Pope Francis returned yet again to something he says frequently: that evil arms merchants are behind wars:
Go here to read the rest. It was appropriate that the Pope was addressing kids when he said this, because his belief is a childish fable without a shred of evidence to support it. It was a popular belief back in the thirties, and no doubt the Pope grew up hearing it. It remains a popular belief in some sectors of the Left, and the Pope on many issues is definitely a man of the Left. The sad fact of course is that wars have quite a few causes, and that arms merchants, except as sources of weaponry, figure in very few of them. For example, the war over the Falklands in 1982. The Falkland Islands are basically worthless, but Argentinians have been taught for generations that they are the Malvinas Islands and that they belong to Argentina. Thus when the Argentinian junta moved to seize the islands from Great Britain, all sectors of Argentinian public opinion overwhelmingly supported the move. The ensuing Argentinian humiliating defeat at the hands of the ghost of the British Empire helped speed up the return to civilian rule in Argentina as the military junta was now treated with contempt by the Argentine public for the loss.
The Pope’s reference to the bogey-man of arms merchants as an explanation for wars leaves us with two distressing alternatives: he knows better but blames arms merchants for some Machiavellian purpose, or he does not know better and blames arms merchants because he is simply bone ignorant and impervious to contrary evidence. PopeWatch would prefer the Machiavellian interpretation but fears that the latter explanation is the correct one.
Update: Apparently the Pope believes that merchants of death are behind all wars unless Argentinian interests are at stake:
“Many young people were there and could not return. Others returned but none could forget.
Go here to read the rest.
Well now, this certainly explains WWII’s Pearl Harbor and the invasion of Poland and our profit centered response…..
Not to fear. His global warming encyclical will right the ship of his credibility.
The Pope’s reference to the bogey-man of arms merchants as an explanation for wars leaves us with two distressing alternatives: he knows better but blames arms merchants for some Machiavellian purpose, or he does not know better and blames arms merchants because he is simply bone ignorant and impervious to contrary evidence.
—
For 1100 years the papacy was responsible for temporal government in central Italy. Not a good deal for the Church, one suspects, but it did inhibit the Pope from adhering to certain stupidities.
Has he said anything worthwhile? That is counter-factual. The only people that “buy” any of the rubbish are democrats, myseducated dupes overpopulating college campuses and six-year-olds.
.
“Well now, this certainly explains WWII’s Pearl Harbor and the invasion of Poland and our profit centered response…..”
It also explains Stalin’s invasion of Finland and Poland. Who knew?
Don, he obviously meant only *other* people’s wars are the result of money-grubbing gun runners, not Argentina’s. The Malvinas war was self-evidently about patriotism and the Motherland.
Wars are caused by the lack of good principles, caused by the lack of God in our lives. Guns are not evil. The devil is evil.
Maybe the Pope was overly persuaded by the movie “Lord of War.”
And, this just in, the Vatican has ‘recognized’ the ‘State of Palestine’. I’m thinking maybe the Pope wants Desmond Tutu’s gig at “The Elders”. Tutu and Jimmy Carter can’t keep at it forever.
Wow that Nicholas Cage clip gave me the creeps. just seemed like the devil talking: “the secret to survival – never go to war…esp with yourselves…”
A friend watched a PBS show about the holocaust and was understandably moved… He asks “where was God!!”
My son said: In the war effort against the evil– in the paratroopers, in the soldiers and sailors, in the nations who fought back
In the people at home who supported the war effort… in the gentile moms in Europe who hid Jewish kids…
Once again Pope Francis opens his mouth and spouts off about a subject which he knows nothing about.
Thoughts of his resignation and return to Buenos Aires do make me smile.