Texas Independence Day!

Today, Sunday, March 2nd , marks the 172nd anniversary of Texas Independence Day. While our heroic Texas patriots were holding off the Mexican army at the Alamo, the Texas Declaration of Independence was being hammered out and signed at Washington-on-the-Brazos. Final victory would be ours just 7 weeks later with the decisive Battle of San Jacinto on April 21, 1836.


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GOD BLESS TEXAS!

Remember the Holy Innocents

The joy of Christmas did not come without a price. This is why the Church recognizes December 28 as the Feast of the Holy Innocents.

Herod “the Great,” king of Judea, was unpopular with his people because of his connections with the Romans and his religious indifference. Hence he was insecure and fearful of any threat to his throne. He was a master politician and a tyrant capable of extreme brutality. He killed his wife, his brother and his sister’s two husbands, to name only a few.

Matthew 2:1-18 tells this story: Herod was “greatly troubled” when astrologers from the east came asking the whereabouts of “the newborn king of the Jews,” whose star they had seen. They were told that the Jewish Scriptures named Bethlehem as the place where the Messiah would be born. Herod cunningly told them to report back to him so that he could also “do him homage.” They found Jesus, offered him their gifts and, warned by an angel, avoided Herod on their way home. Jesus escaped to Egypt.

Herod became furious and “ordered the massacre of all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity two years old and under.” The horror of the massacre and the devastation of the mothers and fathers led Matthew to quote Jeremiah: “A voice was heard in Ramah,/sobbing and loud lamentation;/Rachel weeping for her children...” (Matthew 2:18). Rachel was the wife of Jacob/Israel. She is pictured as weeping at the place where the Israelites were herded together by the conquering Assyrians for their march into captivity.

We do not know how many young boys were killed by Herod's soldiers as they searched for the Baby Jesus. Bethlehem was not a major city at the time, so it may have been a fairly small number. Nonetheless, the parents whose children were put to the sword paid a heavy price.

Why does a loving God let these things happen? We can only speculate. It is undeniable, though, that the slaughter of the innocents continues to this day. Here is the West we routinely deliver "unwanted" babies into the arms of Moloch. In China, women who attempt to bear more than the one child allowed by population-control laws find themselves harassed, pursued and sometimes forced into abortion.

The Herod mentioned in the Gospels died long ago. Others of his kind are still with us. Will the soldiers one day come for your children, too?

So Much For "Peace On Earth"

Seven people were injured on Thursday when Greek Orthodox and Armenian priests came to blows in a dispute over how to clean the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

Following the Christmas celebrations, Greek Orthodox priests set up ladders to clean the walls and ceilings of their part of the church, which is built over the site where Jesus Christ is believed to have been born.

But the ladders encroached on space controlled by Armenian priests, according to photographers who said angry words ensued and blows quickly followed.

For a quarter of an hour bearded and robed priests laid into each other with fists, brooms and iron rods while the photographers who had come to take pictures of the annual cleaning ceremony recorded the whole event.

A dozen unarmed Palestinian policemen were sent to try to separate the priests, but two of them were also injured in the unholy melee. [more]

This is certainly a turnaround: Muslims stepping in to quell violence between Christians in the very place where peace should reign. Apparently no one stopped to ask "What Would Jesus Do?"

Viva Cristo Rey!

An unfortunate fact of life in 2007 is that the word "martyr" conjures up for most of us images of Islamic suicide bombers. In fact, the first martyrs were Christians who died at the hands of Romans, hundreds of years before Mohammed came along. Unlike today's terrorists, the first Christian martyrs did not seek to die for their faith. Many stories show them accepting their fate, and as the moment grew closer they often embraced it. They did not try to take others with them.

Americans have a hard time understanding the reality of true martyrdom. Other than a few cases of early missionaries being killed by Indians, it's just not part of our heritage. Martyrdom is something that happened a long time ago in places far, far away - but not always. 1927 was not so long ago, and Mexico is not so far away.

In 1917 Mexico adopted a new constitution that, among other things, imposed a number of restrictions on the religious freedom. The specific target was the Catholic Church but others were affected as well. Churches were forbidden to operate schools and their ability to own property was severely restricted. Ministers were stripped of the right to vote and ordered not to wear clerical garb in public or speak about political issues. Worship services outside of church buildings were outlawed.

For the first few years these provisions were only sporadically enforced. In 1924 Plutarco Elias Calles took over as president and soon began oppressing the Church with gusto. A resistance movement called the Cristeros arose in parts of Mexico.

Keep in mind, this is not that long ago. In 1927 Ronald Reagan was a teenager, Billy Graham a child, and George H.W. Bush a toddler. Josef Ratzinger was an infant and Karol Wojtyla was a small child. People are alive today who saw these events in Mexico. It's not ancient history.

The Calles government was ruthless. Between 1926 and 1934, the number of Catholic priests in Mexico dropped from 4,500 to 334. Most were expelled or left the country voluntarily, but at least 40 priests were killed. One was a young Jesuit named Miguel Agustin Pro.

Padre Pro served his flock faithfully despite the very difficult conditions. He used a variety of disguises to reach people who needed him, sometimes dressing as a beggar and arriving in the middle of the night to perform baptisms. He reportedly donned a police uniform in order to visit condemned prisoners in jail.

With an assassination attempt on an ex-president as pretext, in 1927 Padre Pro was arrested along with his brothers Humberto and Roberto. Another man confessed to the crime and said the Pro brothers had nothing to do with it. Nonetheless, President Calles ordered Padre Pro executed while sparing his brothers. Calles wanted to use the execution to inspire fear and so invited reporters to document everything. We have photographs of the event.

On November 23, 1927 - eighty years ago today - Miguel Agustin Pro, S.J., was led from his cell to a courtyard where the firing squad waited. After blessing each of the soldiers, he asked for a moment to pray. This last request was granted and he knelt on the ground. Then, refusing a blindfold, he faced his executioners with arms outstretched in imitation of Christ on the Cross. He clutched a crucifix in one hand and a rosary in the other.

As the soldiers prepared their weapons, Padre Pro shouted "May God have mercy on you! May God bless you! Lord, thou knowest I am innocent! With all my heart I forgive my enemies!" Just before they fired, he cried out "Viva Cristo Rey!" "Long live Christ the King!"

Padre Pro lived through the first rifle volley, and a soldier killed him with a bullet at point blank range. He was 36 years old.

Fifty-two years later, another priest came to Mexico and was greeted with open arms by a different president. This was no ordinary priest; it was the Bishop of Rome. You see, the gates of hell did not prevail against God's church; they could not prevail. In 1988 Padre Pro was beatified by Pope John Paul II - the first step toward sainthood.

Will there be more such martyrs? Times change. Constitutions can be amended, or just ignored. There are more than a few people in the United States right now who would like to do what President Calles did in Mexico. Will today's Christians have the courage of Padre Pro?

I'm afraid some of us may find out.



Padre Pro web site
Video dramatization (in Spanish)

Fred Thompson is Pro-Choice

I've said all along that Fred Thompson's pro-life credentials were shaky. Now he's admitted it in an interview with Tim Russert on Meet The Press this weekend. The exchange meanders quite a bit - here is the full transcript if you want to read it for yourself. The abortion part begins at the bottom of page 3.

The upshot is that Thompson sees abortion as a "states rights" issue. He says he wants Roe vs. Wade overturned, but he doesn't want the states to outlaw abortion. He opposes the GOP platform, which has called for Human Life Amendment to the Constitution since the Reagan years. Thompson nevertheless maintains that he is "pro-life" because he will do what he can as president to keep the federal government out of it.

It got really weird when Russert pinned down Thompson about when life begins.

MR. RUSSERT: So while you believe that life begins at conception, the taking of a human life?

MR. THOMPSON: Yes, I, I, I, I do.

MR. RUSSERT: You would allow abortion to be performed in states if chosen by states for people who think otherwise?

MR. THOMPSON: I do not think that you can have a, a, a law that would be effective and that would be the right thing to do, as I say, in terms of potentially—you can’t have a law that cuts off an age group or something like that, which potentially would take young, young girls in extreme situations and say, basically, we’re going to put them in jail to do that. I just don’t think that that’s the right thing to do. It cannot change the way I feel about it morally, but legally and practically, I’ve got to recognize that fact. It is a dilemma that I’m not totally comfortable with, but that’s the best I can do in resolving it in my own mind.

Follow this, if you can. Thompson says he is pro-life, but he has to be forced into admitting the obvious fact that an unborn child is actually a living person, but he still would oppose the federal government doing anything to help anyone kill this living person, but he wants the Supreme Court to make it easier for states to outlaw this act, but he personally hopes the states will keep it legal so young girls in "extreme situations" won't get put in jail. Sound confusing? Here's the summary: he is pro-choice.

In fact, this whole "state's rights" argument was settled quite convincingly by the Civil War. Thompson is making the same argument that Southern slaveholders did prior to 1865. The Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution says that "no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law."

Allowing doctors to kill children for whatever reason the mom thinks is sufficient does not even remotely qualify as "due process of law." If Fred Thompson thinks life begins at conception - as he told Russert - his constitutional duty as president will be to defend it from the time of conception. He just said on national TV that he intend to ignore his oath of office.

Moreover, if Thompson loves federalism so much he'll have to take some radically unpopular positions as president. Since the national government, in his view, has no business stopping abortion, it must also has no business building highways, regulating drugs, helping with disaster relief, imposing safety standards for toys, and a zillion other things. To be consistent with the stand he takes on abortion he'll have to dismantle about half the federal government. This wouldn't be such a bad thing, but Thompson won't do it. Why? Because he doesn't really believe in federalism. He is using the concept as a convenient dodge to have it both ways on abortion. He cites federalism when it helps him, and ignores it when it doesn't. He's a typical politician, in other words.

As a purely political matter, this is probably a smart position for Thompson to take. He's seen Giuliani get ahead in the polls by saying he is personally against abortion but won't do anything to stop it. Both of them know that most voters won't look very deeply into their positions, so the goal is to stay vague and be all things to all people. It may work well enough to put one of them in the White House. We'll know in a year.

Now it is quite true that there is little the president can directly do about abortion, other than appointing judges who will, we hope, return the issue to the states to decide. I think it matters that the president is pro-life because it tells us other things about the way he will govern. As noted above, Thompson admits that a fetus is a living person - but he still wants to let such persons be killed without due process of law. What other categories of people will he refuse to protect? Which other parts of the Constitution is he prepared to ignore?

Since making prudent judgments about these things is a big part of being president, we need someone who holds the right principles. Fred Thompson clearly does not.

More from Lydia at What's Wrong with the World.

Arise a Knight

In Kingdom of Heaven (2005), a young man living in the Middle Ages learns his fate is to be a knight - an honor and burden he does not seek but nonetheless accepts. This is the Oath he must take:

Be without fear in the face of your enemies.
Be brave and upright that God may love thee.
Speak the Truth always, even if it leads to your death.
Safeguard the helpless, and do no wrong.

I have no idea if this language is historically accurate, but they aren't bad rules to live by. We would all do well to adopt them. Yet, as Balian learns in the film, keeping his oath is much harder than it seems.

Click here if you don't see video embedded below.

Jefferson vs. Madison

... according to the inimitable Mark Shea:

The odd thing about America is that our whole system of government is predicated on a faith in the Fall. That's why we have checks and balances: because nobody can be trusted with too much power. The moment fallen man is given power is the moment he is tempted to forget what the power is for and start using it to acquire more power, no matter what it takes. And, just in case you are wondering, "Does this have dark implications for America since we are the sole superpower on earth?" the answer is "Yes."

The tension in American culture has always been between Jeffersonian cockeyed optimism and Madisonian realism. Our governmental institutions are founded on the belief that you cannot trust people with power. Our culture is founded more and more on faith in The Wisdom of the Common Man. That, by itself, is not a bad balance. But in the 20th century, there have been fewer and fewer Madisonian voices and more and more flatterers. Our entire advertising industry is all about giving you moral permission to indulge yourself because You Deserve It.

Religion has, to a large extent, also been co-opted by the flattery industry. God is crazy about you because you That Sort of Chap. Joel Osteen is the Face of American Protestantism. Jonathan Edwards, not so much. Catholics are afflicted with the Church of Aren't We Fabulous where it's always the Feast of St. Narcissus. Our Manufacturers of Culture are constantly playing to our vanity. And a theology of the Fall is highly inconvenient to this project. It's "guilt manipulation". It's "hatriotism". We want to hear about how wonderful we are, how wronged we've been, how much everybody owes us, how powerful we are.

READ THE REST

A Useless Appendage?

What does the human appendix have to do with Iraq, interrogations, and the U.S. Constitution? Quite a lot, it turns out.

Submitted for your fascination: Doctors just now think they have come up with the function of the appendix.

In a similarly fascinating story, the American executive branch just now claims it knows the function of the Geneva Conventions.

Which explanation do you want first?

Read the rest.

Two Georges on Torture

"Should any American soldier be so base and infamous as to injure any [prisoner] ... I do most earnestly enjoin you to bring him to such severe and exemplary punishment as the enormity of the crime may require. Should it extend to death itself, it will not be disproportional to its guilt at such a time and in such a cause... for by such conduct they bring shame, disgrace and ruin to themselves and their country," - George Washington, charge to the Northern Expeditionary Force, Sept. 14, 1775.


“I have put this program in place for a reason, and that is to better protect the American people... and when we find somebody who may have information regarding a potential attack on America, you bet we’re going to detain them, and you bet we’re going to question them, because the American people expect us to find out information — actionable intelligence so we can help protect them. That’s our job.” - George W. Bush, Oct 5, 2007



[Hat tip: Darth Beckman]

American Torture

Mark Shea unloads on the Rubber House Right, its supporters and defenders, in a long and colorfully illustrated post today.

It is a painful thing to face and I don't enjoy it any more than you do. But the facts are really quite plain. The reality is Abu Ghraib was not an isolated event. We have been torturing people in other facilities. What happened at Abu Ghraib was that some morons who loved their work thought it would be fun to take pictures and those pictures shocked the world. Naturally, the Bush Administration could not say, "Yeah! We support that!" Of *course* they repudiated it and made sure the lackeys got punished in order to distance the Administration from the awful press.

But the reality is that after Abu Ghraib, the Administration labored--intensely--to make sure that the abusive techniques used at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere would remain part of what the President calls his "tools" for fighting the War on Terror. You can read all about it here.

The White House response has been, I must be blunt, to lie through its teeth in the knowledge that it has broad support from a people that don't want to look too closely at what we are doing. Indeed, past polls have shown that Catholics have a higher rate of support for torture than the general population.

The lie is simple and plain: President Bush continue to look us in the eye and say “This government does not torture people.”

But the reality is, it does. Bush made certain of this by loading the Justice Department with toadies who gave him what he wanted:

In two separate legal opinions written in 2005, the Justice Department authorized the C.I.A. to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.

Note that word "including". This is not an exhaustive list. Much of the degrading stuff you saw at Abu Ghraib isn't even life-threatening, so it falls well below the threshhold of "torture" for this Administration's Justice Department, as far as we can tell. And when we speak of "simulated drowning" or what our Vice President lightly laughs off as "dunking" we are looking at prima facie evidence of the Administration's careful mendacity. [Source]

You must read the whole thing. The doubletalk we get from Bush defenders about this is astonishing. It boils down to "Torture is fine. We don't torture." Which is it? If there's nothing wrong with torture, why all the gymnastics denying that the U.S. does it? This bunch can't even keep its lies straight.

In the combox at Mark's post, someone asked a chilling question: is there any example any time in history of a government that tortured its enemies but not, eventually, its own citizens as well?

The Line Held at Lepanto

Today is the 436th anniversary of the Battle of Lepanto. On October 7, 1571, against overwhelming odds, a ragtag fleet from the Christian West faced the Ottoman Empire. Christianity had been retreating for the last thousand years. Islam had conquered North Africa, Spain, Sicily, Portugal and part of France.

At Lepanto, the retreat stopped. It was a turning point in history that is all but forgotten today.

The two greatest naval forces ever assembled — 280 ships in the Turkish Armada, some 212 on the Christian side — came into each other’s sight on the brilliant morning of October 7. So confident was the Turkish admiral, Ali Pasha, that he sailed proudly at the center of his own Armada, bringing with him on vessels just to his rear his entire fortune, and even a part of his harem.

Historians tell us that all over Europe a pall fell. Few had hopes that the Christian fleet could avoid the doom that seemed to hang over Italy. The pope had urged all Christians to say the rosary daily on behalf of the brave crews on the Christian galleys. The rosary is a simple prayer that can be said in almost any setting, and had already achieved a certain popularity among humble folk. With each decade of the Hail Marys they had been taught to reflect upon a different event in the life of Jesus. The beads went through one’s fingers as regularly as the blood through one’s body, as regular as heartbeats and the breathing of the lungs.

To make a long story short, Don Juan aimed his own galley directly at the heart of the Turkish armada, directly at the clearly colored sails of the Ali Pasha’s galley, with its great green flag, inscribed 28,000 times with the name of Allah in gold. The Venetian vessels sailed furiously into the Turkish right wing, and with the help of the revolt of the galley slaves collapsed that wing. Six of the largest Christian vessels had been outfitted with a platform elevated above normal levels on which rows of devastating cannons were arrayed. Blasts from these new cannons were withering, and within minutes sank dozens of Turkish ships. The sea, witnesses said, was covered with flailing sailors, floating turbans, pieces of wood and sail.

The passion for defending their own civilization against ruthless invaders also strengthened the muscles of those engaged in the close, bloody, violent hand-fighting when one vessel came alongside another. But it was mainly the new firepower of the smaller Christian fleet that quickly sank galley after galley until, after not too many hours, the Turkish center also collapsed, as if cut through by a hot knife. The Admiral’s galley was captured, along with 240 more Turkish ships. Only on the other flank some Christian vessels hesitated, approached the enemy half-heartedly, and thus spurred defections by still other vessels. Although even there some acts of heroism appeared, a number of Turkish vessels were able to slip away through that gap in the battleline.

The Christian victory was far more complete than anyone had dreamed. The victory seemed to many quite miraculous, and victory was immediately attributed to Our Lady Queen of the Rosary — soon to be called by a new title, Our Lady Queen of Victory. All over Europe, from city to town, church bells rang out continuously when news of the impressive victory arrived. MORE

Today, with Islam again menacing the West, we would do well to remember Lepanto and honor the Queen of Victory. She is with us still. Be not afraid.

Interesting Links:
Clash of Civilizations: Battle of Lepanto Revisited
Wikipedia entry: Battle of Lepanto
Remembering Lepanto
Poem: Our Lady of Victory
Video: Men of the West

Amos on America

Today's Old Testament mass reading from the Prophet Amos was quite remarkable. Amos wrote during a very prosperous period for ancient Israel, one which would end violently after the prophets were ignored.

His warnings may apply equally well to 21st century America. Is our own judgment coming? I'm afraid so.

Thus says the LORD the God of hosts:
Woe to the complacent in Zion!
Lying upon beds of ivory,
stretched comfortably on their couches,
they eat lambs taken from the flock,
and calves from the stall!
Improvising to the music of the harp,
like David, they devise their own accompaniment.
They drink wine from bowls
and anoint themselves with the best oils;
yet they are not made ill by the collapse of Joseph!
Therefore, now they shall be the first to go into exile,
and their wanton revelry shall be done away with.

(Amos 6:1a, 4-7, NAB)

The Battle for Malta

September 11 was a significant date in the history of Christian-Islamic conflict long before the year 2001. Do you know what happened on September 11, 1565? I didn't either, until I read this excellent article by Paul Cella.

By the middle of the 16th century, the Knights of Malta had been for decades a particular irritation to the Sultan of the Empire of the Ottoman Turks, then the world's premier superpower and the imperial power of the Jihad. The Knights were skilled and cunning seamen: the Christian answer to the Barbary pirates whose razzias or jihadist raids had, literally for centuries, terrorized the coastal lands of southern Europe. These pirates were slavers and pillagers, terrors of the sea. How many "sick and sunless" captives were made by them, consigned to the filth and misery of the life of a galley oarsman, can only be conjectured. They made prisons of great oared ships; and the fate of their prisoners was one of wretchedness beyond reckoning. Athwart this menace stood the ancient Noble Order of St. John of Jerusalem. One historian (voicing a consensus of historians) gives them this honor: "in skill, seamanship, and fighting ability there was no single vessel in the Mediterranean that could compare with a galley commanded by one of the Knights from Malta."

READ MORE

Fr. Corapi 9-11 Video

Earlier this week I posted the transcript of Fr. John Corapi's 9-11 message. I have since found the video version on YouTube. Click here if you don't see it embedded below.

America is Las Vegas

The brilliant social critic Neil Postman argued that in every era there is one city that captures the American spirit and becomes its symbolic center. In the Revolutionary era, that city was Boston, with its cry for freedom. In the mid-nineteenth century, New York, a melting pot of diverse cultures, became the symbolic center. In the early twentieth century, Chicago embodied the spirit of entrepreneurial adventure with its railroads, steel mills, and cattle.

“Today,” Postman says, “we must look to the city of Las Vegas, Nevada, as a metaphor for our national spirit and aspiration, its symbol a thirty-foot-high cardboard picture of a slot machine and a chorus girl. For Las Vegas is a city entirely devoted to the idea of entertainment, and as such proclaims the spirit of a culture in which all public discourse increasingly takes the form of entertainment.”

Whether you agree or disagree with Postman, Vegas is key to understanding not only where we are as a culture, but also where the rest of America is headed. Like it or not, America is looking more like Vegas every day.

Source

9-11: The Approach of Midnight

9-11: Six Years Later

The Approach of Midnight

by Rev. John A. Corapi

Six years ago on September 11, 2001, time stood still in a spasm of black smoke, death, and destruction. It had never happened before, but now it had, proving definitively that it could happen. An era ended. Indeed, we would never be the same.

For a time, it seemed to those still possessed of any ability to see spiritual things at all that perhaps the world might correct it’s blind and headlong flight over a precipice and into a moral abyss. People rushed to churches, synagogues, and mosques. There were long lines for confession in the Catholic churches. Others made their amends with God and each other in whatever way they could, not sure what was next, not taking any chances.

The very heart of the pornography and abortion industries suffered a near fatal case of cash register arrest. Close proximity to death tends to bring reality into focus.

Time heals all things, it is said. Yes, and in this case even moments of moral lucidity and spiritual clarity were “healed” and replaced by business as usual. Mankind has a short memory despite the constant reminders of history.

In the six years since 911 has a society crippled by ease, debilitated by political correctness, and close to death from the moral malaise that has plagued it for decades learned anything? Apparently not, for today even most religious leaders are loath to link 911 with the reality of sin. The word itself has been exiled, much like God himself, from our schools, often even from churches, and, indeed, from our very consciousness.

The fact is that we reap what we sow. What goes around, comes around. The greatest nation on the earth has the greatest moral responsibility. Indeed, “to the man given much, much will be required. To the man given more, more will be required.” We were entrusted with the welfare of the world, and all too often the trust was betrayed. Under the specious pretext of freedom—which was really license—we became purveyors of pornography, abortion, greed, deceit, murder and mayhem.

The clock is ticking and midnight is approaching. Illuminated by the false light of affluence and ease, success and power, we became blind to the darkness, and yet midnight approaches, with all of the certainty of time itself.

Have we learned anything in the past six years, or are we yet more blind, more deaf, more steeped in sin? Actions have consequences. 911 was a warning shot fired over the bow of a sick society. The warning has gone largely unheeded.

The clock is ticking. Midnight is approaching. Prayer is now the only thing that will avail change, so pray my dear friends, pray like your life and the life of all you hold dear is at stake.

For it is, it is.

God bless you and protect you and yours,

Rev. John Corapi
September 11, 2007
Six years later, and counting

Click here for video of this speech

Cheney Predicts Quagmire

Above is none other than Dick Cheney explaining why, when the U.S. was in perfect position to depose Saddam Hussein in 1991, President George H.W. Bush elected not to do so. The interview took place in 1994. Here is a transcript in case you can't hear the video.

... if we'd gone to Baghdad we would have been all alone. There wouldn't have been anybody else with us. There would have been a U.S. occupation of Iraq. None of the Arab forces that were willing to fight with us in Kuwait were willing to invade Iraq.

Once you got to Iraq and took it over, took down Saddam Hussein's government, then what are you going to put in its place? That's a very volatile part of the world, and if you take down the central government of Iraq, you could very easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off: part of it, the Syrians would like to have to the west, part of it -- eastern Iraq -- the Iranians would like to claim, they fought over it for eight years. In the north you've got the Kurds, and if the Kurds spin loose and join with the Kurds in Turkey, then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey.

It's a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq. Source

Sounds like a very sensible view to me. Too bad Cheney changed his mind a few years later. He had it right the first time.

Hat tip: Born at the Crest of the Empire

Croagh Patrick

Since St. Patrick is the patron of this blog, I must share this story with you. It concerns the place where the first Snakes were Driven Out.

A ripple of applause greeted the first Mass yesterday morning on the summit of Croagh Patrick, Ireland’s holy mountain, as tens of thousands of pilgrims laboured up its treacherous approaches in brilliant and unexpected sunshine.

Rising in a perfect cone on the southern shore of Clew Bay, St Patrick’s Mountain is one of the world’s oldest pilgrimage sites. Its importance as a holy place predates the arrival of Christianity and the national saint’s 40-day fast on its summit.

During his Lenten fast in the year 441, St Patrick is said to have dispelled all the snakes from Ireland by throwing a bell down the mountainside. (...)

The pilgrimage took root soon after that date but in the 12th century was moved to the summer months after 30 pilgrims perished on the mountain during a thunderstorm on the night of March 17, 1113.

That also conveniently put paid to the more ancient celebrations on the mountaintop. For the Celts it was the dwelling place of the deity Crom Dubh and the principal site of the harvest festival of Lughnasa, where women slept the night on the summit in the hope of encouraging fertility. MORE

Someday I will have to travel to this place and make a wireless post to Driving Out The Snakes. Hopefully St. Patrick will approve.

Irish hat tip: Mark Shea

Smiling W

Peggy Noonan zeroed in today on one of the problems with President Bush.

As I watched the news conference, it occurred to me that one of the things that might leave people feeling somewhat disoriented is the president's seemingly effortless high spirits. He's in a good mood. There was the usual teasing, the partly aggressive, partly joshing humor, the certitude. He doesn't seem to be suffering, which is jarring. Presidents in great enterprises that are going badly suffer: Lincoln, LBJ with his head in his hands. Why doesn't Mr. Bush? Every major domestic initiative of his second term has been ill thought through and ended in failure. His Iraq leadership has failed. His standing is lower than any previous president's since polling began. He's in a good mood. Discuss.

Is it defiance? Denial? Is it that he's right and you're wrong, which is your problem? Is he faking a certain steely good cheer to show his foes from Washington to Baghdad that the American president is neither beaten nor bowed? Fair enough: Presidents can't sit around and moan. But it doesn't look like an act. People would feel better to know his lack of success sometimes gets to him. It gets to them.

His stock answer is that of course he feels the sadness of the families who've lost someone in Iraq. And of course he must. Beyond that his good humor seems to me disorienting, and strange.

[...]

I suspect people pick up with Mr. Bush the sense that part of his drama, part of the story of his presidency, is that he gets to be the romantic about history, and the American people get to be the realists. Of the two, the latter is not the more enjoyable role.

Americans have always been somewhat romantic about the meaning of our country, and the beacon it can be for the world, and what the Founders did. But they like the president to be the cool-eyed realist, the tough customer who understands harsh realities.

With Mr. Bush it is the people who are forced to be cool-eyed and realistic. He's the one who goes off on the toots. This is extremely irritating, and also unnatural. Actually it's weird. MORE

Mark Shea and Rod Dreher have more thoughts on this column.

Muslim & American?

A letter asking the question "Can a good Muslim be a good American?" has been circulating by e-mail and on blogs for some time, apparently. I just saw it this week when Texas Fred posted it.

Can a good Muslim be a good American?

I forwarded that question to a friend who worked in Saudi Arabia for 20 years.

The following is his forwarded reply:

Theologically - no. Because his allegiance is to Allah, the moon God of Arabia.

Religiously - no. Because no other religion is accepted by his Allah except Islam. (Qu ran, 2:256)

Scripturally - no. Because his allegiance is to the five pillars of Islam and the Qu ran (Koran).

Geographically - no. Because his allegiance is to Mecca, to which he turns in prayer five times a day. MORE

It goes on from there with the same theme, and concludes that no, one cannot be both a good Muslim and a good American. Such generalizations are usually dangerous, and this one is no exception.

I am not an expert on Islam. However Google quickly led me to a couple of discussions about this particular letter where people take issue with the various points. Look here and here. The answers are not nearly as clear-cut as the original letter makes it seem.

My issue is with the initial premise of the letter. I think there is probably wide variation on exactly what constitutes a "good Muslim." To understand this, consider the religion most Americans are more familiar with: Christianity. Exactly what is a good Christian?

There are a lot of ways to answer that question. Christianity includes Roman Catholics, several varieties of Orthodox churches, a bunch of Middle Eastern sects like the Coptics, hundreds of Protestant denominations (Episcopalians, Methodists, Lutherans, and many varieties of Presbyterians and Baptists), plus offshoots like Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh-Day Adventists. Then there are tiny cults like the Branch Davidians.

All these groups can read the same scriptures and study the same history, yet they still come up with radically different theologies and ideas about being a "good Christian." At times the disagreements have become violent, all completely under the umbrella of "Christianity."

Given this, I have a hard time believing that a billion Muslims are in monolithic agreement about much of anything. Christians certainly aren't. That's not the way it should be, but it is a fact.

If someone is already inclined to evil, it's not hard to justify it from Scripture. For example, the story of Elisha and the bears (II Kings 2:23-24) might lead you to think God enjoys sending his creature to kill children. To reach that conclusion, though, you have to take the story out of context and ignore the real meaning of it. Likewise with Psalm 137:9, which a casual reading would lead you to think we should take the children of our enemies and dash them against the rocks. I would not be surprised if many of the Koranic verses that are used to justify jihad are of a similar nature.

To take the analogy further, history gives us many examples of Christians doing terrible things to one another as well as to non-Christians. Does the fact that a small group of Christians decides to kill Jews and blacks mean that Christianity itself is aligned against Jews and blacks? No, not at all. Those individuals are wrong. It is equally wrong to extrapolate their misdeeds against an entire population of people that does not join them.

So is it possible for a good Muslim to be a good American? I think so, but it's probably very difficult. Islamic culture and attitudes are different from what we have in the U.S. (I could argue, incidentally, that it is very hard for a good Christian to be a good American, too, if by "good American" you mean the full embrace of our increasingly depraved and materialistic culture. But that's another subject I will have to address later.).

It does not follow from this that all Muslims mean harm to Americans. Islam and Christianity co-existed on this planet very nicely for hundreds of years, with only occasional conflicts - many of which were instigated by the Christian side.

If, as we are told sometimes, the Muslims hate us for our freedom, why did they wait so long to do anything about it? In fact, in the early years of independence the U.S. got along fine with numerous Muslim nations. Eighteenth and nineteenth-century Muslims were not on a jihad against the West.

The Koran has said whatever it says for centuries, but it's only in the last fifty years or so that we see it being used as inspiration for war on the West. Why? You can sum it up in two words: Israel and oil. These are the flashpoints, are they not? All our conflicts grow out of those two disputes.

Now resolving these conflicts, now that we are in them, is no simple thing. I would submit that demonizing the other side is not likely to help and may even hurt. Letters like the one quoted above serve mainly to inspire Americans to blind hatred of Muslims. Since relatively few Muslims are doing violent things to us, this hatred accomplishes little except to make the conflict bigger than it already is. It makes people like Texas Fred decide that genocide against Muslims is the answer to our problems.

Clearly, some Muslims are our enemies and we have to deal with them. Equally important are efforts to keep those who are not already against us from becoming so. We have enough challenges already without manufacturing more of them.