Pray for Peace
November 28th, 2007 at 09:29am Mark Noonan
Last Sunday, before praying the midday Angelus, Benedict XVI seconded an appeal from the U.S. bishops to pray for the success of the meeting.
In Annapolis, with help from the international community, Israelis and Palestinians will try to relaunch negotiations and aim for a just and definitive solution to the conflict that has bloodied the Holy Land for 60 years, the Holy Father said.
In his appeal, the Pope recalled the many “tears and sufferings” the conflict has caused the two peoples. He asked people to “implore the Spirit of God for peace for that region so dear to us and to give wisdom and courage to all the protagonists in this important meeting.”
The day of prayer marked by the U.S. bishops’ conference is another step in an ongoing plea for peace in the Holy Land, L’Osservatore Romano reported in its Italian edition today.
The Annapolis encounter “offers a lot of hope,” newly elevated Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, archbishop of Galveston-Houston, Texas, told the Vatican newspaper. “I hope that those who are involved in this international conference dedicate themselves with diligence to a resolution that effectively assures peace in the regions of the Middle East.”
Cardinal DiNardo said parishes and Catholics all over the United States “are praying, following the encouragement of the prelates, so that the prospect of peace between the Israeli and Palestinian peoples becomes a concrete reality.” He added that even in a political initiative, such as the Annapolis meeting, prayer “has a great value, also for the future.”
“We are called to persevere in prayer,” the Texas cardinal concluded, “entrusting to God our hope for peace in the coming weeks and months.”
As “jaw jaw’ is better than “war war” (per Winston Churchill), it might also be better to just pray that the men and women gathered in Annapolis listen to the voice of God and figure out a way to make at least some peace. Human beings, of course, are a stubborn lot and pride usually manages to mess up most things we do…but we can hope, and we can pray…and, this time, I think we’ll actually see some moves in the right direction.
We’ve fought a long time and a lot of blood has been spilled - there is still a lot of fighting left to do, and we have not shed all the blood necessary to secure a just and lasting peace…but the amount shed so far is, hopefully, enough for some to start to listen to reason.
This is why, I think, President Bush has called this conference - not out of a hope for a complete fix for what ailes the Arab/Moslem world, but to fix a few things and start down a path where more things can be fixed in the future. The central fact of this peace conference, however, is 130,000 or so US troops in Iraq…still there in spite of a relentless campaign of defeatism in the United States…still there, and thus informing the leaders of the Arab/Moslem world that America, indeed, has the grit to see it out. And it should be kept in mind that this is important on both ends - our enemies know we can take it, and our friends do, too; and that is the more important part of it. There is a reservoir of sense and goodwill in the Arab/Moslem world, but people are wary of sticking their neck out…we’ve now shown them that if they’ll join us, we’ll be there for them. At long last, the stain of our dishonorable surrender in Vietnam has been erased. America’s word is, once again, something people can rely on.
Entry Filed under: Foreign Affairs, President Bush, War on Terror
14 Comments
1. SteaM | November 28th, 2007 at 10:44 am
We are in Iraq so that American oil companies can do business with the Iraqi government and profit off their oil.
2. Bigfoot | November 28th, 2007 at 11:44 am
We are in Iraq so that American oil companies can do business with the Iraqi government and profit off their oil.
No. If that were our intention, we would not have invaded, but would instead have allowed the UN sanctions to expire, and afterwards would simply have bought oil from Saddam (just like France and Germany had wanted to). This would have been much less expensive. Even someone as allegedly stupid as Dubya would have realized that.
3. TiredofLibBullShit | November 28th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
“…just like France and Germany had wanted to…”
It is my understanding that France and Germany had circumvented the embargos and were buying more oil than was allowed by the Oil for Food Program.
There were German, French and UN officials who were on Hussein’s payroll. Another international scandal at the UN that resulted in NOTHING - similar to the Democrats.
steaM - ANOTHER liberal kool-aid drinking fool - “we are in Iraq for their oil.”
Uh, we did not need to invade and liberate the ENTIRE country for the oil fields.
4. Bigfoot | November 28th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
“…just like France and Germany had wanted to…”
Some details may be found here.
Here’s something interesting from the linked article, not about France or Germany, but about the U.S.:
The United States remains the largest importer of Iraqi oil under the UN Oil-for-Food program. However, U.S. companies can no longer deal directly with Iraq for its oil imports. U.S. companies are forced to deal with third party vendors as a result of a ban on all American companies imposed by Iraq. In 2002, the U.S. imported $3.5 billion worth of Iraqi oil.
I would submit that this further shows that our invasion was not oil-motivated. We were already importing more oil from Iraq than anyone else before the war.
5. SteaM | November 28th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
Yes, but it wasn’t enough. They wanted more control and more profits. They also don’t want it traded in Euros rather than dollars which would mess up our economy.
“US-UK forces invaded Iraq on March 20, 2003, seizing the major oilfields and refineries almost immediately. When coalition forces later entered Baghdad, they set a protective cordon around the Oil Ministry, while leaving all other institutions unguarded, allowing looting and burning of other government ministries, hospitals and cultural institutions. Looters sacked the National Museum and burned a wing of the National Library, but the Oil Ministry stood relatively unscathed, with its thousands of valuable seismic maps safe for future oil exploration.
President Bush quickly appointed Phil Carroll, a former high-ranking US oil executive, to assume control of Iraq’s oil industry and on May 22, Bush issued Executive Order 13303 giving immunity to oil companies for all activities in Iraq and deals involving Iraqi oil. On the same day, under pressure from the US and the UK, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1483 which lifted the former sanctions and allowed the occupation authorities to sell Iraqi oil and put the proceeds in an account they controlled. Every step in the early post-war period confirmed the centrality of oil, not as an Iraqi national resource to be protected, but as a spoil of war to be controlled. Now, many months after the war, the picture remains the same.”
6. Diana Powe | November 28th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
Of course, an equally plausible interpretation is that the parties involved, including the Administration, see this as the proverbial “Hail Mary pass” by an unpopular President in his last year in office hoping for some goodwill from historians. If something positive and lasting devolves from it, then that’s wonderful. If nothing happens, then the President can say that he “tried”. This viewpoint’s plausibility is unaffected by the President’s actual intent because many of the participants can reasonably interpret the decision by the United States to invade Iraq in 2003 as being ultimately motivated by the American government’s desire for oil security and not for any particular interest in the actual politics of the Middle East beyond oil. The fact that the President and his unprecedentedly powerful Vice-President both have deep roots in the oil industry, regardless of their actual personal motives, provide easy fuel for that interpretation.
The idea that the average Saudi is going to see our continued presence in Iraq as “grit” so that they can now “stick their neck out” to show “sense and goodwill” appears to be an update of “The White Man’s Burden” to something like “The White American Man’s Burden”. Again, regardless of actual motivations, the average Saudi male who suffers from an unemployment rate of an estimated 13-25% and a gross domestic product of less than 1/3 of the average American (Source: CIA – The World Factbook) is just as likely, if not more likely, to see any actions by Americans as corrupted by our linkage to their corrupt ruling class. This is especially true given his sense of anger at the presence of foreign forces occupying bases in countries that safeguards what he views as holy places in Islam. While our presence in Saudi Arabia ended in 2003, for devout Sunnis we are now foreign occupiers in a home of some of Shi’a Islam’s holy places, Iraq. It’s interesting that virtually all Americans see the presence of elements of our armed forces in other sovereign countries as completely unremarkable without considering the viewpoint of the average citizen of those countries. As a thought experiment, I wonder what the average American’s reaction would be if our government agreed to the establishment of an equivalent to Prince Sultan Air Base manned by members of the Saudi armed forces flying their green flag with the statement “There is no god but God; Muhammad is the Messenger of God” emblazoned across it.
If the OPEC oil embargo of 1973, spearheaded by Saudi Arabia and Egypt, had led subsequent Republican and Democratic administrations and Congresses to keep the pressure on the auto industry to follow the Japanese’s lead in fuel-efficient automobiles and trucks and to aggressively pursue our “efficiency weapon” to counter the “oil weapon” we would almost certainly not be having this discussion. Absent our historically unnecessary and utterly infantile industrial “dependence” on petroleum from politically corrupt entities such as the faux-kingdom of Saudi Arabia, birthplace of almost every one of our attackers on 09/11/01, we wouldn’t have any “interests” in that region of the world except the existence of the state of Israel. Even that stance would be strengthened by allowing us to focus on that single issue without having to have our motives clouded by our being firmly attached to the oil teat.
7. SteaM | November 28th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
I have mentioned that Iraq and Iran are number two and three in the world in regards to their oil reserves.
Guess who is number one. Saudi Arabia.
8. OhioOrrin | November 28th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
amusing argument that oil was the reason.
oil is fungible.
fungible
/funjib’l/
• adjective Law (of goods contracted for without an individual specimen being specified) interchangeable with other identical items.
— ORIGIN from Latin fungi ‘perform, enjoy’.
http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/fungible?view=uk
fungible commodities are NOT deriven from specific markets. rather they are interchangable w the same commodity from ANY source.
ok, so not the oil nor the nukes, so why?
me thinks the invasion was payback to Sadamn for trying to murder Bush Sr while he was in Kuwait following Gulf 1.
9. SteaM | November 28th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
OhioOrrin,
I’m lost on that fungible arguement. Could you elaborate?
10. Diana Powe | November 28th, 2007 at 1:28 pm
I believe that OhioOrrin’s point is that the world oil supply is highly interconnected so that if we buy oil from one source it doesn’t necessarily mean that the actual oil molecules themselves were pumped from the ground of the seller’s country. The United States doesn’t even get most of its oil from the ground in the Middle East but our self-destructive desire to remain dependent means that we have an “interest” in all sources of oil because oil, as OhioOrrin correctly pointed out, is a fungible commodity.
11. SteaM | November 28th, 2007 at 1:40 pm
Ok, interesting.
My point is that we know who has the most oil.
(1) Saudis (2) Iraq (3) Iran.
We know that the particular reason given to depose Saddam for simply being a dictator holds no water since we don’t normally go after the many other dictators around the world.
So it just seems obvious and only logical that Bush and Cheney, being oil men themselves, and the fact that the US and British oil companies are the largest and most powerful, would both (US and British) team up to go into Iraq with false pretenses and also using the 2001 terror attacks (not that i think it was an inside job, because i don’t).
I’ve only recently accepted this. After reading American Theorcracy by Kevin Phillips (historian and ex republican strategist) and taking that information and doing more research online I’ve acccepted it. But going one step furthur. I’ve also accepted that the blood is on all our hands. Are we as Americans fighting this oil addiction? Some are. But I think we need much more activism in this area. Much more progessive thinking and less bickering.
12. DM | November 28th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
??You are the demonic filth that infests humanity.? posted by USA
I could be wrong but this sure seems like grounds for banning. Mark / Matt ?!?!
13. eric | November 28th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
Speaking of delusional insults:
“James allegro, Angry Redneck, Alimita, navydad, Jeremiah, neocon, TiredofLibBullShit, Bigfoot, Mark, Matt, Leo, Conservatives, You are the demonic filth that infests humanity.”
Wow, someone stopped taking their meds.
14. navydad | November 28th, 2007 at 9:02 pm
eric,
Just the opposite. This freak sounds like a meth addict.
Actually Mark/Matt, leave the freak here for a while. He’s entertaining and proves our point about the kook left.
USA, what demonic filth are you referring to?
This talk is typical of meth addicts. They see demons, gargoyles, etc., on their way down and then crash for three days, then they wake to a fresh mind with no re-collection of their insults and insanity.
I’d expect we won’t hear from this freak for a few days.