"He instinctively can find the shining greatness of our American culture and does a good job of highlighting it (although he also does have those rare lapses when he writes about hockey, but that is something caused by impurities in the Eastern waters or something)." Erik Keilholtz
Under the patronage of St. Tammany
Mark C. N. Sullivan is an editor at a Massachusetts university. He is married and the father of three children. Email
No, not the Swiss guard, but the Euro-weenies of the Holy See, who see for their house organ L'Osservatore Romano a New York Timesian role in condemning American action against Iraq, and whose response to the barbarians at the gate is to leave the key under the mat.
L'Osservatore Romano previously has been used for Palestinian tub-thumping, reflecting a Vatican diplomatic bent that has remained despite the desecration of Jesus' birthplace by Palestinian thugs, not to mention the foiling of an al Qaeda plot to destroy Bologna's 14th-century cathedral.
The Church may think in centuries, but this approach is less than useful when confronted with chemical- and bio-weapons in the hands of a malignant state prepared to use them, as has been done in a genocidal test-run on the Kurds.
What is it, then, about the villain in Baghdad that should provoke the United States to rid the world of him? One spectacular thing: He is the only leader in the world with weapons of mass destruction who has used them. He used them against Iranian troops and against Kurdish civilians. This is what makes Saddam Hussein so distinguished in the field of evil. Morally and strategically, he lives in a post-deterrence world. We do not need to speculate about whether he would do the dirtiest deed. He has already done the dirtiest deed. That is the case, and "the case."
Passivity, as has been argued elsewhere, is no response to evil. Not in the case of clerical abuse of children. And not in the case of the threat posed by radical Islam.
The Pope has been such a magnificent rallying force for the human spirit in the face of totalitarianism. Would that an echo of the great voice that brought down the Iron Curtain – rather than waffling appeasement -- could be heard from the Vatican as civilization defends against this latest assault by forces of sinister and murderous ideology.
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