John of Damascus who was a steward in the house of the Caliph as was his father before him. This was during what could easily be seen as the height of Islam (the kinder, gentler Islam).
Well Ted, when are you done packing and ready to go? Your friends are waiting…
“If ANYONE is responsible for Christian deaths in Syria”
No ted, both sides are responsible for Christian deaths in Syria.
The difference between them lies in motivation – Assad’s killings are politically motivated -he kills his enemies to stay in power but he has no particular animus to Christians otherwise. The Islamist’s killings are religiously motivated (given that Islamism is a totalitarian ideology which uses political means to advance its religious goals.) It’s a diabolical calculus, but if I were Syrian Christian I think I’d prefer the devil I know.
I would be interested in the specific information about “Obama sending arms to the rebels”.
As for the Serbs, well…..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-24239779?SThisFB
These are the people Obama is backing in Syria.
Of course the article you link talks about multiple groups. If you are talking about the the National Coalition? Yes. The Islamist groups that won’t work with them? No. Are you intentionally trying to be misleading?
I appreciate this statement very much.
For those who may be interested, Ancient Faith Radio host Kevin Allen had a live interview with Dr. Nahib Saliba, Met. Philip’s younger brother last evening. It was very interesting. I commend it to all.
Syria: The village of Maaloula, known as a last haven of Aramaic, has been taken over by Syrian rebels associated with al Qaeda, who have stormed the Christian center and offered local Christians a choice: conversion or death. A resident of the town said the rebels shouted “Allahu Akhbar” as they moved through the village, and proceeded to assault Christian homes and churches.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2013/09/09/Maaloula-Syria-rebels
One of the unfortunate things about the current situation is the bedfellows it makes. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t be caught dead agreeing with Jim Forrest. He has essentially accused our troops of being murderers in the past constructing an exact moral equivalency between them and the terrorists who perpetrated 9/11 and al-Qaida in Iraq.
I’ve given this some thought because of all the demonstrations and anti-war stuff floating around at this point and I have to come down on the side of staying separate from the usual suspects who are against any use of first world military power. Let them disagree with this war for their own reasons. I don’t wish to be sullied by their perverse reasoning (or, more accurately, emotional reasoning), having perfectly legitimate, non-hormonal reasons to oppose this proposed military action.
Well, the most interesting and overlooked possibility is the elimination of 1000 tons of chemical weapons. The threat of US military strike is the DIRECT reason.
As horrible as you and the signers believe Obama to be, Obama will strike Syria because chenical weapons were used.
I remind all of you, the US President has the authority to bomb Syria for 60 days without risk of impeachment.
Rather than condemn the US threats; Jim and Fr Webster ought to begin with August 21.
Jim always thinks peace is the way, but he oftentimes discounts reality.
And I have lots of respect for him.
Liberal and neocon foreign policy, particularly the “Arab Spring” has been catastrophic for mid-east Christians.
Putin outmaneuvered Obama by giving Obama a face-saving way of getting out of the corner he painted himself into. Obama took it and the liberal/neocon destabilization of governments in Egypt and Libya will not be repeated in Syria and the Christians will be safer.
Obama’s speech last night was bluster for American consumption and embarrassing to watch, nothing more. Putin won because Russian influence in the region has increased which is good for the Christian population there. America has been weakened but its current policy is indefensible.
No he does not. The War Powers Act allows the President to respond to a real and immediate threat to the U.S. The situation in Syria is not a real or immediate threat to the U.S. Obama can only attack Syria with congressional approval. Why as we observe the 12 anniversary of 9/11 is the U.S. government sending arms and other aid to an army associated with radical Muslims and Al Quaeda. That makes no sense. As an Orthodox Christian, I object to my tax money going to support people who are persecuting my fellow Orthodox Christians in Syria and threatening the very existence of the Patriarchate under which my Metropolitan serves. If Obama goes ahead and attacks Syria without congressional approval, he should be impeached and removed for office.
Iran contra ring any bells?
Impeached or lauded?
AMEN, Fr. John! Amen, amen, amen!
… Obama will strike Syria because chenical weapons were used.
So Obama will put the full force of the United States military behind Al Qaeda because 1,400 Iranian were gassed? I would object to that course of action even if he claimed it was because 100,000 Iranian Christians were murdered. Which they were, and which he doesn’t give a damn about. Whether your’e gassed, shot, clubbed, hung, or beheaded—you’re still dead.
What on earth are you thinking?
Seems to me that at the last count, the women, children, old people, and innocent civilians killed by Mr. Obama and his drones around the world far outnumber those killed by the poison gas in Syria. Plus that, no one knows who caused the gas deaths to occur. Reportedly, the gas was supplied to the terrorist rebels in Syria (by Saudi Arabia) and they accidentally/stupidly set them off. Speculations with no backup claim that government forces fired shells into Damascus against forces that were of little consequence in the war. The government is winning this war and had no reason to fire such weapons.
The nation (USA) that uses drones, napalm, depleted uranium (DU), white phosphorus (WP – Willie Pete), agent orange, etc. against soldiers and civilians has little moral ground to stand on. And, going back even further to WW2, atomic bombs against a civilian population and the fire storms in Germany that wiped out many thousands of civilians cause one to think about the modern concern for morality from the nation with the worst record in history regarding civilian deaths to be questionable. There is also the holocaust of German civilians when the USA in conjunction with the allied Soviets depopulated Prussia of its entire German population by means of freight cars moving them to other areas in Germany; as many as 1.5 million Germans were exterminated by this action to allow Prussia to be divided up and taken over by Poland, Russia and other future soviet republics. History is nasty.
What we did to Dresden was unconscionable. Not that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were less immoral, but at least we warned the people ahead of time to get the hell out of Dodge.
If I remember correctly, the people of Dresden were warned, many of them left and then many returned. Another horrible firestorm was Hamburg.
The attack during the last week of July, 1943, Operation Gomorrah, created one of the largest firestorms raised by the RAF and USAAF in World War II, killing 42,600 civilians and wounding 37,000 in Hamburg and practically destroying the entire city.
Bombing operations against the Japanese Islands were even more horrific. Over 50% of Tokyo was destroyed by the end of World War II. The Operation Meetinghouse firebombing of Tokyo on the night of 9/10 March 1945 was the single deadliest air raid of World War II; greater than Dresden, Hamburg, Hiroshima, or Nagasaki as single events. 334 B-29s took off for the raid on the night of 9–10 March (“Operation Meetinghouse”) with 279 of them dropping around 1,700 tons of bombs. Fourteen B-29s were lost. Approximately 16 square miles (41 km2) of the city were destroyed and some 100,000 people are estimated to have died in the resulting firestorm.
That is a lot of civilians.
That is why I believe that war is always evil even in self-defense. Sometimes you have to fight to protect your family and country, but just as you get dirty weeding your garden, you get spiritually dirty fighting in a war. Of all human activities war is the most inhuman. In war, even good people do things that they would never do under normal circumstances. War is the ultimate manifestation of the fall.
War has always caused civilian deaths and had Japan, Germany or Russia had the technology we had during WWII, their record would have been far worse. The Holocaust was all civilians.
There are times when deadly force can be used righteously, but those times are becoming fewer as the nature of modern weaponry and technology makes such force even more horrific.
Well, well, well…
I am afraid that is a bit of an exaggeration, although your listing of atrocities is certainly correct. Germany and Japan in WWII have a much worse record, with millions and millions of civilians intentionally slaughtered.
I remind all of you, the US President has the authority to bomb Syria for 60 days without risk of impeachment.
Well, Dan Fall, may I remind you that the Emperor of China has the authority to bomb the USA for 600 days without risk of impeachment. You know, China is exceptional that way…
Mr. Fall, President Obama will not be successfully impeached for bombing Syria, if he does, because it takes 2/3rds of the Senate to effect a conviction and removal from office. The majority of his party would never back such an effort no matter how damning the evidence of abuse of power or other high crimes and misdemeanors. (“High” in this context and in its venerable usage means “open and notorious” as in “to sin with a high hand.”).
He would probably not even be impeached by the House of Representatives because enough people even int he so called and highly ineffectual “opposition party” believe (erroneously) as you do that the President, “as Commmander in Chief” has the constitutional authority to intiate hostilities against another sovereign nation. This is to make of the President an effective dictatory and autocrat, when the Constitution is clear that only the Congress has the power to declare war–which means not only the power to issue statements to this effect but to cause it to happen. A President of any stripe who takes this authority on himself unilaterlly does so illegitimately and should be impeached and removed–but as you so sagaciously observe he won’t be. We have allowed our Presidents to become more and more autrocratic for over half a century and now we are used to it and accept it without a whimper. The end result of this must inevetiably be arbitrary rule of the Executive over a somnabulent and effete people who know nothing of personal responsbility, of intact families, of a willingness to sacrifice their own pleasure for the good of their posterity and of freedom and the pursuit of goodness, truth and beauty. Would it were not so.
lexcaritas
You know, the easiest thing for Assad to have done would be to let America lob a few missiles over there (the “shot across the bow”) and go on as before; ie, if he actually had used chemical weapons: He keeps control of his weapons and loses a few soldiers and some military equipment which the Russians would be quick and happy to replace.
Obama’s bs about how his threat to use military force was of benefit because it elicited the Russian proposal does not make sense. If Assad didn’t use the weapons and did not intend to use them in the future, then agreeing to turn them over to UN oversight would be the thing to do – – and that’s exactly what he did.
It is amazing the degree to which people are willing to engage in the most limber backflips to maintain that this emperor has clothes and that Assad, who has been fine and dandy with us up until the “Arab Spring”, is some sort of monster. We know who the monsters are in Syria and they’re waging a jihad against Assad.
Pop quiz, Mr. Misha, in “art” appreciation. Category: haute couture. Filed under, Rohrschach test; subfile, Chiaroscuro: Did you by any chance view the previous emperor and his Administration as most marvelously attired, in contrast to this one? Or, did you do, early on, but perhaps your taste in fashions moved on, and this season’s Russian designers and models please your jaded, worldly eyes more? Can’t make a geopolitical omellete without faking a few conceptual Fabergé eggs, eh, “pious” neo-czarophile? Or what?
Did you vote for them, and did you support their pleonexic adventure in the Middle East? So many “Christians” here did, as you know. Are you one of them?
I’ll mercifully decline to administer the coup de grâce to this illustrative hybrid of weird confusion and truly sleazy, sinister deceitfulness.** For the moment. For now I will only say that you are disgusting me more and more. The credible threat of the delegated use by sovereign states of force is a power ordained by God to deter evil, as you know. I take it you would not oppose the President’s and the State Department’s apparently dextrous and flexible responses to opportunities that events present? However the good work of averting, at least for the time being, the overspreading of great human tragedies (famines, pestilences, tribal and civil wars) and abominations (mass rapes, sectarian carnage, massacres of the innocent, the unleashing of weapons of mass destruction [CW, *BW*, NW] & monstrous and cosmically destructive idolatries) may be accomplished, I take it you would applaud success, if achieved? President Obama told George Stephanopoulos that he’s less interested in style points here than in, if I may paraphrase him, getting to a righteous policy. I take it that would be OK with you, Mr. Misha? If so, I’m sure our President would be so relieved to hear it.
Those opposing the al-Assads are not all monsters. Another obvious lie, as stated, whether intentional or not. This time via synechdoche. But perhaps you meant to dance dryly through raindrops of semiotic ambiguity. If so, you look all wet to me.
And once again, some of the monsters at issue were created in Chechnya, nicht wahr?
**Not to mention an unmistakable whiff of treason — at least to those of us who love Christ’s peace and the immanent coming of the Kingdom of His Father. (And to those who love its Imminence, too.)
Mike,
It is one of the truly precious, savory – even delectable – pleasures of my life that I succeed in disgusting you.
Well, ok, that’s not true. You’re irrelevant.
Misha
Explain to me what is the moral difference between machine gunning someone and gassing them? The rebels have killed 10s of thousands of people and Obama has not said a word. The rebels have begun a systematic persecution of Christians in Syria, but again Obama says nothing. Assad is a strong dictator, but it takes a strong dictator to keep the radical Muslims from killing other Muslims of a different sect of Islam and from persecuting and killing Christians. Unfortunately, it seems Obama and his foreign policy team do not care about the fate of Christianity in the Middle East. Of course, I would argue that his domestic policies have also been anti-Christian because he never seems to miss a chance to promote homosexuality, and abortion. His health care system compromises the religious freedom of Christians who do not believe in abortion causing drugs, and if the indications are true will completely mess up our medical system. He is a very stubborn man who refuses to consider any negotiations with anyone who does not stand in awe of his brilliance. That is sarcasm, actually, I am not sure that he is all that bright. He is an affirmative action president.
He is not an “affirmative action” President, inasmuch as he has been twice elected by substantial majorities of the American people, acting freely. (I didn’t vote for him myself, either time.)
As far as “gassing” vs. machine-gunning, the difference is one of international law, and does, ultimately, have a moral foundation. The world has managed since WWI to effectively eliminate at least one form of mass killing: chemical warfare. This is a good thing. The reintroduction of chemical warfare should indeed be subject to international sanctions of some kind, and not ignored. The difficulty, of course, is in the execution.
Some people here are, I think, very cavalier about the chemical warfare issue. The idea that the “gassing” was carried out by the rebels is pure wishful thinking.
He is an affirmative action president in this way I think: he was not vetted as a white candidate would have been; he is not criticized as a white candidate would have bee and often those who do criticize him are labled racist without any consideration being given to the critique.
Many people voted for him simply because he was black. Of course the Republicans cooperated by putting up bad candidates to oppose him.
In short he gets away with stuff that a white president would not.
Why do you think that Obama has not allowed anyone to see his academic records? I have no doubt that he got into college and law school through affirmative action and was pushed through the system because of affirmative action. He is without a doubt the most unqualified man to ever hold the presidency in our entire history. He never had a real job and has no knowledge of the private sector. As a political leader, he is a total failure. He only knows how to divide people. He has no ability to work with people who do not agree with him and totally lacks the ability to work with others to bring about compromises that are necessary to have an efficient government. He ignores laws he does not like and rules by decree. If he were white, he would have been impeached and removed for abuse of power long ago.
If these gas attacks were indeed carried out by the government, where is the proof? None was offered, except for that drivel published in the mass media, which has the same stench as the “proof” of the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction ten years previously.
The German Intelligence Service intercepted a message from Assad to his troops telling them not to use chemical weapons.
And a man has never made a call telling his wife he was stuck at the office working late while lying in bed with his mistress.
Father John, I’m not so sure it matters how one kills but for modern warfare machine guns are considered a legal weapon of war while poison gas is not. The Geneva Conventions “outlawed” use of poison gas after WWI.
Of course they have yet to outlaw land mines, depleted uranium artillery shells or nuclear weapons.
I’m no international lawyer, so what does IL say about insurgencies against legitimate governments?
I mean, the Assad regime, as brutal as it may be (a brutality which is not not gratuitous but dictated by the brutality of its internal enemies), has been in power for 40 years, which must give it some sort of de facto legitimacy, no? It was an ally of the US in the 19909-91 Gulf War and in 2000 a US President seemed to give a nod to this legitimacy by meeting with Assad Snr in Geneva. What’s changed that the US offers moral and apparently military support to the insurgency, which is partly made up of its sworn enemies? The Arab Spring? Cue a loud buzz – wrong answer! Will the US “cultivate democracy” in the region even to the point of steadying the hand of the one who wishes to cut your throat? Can your political leadership on both sides actually be that naïve…to the point of such incompetence? How did it come to this?
Basil, a former NY Times reporter with extensive experience and contacts in the Middle East recently wrote a piece in the New Yorker detailing some of the stuff that went on in setting up the government in Iraq and its current ties to the Syrian mess. According to this reporter the make up of the current Iraqi government was essentially dictated by the head of Iran’s secret service. Iraq is also willingly allowing Iran to both overfly and use land routes to supply Assad as well as helping Iran circumvent the embargo.
As to why the US is supporting our enemies, well…………….Obama seems to think that way and it is probably an extension of the wildly idiotic Wilsonian idea of exporting democracy.
The legal difference is there but Fr. John speaks of the moral difference. Killing is killing, whether by gas or by bullet or by a nuclear bomb, whether in the name of stability, revolution, or democracy.
Exactly. Killing is killing regardless of how it is done. More people were killed during the fire bombing of Dresden than were killed in Hiroshima.
As far as I can follow the news, there isn’t going to be any “strike” for the time being, which is very good news. However, the real threat of such a strike has had a useful effect so far, it seems.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/11/opinion/dowd-who-do-you-trust.html?_r=0
Life is so tasty today. This is Maureen Dowd’s column. Even she doesn’t buy the lies from the White House regarding the utility of the threat of an attack against Syria. Not to mention there are a host of articles today in the news all basically calling the president a fool and a liar.
Better late than never. Might have made a difference a year ago when Benghazi happened.
Ignoring Benghazi was the point though, wasn’t it? Just get Obama past the finish line, whatever the cost. Gin up black rage against Zimmerman, trot out the ladies at State to weep about a hurtful (never-watched) video about Mohammed, coyly remind people that Mormons are cultists, etc. Do whatever it takes to kick the can down the road. Just make sure Romney loses and Obama stays in power. Eventually Goldman-Sachs and the global elite will manufacture another crisis to somehow make Obama look good. The MSM will be compliant.
Hillary is pretty likely because all you Republicans keep throwing moderates under the bus.
Anybody who get nominated for President any more and has even the remotest chance of being elected is a morally compromised, unethical skunk so beholden to a witches brew of money and ideologies that they have little visible soul no matter which party they purport to come from. “Moderates” are the worst of the lot because they don’t even no what they purport to believe or care how they govern.
At least Obama has done pretty much what he said he wanted to do. The people who voted for him just didn’t comprehend what he meant.
I agree the primary system is not mandated by the constitution. It is deeply flawed because a candidate has to raise too much money to run in all the primaries. Anytime that a candidate has to raise that much money, he is comprised, because the people who give the money are going to expect something in return.
We need major reform starting with term limits for members of Congress and for judges as well. One man should not have as much power in the Senate as Harry Reid now has.
Meanwhile, instead of going around making speeches denouncing the Republicans in the House, and dividing our people, he should be providing some leadership and meet with the leaders of both sides to try to work out a compromise to resolve our budgetary problems. We have not had a federal budget since he took office. That is not right.
I have corrected you on at least three different occasions that your statement: “We have not had a federal budget since he took office.” is not actually correct. You continue to persist in making this statement. It is extremely troubling that I have to continue to do so. I suppose it is left as an exercise to the reader to discern why you continue making erroneous statements.
It is true. We have kept the government running through continuing resolutions. Obama has not yet produced a budget that can pass the Congress. His current refusal to negotiate on our budgetary problems are not the actions of a true leader. A true leader, would sit down with the leaders of Congress and work out series of deals based on compromises. His administration has gone from one budgetary crisis to another. He is not a competent leader. It will take years to undo the harm that he has done to our nation, if we ever can. He has constantly lied to the American people and is destroying our medical system by giving complete control to a bunch of self-serving bureaucrats. Under Obama our national debt has almost doubled, yet what have we gotten for all the money that has been spent. Has he solved one national problem? What has the man accomplished but harm for our nation? The answer is nothing.
It is not true by even the most strict definition. The last time Congress approved a joint budget resolution in the normal fashion was April 29, 2009. Which was after Obama took office. I have laid this out for you previously, yet you continue to persist. What is your defense for continuing to make this claim?
That is not how the budget process works. I have attempted to explain how the process works on this site on a few different occasions. It doesn’t appear to have sunk in. You personally appear to prefer writing cartoonish critiques of Obama rooted in rank ignorance versus making sharp critiques grounded in reality. But that doesn’t really bother me. Where it becomes troublesome is when after a certain about of repetition on the same false canards, it ceases to feel like I’m correcting you on errors and starts to feeling like I am attempting to counter willful dishonesty.
You appear to ignore any compromise the president has actually agreed to, or perhaps are completely unaware of the existence of said compromises in previous agreements. This undermines your argument, and lends one the impression that perhaps when you use the word ‘negotiate’ what you are really criticizing is the lack of complete capitulation.
1) You appear to live in a world where the Budget Control Act of 2011, along with other previous fiscal deals does not exist. Your not being aware of them doesn’t mean they don’t exist. If you are going to criticize Obama because of your lack of understanding of the fiscal wrangling going on over the past several years, it does not reflect poorly on Obama.
2) At our current impasse, the disagreement isn’t over the spending levels. The House wants a CR at sequester spending levels and the President would sign that CR. That isn’t the sticking point. In your world, apparently, it is Obama’s fault that the House GOP is hijacking budget legislation for non-budgetary issues.
3) The President can’t actually force the House to go into budget conference with the Senate if they don’t want to.
Well, really it’s been one ongoing crisis since the House flipped to the GOP in the 2010 mid-terms. You fail to recognize that as a result of those midterms, Obama and Congressional Democrats did in negotiation accept greater reductions in spending then they would have otherwise made. Of course, you also apparently fail to recognize that in response to Obama winning re-election and the Democrats retaining hold of the Senate, the House GOP apparently rejects the concept they also have to compromise and are threatening to blow up the US and possibly global economy if Obama doesn’t capitulate and enact the policies of a Romney presidency, the guy American didn’t elect.
I think you have your work cut out for you in attempting to prove that you do not, in fact have a rather partisan double standard in effect.
http://blogs.wsj.com/peggynoonan/2013/09/10/making-sense-of-syria/
Peggy Noonan had a truly delightful column this morning in the Wall Street Journal explaining how the talking points of the White House and mainstream media are/will be developing and why Obama will appear to grudgingly and cautiously take and make the deal.
Excerpt:
” . . . [t]he speech will end. Polls will be taken. Maybe a mild uptick, maybe a flatline. Probably more or less the latter—people have made up their mind. They sense the crisis has passed or is passing. They’re not keen for more presidential rhetoric.
* * *
Then get ready for the spin job of all spin jobs. It’s already begun: the White House is beginning to repeat that a diplomatic solution only came because the president threatened force. That is going to be followed by something that will grate on Republicans, conservatives, and foreign-policy journalists and professionals. But many Democrats will find it sweet, and some in the political press will go for it, if for no other reason than it’s a new story line.
It is that Syria was not a self-made mess, an example of historic incompetence. It was Obama’s Cuban Missile Crisis—high-stakes, eyeball-to-eyeball, with weapons of mass destruction and an implacable foe. The steady waiting it out, the inner anguish, the idea that crosses the Telex that seems to soften the situation. A cool, calibrated, chancy decision to go with the idea, to make a measured diplomatic concession. In the end it got us through the crisis.”
Yesterday, the BBC reported that the leaders of the Syrian rebels met and agreed that their goal is to turn Syria into an Islamic state ruled according to Islamic Sharia Law. If that happens the Orthodox community in Syria will be doomed to live under constant Muslim persecution. Obama is either stupid or is committing treason by supporting the Syrian rebels who are allied with Al Qaeda, the people we have been fighting for the last 12 years.
I tend to think that the president and our government’s obvious and hidden influencers of foreign affairs lit fires of Arab Spring free speech and democratic rhetoric (with the full support of the Israel lobby) without realizing just how unpredictable winds might spread those flames, and what might get burned up in the process.
Read an appeal by His Holiness the Patriarch of Moscow to President Obama
http://www.antiochian.org/his-holiness-patriarch-kirill%E2%80%99s-appeal-president-barack-obama-regarding-situation-syria
Well, no one has to like it, but I’d say Obama’s attempt at threatening military force is the only small smidgeon of leadership we have in America.
Too bad John McCain couldn’t get the Republicans to follow any of his leadership whatsoever. Boy, we sure dodged a bullet there.
Assad is a mass murderer! He has murdered thousands of his own civilians with tanks, bombing jets and gas. This current ploy won’t last. The U.S. will have to destroy Syria’s military anyway and we should. Give Assad to the people’s relatives of who he murdered. He is no better that Hitler, Stalin, Quadafi and Saddam. The end is coming.
Yes, Assad id bad. The alternative, however, is much worse.
So, Ted, God created the U.S.A. to punish evil-doers around the world . Why are we not bombing certain countries in Africa, then? Answer: God is mainly against Muslim Iran which has made war on no one, invaded no one, and not massacred its populace, because Iranian leaders say terrible things about the government of Israel. President Assad is friendly to Iran, therefore he has to go. Africa can go to hell, right? Not onlly that, but while the U.S. aided Saddam Hussein in his invasion of iran and in blessing his copious use of chemical warfare, including sarin and mustard gas against the Iranian army defending their country, this is good, because anybody who is against Iran is good. God also wants us to use sanctinos against Iran, not because we give a rat’s hinder for their nuclean activities, but because They Won’t Obey, and we want to bring their people to their knees before us on our Divine mission to discipline the world and punish evil-doers where WE choose.
Better the devil you know, ted.
Sometimes, it just comes down to that.
ted: “If it be now, it is not to come; if it is not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all.” Hamlet, Act V, Sc 2
Unlike many modern Christians, the Church has never been too concerned about when the end is coming, after all Jesus said that even He does not know. The Church has always been more concerned about being ready as the Wise Virgins.
George, it was nice to see the ikon of the Virgin of the Sign accompanying the essay heading, “Orthodox Christian Statement Opposing Military Action Against Syria” (September 10, 2013) – it was painted by Leonid Ouspensky quite a few years ago and hangs in my cell, greeting me every morning before I set out for Matins -and now greeting me again when I open Monomakhos. In Christ’s love, +Bishop Sergios
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George – you might want to delete this comment – its a spam account (check out the link attached to the name).
A freelance journalist is going to the Middle East to report on the Christian Syrian refugees and will be open-sourcing his materials under Creative Commons. Read all about this, and watch his video.
http://leestranahan.com/today-is-the-crucial-day-for-christian-syrian-refugee-project/
He could use your prayers as well.
Lee Stranahan now has some pictures up at Flickr (He’s in Beirut atm). To find out more about how to follow him as he reports on the Syrian refugees, go here:
http://leestranahan.com/how-to-follow-my-middle-east-reporting/
A post about his visit to a church:
http://leestranahan.com/beirut-blogging-3-church/
Thanks Lola!
Hillary is pretty likely because all you Republicans keep throwing moderates under the bus
Actually, you have a point a lot of the Conservatives types like by Republicans are bad on certain issues, Paul Ryan wants a lot of guest workers for low and high skilled jobs. Ryan wants to cut Social Security and Medicare for old folks but want guest workers that could have children on free and reduce lunch programs. You might as well have Hillary.
Who’s throwing who under the bus, Cynthia? Sorry, McCain was incompetent as a candidate a virtually gave the 2008 election away. Mr. Romney was not inspiring. He beat the I can create more jobs horse to death and was ineffective except in the first debate and then utterly refuse to hit home on Benghazi in the second even when it was served up to him on a silver platter. Now it’s McCain, and Graham and Alexander et al. who are throwing Cruz, Paul, Lee et al. under the bus. The “moderates” are not so moderate as simply crony capitalists and statists like their Democratic counterparts. They neither inspire the commmon man with a family and hopes for the country he loves, nor offer any reason to get behind them other than the fear they try to instill about the “radical right” which, unlike them, is inspired by a desire to see resotoration of personal responsbility, stable families, brotherly love, community, subsidiarity and freedom–and less domestice surveillance, militarized police at home and military interventionism abroad with economic and other support for Isalmic and other revolutionaries who would love to see Christianity and the Church destroyed and the forced covnersion or elimination of her members.
lxd
Lee Stranahan is planning to do a documentary about the Syrian refugees:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2xtpd-F-Aw
Mike took the trouble to find out how to e-mail me and we have had a polite, private exchange about what I saw as his possible alternative motives to actual communication with the majority. I now understand him a little better, and I believe he does me too. I think it is best left there.
Communications experts tell us that something in the order of 80-90% of good human communication is based on detecting and responding to visual and auditory cues that parties to the attempted communication give each other. Words make up the rest.
Here, where such cues are ipso facto missing, the difficulties of communicating hard or subtle messages multiply almost exponentially, especially with people you do not know or whose agendas may not be sufficiently congruent with one’s own for the effort to bear fruit. My sense is that it would be too tough for Mike and me to engage in an edifying public discussion here, and I think he probably tends to feel the same way.
sincerely,
Fr. George