Benedict XVI on War

Due to academic obligations, I have not had an opportunity to post here in a good while. The school year is winding down and only final exams stand between myself and summer.

On April 23, I submitted the following letter to the editor of Raleigh's News and Observer regarding an article by the American Enterprise Institute's pro-Iraq war Catholic theologian Michael Novak:

Michael Novak is partially correct when he writes that the label of “neoconservative” is a “peculiar” one for Pope Benedict XVI. Inactuality, Cardinal Ratzinger’s views on issues of war and peace arediametrically opposed to an ideology that calls for a “global democratic revolution” brought about by the force of American arms.

During the run-up to the Iraq war, Novak and fellow neoconservative William Bennett traveled to the Vatican in an attempt to sway Rome from its opposition to the US invasion. Their arguments were heard and politely rejected. Pope John Paul II went on to call the war “a defeat for humanity” drawing the ire of neoconservative websites and publications. Cardinal Ratzinger also spoke out against the Iraq war; forcefully arguing that it did not meet the “just war” criterion enunciated by the Christian church from Augustine to Aquinas.

Ratzinger, as Novak correctly points out, is no theological "liberal." Benedict XVI's theology is a classical conservative one, not only on right to life issues, but also on war in particular. Ratzinger's choice of naming himself after Benedict XV who urged for a peaceful and immediate end to another war "to make the world safe for democracy” (a crusade, I might add, that was thoroughly supported by promulgators of the "social gospel" and many within liberal Christianity in general) further demonstrates the new pope’s dedication to the historic principles of the Christian church in the face of calls from Novak and his ideological ilk to recognize the “new paradigm” brought about by 9/11. To America’s slide towards aggressive, pre-emptive, and perpetual war the Vatican has shouted, “halt!” One can only hope that all Christians, particularly "conservative" ones, take notice.

(Update: The News and Observer ran this letter on May 2)

Fleming Takes Notice

Thomas Fleming, author of The New Dealers' War among other titles and one of my favorite historians is one of a few who has tried to bring attention to Ratzinger's choice of papal name. In this article, Fleming touches on the importance of Benedict XV's work to bring about an end to World War I along with the signficance of Benedict XVI's German background.

Two Year Anniversary of Firdos Square Farce

Two years ago today, I was driving home, somewhere on I-440, listening to the radio when Rush Limbaugh started hailing what he described as a crowd randomly gathered in Firdos Square in Baghdad vociferously celebrating the US-led "liberation" of Iraq by toppling a statue of Saddam Hussein. The "Maha Rushie" was beside himself with praise about how the War Party had been vindicated by the jubilation of the Iraqi people.

Turns out the whole thing was a media-made farce.

As Harry Browne, a former Libertarian Party Presidential candidate writes,

[...] it was all an illusion – the kind created by the best
magicians.

There were three elements in the illusion:

1.) The statue was actually toppled by U.S. Marines using their own equipment – not by Iraqis.

2.) The Marines first draped an American flag over the statue’s face,
but then realized that this would make it too obvious that the Marines had come to occupy, not liberate, Baghdad.

3.) The square wasn’t filled with thousands of Iraqis. Only a hundred or so people witnessed the event. The few people there weren’t oppressed Iraqis – celebrating the event with joyous relief that their years-long oppression in Baghdad had ended. The people crowded around the statue were mostly members of the Iraqi National Congress – an organization of Iraqis who had been living outside Iraq, and had been flown into Iraq just before the event.

It is time to add this event to a long line of outright lies and blatant deceptions surrounding this undeclared, unconstitutional, and unjust war of "global democractic revolution."