| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"The Last Liberal / ShyDavid / Desertphile" |
| Date: |
29 Jan 2005 12:00:16 AM |
| Object: |
A Catholic worthy of applause |
Catholics condemn US baby-killers.
Published on Friday, January 28, 2005 by the National Catholic
Reporter
What the Rest of the World Watched on Inauguration Day
by Joan Chittister
Dublin, on U.S. Inauguration Day, didn't seem to notice. Oh, they
played a few clips that night of the American president saying,
"The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the
success of liberty in other lands."
But that was not their lead story.
The picture on the front page of The Irish Times was a large
four-color picture of a small Iraqi girl. Her little body was a
coil of steel. She sat knees up, cowering, screaming madly into
the dark night. Her white clothes and spread hands and small tight
face were blood-spattered. The blood was the blood of her father
and mother, shot through the car window in Tal Afar by American
soldiers while she sat beside her parents in the car, her four
brothers and sisters in the back seat.
A series of pictures of the incident played on the inside page, as
well. A 12-year-old brother, wounded in the fray, falls face down
out of the car when the car door opens, the pictures show. In
another, a soldier decked out in battle gear, holds a large
automatic weapon on the four children, all potential enemies, all
possible suicide bombers, apparently, as they cling traumatized to
one another in the back seat and the child on the ground goes on
screaming in her parent's blood.
No promise of "freedom" rings in the cutline on this picture. No
joy of liberty underlies the terror on these faces here.
I found myself closing my eyes over and over again as I stared at
the story, maybe to crush the tears forming there, maybe in the
hope that the whole scene would simply disappear.
But no, like the photo of a naked little girl bathed in napalm and
running down a road in Vietnam served to crystallize the situation
there for the rest of the world, I knew that this picture of a
screaming, angry, helpless, orphaned child could do the same.
The soldiers standing in the dusk had called "halt," the story
said, but no one did. Maybe the soldiers' accents were bad. Maybe
the car motor was unduly noisy. Maybe the children were laughing
loudly -- the way children do on family trips. Whatever the case,
the car did not stop, the soldiers shot with deadly accuracy,
seven lives changed in an instant: two died in body, five died in
soul.
BBC news announced that the picture was spreading across Europe
like a brushfire that morning, featured from one major newspaper
to another, served with coffee and Danish from kitchen table to
kitchen table in one country after another. I watched, while
Inauguration Day dawned across the Atlantic, as the Irish up and
down the aisle on the train from Killarney to Dublin, narrowed
their eyes at the picture, shook their heads silently and slowly
over it, and then sat back heavily in their seats, too stunned
into reality to go back to business as usual -- the real estate
section, the sports section, the life-style section of the paper.
Here was the other side of the inauguration story. No military
bands played for this one. No bulletproof viewing stands could
stop the impact of this insight into the glory of force. Here was
an America they could no longer understand. The contrast rang
cruelly everywhere.
I sat back and looked out the train window myself. Would anybody
in the United States be seeing this picture today? Would the
United States ever see it, in fact? And if it is printed in the
United States, will it also cross the country like wildfire and
would people hear the unwritten story under it?
There are 54 million people in Iraq. Over half of them are under
the age of 15. Of the over 100,000 civilians dead in this war,
then, over half of them are children. We are killing children. The
children are our enemy. And we are defeating them.
"I'll tell you why I voted for George Bush," a friend of mine
said. "I voted for George Bush because he had the courage to do
what Al Gore and John Kerry would never have done."
I've been thinking about that one.
Osama Bin Laden is still alive. Sadam Hussein is still alive. Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi is still alive. Baghdad, Mosul and Fallujah are
burning. But my government has the courage to kill children or
their parents. And I'm supposed to be impressed.
That's an unfair assessment, of course. A lot of young soldiers
have died, too. A lot of weekend soldiers are maimed for life. A
lot of our kids went into the military only to get a college
education and are now shattered in soul by what they had to do to
other bodies.
A lot of adult civilians have been blasted out of their homes and
their neighborhoods and their cars. More and more every day.
According to U.N. Development Fund for Women, 15 percent of
wartime casualties in World War I were civilians. In World War II,
65 percent were civilians. By the mid '90s, over 75 percent of
wartime casualties were civilians.
In Iraq, for every dead U.S. soldier, there are 14 other deaths,
93 percent of them are civilian. But those things happen in war,
the story says. It's all for a greater good, we have to remember.
It's all to free them. It's all being done to spread "liberty."
From where I stand, the only question now is who or what will free
us from the 21st century's new definition of bravery. Who will
free us from the notion that killing children or their civilian
parents takes courage?
A Benedictine Sister of Erie, Sister Joan is a best-selling author
and well-known international lecturer. She is founder and
executive director of Benetvision: A Resource and Research Center
for Contemporary Spirituality, and past president of the
Conference of American Benedictine Prioresses and the Leadership
Conference of Women Religious. Sister Joan has been recognized by
universities and national organizations for her work for justice,
peace and equality for women in the Church and society. She is an
active member of the International Peace Council.
2005 The National Catholic Reporter
---
http://lastliberal.org
Free random & sequential signature changer http://holysmoke.org/sig
"I would prefer to write about everything; what else is there? But one
must be selective." -- Edward Abbey
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| User: "Fredric L. Rice" |
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| Title: George Bush worse than Saddam |
29 Jan 2005 05:15:14 AM |
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(The Last Liberal / ShyDavid / Desertphile) wrote:
The picture on the front page of The Irish Times was a large
four-color picture of a small Iraqi girl. Her little body was a
coil of steel. She sat knees up, cowering, screaming madly into
the dark night. Her white clothes and spread hands and small tight
face were blood-spattered. The blood was the blood of her father
and mother, shot through the car window in Tal Afar by American
soldiers while she sat beside her parents in the car, her four
brothers and sisters in the back seat.
Everything this fascist mass murderer has done has exceeded anything that
Saddam ever did, and Saddam was a brutal dictator installed and supported
by the United States in the first place.
---
Stop Elmer Fudd web site: http://www.ElmerFudd.US/
Covert text file server: http://www.notserver.com/
Scientology crooks: http://sf.irk.ru/www/ot3/otiii-gif.html
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| User: "kathryn" |
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| Title: Re: George Bush worse than Saddam |
29 Jan 2005 07:12:18 AM |
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"Fredric L. Rice" <FRice@SkepticTank.ORG> wrote in message
news:10vlsb599htjd48@corp.supernews.com...
desertphile@hotmail.com (The Last Liberal / ShyDavid / Desertphile) wrote:
The picture on the front page of The Irish Times was a large
four-color picture of a small Iraqi girl. Her little body was a
coil of steel. She sat knees up, cowering, screaming madly into
the dark night. Her white clothes and spread hands and small tight
face were blood-spattered. The blood was the blood of her father
and mother, shot through the car window in Tal Afar by American
soldiers while she sat beside her parents in the car, her four
brothers and sisters in the back seat.
Everything this fascist mass murderer has done has exceeded anything that
Saddam ever did, and Saddam was a brutal dictator installed and supported
by the United States in the first place.
But but but but don't you sleep better at night knowing that you've made
Iraq free?
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| User: "Fredric L. Rice" |
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| Title: Re: George Bush worse than Saddam |
29 Jan 2005 05:30:58 PM |
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"kathryn" <bob@bobbybobbobthebobster.com> wrote:
"Fredric L. Rice" <FRice@SkepticTank.ORG> wrote in message
news:10vlsb599htjd48@corp.supernews.com...
Everything this fascist mass murderer has done has exceeded anything that
Saddam ever did, and Saddam was a brutal dictator installed and supported
by the United States in the first place.
But but but but don't you sleep better at
night knowing that you've made Iraq free?
It angers me that the money I'm taxed with is used to kill kids.
---
Stop Elmer Fudd web site: http://www.ElmerFudd.US/
Covert text file server: http://www.notserver.com/
Scientology crooks: http://sf.irk.ru/www/ot3/otiii-gif.html
FRice Antiwar: http://www.skeptictank.org/antiwar.htm
FRice Tree Sit: http://www.skeptictank.org/treesit/treesit.htm
.
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| User: "Aloysius \Snuffy\ Snuffleupagus" |
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| Title: Re: George Bush worse than Saddam |
29 Jan 2005 05:44:39 PM |
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(Fredric L. Rice) wrote in news:10vni51iarp94a7
@corp.supernews.com:
It angers me that the money I'm taxed with is used to kill kids.
It is also used to feed the poor throughout the world. Americans do many
positive things. Your taxes allow you to live a very cushy life.
Don't be so damn melodramatic. This Iraq thing really sucks. Do a little
research and find out how many kids a day die from just diarrhea. Real
life, inside many third world countries, sucks beyond what you can
imagine. Hunger, disease, and violence kills so many and America has
nothing to do with it.
All these people fighting to help tsunami victims when thousands are
dying in Africa and other countries everyday of every year. Caring for
humanity is like a fad. Maybe it shouldn't be.
Hand over all you money to help all of humankind or shut up. Don't sit
there and preach when you are benefiting from those same taxes. Live
modest and give everything to help others. If not, then pipe down.
Do something instead of just whining. I do!
Snuff
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| User: "kathryn" |
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| Title: Re: George Bush worse than Saddam |
30 Jan 2005 06:54:29 PM |
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"Aloysius "Snuffy" Snuffleupagus" <snuffy@thecave.net> wrote in message
news:Xns95ED6FD66E75Bsnuffy@63.218.45.41...
FRice@SkepticTank.ORG (Fredric L. Rice) wrote in news:10vni51iarp94a7
@corp.supernews.com:
It angers me that the money I'm taxed with is used to kill kids.
It is also used to feed the poor throughout the world. Americans do many
positive things. Your taxes allow you to live a very cushy life.
Don't be so damn melodramatic. This Iraq thing really sucks. Do a little
research and find out how many kids a day die from just diarrhea.
Did you cause the diarrhoea?
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| User: "Fredric L. Rice" |
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| Title: Re: George Bush worse than Saddam |
30 Jan 2005 12:47:35 AM |
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"Aloysius \"Snuffy\" Snuffleupagus" <snuffy@thecave.net> wrote:
FRice@SkepticTank.ORG (Fredric L. Rice) wrote in news:10vni51iarp94a7
@corp.supernews.com:
It angers me that the money I'm taxed with is used to kill kids.
It is also used to feed the poor throughout the world.
Ah, then it's okay to slaughter over 100,000 innocent Iraqis. Yes, it
all makes perfect sense now.
---
Stop Elmer Fudd web site: http://www.ElmerFudd.US/
Covert text file server: http://www.notserver.com/
Scientology crooks: http://sf.irk.ru/www/ot3/otiii-gif.html
FRice Antiwar: http://www.skeptictank.org/antiwar.htm
FRice Tree Sit: http://www.skeptictank.org/treesit/treesit.htm
.
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| User: "Captain Freedom" |
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| Title: Re: George Bush worse than Saddam |
29 Jan 2005 10:55:55 PM |
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Aloysius "Snuffy" Snuffleupagus wrote:
FRice@SkepticTank.ORG (Fredric L. Rice) wrote in news:10vni51iarp94a7
@corp.supernews.com:
It angers me that the money I'm taxed with is used to kill kids.
It is also used to feed the poor throughout the world. Americans do many
positive things. Your taxes allow you to live a very cushy life.
Don't be so damn melodramatic. This Iraq thing really sucks. Do a little
research and find out how many kids a day die from just diarrhea. Real
life, inside many third world countries, sucks beyond what you can
imagine. Hunger, disease, and violence kills so many and America has
nothing to do with it.
All these people fighting to help tsunami victims when thousands are
dying in Africa and other countries everyday of every year. Caring for
humanity is like a fad. Maybe it shouldn't be.
Hand over all you money to help all of humankind or shut up. Don't sit
there and preach when you are benefiting from those same taxes. Live
modest and give everything to help others. If not, then pipe down.
Do something instead of just whining. I do!
Snuff
Or just move to France. Apologies to Roger.
Captain Freedom
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| User: "The Last Liberal / ShyDavid / Desertphile" |
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| Title: Re: George Bush worse than Saddam |
30 Jan 2005 05:18:09 PM |
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On , Captain Freedom <data61aS_P_A_M@netscape.net> wrote:
Do something instead of just whining. I do!
Or just move to France. Apologies to Roger.
What, if someone you love gets sick, you just abondon her or him?
---
http://lastliberal.org
Free random & sequential signature changer http://holysmoke.org/sig
"There are only two kinds of books -- good books and the others. The good
are winnowed from the bad through the democracy of time." -- Edward
Abbey
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| User: "Aloysius \Snuffy\ Snuffleupagus" |
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| Title: Re: George Bush worse than Saddam |
30 Jan 2005 06:13:48 PM |
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(The Last Liberal / ShyDavid / Desertphile) wrote
in news:364j75F4ta72qU1@individual.net:
What, if someone you love gets sick, you just abondon her or him?
How the hell am I supposed to be aware of your personal life? Geez.
Snuff
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: George Bush worse than Saddam |
29 Jan 2005 06:35:24 PM |
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Fredric L. Rice wrote:
"kathryn" <bob@bobbybobbobthebobster.com> wrote:
"Fredric L. Rice" <FRice@SkepticTank.ORG> wrote in message
news:10vlsb599htjd48@corp.supernews.com...
Everything this fascist mass murderer has done has exceeded
anything that
Saddam ever did, and Saddam was a brutal dictator installed and
supported
by the United States in the first place.
But but but but don't you sleep better at
night knowing that you've made Iraq free?
It angers me that the money I'm taxed with is used to kill kids.
More narrowly focused, it angers most of us on this NG, that $cn's
tax-exempt status still thrives, and continues to fund the use of
psycho-terrorism to silence activists and as well destroy individuals'
freedoms, families, and lives by their endless recruiting for new "raw
meat."
I'd compare Saddam to Hubbard as more accurate in this instance.
---
Stop Elmer Fudd web site: http://www.ElmerFudd.US/
Covert text file server: http://www.notserver.com/
Scientology crooks: http://sf.irk.ru/www/ot3/otiii-gif.html
FRice Antiwar: http://www.skeptictank.org/antiwar.htm
FRice Tree Sit: http://www.skeptictank.org/treesit/treesit.htm
Tom
----------------------
www.suppressiveperson.org www.fairgamed.org
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| User: "The Last Liberal / ShyDavid / Desertphile" |
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| Title: Re: George Bush worse than Saddam |
29 Jan 2005 03:01:28 PM |
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On Sat, 29 Jan 2005 07:12:18 +0000 (UTC), "kathryn"
<bob@bobbybobbobthebobster.com> wrote:
"Fredric L. Rice" <FRice@SkepticTank.ORG> wrote in message
news:10vlsb599htjd48@corp.supernews.com...
Everything this fascist mass murderer has done has exceeded
anything that Saddam ever did, and Saddam was a brutal
dictator installed and supported by the United States
in the first place.
But but but but don't you sleep better at night knowing that
you've made Iraq free?
I don't sleep at all at night, for worry that Bush2 and his
Gestapo will come to "liberate" me also.
---
http://lastliberal.org
Free random & sequential signature changer http://holysmoke.org/sig
"Apuleius married a rich widow, then wrote _The Golden Ass_." -- Edward
Abbey
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| User: "The Last Liberal / ShyDavid / Desertphile" |
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| Title: Re: George Bush worse than Saddam |
29 Jan 2005 03:00:29 PM |
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On Sat, 29 Jan 2005 05:15:14 GMT, (Fredric
L. Rice) wrote:
desertphile@hotmail.com (The Last Liberal / ShyDavid / Desertphile) wrote:
The picture on the front page of The Irish Times was a large
four-color picture of a small Iraqi girl. Her little body was a
coil of steel. She sat knees up, cowering, screaming madly into
the dark night. Her white clothes and spread hands and small tight
face were blood-spattered. The blood was the blood of her father
and mother, shot through the car window in Tal Afar by American
soldiers while she sat beside her parents in the car, her four
brothers and sisters in the back seat.
Everything this fascist mass murderer has done has exceeded
anything that Saddam ever did, and Saddam was a brutal dictator
installed and supported by the United States in the first place.
Bush2 and his ilk claimed that Hussein was torturing and raping
Iraqi children (mostly boys); United Press International reported
that the American insurgents (sent there by Bush2 to "liberate"
those children) are torturing and raping Iraqi children (mostly
boys). The difference is that Bush2 has killed more Iraqis and
Americans that Hussein ever did or ever dreamed of doing. Every
American citizen should sure feel proud at such an accomplishment.
---
Stop Elmer Fudd web site: http://www.ElmerFudd.US/
Covert text file server: http://www.notserver.com/
Scientology crooks: http://sf.irk.ru/www/ot3/otiii-gif.html
---
http://lastliberal.org
Free random & sequential signature changer http://holysmoke.org/sig
"Might does not make right but it sure makes what is." -- Edward Abbey
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