A clash of old against new, the old accustomed to ruling in darkness because it's been able to do so for 1500 years or more.
However, considering the amount of spiritual light or enlightenment that has poured onto the planet since the Harmonic Convergence in 1987, no wonder dark elements are fighting for their very lives. It's evident even here in the US.
They'll lose, light always prevails over darkness especially now that the balance is changed.
"The Pope and Kissinger Warn the World
September 20, 2006
By Tony Blankley
Washington Times
There is an historically fairly predictable pattern to the unfolding strategies and views of great wars. They often start with a morally ambiguous view of the enemy, a more limited conception of the war's magnitude and a restrained application of violent tactics.
Eventually, moral clarity is obtained, war objectives expand - often to grandiosity, and tactics become ferocious. For example at the start of our Civil War in 1861 at the Battle of First Manassas, spectators came out by carriage with picnic lunches to observe the event. By 1865, Gen. Sherman executed a campaign of civilian terror and material obliteration in his march to the sea. Likewise, the war started with the purpose of saving the union, but morally expanded to end slavery - north and south.
World War II started out in Europe first with the phony war and mutual thoughts of a negotiated peace, then with careful bombing (Hitler initially ordered that London not be bombed) and ended with the firebombing of Dresden and Tokyo and the atomic obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Even during his war on the Jews, as late as 1940, Hitler was thinking of deporting German Jews to Madagascar, and ended in rounding up Jews throughout Europe and perpetrating genocide in industrially designed death camps (although some historians believe the Madagascar plan may always have been a subterfuge for the Final Solution.)
Today, the West's struggle to resist radical Islamic aggression (both cultural and terroristic) is still in that early phase of moral confusion and limited tactics. Thus we continue to debate the ethical merits of minor intrusions into American civil liberties (such as NSA surveillance of some phone calls from foreign suspects), and even serious and patriotic men such as Sen. John McCain and Gen. Colin Powell challenge the need to permit psychologically rough - but nonviolent - interrogation of captured terrorists.
But there are some signs that the early stage of moral confusion is beginning to give way to greater clarity. Last week, two towering intellects - Pope Benedict XVI and Henry Kissinger - began to offer clarity. On Tuesday the pope gave his now famous, but still misunderstood, lecture at the University of Regensburg, and on WednesdayMr. Kissinger published in The Washington Post a half page seminal article on the risk of civilizational war.
Any fair and careful reading of the pope's lecture must conclude that it was not an inadvertent insult to Islam. Rather it was a firm assertion that the Judeo-Christian God acts in accordance with reason (In the beginning was the logos - word and reason.), and thus Christians and Jews can undertake a rational debate about the morality of violence. He quotes, now famously, Emperor Manuel II's assertion in 1391 that Islam spreads its faith through violence - which, he says, is unreasonable and incompatible with the nature of God. He then cites an 11th-century Arab Muslim theologian, Ibn Hazn, who argued that Allah is transcendent of reason.
After criticizing secular Christians for not giving reason its proper place in understanding faith and God, he concludes his lecture by again quoting the Byzantine Emperor Manuel II on his same criticism of Islam. Then the pope finishes his lecture with the following words: "It is to this great logos, to this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in the dialogue of cultures. To rediscover it constantly is the great task of the university."
In other words, he is inviting Islam to explain whether its God is like ours - inherently understandable by reason (and thus, is their God opposed to violence, as ours is?)
He was also, I strongly suspect, speaking to his own flock, both to return to proper Christianity and to consider the nature of Islam. And, I suspect, the pope did not inadvertently quote the now inflammatory passage. If he had not included that quote, the world would not now be debating his lecture. While the pope surely did not want to see violence, he just as surely wanted to engage the world in this vital search for clarity.
While not the pope, Mr. Kissinger is the world's premier practitioner and scholar of real politic. So, it is consequential that in his article last week he warned the world that "we are witnessing a carefully conceived assault, not isolated terrorist attacks, on the international system of respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity. The creation of organizations such as Hezbollah and al-Qaeda symbolizes the fact that transnational loyalties are replacing national ones. The driving force behind this challenge is the jihadist conviction that it is the existing order that is illegitimate."
He went on to warn that "The debate sparked by the Iraq war over American rashness vs. European escapism is dwarfed by what the world now faces...the common danger of a wider war merging into a war of civilizations against the backdrop of a nuclear-armed Middle East...We now know that we face the imperative of building a new world order or potential global catastrophe."
These are shocking words coming from the verbally impeccably careful diplomatist.
So, within 24 hours the pope raises the question whether Islam is inherently violent and unreasonable, while Henry Kissinger warns of a possibly emerging nuclear clash of civilizations.
Moral clarity, anyone?
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20060919-091310-2934r.htm
http://www.stevequayle.com/News.alert/06_Global/060920.Pope.Kissinger.html?id=16966
May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 January 2013 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 March 2011 January 2011 December 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 March 2005 November 2004 October 2004