Biden, Pope Francis, and the rules-based international order

 The two hottest of the world's hot spots had the moral clarity with which they're fraught muddied by, respectively, the leader of the world's pre-eminent superpower and the worldwide leader of the Catholic Church.

After Biden announced, in his State of the Union address, the pier the US military will construct to get more aid into Gaza (which one would hope will work out better than the air drop, two parachutes of which didn't open, killing several Gazan on the ground, but, based on experience, is likely to be pilfered by Hamas, and may put US troops in harm's way), he was caught on a hot mic telling Colorado Senator Michael Bennet that he was going to tell Netanyahu "You and I are going to have a come-to-Jesus meeting."

Netanyahu has responded:

When asked on Sunday whether Israeli forces would move into Rafah, Netanyahu replied: "We'll go there. We're not going to leave them. You know, I have a red line. You know what the red line is? That October 7 doesn't happen again. Never happens again." The PM was referring to the murderous Hamas raid that killed more than 1,160 people in Israel and triggered the war. 

Without naming them, Netanyahu claimed he had the tacit support of several Arab leaders for driving ahead with the onslaught against Hamas.

“They understand that, and even agree with it quietly,” he said in an interview with Axel Springer, POLITICO’s parent company. “They understand Hamas is part of the Iranian terror axis.”

And he again reiterates Israel's position on an idea whose time has definitely not arrived:

Israel's prime minister also doubled down on his rejection of the possibility of a Palestinian state — a topic that pits Israel against most of the rest of the world.

“The positions that I espouse are supported by the overwhelming majority of Israelis who say to you after October 7: 'We don't want to see a Palestinian state,'” he said. 

Netanyahu also directly addressed criticism from Biden, who has said the Israeli leader is “hurting Israel more than helping Israel.” 

Netanyahu hit back, saying while he didn’t know “exactly what the president meant,” if Biden was saying he was contravening the wishes or interests of Israel, he was “wrong on both counts.”

“[The Israeli people] also support my position that says that we should resoundingly reject the attempt to ram down our throats a Palestinian state. That is something that they agree on,” Netanyahu said.

When asked about the European view that there cannot be peace without a two-state solution, Netanyahu replied: "Yeah, they would say it. But they don't understand that the reason we don't have peace is not because the Palestinians don't have a state. It's because the Jews have a state. And in fact, the Palestinians have not brought themselves to recognize and accept the Jewish state."

Then there is the response of Ukraine and its allies to Pope Francis's blurting, which echoes both the Kissingerian Realpolitik camp as well as unhinged yay-hoos like Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene - namely, that Ukraine needs to give up the idea of having its post-1991 borders restored: 

Ukrainian and allied officials Sunday criticized Pope Francis for saying that Kyiv should have the “courage” to negotiate an end to the war with Russia, a statement many interpreted as a call for Ukraine to surrender. 

The foreign ministers of Ukraine and Poland, a vocal ally of Kyiv, condemned the pope’s remarks. And a leader of one of Ukraine’s Christian churches on Sunday said that only the country’s determined resistance to Moscow’s full-scale invasion, launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin on Feb. 24, 2022, had prevented a mass slaughter of civilians.

In an interview recorded last month with Swiss broadcaster RSI and partially released on Saturday, Francis used the phrase “the courage of the white flag” as he argued that Ukraine, facing a possible defeat, should be open to peace talks brokered by international powers.

“Our flag is blue and yellow. We live, die and win under it. We will not raise other flags,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba posted on Sunday on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski tweeted: “How about, for balance, encouraging Putin to have the courage to withdraw his army from Ukraine? Peace would immediately ensue without the need for negotiations.”

In his tweet, Kuleba urged the Holy See to “not repeat historical mistakes” as he alleged that the Vatican didn’t do enough to resist Nazi Germany. Yet he also invited Francis to Ukraine, saying the pope’s visit would show support for the “more than a million Ukrainian (Roman) Catholics, more than 5 million Greek Catholics, all Christians and all Ukrainians.” 

The head of Ukraine’s Greek Catholic Church, Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, said Sunday that surrender isn’t on the minds of Ukrainians.

“Ukraine is exhausted, but it stands and will endure. Believe me, it never crosses anyone’s mind to surrender. Even where there is fighting today: listen to our people in Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Odesa, Kharkiv, Sumy,” Shevchuk said while meeting with Ukrainians in New York City. He mentioned the regions that have been under heavy Russian artillery and drone attacks.

These matters look a little different to the nations whose sovereignty is threatened than it does to those who can adopt a -just-stop-all-the-icky-killing stance from the distance of well-defended capitols.

 

 

 

 

Wednesday roundup

Alice B. Lloyd at The Weekly Standard takes an in-depth look at the career trajectory of Dinesh D'Souza and makes it plain that the roots of his provocateur / showman schtick of the last few years can be seen in his antics during his Dartmouth Review days.

Debra Heine at PJ Media says that Pope Francis is trying to make the only begotten Son of the living God into a garden-variety glad-hander:

In his homily during the daily Mass at the Vatican Tuesday, Pope Francis likened himself to the suffering Christ who was crucified because “the people were deceived by the powerful.”

Speaking from Casa Santa Marta in Vatican City, "the Dictator Pope"* went on to say that his response to the “Great Accuser” would (continue to) be "silence and prayer."

According to the Vatican News Service, "the Pope encouraged pastors to imitate Jesus in being near to people" rather than the powerful or ideologues who "poison souls.”

While most Christians would say Christ's authority comes from God the Father, Pope Francis argued that it comes from the people because “he spent most of his time on the road, touching, embracing, listening and looking at the people in the eye."

“He was near them,” the pope said. “This is what gave him authority.”

Streiff at Red State looks at John Brennan's chiming-in on Trump's ordering of the release of the FISA documents"

 Here are some key points. First, Mueller is not conducting a criminal investigation of the “Russian collusion.” Mueller’s charter is for what is essentially a counterintelligence investigation, or fact-finding, with the ability to prosecute any crimes arising from that. It is very difficult to see how any documents released under the directive issued by Trump yesterday could reasonably effect any investigation. And releasing documents has to be the most counter-intuitive way of conducting a cover-up that has ever been conceived. Second, the comfort/discomfort of various DOJ and FBI functionaries isn’t all that relevant. They have the right to their opinion but their opinion doesn’t determine the outcome.

While one would expect Wray and Rosenstein, via DNI Coats, to contest some release, where Brennan goes off the rails and into full-blown stupidity is encouraging disobedience that leads to firing or resignations over a decision the president is legally empowered to make and about which reasonable people can disagree. What he seems to be doing is setting the stage for declaring Wray and Rosenstein puppets of Trump when the materials are released.

It is one thing to resign when you are given direction that is illegal, immoral, or unethical. It is simply childish to do the same when you don’t get your way.

Pitch-perfect tweet from Sean Davis:

It wasn’t supposed to go this far. Senate Republicans were supposed to buckle. Trump was supposed to get wobbly. Kavanaugh was supposed to have dropped out by now. Senate Democrats had no contingency plan for a scenario in which people demanded evidence.

Michael Brown at The Stream on how systematically the Chinese government has planned for the persecution of Christians:

 Specifically, “By 2020, the Communist Party will attempt to monitor its citizens through a massive surveillance system called China Skynet.

“China’s Skynet combines mobile phone GPS tracking, text message collection, 170 million security cameras, to make sure everyone is harmonious to make sure no one does anything illegal.

“China also controls the media.  There is the state-run media but private networks are censored. So, while China, today, barely resembles the Communist State of the 1950s and 1960s in terms of economic structure, it still retains almost all if the other aspects of Communism.: state control, censorship and mass surveillance.”

The 14-Year-Plan

According to the detailed report sent to me, the government has implemented a three-phase, 14-year plan:

“During the first 2-year phase, 2012-2014, it further eased persecution of the underground church, enticing more of them to surface and be identified.” (This would correspond with the time I was in China at the invitation of Franklin Graham. See here for my reflections.)            

“During the second 2-year phase, 2014-2016, it invited and then pressured the identified underground churches to register and become Three-Self government churches.                                                               

“In the current third, 10-year phase, the gloves have come off as both the remaining underground churches and even Three Self churches are being persecuted using Mao-era brute-force, as well as mass surveillance, artificial intelligence, and big data.”

The Persecution

What, exactly, has been taking place? According to the report:

• Over 2,000 crosses already have been burned or ripped down from church buildings.
• Many churches have been demolished.
• Thousands of pastors already have been arrested, beaten, tortured and/or sentenced to years in prison.
• By 2020, 600 million CCTV cameras – nearly one for every 2 Chinese citizens – will blanket China. They are being forcibly installed inside church buildings to record 24/7 the entrances, stairwells, offering boxes, and Bible counters to monitor who attends church, buys Bibles, and where those Bibles are taken.
• The Chinese government’s new “social credit system” has begun to assign social credit scores to its citizens for not loitering, not jaywalking and other compliant behaviors, which eventually will include not attending “illegal” underground churches.
• Chinese Christians will only be able to purchase the Communism-friendly version of the Bible that the Communist Party is presently translating.
• In February of 2018, the Chinese Communist Party also drastically increased its penalties and restrictions targeted against Christians. The government will also tighten up control over religious activities in schools, religious postings online, and trips overseas for religious training.
• Recently, the State Council endorsed the penalties, adding that anybody providing a venue for an “illegal religious event” will face a fine of between 20,000 yuan ($2,900.00 USD) and 200,000 yuan ($29,000.00 USD).

Also, in September of 2017, the Chinese government announced that: “Anyone who organizes an unapproved religious event will be fined 100,000 to 300,000 Yuan ($14,500 USD to $43,500 USD).” And, “Anyone who rents or provides the venue for such an event will be fined 20,000 to 200,000 Yuan ($2,900 to $29,000 USD).”

North Korea says it's ready to denuclearize, if the US takes "corresponding measures" - whatever that means. 

 

Pope Francis's peddling of climate-change nonsense would consign the poor whose plight he champions to continued poverty

Peter Heck at The Resurgent on the pontiff's recent trip to Myanmar and Bangladesh:

Unfortunately, cultural alliance with the Pontiff is becoming increasingly difficult as Pope Francis insists on embracing bizarre and unhelpful social doctrine that flies in the face of biblical morality. 

Incidentally, I am not referring to Francis’s recent rebuke of President Trump’s acknowledgement of Jerusalem as the rightful capital city of Israel. The Pope registering his “deep concern” over Trump’s actions seemed more overwrought and pandering than they did misplaced.

My real frustration was must recently illustrated in Pope Francis’s trip to the impoverished nations of Myanmar and Bangladesh. There, in countries where minority Muslims are being executed and where his fellow Catholics are under intensifying threat, the Pope spoke to the “real” danger they faced: climate change. Not that anyone should have been surprised at this. 

Remember it was Pope Francis who recently lectured as “stupid” all “climate deniers” who don’t acknowledge the evil inherent in fossil fuel use. He did this while sitting aboard his fossil-fuel guzzling jumbo jet. And remember it was Pope Francis who in the same month where Islamic terrorists killed almost 90 people on the streets of France, almost 30 in a bakery in Bangladesh, and over 320 people shopping in Baghdad, begged the world to join him in prayer for deliverance...from environmental threats to the planet.

But there’s a reason that the Pope’s allegiance to the religion of Warmerism is so much more troublesome. As a man who has interposed himself between man and God, the Pope pretends to be speaking with the authority of Christ. The same Christ who commanded His followers to care for the “least of these.” But Pope Francis’s commitment to warring against fossil fuels, industrialization, and carbon is doing much to imperil the “least of these.” His approach is precisely what is locking millions upon millions of people – from Bangladesh to Myanmar and beyond – in devastating poverty.

It's the same kind of arrogance we see from the UN - the insistence that developing nations leapfrog over the Industrial Revolution and go straight to the solar panels and windmills that are still not economically viable in the developed world.

An ever-queasier feeling about Pope Francis

Dennis Prager at NRO on the acceptance by Francis of a very provocative gift:

Last week the Marxist quasi-dictator of Bolivia, Evo Morales, presented Pope Francis with a gift — a carved wooden hammer-and-sickle cross on which the figure of Christ is crucified. The Vatican announced that the pope had not been informed in advance about the gift. And some commentators said that photos of the pope and Morales show that the pope was actually offended. That was a false — probably wishful — interpretation. The pope himself later announced that he was keeping the hammer-and-sickle crucifix and taking it home, saying, “I understand this work. For me it wasn’t an offense.”

More troubling is the context.  The pope is but a symptom of what the rot of the West.

It also reconfirms what is probably the single most important development one needs to understand in order to make sense of the contemporary world: The most dynamic religion of the past hundred years has been leftism, not Christianity, not Islam, not any other traditional religion. Indeed, regarding traditional religions, leftism has influenced them — particularly Christianity and Judaism — far more than they have influenced the Left. Mainstream Protestant Christianity, much of Catholicism (especially in Latin America, where Pope Francis lived his whole life before becoming pope), and most of non-Orthodox Judaism have become essentially liberal/Left movements with religious (and in the case of Judaism, ethnic) identity. 

So very late in the day.

Pope Francis has lost his marbles

Of course, there was the encyclical on "climate change."

Now comes this doozy:

Speaking to a group of young people in Turin, he departed from his script and launched into a rambling denunciation of, among others, arms manufacturers:

“It makes me think of … people, managers, businessmen who call themselves Christian and they manufacture weapons. That leads to a bit a distrust, doesn’t it?” he said to applause.

He also criticized those who invest in weapons industries, saying “duplicity is the currency of today … they say one thing and do another.”

We are a long way from “Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.” Pope Francis then went on a tour of world history that included this gem:

“The great powers had the pictures of the railway lines that brought the trains to the concentration camps like Auschwitz to kill Jews, Christians, homosexuals, everybody. Why didn’t they bomb (the railway lines)?”

With what? Oh yeah, that would be bombs. Dropped out of bombers. Manufactured by…whom?

Just what the world most definitely does not need: A silly person representing Christians on the world stage.