Today I was fortunate to find two excellent pieces regarding Iraq, one long and one short.

The long one is by the formidable Steven Den Beste. As befits writing by a devout atheist, it is from a wholly secular perspective. It doesn’t take much, though, to see how the facts he presents build the case for a just war even in Catholic doctrine. The facts he presents are unpleasant and generally unspoken as they are politically incorrect in extremis. I’d be very intrigued, though, to find anyone anywhere who could challenge their veracity or pertinence to the question at hand.

The second is a quote attributed to the Secretary of Defense: “The last thing we want is a smoking gun. A gun smokes [only] after it has been fired. " Courtesy of Lucianne.com.

As I mentioned in a comment on another site (don’t remember with certainty which site, though), forgiveness of past sins is no license for future sins and sometimes forgiveness must also include some outside assistance to keep the newly-forgiven person far from the opportunity to sin again. Seems to me that this clearly applies to pedophiles, people who claim to speak for the Church while saying things that are at best inaccurate and uncharitable and for international tyrants. (Finally, a post that touches on most everything I ever blog about!)