To repeat, once again for those with ADD, the US and UK continue to support a wide variety of tyrants and despots throughout the Middle East: not least the disgusting piece of filth that is Saudi Arabia, along with Egypt, Morocco, the quasi-feudal Gulf shiekhdoms left behind by the British when they pulled out in 1971 having previously crushed a variety of secular left-nationalist movements, etc etc. Only when particular tyrants prove problematic are they removed. Nasser was a despot, (but a popular one), but pursued his own course, and was therefore demonised. Mubarak is a despot, but our despot, and is therefore lionised (and given massive military and other aid, second only behind Israel). Ghaddafi is a despot, but now he is our despot, the destruction of Iraq having had the desired effect of terrifying him into line. Saddam was a despot, but he was our despot when he attacked Iran, and we gave him chemical and biological weapons, and helped him lay the foundations for a nuclear programme. When he invaded Kuwait (a fake country created by the British to deny Iraq a meaningful coastline and a loyal stooge of the West ever since its independence in 1961, and as devoid of democracy in 2008 as it was in 1990) he was no longer our despot. After we had pushed him out of Kuwait, smashed Iraq to bits, and his people rose up to get rid of him, he suddenly became our despot again and we let him put down the uprising in great bloodshed. From 1991 to 2003 we laid siege to Iraq with a medieval siege of sanctions, and bombed it repeatedly (we ran out of targets quite rapidly, with blackly comic results, we started bombing flocks of sheep, and I’m not making that up!): Iraqi society disintegrated, any hope of political change evaporated along with the Iraqi middle class, and a million people died as a consequence, including half a million children. Meanwhile Saddam consolidated his grip on power, barely kept the country alive with quasi-wartime rationing, and quickly disposed of the WMD given to him by his former Western friends, who said the opposite, lying so repeatedly that maybe they even started to believe it. And then of course Iraq was invaded, basically because it could be: not for liberty, but for oil, and hegemony, and strategic advantage. And as far as power is concerned, chaos and Iraqis dying all over the place is just fine, ‘cos its the oil we need, and the less Iraqis around to get in the way, the better.

This obsession with abortion to the exclusion of all other political issues has once again produced some amusing results in terms of hate figures de jour that the angry rightists (and please note, in my definition, as with anyone outside the great republic looking in, Republicans are far right, and Democrats are centre right to far right) string together. Iran, as with all other Islamist tinged polities bans abortion, while being pretty repressive at the same time, while the US does not. Chavez, whatever you make of him, has now won over half a dozen elections and referenda, and survived a US backed coup in 2002, compared to Bush, who of course lost in 2000, but ended up in power anyway, and is allied to the returned Ortega in Nicaragua, who has also more or less banned abortion there, mainly to give people who have no interest in any other issues an excuse not to be motivated to try and overthrow him as before. As with all right-wing politicians in the US Bush mouths anti-abortion rhetoric to use guillible fools as voting fodder, then does nothing about it, to ensure that said fodder can be whipped up into a hysterical frenzy and summoned foaming to the polling booth at future opportunities. And if we define terrorism as “the use of violence, or the threat of violence, by non state actors to achieve political goals” and “state-sponsoring of terrorism” as the support of such non-state actors by state actors”, then all states, including the US, do this all the time. It’s called foreign policy. Osama bin Laden was on our payroll once. Luis Posada Carriles is another example that comes to mind. He blew up planes too. If Castro is to be called a murderer, then so are most political leaders.

The US was not, is not, and never will be in the “overthrowing tyrants” business, except when it suits its interests. That’s how the mind of great power run rampant works, whatever the rhetoric. Even Hitler was smashed primarily because an autarkic Nazi-dominated Europe (and much else) cut off behind high trade barriers was in the long run harmful to US economic interests since the dynamism of the US economy could no longer be contained in or satisfied with the home market alone, but had to burst those bounds and break open the world to its products, and remake the world in its own image, far more consistently than even the British had ever done before. (Hence “anti-imperialist imperialism” in relation to the old European empires, and the desire to break down the barriers of Stalin after breaking down the barriers of Hitler, the Cold War lasting as long as those barriers held steady before they finally disintegrated).

So many of the posters here fail to see the wood of the long term pattern for the trees of particulars. Wake up and smell the coffee! Political and socio-economic reality is not “bunk”, or “one damn thing after another”, rather it has patterns, dynamics, structures, rules of the game, and laws of motion. Crude empiricism is no help here. The scope of scientia extends to society as well as to subatomic particles, for there is one world, not two.

These are, of course, important issues. But issues of life and death, particularly when there is an immediate ability to stop the killing, seems to be a more pressing situation.

The Pope knows what he wants to say and what he wants to accomplish. I would never discourage him from meeting with the leader of any nation that he was visiting, nor try to influence his agenda in meeting with said leader.

And, actually, I believe the timing of the trip is unfortunate coming as it is in an election year, because I believe both parties will try to make political hay out of it, spinning it for their own agenda, rather than letting the Pope’s message speak for itself.

But, again, who am I to question when the Holy Father decides to come for a visit. I’m just glad he’s coming.

Matt,

Intellectual honesty is a precondition for genuine dialogue.

Repeating these talk radio convolusions and outright falsehoods to yourself may give you a temporay mental balm you ‘need’ to get by in your ultimately unsatisfying narrow ideological universe, but it does nothing to deem you a worthy conversation partner in this or any thread.

The choice is yours. Genuinely vying for truth and having the humility to discard our own falsehood is a lifelong process that does bring us together and ultimately will set us free.

I know you are fond of saying “God Bless” at the end of your post…do you think that takes you off the hook for the mean things you say (you are not the only one) and division you create? I think you can either try to dialog in here of just go cause trouble elsewhere…I realize that it might not seem like dialog, but since you are insistent of trying to stir up trouble, I think some in here have lost patients with you, I know mine wears thin at times, but let us strive for honest dialog in here, it is a wonderful forum and hope that the less than charitable attitudes I see in here will come to a end soon.

enjoy Lent
peace to all

bishop Gumby and Sr. Joan have objectively separated themselves from the Church for teaching heresy. It requires no declaration from the Vatican. They are not “in good standing”.

Please refrain from petty games about the meaning of “us”, it really is beneath even you. Try and be polite. Politicratus tells me that being impolite is bad.
God Bless,

Matt

Not sure you succeeded in “getting this straight.” You’re not making any sense here. For example:

These same people want us to meet with Castro…

Who the hell is the “us” you’re talking about, Matt? John Paul II met with Castro, thus “we” DID meet with Castro! Your allegiance, though, is with the u.s.a., not with the Church and you can see this in how you use the words “us” and “we.”

ps. I note the first name is dissenting bishop Gumby.
pps. oh, and not to be forgotten is Sr. Joan….

Both of whom remain in good standing with the Church.

Matt, you seem to share TeutonicTim’s laziness of thinking.