www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Where the war would take place and other ponderances

Dear Dan:

Yea there is an International Penal Court in La Haye, Netherlands, which has been recognized by all the countries in the world except Cuba, Lybia, Iraq, North Korea, some African regimes and the United States.

The United States said they would recognize the penal court only if it guarantees that US citizens will never be judged in the Court, indeed!

To tell you the truth I don't think Saddam will be captured (at least not alive) but if this happens it wouldn't surprise me if the US want Saddam to be judged as a war criminal or because of violation of human rights in the International Court. After all, the present administration acted without the resolution of the U.N. Security Council, but of course, they want the U.N. to cooperate with money and equipment in the future reconstruction of Iraq!

About Turkey, it's a "western democracy", completely secular and masonic, with two or three political parties that are all the same and where the military have the real power and is submited to the economical policy of the IMF and the WTO. Religious Muslims and Christians are the victims of awful tortures.

Saddam Hussein's dictatorship is completely secular, it's quite oppresive with fundamentalist muslims, specially the shiites (I wonder what would happen when the shiite ayatollahs get the government there). Maybe it's the only Arab country when the large Christian (Chaldean) minority is so tolerated (they won't have so many privilleges under the Muslim Kurds believe me).

I just hope this doesnt end up like in Kosova, where 100 monasteries and churches that had survived 500 years of Muslim rule, were destroyed.

Yes, I know about the Netherlands. You have rightly pointed out the difficult situation we face when trying to "convert" a nation. A secular form of government is certainly better than one that persecutes its minorities.

I can tell you what I've done during past wars that were questionable but I have never marched in an anti-war parade. I was never decisive enough in my opinion to do such a thing. Though I've noted that it doesn't take reflection to be a war protester. Perhaps I reflect too much.

Ash Wednesday fell during Desert Storm. We had the president of the Muslim Community Organization speak for the service. I asked the leader if he believed that Jesus was Lord. When he said yes, I invited him to speak. We used John 17 as our text and helped people see that the majority of Muslims are not blood thirsty.

Dan Lauffer

Excuse me for dragging the thread off topic, but this is too much.

India is not a dictatorship, nor is it a "pseudo-democratic regime". It is in actuality the world's largest democratic government. Is there corruption* in government there? Of course. It's here in the States, it's in the West, it's everywhere...any place with politicians will have corruption, since politicians are, by and large, liars and cheats. Is there starvation and poverty* in India? Surely. I blame a lot of that on the politicians for getting in the way of progress. But if poverty is our worst problem**, we're not all that bad. There are many Western nations who have significant portions of their citizenry living in conditions of poverty even now, not to mention the drug abuse, sexually transmitted diseases (spread in part because of the moral decay of the West), etc.

*Of course, certain places are worse off than others. Bihar, for example, is much worse on some counts than Kerala, which is, quite possibly, the best place in the nation on all levels.

**Admittedly, there are more problems.

As for "chemical weapons", I have never before heard that India possesses them. If Pakistan has them, it wouldn't surprise me, since they were in bed with the Taliban and still are (strange friends the American government likes to make when it's in a pinch). However, I have never heard India developing such, and if they did, I'm sure I would've heard of it by now, and if you have any sources, I'd be interested in seeing them. To be fair, although I said it wouldn't surprise me, I don't even know that Pakistan has them.

As far as nuclear weapons go, so what? America has them, and has had them for decades, and has used them in the past. Many other Western nations have them, but no one is afraid of them waging nuclear war. North Korea has nuclear weapons, and has the capability (and the will) to launch one at the West Coast, but no one here takes that too seriously, although we're sure beating Iraq to a pulp. Why is it that nukes are OK as long as you're a Western nation?

If India developed them, it is only because the region is volatile, especially with Pakistani military/terrorist attacks against Indian targets from Kashmir to Parliament; furthermore, nearly all of her neighbours have attacked her at least once. They serve as a deterrent to conflict (and one might ask if America faces a great threat from Canada or Mexico that it continues to have a formidable nuclear arsenal?), and unlike other nations, India has pledged itself to not using nuclear weapons in a first strike, although the possibility is held open as a defencive action. Pakistan has them, and developed them soon after India did so (and unlike India, which developed them indigenously, it is known that China and the US helped Pakistan along the way). However, I am not aware that they have pledged themselves to not first-striking, although it is possible.

As for the possibility of nuclear war, it is there, but certainly not from India's side. It doesn't need to strike first since even without nukes it could deal decisively with Pakistan, in spite of the American military equipment, fighter jets, etc. it has; in fact, in every war we've fought with them, we've beaten them rather easily, American technology notwithstanding. If we needed to, we could deal with them without nukes. But they are a deterrent. If nuclear weapons were launched at us by our neighbour, I doubt it would escalate into the full blown nuclear war that Western observers fear. Even without nukes we could take them out, but if our government chose to use them, that would be the end of all conflict: one well placed bomb and that would be the end. Surely no one wants to see this, and I doubt it would happen, it's not nearly the apocalyptic disaster Westerners think is waiting to happen.

Of course, maybe you have different facts than me. May I ask where you're getting your information?

Dear Mor Ephrem:

I apologize for my grave erorr in the statement about India. When I meant that there were pseudo-democratic governments I refered most of all to Pakistan and Turkey. My explanation on why I think Turkey is a false democracy was posted in another thread.

What I tried to say was that in the Indian-Pakistani conflict, very powerful weapons were developped. I have seen the photographs and news of the parades that are held in both countries and how the powerful missils with nuclear content are prominently displayed.

I still believe that the money and time that are employed in the development of these weapons could be employed in the general welfare of the population.

I share your concerns about Western countries which posess nuclear weapons (some would say then who tells the USA to disarm, and Russia, and so on?... but that's another thing).

There's a case like North Korea where the people indeed face the worst kinds of starvation while the government dedicates all its efforts and money to develop nuclear weapons. This is clearly inmoral.

Hey check this article, it unmasks the enthusiasm of some "conservative" Catholics about the war. It's just an opinion, but it's still interesting:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/woods/woods18.html

Turkish troops are going into Nothern Iraq and we accidentally shot a missle into Iran. We are losing control of this war.

Nicky's Baba

Dear Snoopy,

I'm sorry if my first reply came out sounding angry. It's just frustrating to hear people say the same stuff that has its origin in the American media, which have no idea of what the situation there is like. I agree that, in a perfect world, we wouldn't devote money and time to the production of weapons, but to helping the people. Unfortunately, it is not a perfect world, as our wars with Pakistan and China have proven. The conflicts with Pakistan are particularly brutal; we know of what stuff the Taliban are made of from the events of 11 September, but our people have endured that sort of thing (though admittedly not on such an immense scale) for years at the hands of the Pakistani military and the Pakistani-funded Taliban terrorist squads. Men killed violently, women raped and killed, atrocities unmentionable committed against our children...there's only so much the Indian people can take before our patience is exhausted, and any other people would've lost it a long time ago. That is why I don't think the development of military technology is such a bad thing; it is an unfortunate necessity. As for the problems that occur throughout the country, I place the blame for that squarely on state politicians, who would rather hold on to their power than serve their people. Some state governments are worse than others, but in any case, it is the politicians, I think, who hamper progress.

As for the article you linked, I read it with interest. To be honest, I don't know if I support this war or not, and so my position on it is that it is better to pray than to worry too much whether this is just or not. Americans feel that the French are against the war because they want the oil contracts, while the French and others think America wants to fight this war for oil. The Pope comes out saying that this war is immoral based on just war theory, but just war theory does not seem to take into account terrorism and the things we have seen in recent years (Should there be a "development of doctrine", for lack of a better word, in the realm of just war theory just as there has been from this Pope regarding capital punishment in light of modern advancements and developments? Who knows?) Meanwhile, coalition governments feel there is every justification for the effort based on their intelligence. Watch five different news channels, as I have, and you'll get five different stories about anything war-related. I watched the proceedings in the British parliament last week, and I heard things they don't tell you in America. How can anyone make a fully informed judgement without the right information? You can't get a straight story from anyone, and that is why I think a lot of the pontificating about whether this war is just or not -- whether it comes from the Church or from governments or from the common folk -- is just a lot of hot air. It would be much better if all these people, myself included, pray, rather than spend too much time thinking and debating.

Mor,

"I watched the proceedings in the British parliament last week, and I heard things they don't tell you in America. How can anyone make a fully informed judgement without the right information? You can't get a straight story from anyone, and that is why I think a lot of the pontificating about whether this war is just or not -- whether it comes from the Church or from governments or from the common folk -- is just a lot of hot air. It would be much better if all these people, myself included, pray, rather than spend too much time thinking and debating."

I think my position must parallel yours. After hearing Mr. Blair I was pretty well convinced that Mr. Hussein had indeed been doing most of the things for which he has been accused. One did not get nearly the details here in the USA as was given the British Parliament.

If we do help Iraq establish a nation based upon lifting up the people rather than on lifting up a Tyrant then this war may have been justified. If not, shame on us.

Dan Lauffer

This is a war of medias too.

On one side you have Saddam's people saying that his army has shot an American helicopter and various planes and saying this ridiculous news about them winning the war.

And on the other side the BBC and the American medias saying that no civilians have been hurted, thet they have intelligent bombs (one of them ended up in Iran I suppose that bomb confused the Q of Iraq with the N of Iran, well, even the intelligent ones make mistakes sometimes), they are showing images telling you that "thousands of Iraqi soldiers are giving up" (it was hilarious to see five or four guys dressed as civilians with white flags), "people are celebrating the arrival of our troops" (and I only saw a couple of men saying shouting something in Arabic). It's incredible how information is biased and they don't show any imparcial opinion.

Here the Mexican TV are showing the images of New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Spain, of how the police is beating people and the repression of the protests. Its seems that President Bush does not allow any opposition.

Much of this discussion points out clearly that there are very many who want to sleep in the "master bedroom" regardless of circumstances. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Saddam Insane is a greedy self-centered bastard, who, perforce of weapons and purloined resources, has wrought havoc upon the Iraqi people as well as the ethnic and religious minorities who dwell within "his" borders.

I still believe that some intelligence service should have gone in and done him in. (Lord knows, we all pay enough for these folks.) I am very distressed to learn that bombs are falling all over Baghdad and that ordinary folks are in harm's way. Same for the rest of the country.

I know that he will aim his weapons of destruction against any other neighbor of his (remember Kuwait?) including Israel. Personally, I'm not so concerned about "shrines" or "holy places"; I am only really concerned about God's holy people -- all of them including Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds, Chaldeans, Assyrians, Armenians and Jews. Oh yeah: there's RCs there too. So, if it's a question of some church or mosque getting pulverized, it is of less than no concern of mine unless there are people involved in the onslaught.

If St. Augustine is right, then the good African bishop's statement: "Gloria Dei vivens homo" [God's glory is the living human being] should be our benchmark. We are morally obligated to do whatever we can to save any and all life; buildings are just architectural stone and mortar that belong to man; people belong to God.

Lord, be merciful to us sinful humans.

Blessings!

How coincidential!

I found this recently.... here it is...

--------------------------
Ahhh, Far off sounds of War!
And nearby sights of Anti-war hysteria!

Cattle, spooked!
Herd, stampeding in chaos through the streets.
Lambs without a Shepard!

The sweet smell of animal fear
that same which makes the rule of tyrant possible.

Emotions clouding reason,
Mind in panic chaos,
Desperately wanting to believe the next prophet
Who promises �Peace - peace!�

Leave me in the womb of semi-consciousness.
Do not ask me for bravery or courage,
Or reason,
I am NOT my brother�s keeper!

Give me Liberty of Give me Death?!
Nah - give me familiar comfort
Low gas prices
The thrill of my secret vises
Semi-consciousness
Week end movies
and my security that I know the way things work - so well.

Leave me to the womb of animal nature of which I was born And ask me to go no higher.
Suckle me still at the breasts of my mother
Why do you disallow these stones to be turned to my bread?
Why wake me so rudely from the peace of my slumber
To tell me what I do not want to hear �Heaven is not here�?

Why not let me sleep still in my blissful oblivion
That there is nothing further I need strive for?

Cruel God!
That you do not agree.
We piped happy songs and you did not dance.
We sang the dirge and you did not mourn.
If you do not do as we say then
Why cannot you just leave us be?
Cruel God who does not heed our demands.

We would that Christ had traded his sonship
and gained all the governments of the world
so that we would have no choice
But YOU would NOT!

Cruel God!
We would rather not know you
And continue on here
In peace
Rather than you wake us from slumber!

Pray one hour with you?
Oh - yes - is true - I do not
I only call you when I need something for my comfort and security.
Reality? We despise it!
But - be a good fellow and do not remind me as if it were MY fault!

There is talk about the damage to the environment from the oil fires but I wonder how bad it will be damaged from the bombs. From the last war the ground there was contanminated along with the water sources where bombs fell. They could not grow crops in those areas not to mention the birth defects it caused. The name Bagdad will be changed to Haz-mat.
Oh yeah I heard on the news that we bombed the Ansar Al Islam compound. Later it stated that they had made poisons like Ricsin (Sp)? Etc there. If they blew it up can those poisons spread?

Nicky's Baba

Last week the Jerusalem Post showed a probable scenario that is being prepared, in which a nuclear bomb could be used against Iraq if the Iraqi Army utilizes chemical weapons. Some people would say that even if the chemical weapons don't exist, there'll be a way for the Coalition to "find" them.

Other newspapers have reported the kind of weapons that are being used, some of them include uranium. What surprises me of the medias in this war is the de-humanization of many, I have seen long articles and documentaries in the news written by people worried about the behaviour of the stock exchanges, the current prices of oil, inflation, etc. At the same time, very few TV programmes have shown the images of destruction and human pain that people in Iraq are facing, and the conditions in which American soldiers are kept as prisioners by the Saddam regime.

Dear All,

We may or may not have had any choice in this war, but in any case we should pray for our (practicing Christian) President, whose burden of responsibility no one should have, our wonderful and brave men and women who are fighting, and for a quick end to this war.
My priest includes the President specifically, instead of ' all civil authorities' in the liturgical litanies...Kyrie Eleison! It was sad hearing ...'and for the captives', which for years and years, I thought was antiquated, because now we really do have 'captives' to pray for.
If I may, just another thought, without meaning to be controversial...where were all the 'anti-war' people in our war on Kosovo? (We didn't even cease fire on Orthodox Easter, even though it was requested of the President.)

In Christ,
Alice

Dear Alice,

It was anti-war people like myself who made the request to the President he not bomb on Easter. Sadly, he had it not in his heart to honor our request.

Axios

(This is Freedom of Speech)

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - American television network NBC said on Monday it had fired veteran reporter Peter Arnett after he told Iraqi television the U.S. war plan against Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) had failed.


Arnett, who as a CNN reporter in 1991 was one of the few Western journalists reporting from Baghdad during the first Gulf War (news - web sites), said in an interview on Sunday with state-owned Iraqi television that the U.S. military would need to rewrite its war plan following Iraqi resistance.


"America is re-appraising the battlefield, delaying the war, maybe a week, and re-writing the war plan," Arnett said in the interview. "The first war plan has failed because of Iraqi resistance now they are trying to write another war plan."


Arnett, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the Vietnam War, told NBC's "Today" show, "I said in that interview essentially what we all know about the war, that there have been delays in implementing policy, there have been surprises.


"But clearly by giving that interview I created a firestorm in the United States and for that I am truly sorry. My stupid misjudgment was to spend fifteen minutes in an impromptu interview with Iraqi television," he said.


His assignment with NBC and National Geographic (news - web sites) represented a chance for redemption after he was fired from CNN in 1998 after the network retracted a documentary, in which Arnett alleged that U.S. commandos had used sarin gas on American defectors in the Vietnam war.


NBC said in a statement it was wrong for Arnett to grant an interview with state-controlled Iraqi TV at a time of war and chastised him for making personal observations and opinions.


"His remarks were analytical in nature and were not intended to be anything more," the network said.


On Sunday, Arnett told Iraqi television that American war planners had underestimated the determination of Iraqi troops to fight U.S. and British troops and that the Pentagon (news - web sites) seemed to be amending its original strategy.


PATRIOTISM IN FOCUS


MSNBC, which had been using Arnett's reports, also severed ties with him. "I'm not aware of anybody in the journalism community who has seen the war plan, much less Peter Arnett," said Erik Sorenson, MSNBC president and general manager.


"It's just inappropriate and arguably unpatriotic for an American to be communicating these things to the Iraqi government and the Iraqi people," he added.


Asked how much of a priority patriotism should be for an objective journalist, he said, "When you go on state-controlled television after Iraq (news - web sites)'s vice president promised to send terrorists into your country, I do think some patriotism is appropriate in this instance."


On Saturday after a suicide car bomb that killed at least four U.S. soldiers, Iraq's vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan said it would use any method that "stops or kills the enemy."


Arnett also said there was a "growing challenge to President Bush (news - web sites) about the conduct of the war and also opposition to the war."


That view echoed similar comments in many U.S. media after the rapid advance of U.S. forces through southern Iraq slowed south of Baghdad amid disruptive attacks on its long supply lines and persistent resistance, particularly in the towns.


Arnett's remarks were received with anger by the administration in Washington. One White House source said they were based on "a position of complete ignorance."




In another media development, veteran reporter Geraldo Rivera, a correspondent for Fox News, is being removed from Iraq by the U.S. military for reporting Western troop movements in the war, the Pentagon said on Monday.

Hundreds of reporters from around the world are currently assigned to U.S. and British military units to report the war in Iraq under ground rules that allow them freedom to report without compromising the security of the troops.

Arnett, while apologetic on NBC, said he has granted many interviews in the past and that his remarks were not "out of line with what experts think."

"Maybe some people think I'm insane, but I'm not anti-military," he added. "This is the biggest story of my life." Asked what the future held for him, Arnett said: "There's a small island, inhabited in the South Pacific that I will try to swim to."

"I'll leave, I'm embarrassed," he said.