 |
 |
| ON THE OTHER HAND |
| After Iraq, Iran By Antonio C. Abaya Written April 16, 2006 For the Standard Today, April 18 issue As the American war in Iraq gets bogged down in sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shias, and calls for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld mount from a growing coterie of retired generals (including a former NATO commander, Gen. Wesley Clark) for his having mismanaged that war, the Bush administration has to come to grips with another military-political problem: what to do with Iran? Iran�s virulently anti-American and anti-Israeli president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, seems to be deliberately provoking a pre-emptive strike by the US or Israel or both. He has defied all threats of sanctions against Iran by the Americans, the Europeans, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the United Nations, by proceeding with the enrichment of uranium in its nuclear facilities, on the grounds that its nuclear program is strictly for peaceful purposes only President Ahmadinejad�s public pronouncements last year that Israel should be �wiped off the map� or, alternately, moved to somewhere in Austria and southern Germany (a not-so-subtle reminder to everyone that the appeal of the Jew-hating Hitler and Nazis was strongest in these two places) showed an implacable hostility to the Jewish state that cannot possibly be moderated by the niceties of diplomacy. In his most recent tirades (April 18), he likened Israel to �a rotten old tree that can be blown away in a single storm,� and claims that the Iranian Army �has God behind it� and has been �visited by angels� and will therefore �not come to sorrow.� There is no longer any doubt that Iran is bent on acquiring nuclear weapons and that it will not hesitate to use these weapons against Israel. Even the presence of the US Fifth Fleet in the Persian Gulf is not going to be a deterrent. Two weeks ago, Iran announced that it had successfully tested a new type of torpedo that can slice through the water at speeds of over 200 knots, almost certainly with the help of the Russians (who have been working on exactly such a torpedo.) At that speed, those torpedoes cannot be evaded by any ship now afloat, including the aircraft carriers and guided-missile cruisers of the Fifth Fleet and, even less, by the mammoth super-tankers of the oil industry.. A nuclear-armed Iran will be a destabilizing factor in the Middle East, with a potentially devastating weapon against the Americans� first line of defense/offense. An article titled The Iran Plans in the April 17 issue of The New Yorker, by Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Seymour M. Hersh (who exposed the massacre of hundreds of Vietnamese civilians in the village of My Lai by American troops in the 1960s) does not even discuss these new torpedoes. Hersh concentrates on a possible bombing campaign that, he says, is being contemplated by the War Party in Washington, on the belief that �a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the (Iranian) public to rise up and overthrow the government.� This is probably na�ve. It would be safe to assume that the Iranian public will support the religious leadership out of national pride, if the country is ever attacked by the US. Experts are divided on when Iran will be able to produce its own nuclear weapons. According to Hersh, the head of Israel�s Mossad spy agency gives Iran two years. The IAEA �s best estimate is five years. Some American experts put it at ten years. Mossad probably has it right. An additional problem is what targets to hit. Hersh quotes an American official as saying that 400 targets would have to be hit, some of them under 75 feet of rock and concrete, for which the use of tactical nuclear weapons is being contemplated. According to Hersh, �American combat troops are now operating in Iran to mark critical targets with laser beams to insure bombing accuracy and minimize civilian casualties.� This would confirm reports last year that US agents were being infiltrated into Iran from Pakistan. Because of the fiasco that Iraq has become, it is unlikely that US ground troops will be committed to an invasion of Iran. American public opinion will oppose such a move, but it could conceivably support a sustained bombing campaign that knocks out Iran�s nuclear facilities, or effects a regime change in Tehran, or both. In 1981, Israeli Mirage bombers knocked out Iraq�s Osirak nuclear reactor and delayed by more than two decades Saddam Hussein�s ambitions to build nuclear weapons. Are the Americans hoping to duplicate that success with Iran�s more dispersed and partially underground nuclear facilities? Good luck, but for us innocent bystanders, there are possible unintended consequences. A major new war in the Middle East could leave hundreds of thousands of Filipino OFWs suddenly jobless. In retaliation against the US, Iran could shut down its own oil wells, even only temporarily, thus removing four million barrels a day from world oil production, and raising oil prices to beyond $100 a barrel, which could trigger a global recession, even depression. While the US does not depend on Iranian oil, Japan, South Korea and Europe do. If their economies were to slump, their ability to continue importing US products would be impaired, and the US economy would also slump. The Iranians could sink one or two fully laden tankers in the Gulf, thus restricting the movement of all ships and reducing output from oil wells in other Gulf states. �Stuff happens,� in the memorable words of Secretary Rumsfeld, and that could include the sinking of a major US warship in the Gulf and/or a resurgence of Islamic terrorism against the rest of the world. Hersh quotes one Pentagon official as saying: �The bottom line is that Iran cannot become a nuclear-weapons state. The problem is that the Iranians realize that only by becoming a nuclear state can they defend themselves against the US. Something bad is going to happen.� ***** Reactions to [email protected]. Other articles in www.tapatt.org OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Reactions to �After Iraq, Iran� Dear Mr. Abaya, Just wanted to let you know that I very much enjoy reading your columns. Thanks to the internet, I can find them here in Arizona. A point of clarification though, regarding the aforementioned article, retired Gen. Wesley Clark was Supreme Commander, NATO. He was never a service chief much less Chairman of the JCS. Keep up the good work! Dan de Padua, [email protected] Arizona, April 16, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Mr. Abaya, I read your article, After Iraq-Iran, with interest. However, I wish to point out at least one fundamental error. Wesley Clark was never a Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Such an error detracts from the remainder of the article. Mike Andersen, [email protected] April 18, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Well, I guess they have got us. What should we do? Mercy please, maybe they will have mercy upon us. I'm not worried about some loud-mouthed dictator yet. The UN has the clout to deal with Iran. Will they use it? No. Will we use our military might? Maybe, if we can't topple the government. Iran had better be worried, very, very worried. Clark Minton, [email protected] Fort Worth, Texas, April 18, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Your comments recently in the article �After Iraq�Iran� regarding Iran�s new �super torpedo� are woefully inaccurate. You have sadly swallowed the Iranian hype hook, line and sinker. The Iranian weapon has a range of less than 10 miles and can be easily avoided by simply changing depths. (How does an aircraft carrier or a guided missile carrier �change depth�? ACA) Torpedoes in the US inventory have a range of greater than 38 nautical miles. Any Iranian ship with the capability of delivering such a weapon would certainly be put on the bottom well before ever being able to see our ships on radar. (�.said the captain of the USS Cole? ACA) Honestly, we have the most advanced war fighting capabilities on the planet. If this weapon was so great, we would�ve had it in our inventory 20 years ago. I�d go into technical specifics, but you obviously don�t waste your time with details�.(One would think that after Vietnam and after Iraq, Americans would stop being so cocky about their technology, but you obviously do not waste your time reading history. ACA) Marc Renner, [email protected] April 18, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww The problem of Iran unfortunately is not going away. What worries some political analysts about the current president of Iran is his belief rooted in the Shia sect prophesies that a war with the west would hasten the coming of the 12 imams which in turn will put the whole world under the rule of Shia Islam. According to an Iranian dissident Amir Taheri, the current president of Iran believes he is one of the chosen ones that will hasten this event. When religion enters the equation, reason takes a back seat. During the cold war, the policy of MAD or Mutual Assured Destruction, prevented Americans and Russians from pulling the nuclear trigger. The same policy may not apply with Iran, controlled by religious zealots intent on bringing on a prophecy. Some analysts however believe Iran will resort to stalling tactics in the hope of outlasting George Bush's presidency. They know if they wait another two years, Bush will have become a lame duck president incapable of waging war and that the next president may not have the stomach for another war and would instead opt for appeasement. The problem is that Bush thinks exactly the same way and is determined not to kick the can further along for Iran to become the problem of the next administration. Bush is determined to face the problem of Iran within his term. There is no way Iran can win a military confrontation with the United States military, even with those high speed super-cavitating torpedoes. A US pre-emptive strike will not be limited to Iran's nuclear facilities, but will surely include the Iranian military assets, which will include the small Iranian navy. There will not be an Iranian naval boat afloat that will be able to fire those torpedoes. What it will do is unleash a massive global suicide bombing campaign using Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and its own revolutionary guards. And there is also that sudden oil shortage that may indeed trigger a recession. The debate that is now ongoing is if it�s worth triggering that recession, as against letting Iran acquire nuclear weapons. Which is the lesser evil? What is sad about this situation, is that war is becoming the only resort because China and Russia refuse to even discuss sanctions to put pressure on Iran. In fact, this may even be the strategy of George Bush. The Europeans, the Chinese and the Russians know what this Texan is capable of and when they see the military preparations underway, sanctions may become a really attractive alternative. Let us hope that will be the case. Lino Ongteco, [email protected] April 20, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Hi, Tony! This is a very interesting article. While Iran could destabilize the present order, I don�t trust the Americans either. They are very greedy and selfish. The world needs restructuring. But it is more urgently needed in our country. How I hope we could really find a faithful Filipino leader! Where could that or those persons be? I know they are somewhere there but we still have no clue how to find them. Cesar Sarino, [email protected] April 20, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww If Christ returned to Earth for an Easter vacation, would he be hated, abused, and murdered? Most likely � Most of us know Christ as a long-haired peace activist whose soul would be sickened by the world�s corruption � America's political corruption in particular. �Blessed are the peacemakers" Jesus said�"Turn the other cheek...Love thy neighbor." Such ideals, contradictions and rebuttals are the "Christian" right wing's worst nightmare. Self-proclaimed Christians who are selfishly entertained by power, nationalism, and war are a disgrace to Christianity. These are the same ignorant saps who believe Jews are doomed to Hell, but love a Zionist Israel. These so-called Christians are bound for the lake of fire (assuming there is one) and some of them, sadly, don�t even know it. Technically speaking, the Pope is also bound for the lake of fire (unless of course he stays up to date with his confessions �) because he has become mesmerized by riches which should otherwise, by Jesus� teachings, be given to the poor. The Vatican is like any corporate whore, except worse, because they claim to better our existence, when they are merely exploiting people and their beliefs for their own wealth and so forth. Almost every Pope in History has been as corrupt as any politician (i.e. slave trade, support for Hitler and Nazi Germany, etc.). Christ said, "Judge a tree by the fruit that it bears; by its fruit will you know whether the tree be good or evil,� and not by what they say. The facts speak for themselves. The papacy is the wealthiest business empire on Earth. They obtain money by deception, from the poor, for example, to buy shares, property, paintings, gold, precious stones and pearls. Didn�t God apparently say not to store up treasures on Earth (Matt. 6 v 19-21)? Yet what do the Popes do? They take money from the poor and give it to the rich, hoarding it in the Vatican's vaults (creating mass poverty) - the exact opposite of what Christ said His followers must do. I know, you�re probably saying that the Vatican is just �keeping an eye on all that stuff� or �keeping it safe�, but that is irrelevant to what Christianity stands for - capitalism, tradition, or heritage preservation doesn�t necessarily or magically make it �right�. More than 95% of the world�s wealth and resources are in the hands of less than 5% of the world�s population and every night, two-thirds of the world�s population goes to sleep hungry. How has this come to pass and be accepted as �normal�? It would be very wrong to believe that our reason for living is simply to serve a group of people, who have exalted themselves into positions where they can hoard wealth and have �authority� over others for the bettering of themselves only. Some say religion is no longer needed, but that�s not true � regardless of whether or not religion is needed � it�s being used today, and is often sinfully exploited for political and/or personal gain. Why do you think Bush is a Christian? It�s most certainly not because he feels it in his soul to be so. Consider what freedom means and then consider the bonds of slavery that we are subject to under �the system�. We are taught from an early age to follow their system, and that anyone who does not do so is the enemy. Schools, media�all those forms of order attempt to condition us to "the new system". Whatever happened to the traditional Laws of Freedom � the Ten Commandments (and common sense, for that matter)? They directly contradict materialistically rich rulers of this world claiming to be of a group known as Christianity. What it contains, if practiced, would keep us all, as one race, at peace. Religion can be an effective tool in further evaluating the injustice, environmental destruction and mass-oppression that is (and has been) happening in the world. Now I know what you�re thinking; you think that I�m just another anti-establishment guy, who may be just bitter about things I can�t change, but it�s much deeper than that alone and if your mind is half open, you'll see where I'm coming from. Jesus' life of peaceful rebellion was followed by a perverse twenty centuries of bloodthirsty bigotry. I�ve always found it strange that the same people who believe we need more weapons are generally fundamentalist Christians. Based on this, our leaders are either evil as Hell, or they�re very uneducated and way too ignorant for everyone�s good. Should we not be praising the embracement of better education? Ironically, we�re not�and here�s proof: National leaders� disregard for the people (i.e. the federal allowance of the 9/11 attacks), attacks on people of color (racism), attacks on nations [most notably those with wealth (i.e. opium & oil)], attacks on humans of the same gender who love each other, attacks on youth who enjoy sex, etc. All that, in the name of God? All of these attacks which involve the over-sight of �Christians� would leave Jesus himself horrified. So it�s not that religion is not needed � some would argue that religion is needed more than ever � it�s just that religion has been disgustingly manhandled to the point that it has been made the excuse for chaos (it�s not�man is the cause of chaos, and religion is the so-called solution to chaos in the first place). Jesus came to be viewed as Divine because he spoke eloquently for a gracious, loving God � he did not speak of the God that George W. Bush claims to know. Karl Rove, Tom DeLay, George Bush and their corporate-fundamentalist dependants speak for a very different kind of God - one at war with the Deity described by Christ � yes, that�s right, another war that you might not have been aware of. Bush�s and Rove�s "master" must be defined by hate, greed, intolerance and hypocrisy. Christ kicked the money-mongers out of the temple, told the rich to give their wealth to the poor, and to follow him. Bush is unable to do that and has given no sign to ever do so; therefore, he is unable to speak for Christianity beyond a politically devious point of view. Today's Republicans have enshrined wealth, power and greed. Christ spoke of a God of compassion and joy�not the God that our corrupt leaders, including the Pope, seem to have found behind the scenes. In fact, from a religiously argumentative point of view, we could say they speak from Satan and have given no sign of detouring from their crusades. Today's "religious" right-wingers worship meanness of spirit and a greed-driven, war-loving totalitarianism without respect for nature (which includes the people). The only way to salvation, they say, is their own unilateral way � otherwise, you�re a terrorist, a liberal divorced from reality, or something else not pleasant and supposedly subject to ridicule. I hope you interpret my words as unpleasant, because that�s what I�ve aimed for (war), to remind you of all the wars around us. Tecumseh, the great Shawnee spirit-warrior, allegedly shouted in the early 1800s: "When Jesus Christ came upon the Earth, you killed him. The son of your own God. And only after he was dead did you worship him and start killing those who would not." If Christ came back to organize against US political actions, there would be an unfathomable amount of hate-speak directed from the more notable Republicans. O�Reilly would not believe the Easter thing and more than question, or make fun of, a "peace prophet�; these so-called Christians cannot even come close to handling the very things they preach � are you reminded of the term blasphemy? If Jesus persisted, and his followers grew in numbers, Republicans wouldn�t hesitate to kill him. Unrealistic scenario you say? Maybe so, but the Republicans in power of the US are even more unrealistic�I can guarantee that. They�d design a scandal, pin the blame on one measly terrorist or ethnic group, and pump out propaganda with the help of the media. Modern Republicans would go to great lengths in censoring an anti-war �Son of God�. There�d likely be rumors that Jesus was gay and a user of drugs. Why then, or how, can this be considered normal? Or can it at all? Would Jesus stand for the slaughter of 100,000 or more Iraqis in his name for wealth and political gain (even if it is the only thing that seems idealistic)? What would Christ think about a president who supports the torture chamber and electric chair? What would Jesus, who despised hypocrisy, say about a Bush who scurries around to prolong the life of a brain-dead woman, but whom gleefully executed 150 people as governor and even more as president? How would Jesus cope with a �self-proclaimed Divinity� embracing the death, misery, poverty, and many other evil premises, of others? There are several million prisoners held in the US military and civilian gulag, a barbaric prison system that makes the Romans' seem benign by comparison. What about systematic sexual abuse by both prison guards and Catholic priests? What about the wholesale slaughter of Iraqi children? What would Jesus say about gay marriage? "Love thy neighbor," would be a fair assumption, regardless. Why is someone�s sexual preference the business of those who use Jesus� name to prolong and promote bigotry and intolerance? 50 years ago, those same cynical haters claimed Biblical sanction for laws preventing people of different colors from marrying one another. Hitler called Christ an Aryan supremacist. Now, the US elite use him to sell tyrannical, greed-driven, gay-hating, anti-abortion, anti-personal choice, war-loving hypocrisy (not to mention, election campaigns). There�s no way Bush could have made it this far in his endeavors without the blasphemous exploitation of Christianity which in turn duped us, �the sheep�. In fact, Bush would not have been able to become President had he not �found Jesus� after the exposure of his corrupt past. Religion is the United States� weakest link. Easter should remind us that if Jesus returned to preach what he challenged the Romans with, particular Republicans would do to him what Pontius Pilate (the one who ordered Jesus' crucifixion) did; they would ridicule him and then kill him. Lester Paul B. Godinez, [email protected] April 20, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Mr. Abaya: I disagree with those who assert that the United States will actually take out Iran's nuclear facilities in a surgical strike meant to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. The consequences to such a surgical strike, both intended and unintended, are all too dire to contemplate for men who still profess to possess even a semblance of rationality in them. If the US invasion of Iraq has proven to be ill-conceived, taking out Iran's nuclear facilities could easily prove to be a monumental and even irremediable blunder for the U.S. President George W. Bush may have his faults, but I daresay that he is not a madman like Caligula or Nero. Neither are those who advise him on geopolitical matters. Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad clearly also has his faults, but he likewise is not a madman. Neither are the ayatollahs who wield real power in Iran My sense is that a compelling sense of national interest, on both sides, will help to keep them from plunging into the abyss. Mariano Patalinjug, [email protected] Yonkers, New York, April 21, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Alas, I cannot even envision a diplomatic face off between the presidents of the two protagonist countries. Scripts notwithstanding, Bush will only prove to be an embarrassment. How will he manage pronouncing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when nucular for nuclear is still stuck in his mind? Jess San Agustin, [email protected] LaPlace, Louisiana, April 25, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww SIR ACA, Why is it that when I receive your electronic article, it has a lot of Chinese character in it? AL Jose Leonidas, [email protected] Faculty Member, Miriam College April 17, 2006 MY REPLY. I don�t know. Maybe the Chinese read my articles and make their comments, before passing them on to you. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Reaction to �Judas Iscariot: Hero?� (April 09, 2006) Mr. Abaya, If this people think that St Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer is a fascist and a psychopath, he shoud not be proclaimed saint by the great pope John Paul II. Please think first before you write. If you want to know more about Opus Dei, you are free to go to its website. www.opusdei.org. Arlene de la Cruz, [email protected] UP Diliman, April 17, 2006 MY REPLY. It was not I, but the Peruvian authors of that article, who called Fr. Escriva a fascist and a psychopath, quoting Escriva�s own writings. And being proclaimed saint is not really a proof of saintliness. In its own inventory of saints about 15 years ago, the Vatican admitted that some of those who had been canonized saints probably never even existed at all. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Mr. Abaya, Greetings from the Netherlands! You must be the favourite among my friend�s friend back in the Philippines. Through them I am most thankful for letting us kept abreast of the country�s latest developments as well as happenings. Only it�s a pity that such valuable information is limited to her only few friends here in the Netherlands. Thus, I am glad to know now your email address as stated below, hoping my request to reprint your article re �Timely Storey� (For the Standard Today of March 02 issue) will be granted. Please let me introduce: My Dutch husband lived in the Philippines for 30 years since 1956. Almost half were spent as Catholic missionary. His first assignment was in Camotes Island in Cebu. In 1963, he founded a school in Mangagoy, Bislig, Surigao del Sur through the Dutch funding he asked and with the cooperation with the Soriano�s Bislig Bay Lumber Co. which was booming that time. The place was assured of better education with the importation of Maryknoll sisters from Manila who helped the educational system. In the later part of 1968, I worked in a bank where he met me while transacting business. In 1969 he left the missionary and joined the sister company of BBLC in Metro Manila. After his dispensation from Rome was approved we got married in 1971 and I requested for a transfer in Metro Manila in order to joined him. With both of us working, life then was relatively manageable until marital law was proclaimed. The company my husband worked with was among those Marcos wanted to grab. Mr. Soriano did not give in to Marcos� whim, instead declared the company insolvent. That was in 1983. With our four children attending primary and elementary grades that time, the anxiety how to be able to provide them a good future was our main concern coupled with his undergoing a chemotherapy from the two successive cancer operations he underwent that time. Without feeling of hopelessness and with strong faith above, through a foreign contact, he was advised to report to Indonesia for work, three days before Christmas, the only Christmas the family spent without the children�s Dad. Sad as we all felt but the most worrying part was his being alone in a foreign country knowing his awful condition every time after taking that needed therapy. With God�s help, our long distance relationship was bearable until the EDSA I revolt that he could no longer compromise his family, thus he decided to bring his family here in the Netherlands in 1987. Still life was uneasy for us without jobs plus the cultural shock not only for me but to him too considering his absence for almost half of his life that time. Somehow, we managed but not a kind of life I wanted to be. In my moments of soul searching, so desperate how to make my life here meaningful, it just came across my mind to publish a magazine showcasing our country as I�ve seen magazines like Indonesia, Malaysia and so on representing theirs too. But convincing my husband was such a difficult one resulting to few weeks of unspeaking terms because understandably his objection was our lack of funds and most importantly our non-journalistic backgrounds. But sensing my continued depression and maybe thinking that this is the only way to keep my sanity, finally he supported my idea, thus �Philippine Digest� magazine here in the Netherlands was born in 1995. The title speaks for itself. Luckily in the following issues, Philippine Graphic magazine who was then on their prime years of operation, gladly granted my request to reprint their articles and lately the Discover Philippines magazine for featuring our tourism industry which is the main attraction to showcase our country. And reading your �Timely Story� is I think timely too as some people allegedly behind that aborted coup plot are here in the Netherlands. Most of our readers suggested to me that the Filipino-Dutch Community deserved to know, hence this request to please grant my request. I know I am again risking our lives because last December 2003 in Surigao del Sur we heeded the school�s invitation for my husband to cut the ceremonial ribbon of the additional classrooms we helped financed, coinciding too the school�s 40th anniversary (now run by the De La Salle brothers). On the night we arrived there, just few hours after we fall asleep, the school�s pension house where we were accommodated (we�re the first guests arrived), was gutted with unknown origin which up to this writing they could send us a copy of that investigation as promised. My husband standing by the window already resigned to die, but with my fighting spirit, I embraced the crucifix (I usually bring along during travel) and praying at the bottom of my heart, I was able to remove the whole big-wooden-strongly-nailed jealousy window frame which initially while fighting for our escape with such intense smoke and heat we couldn�t removed even one blade. From the second floor window, we were able to jump which surprisingly with our not-so-young bodies especially my husband (he was already 75 that time), thank God, we�re still in one piece, but we�re constantly reminded with such ordeal with the ongoing itchiness as a result of skin grafting from the third degree burns of our shoulder and left arms. I guess this will go on for the rest of our lives but life has to go on. Thank you for taking time to read my sad story which I believe there are millions of my compatriots especially those OFWs risking their lives too just to be able to pursue their best dream, a dream that someday our concern for our loved ones back home be spared with non-stop misery. Well, speaking of loved ones back home, me too until now since the 80�s has two nursing students under our care with the help of my husband�s SSS pension there. (Mrs.) Lori Roa �Raam P.S. If you happen to visit Europe, please include the Netherlands in your itinerary and we�ll be happy to meet you at the airport and stay with us in our residence. I think, this is my only way to repay your kindness. Many thanks! MY REPLY. Thank you for the invitation. You may reprint whatever articles of mine that you want to reprint. Just make sure my name and website (www.tapatt.org) are duly mentioned. Van: Lillian le Noble [mailto:[email protected]] Verzonden: woensdag 12 april 2006 23:14 Aan: Lori Raam-Roa Onderwerp: Fwd: [prepians63] Abaya on Judas Iscariot Hi Lori, The author is the same one who wrote the article I sent you earlier. Maybe you can ask him if you can reprint his article. I do not know him personally. I get his article through a high school classmate of mine in UP Prep. Happy Easter!!!! Lillian wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww This article was emailed to us by James Litton, [email protected]. Judas Saves Why the lost gospel makes sense. By Christopher Hitchens Posted Thursday, April 13, 2006, at 3:37 PM ET I don't normally mind offending holy men, but I can remember feeling absolutely aghast at the injured look that spread across the fine features of the Coptic Archbishop of Eritrea as we sat in his quarters in Asmara in 1993. Was it true, I had asked him, that in the Coptic Christian tradition Judas was considered to be a saint? He jumped like a pea on a hot shovel and, when he had regained his composure, demanded to know how I could possibly have heard such a wicked rumor. Nothing more profane could be imagined than this perversion of the Easter story. (Looking back, I think I may have misunderstood something I read in Graham Greene.) Nonetheless, the idea of a sacred Judas always seemed rational to me, at least in Christian terms. The New Testament tells us firmly that Jesus went to Jerusalem at Passover to die and to fulfill certain ancient prophecies by doing so. How could any agent of this process, witting or unwitting, be acting other than according to the divine will? It did seem odd to me that the Jewish elders and the Romans required someone to identify Jesus for them, since according to the story he was already a rather well-known figure, but that was a secondary objection. Now we have, recovered from the desert of Egypt, a 26-page "Gospel of Judas," written in Coptic script about 300 years after the events it purportedly describes. This fragment may or may not be related to the "Nag Hammadi library"�a collection of gospels, including those of Thomas and Mary Magdalene, that were unearthed near an ancient Egyptian monastery in 1945. Sometimes known as the "Gnostic" texts, they are the ones that were rejected as noncanonical when the early church made its vain attempt to standardize Christian dogma. Given how many discrepancies there are between the four remaining Gospels of the New Testament, one can almost sympathize with Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria, who in an Easter letter in the fourth century tried to boil down the number of approved books to 27. The Judas gospel puts legend's most notorious traitor in a new light�as the man who enjoyed his master's most intimate confidence, and who was given the crucial task of helping him shed his fleshly mortality. And you can see why the early Christian fathers were leery of such texts. This book has the same cast but a very arcane interpretation. Right before Passover, as the disciples are praying, Jesus sneers at their innocence. Only Judas has guessed the masteraright�and has discerned that he comes from the heavenly realm of the god "Barbelo." In the realm of Barbelo, it seems, earthly pains are unknown and the fortunate inhabitants are free from the attentions of the God of the Old Testament. Jesus himself is descended in some fashion from Adam's third son, Seth. With Judas' help, he hopes to guide the seed of Seth back to the realm of Barbelo.* (Is it possible that C.S. Lewis always had a copy of this esoteric text in one of his wardrobes? Or perhaps it fell into the hands of the Heaven's Gate sect-maniacs, as they castratedly awaited the satellite that lurked behind the comet?) I don't think any summarizing sentence on all this could be more wrong than the one written by Adam Gopnik in the latest New Yorker. He states: The finding of the new Gospel, though obviously remarkable as a bit of textual history, no more challenges the basis of the Church's faith than the discovery of a document from the nineteenth century written in Ohio and defending King George would be a challenge to the basis of American democracy. Can Gopnik not discern the difference between George III and Benedict Arnold, let alone the difference between a man-made screed and a series of texts sometimes claimed to be inerrant and divinely inspired? But never mind these trifling failures of analogy. The Judas gospel would make one huge difference if it was accepted. It would dispel the centuries of anti-Semitic paranoia that were among the chief accompaniments of the Easter celebration until approximately 30 years after 1945, when the Vatican finally acquitted the Jews of the charge of Christ-killing. But if Jesus had been acting consistently and seeking a trusted companion who could facilitate his necessary martyrdom, then all the mental and moral garbage about the Jewish frame-up of the Redeemer goes straight over the side. Remember that Christians are supposed to believe that everybody is responsible for the loneliness and torture of Calvary, and for the failure to appreciate the awful blood sacrifice until it was too late. In living memory, the Catholic Church invoked the verses where the Jews called for this very blood to be, not just upon their own heads, but upon their every succeeding generation. (This sinister fable occurs in only one of the four authorized Gospels, but it was enough�and Mel Gibson recently coined himself 40 million pieces of silver by attempting to revive it.) Now ask yourself, why did the church take so long to exculpate the Jews as a whole from the collective and heritable charge of "deicide"? It ought to have been simple enough to determine that the Sanhedrin of the time, whatever it may have done, could not have bound all Jews for all eternity. The answer is equally simple: If Christianity had to excuse one group of humans from everlasting blood-guilt, how could it avoid excusing them all? Two millennia of stupidity and cruelty and superstition dissolve in an instant when we notice that even some early believers were shrewd enough to see though the whole sham. On this weekend of official piety, let us all therefore give thanks for our deliverance from religion, and raise high the wafer that summons us to the wonders and bliss of the faraway realm of Barbelo and bringus the joyous and long-awaited news that Judas saves.***** *Correction, April 13, 2006: This article originally and incorrectly identified a legendary realm discussed in the "Gospel of Judas" as "Barbelo," which is actually the name of a god said to inhabit it. The place should have been identified as the "realm of Barbello." Click here to return to the corrected sentences. Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair. His latest book, Thomas Paine's "Rights of Man," will be published next month. Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2139781/ wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww This article was emailed to us by Mar Patalinjug, [email protected]. Think Imaginatively About Iran By Mark Helprin April 13, 2006; Washington Post Even were one to believe that, despite its low and stagnant per capita gross national product and having the world's second-largest reserves of petroleum and natural gas, Iran would invest uneconomically in nuclear power generation, one would also have to disbelieve that it wanted nuclear weapons. But with an intermediate-range strategic nuclear capacity, it could deter American intervention, reign over the Persian Gulf, further separate Europe from American Middle East policy, correct a nuclear imbalance with Pakistan, lead and perhaps unify the Islamic world, and thus create the chance to end Western dominance of the Middle East and/or with a single shot destroy Israel. Iran's claim of innocuous nuclear ambitions comports both with the Islamic doctrine of taqqiya (literal truth need not be conveyed to infidels) and the Western doctrine of state secrecy (the same thing), and it is part of a strategy of deception and false compromise deployed to buy time. After almost three years, the Bush administration has maneuvered the International Atomic Energy Agency to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council, where it will fall under the protection of Russia and China, which will make any resolution meaningless or veto it outright. In the event of sanctions, Iran can sell oil to China in exchange for all the manufactures it might need, trade on the black market and eventually reenter the world economy after the inevitable unveiling of Iranian nuclear weapons stimulates the resignation of the West. Were Russia not playing a double game, it would not have agreed in December to upgrade the Iranian air force and sell Iran 29 SA-15 SAMs for the protection of key facilities. Russia and China can operate in contradiction of what many assume to be their self-interest because they have always had a different appreciation of and doctrine relating to nuclear weapons, because they are willing to live dangerously and because they are the least likely targets. In addition, the agitation that they support roils the smooth surface of the Pax Americana to their maximum opportunity and relief. For example, chaos in the Middle East makes Russia in comparison a stable supplier of energy and shifts European resources and dependency to Russia's advantage. Other than the likely nothing, what will the United States have done in the months and years ahead to prepare for the failure of diplomacy and sanctions? The obvious option is an aerial campaign to divest Iran of its nuclear potential: i.e., clear the Persian Gulf of Iranian naval forces, scrub anti-ship missiles from the shore and lay open antiaircraft-free corridors to each target. With the furious capacity of its new weapons, the United States can accomplish this readily. Were the targets effectively hidden or buried, Iran could be shut down, coerced and perhaps revolutionized by the simple and rapid destruction of its oil production and transport. The Iranians know their obvious vulnerabilities, but are we aware of ours? In this war with a newly revived militant Islam, we think systematically and they think imaginatively. As we strain to bring the genius of imagination to our systems, they attempt to bring systematic discipline to their imagination, and neither of us is precluded from success. Despite our superior power, its diminution by geography, overcommittment and politics means that they might confound us. And because they believe absolutely in the miraculous, one must credit their stated aim to defeat us in the short term by hurling our armies from the Middle East and in the long term by causing the collapse of Western civilization. If, like his predecessors Saladin, the Mahdi of Sudan and Nasser, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad goes for the long shot, he may have in mind to draw out and damage any American onslaught with his thousands of surface-to-air missiles and antiaircraft guns; by a concentrated air and naval attack to sink one or more major American warships; and to mobilize the Iraqi Shia in a general uprising, with aid from infiltrated Revolutionary Guard and conventional elements, that would threaten U.S. forces in Iraq and sever their lines of supply. This by itself would be a victory for those who see in the colors of martyrdom, but if he could knock us back and put enough of our blood in the water, the real prize might come into reach. That is: to make such a fury in the Islamic world that, as it has done before and not long ago, it would throw over caution in favor of jihad. As simply as it can be said, were Egypt to close the canal, and Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey to lock up their airspace -- which, with their combined modern air forces, they could -- the U.S. military in Iraq and the Gulf, bereft of adequate supply, would be beleaguered and imperiled. In trying to push the Iraqi snake by its tail, we have lost sight of the larger strategic picture, of which such events, though very unlikely, may become a part. But because the Iranian drive for deployable nuclear weapons will take years, we have a period of grace. In that time, we would do well to strengthen -- in numbers and mass as well as quality -- the means with which we fight, to reinforce the fleet train with which to supply the fighting lines, and to plan for a land route from the Mediterranean across Israel and Jordan to the Tigris and Euphrates. And even if we cannot extricate ourselves from nation-building and counterinsurgency in Iraq, we must have a plan for remounting the army there so that it can fight and maneuver as it was born to do. To make these provisions will secure our flanks and give us a freer hand in the potentially difficult project of denying to a rogue nation of 68 million people, with a well-developed military and a penchant for rash action, the nuclear weapons it is bent on acquiring and rushing to construct. Our problem in Iraq has been delusion and lack of foresight. Iran is bigger and more powerful. What a pity it would be either to do nothing or once again to lurch forward with neither strategy nor thought. The writer, a novelist and journalist, served in the Israeli army and air force. He is a senior fellow of the Claremont Institute. This article will also appear in the Claremont Review of Books. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |