Thanks for the cite, **Desmostylus **. I cannot get your link to work.
ISTM that this Vatican statment was weak. First of all, the statement is elliptical in its mention of UN resolutions. It implies, but doesn’t quite say, that Iraq has failed to comply with unspecified UN resolutions. It goes into no detail on the nature of the “relevant resolutions of the United Nations.”
More importantly, the statement doesn’t mention the real problems. Iraq presumably has huge amounts of biological and chemical weapons. Iraq has used their WMDs in the past. It doesn’t address Saddam’s financial and moral support for anti-Israel terrorism. It doesn’t mention the killings and torture of thousands of Iraqi people.
I grant you that the Vatican did make a public statement encouraging Saddam to comply with the UN relolutions. To that degree, my prior post was exaggerated. But, would you agree that my other complaints are accurate?
As far as the Vatican failed to spell out which resolutions it was talking about, note that the address was to the U.N. Security Council, who presumably already knew.
(I don’t fault you for that, december, because the link I first posted didn’t work, so you couldn’t have seen that.)
If a speaker wanted to emphasize the importance of the resolutions, he could have gone into detail. Colin Powell and Jack Straw did just this in some of their Security Council debate.
Also, the Pope weakened his request for UN compliance by opposing war, which is the only real remedy. He did say,
I find that statement to be wishful thinking. Some feel that war is necessary; others oppose war. But, how can further inspections bring consensus? Everybody already knows that Saddam hasn’t complied. We do not have consensus now, and we won’t have consensus after more inspections.
Would you agree that the Vatican appears to have given Saddam a pass on the issues of Iraq’s past use WMDs, Iraq’s financial and moral support for anti-Israel terrorism and the killing and torture of thousands of Iraqi people?
This is quibbling detail. I repeat what I said above: It’s not an acceptable argument to say “there was no public mention”, then complain that the public mention I found wasn’t to your liking.
What does that mean? “Pope opposed to war” does not equal “Pope supports SH”.
Of course I wouldn’t agree to such a ridiculous statement. It’s incumbent upon you, december, to show that the Pope has said something positive in support of SH. The mere fact that the single quote that I provided to completely refute your “no public mention” statement does not contain the kinds of condemnations you seek is entirely irrelevant.
I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree. I think a world leader who recommends policy to deal with Saddam’s regime ought to acknowledge the nature of that regime. Especially when he’s a moral leader. E.g., from The Scotsman
for Demo’s sake december, the Pope has not given Saddam a pass for what he did to the Kurds, or for what he did to Jews. the first conclusion you jump to is not alway the truth, no matter how much you want to believe it.
What was the point of that, december? You quote an article saying, in effect, “SH is a bad guy”. So what? Who disagrees with that? I don’t. You’ve been pitted because of a statement that you made about the current Pope’s support for SH, and which you have entirely failed to substantiate.
And no, we can’t simply agree to disagree. I think that you are a liar and a weasel.
When you say “I think a world leader who recommends policy to deal with Saddam’s regime ought to acknowledge the nature of that regime.”, it’s incumbent upon you to show that he hasn’t.
In another probably futile gesture, I offer this (from The Age newspaper, which is a right wing broadsheet, i.e. one biased in your favour):
(emphasis mine).
(I felt that I had to quote the whole thing to avoid an accusation of selective quoting, because the story attacks both sides. If any mod disagrees, please feel to delete the quote.)
Try this analogy. Suppose a world leader were addressing the court in Texas and said,
Obviously, it would be unthinkable to defend James Byrd’s murderers in this way. Would this hypothetical statement be described as “giving them a pass”? I think it would.
Saddam is even worse than these three killers. Saddam committed crimes as heinous as Byrd’s murder thousands of times over.
Move to strike italicised section. This is speculation. Respectfully request the poster re-phrase the non-italicised section in its proper form, as an opinion.
The Pope requested Iraq comply with UN resolutions on his own authority, he never intended it to be backed with a threat of war. He has no authority to declare war, nor does he command any troops. Plenty of other world leaders are delivering requests to Iraq which are backed by threat of war. The Pope is not, and you think this makes him weak? So asking someone to do the right thing is “weak” unless you also include some sort of clear message that you’ll kick their ass if they don’t do the right thing?
This analogy is as stupid as your analogy to Tim McVeigh, and for the same reason. The “bad analogy” tack seems to be a new element in your modus operandi, december, but it’s no less annoying than the limericks.
And still, all you’re doing is repeating your assertions over and over, with no proof. You’re still proving the point of Guin’s Pit thread admirably. Carry on!
Weirddave, perhaps YOU could explain the point december is missing, rather than leading us around on some scavenger hunt. Maybe then we’ll see where you’re coming from.
december, the Pope does NOT shun people. That is NOT the Catholic position. You meet with them, even the evil. Jesus himself did that.
And, is it the Catholic position that the Vatican should invite evil people to use its facilities for press conferences? Am I wrong to interpret that invitation a sign of Tarik Aziz’s acceptibility?
And, would somebody care to respond to this point:
I’ll take the first one, but I honestly don’t care if you find my counter-arguments convincing or not. I’m doing this because Weirddave asked for rebuttals of your points and I’m in a generous mood. It’s just not worth the effort to disprove all your assertions because you damn sure aren’t going to admit your errors or change your ways. Plus you always find some more out-of-context quote or pundit opinion to back your “position” with or simply ignore refutations of your claims. The claim is
Now, let’s establish a few facts. The full text of the accord signed by the Pope and the PLO can be found here, it is remarkably short. An interesting snippet, which belies your point that this was some sort of anti-Israel accord, was the real context of the “unilateral action” snippet. It is taken from the preamble to the accord and is part of the section establishing the purposes of the accord.
Now, find me the words “by Israel” anywhere near the words “unilateral action”. This accord rejects unilateral action by ANY side, including the Palestinians.
Moreover, this accord was a reaction to an accord signed by Israel and the Vatican in 1998 which placed Catholic Churches and assets in Jerusalem(even East Jerusalem, which Palestine claims as its capital) under Israeli jurisdiction. Palestinians were worried that this gave implicit recognition to Israeli claims on East Jerusalem. The accord with the PA clarified that the Vatican did NOT intend to send the message that Israel was the proper soverign authority over Eastern Jerusalem. I can’t find the full text of that accord online, but here is an article about it from 2000
As to the second part of the claim, that the Vatican was maliciously, or due to some anti-Jewish bias, withholding this type of support from Israel when Jordan ruled Jerusalem, assuming they, in fact, did not condemn it. I’m not digging through fifty year old press releases, which may well not be available on the web, to find out how the Pope at the time felt, or did not feel, about the issue. I would like to point out that the Vatican did not recognize Israel as a legitimate state until 1994(the reasons for this were many and manifold, some good, some bad), so that pretty much precludes the possibility of signing accords with them at that point.
FYI, you should be careful when picking your cites about Papal actions in the mideast. There is more than one person in the world who claims the title of “Pope” and who speaks on these issues. Pope Shenouda III of the Coptic Orthodox Church. He’s much more anti-Israel than the Catholic Pope and some of the blurbs I read as your “points” on a previous page were actually quotes from or relating to him instead of John Paul II.
Weriddave, you’re a fan of not wasting breath, right? Do you now understand why people just roll their eyes and call december an idiot instead of debunking his “points” over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again? His points are bullshit. Almost every stinking one of them is bullshit and the ones which have some factual basis are warped by his presentation to the point where illuminating the spin he, or the pundits he loves to parrot, have put on them is a lot of effort and it’s just not worth it. To debunk some of his more esoteric ones like “No such accord was signed with Israel when Jordan ruled Jerusalem, threw out all the Jews, forbade Jews to visit the Western Wall, and descrated Jewish holy sites and graveyards.” requires proving the state of mind of dead people half a century ago! Yet he’s allowed to assume, in his accusations, that no accords were signed because the Vatican approved of Jordan’s actions and/or refused to act out of some anti-Israel bias. That is his insinuation, and he’s got no proof for such motives. We’re asked to debunk it? It’s not worth it.
In closing I’d like to re-iterate that lack of condemnation is not the same as support and that opposition to war is not the same as support for the status quo. Thank you.
It’s not worth it.