Cardinal pities Saddam, criticizes U.S.
Top Vatican official says captors treated ex-dictator like animal
Posted: December 16, 2003
12:01 p.m. Eastern
2003 WorldNetDaily.com
A top Vatican official says he felt pity for Saddam Hussein as he watched video
of the deposed Iraqi dictator in captivity and thinks the U.S. treated him like
an animal.
Cardinal Renato Martino, a leading critic of the war in Iraq, said he was moved
to compassion as he saw images of "this man destroyed, [the military] looking
at his teeth as if he were a beast," the BBC reported.
A senior U.S. official defending the video said there was no attempt to
humiliate Saddam, arguing the broadcast of him undergoing a medical exam is
allowed under the Geneva Conventions in order to maintain peace and security.
Martino asserted, however, the U.S. "could have spared us these pictures."
"Seeing him like this, a man in his tragedy, despite all the heavy blame he
bears, I had a sense of compassion for him," he told reporters, according to
the BBC.
The cardinal called the arrest a "watershed development," but said it would be
"illusory" to believe it would "repair the dramas and the damage" brought by
the war.
The comments came as Italian police responded to a warning the Vatican could
become a target of the al-Qaida terrorist network during the Christmas season,
Catholic World News reported. The warning was issued by the Israeli
intelligence service, Mossad. Among the precautions is the closing each night
of the main road to the Vatican, the Via della Conciliazione.
The Vatican has been a consistent opponent of the U.S.-led effort in Iraq.
A Vatican envoy who met with President Bush on March 6, just before the war
began, said he "clearly and forcefully" conveyed a message from Pope John Paul
II that a war against Iraq would be a "disaster."
Cardinal Renato Martino at U.N. conference in 1998
"You might start, and you don't know how to end it," Cardinal Pio Laghi said
after a half-hour meeting at the White House. "It will be a war that will
destroy human life. Those people that are suffering already in Iraq, they will
be in a really bad situation."
Laghi, a former Vatican ambassador to the United States and a friend of the
Bush family, said the U.S. should not act against Iraq without the sanction of
the United Nations.
"It will be an American-Iraqi war, and that is not the way to do it because the
government of the United States has appealed to the United Nations," he said.
"Let's wait for the United Nations, whether they would give a green light in
one way or the other."
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| User: "Woodswun" |
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| Title: Re: Cardinal pities Saddam, criticizes U.S. |
17 Dec 2003 05:03:01 PM |
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In article <20031217054115.03883.00001213@mb-m07.aol.com>, (TonyZ2001) wrote:
Cardinal pities Saddam, criticizes U.S.
Top Vatican official says captors treated ex-dictator like animal
Posted: December 16, 2003
12:01 p.m. Eastern
2003 WorldNetDaily.com
A top Vatican official says he felt pity for Saddam Hussein as he watched video
of the deposed Iraqi dictator in captivity and thinks the U.S. treated him like
an animal.
Cardinal Renato Martino, a leading critic of the war in Iraq, said he was moved
to compassion as he saw images of "this man destroyed, [the military] looking
at his teeth as if he were a beast," the BBC reported.
Well, I think we already knew that the Vatican was pretty disconnected from
reality. This guy has probably never seen how normal people get medical exams
from a clinic.
Woods
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