Moral Authority

Maurizio d'Orlando writes:

Paedophilia is a great scandal. The fact that it involves Catholic priests is an even greater scandal. Especially for a devout Catholic, this pain is like few others. It is good thing that it is coming to light. It would be worse if we allowed such a cancer to slowly consume souls and let it pollute and destroy the structure of relations of the Church from within. No one could find a better pretext to attack the Catholic Church than this. We saw this recently in the wanton attacks against the Pope that culminated in the obviously ones-sidedness of an article by Laurie Goodstein published in the New York Times. Paradoxically, the Pope, who recently called for zero tolerance in cases of paedophilia, was targeted more than ever and more than others. Various Vatican media outlets have already described who did what, refuting charges against the Pope. But even the Wall Street Journal in an editorial challenged the defamation of the Pope by the New York Times article.

Notwithstanding the lies, there are some disturbing coincidences. Why so many accusations (some going back 40 years) appeared all at once in various countries around the world? This is a peculiar coincidence, but there are others, far more complex, that lead to a somewhat more disquieting picture.

New York Times’ anti-Catholicism

Laurie Goodstein is the Times’ national religion writer. She is known for her specifically anti-Catholic acrimony, as Mgr Timothy M. Dolan, archbishop of New York, pointed out in an article that appeared on the diocese’s website with a telling title “Anti-Catholicism,” which the NYT refused to publish.

The Times (but also other US newspapers) likes to focus on scandals in the Catholic world, whilst refusing to cover other paedophilia scandals, like that involving Yehuda Kolko, a teacher at the Yeshiva Torah Temimah in Brooklyn. Similarly, the paper refused to cover Dov Hikind, a rightwing Zionist, who refused to testify about thousands of complaints collected following the broadcast of a radio programme about paedophilia and incest among Jewish communities in New York, especially Haredi (Ultra-Orthodox Jews). There was a story there, and a lawyer, Dowd, well known for class action suits that bankrupted many Catholic religious communities and dioceses, had called for him to testify.

It is another coincidence that whilst some stories involving Catholic priests go back 40 years, other, more recent and more serious cases of paedophilia were not (one case that is particularly noteworthy goes back to 2003 and involves a Scottish girl, Hollie Greig, former NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson and Chancellor of the Exchequer and current British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, a story that Tony Blair sealed away for 100 year as a state secret).

Preparing an attack on Iran

The fact that that the Times applies a double standard is not a problem since few people view the paper as a good authority anymore. British hypocrisy over its own dirty secrets is also unimportant because it is expected. What is more worrisome is the fact that on the day Laurie Goodstein’s article was published, Reuters ran a story out of Jerusalem, reprinted on 26 March 2010 by the Washington Post, a story that eventually disappeared from the “independent” Anglo-American press and that of almost all of the rest of the world, namely the possibility that Israel might use tactical nuclear weapons in a preventive attack against Iran.

This is linked to other news that appeared two weeks earlier, which also disappeared from the “independent” press, namely that US President Obama had special “bunker-buster” bombs, originally destined for Israel, diverted to the US base in Diego Garcia, in the Indian Ocean, for possible use in an attack on Iran. Located about a thousand miles south of India, between Mauritius and the Persian Gulf, the island is ideally placed to launch an air strike against Iran. According to an expert, US bombers are already capable of hitting 10,000 objectives in Iran in just a few hours, and totally destroy the country. Once the weapons are deployed (presumably in one or two months), the disposition for attack will be in place and a military operation could be ordered at any time. In other words, the United States wants to have all options available, whilst Israel wants to press the accelerator and threatens to use tactical nuclear weapons if the US decides not to do what Israel wants.

On 9 April 2010, Russia and the United States signed an agreement in which the two parties agree not to use atomic weapons against countries that have signed the non-proliferation treaty (leaving out Iran and North Korea as well as Israel, although this is not said). Recently, Obama and Sarkozy have worked together to get an international consensus on new sanctions against Iran. This might be achieved in a few weeks, or even a few days. It is thus clear that sanctions could be followed by a catastrophic attack against Iran.

Iran is not the only country that might have violated non-proliferation agreements. Israel for example, in violation of all treaties, has built 200 to 400 nuclear warheads. It has even threatened to use them (albeit “tactical” nuclear weapons, as if that was less disquieting). As it is well known, Iran might (perhaps) build some, a few, nuclear bombs. We must stress “might” given the value of the information some secret services have provided the world. Iraq under Saddam Hussein was said to have weapons of mass destruction. After the country was invaded and 1.3 million Iraqis died, no weapons of mass destruction were ever found. Given such claims, doubts are understandable, which does not mean that that either Saddam Hussein or the Iranian regime are in the clear. Yet those who voice such doubts are often dismissed as providing support for Islamist terrorism or even of anti-Semitism (when it is used against those who criticises the policies of the Government of Israel).

The reality is that sanctions are a prelude to an attack against Iran. Some may not realise that the destruction of Iran, perhaps using tactical nuclear weapons, could set off World War Three. Some 10,000 Russians are working near Iran’s electricity-generating nuclear power plants, and China has good relations with Iran. Undoubtedly, the Iranian regime is a cause for concern, but it is hard to believe that one would risk triggering a worldwide conflict with unimaginable consequences only to stop the possible development of a few nuclear bombs.

The great economic failure

Perhaps, there is more to this, namely the use of war to hide a great economic failure. A new wave of insolvent loans and “toxic” securities might be on the way. A fraud with at the centre HSBC, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan-Chase is expected to come to light soon, involving physical bullion markets and other raw materials, one that is so big that the Madoff affair would appear as kids’ stuff. By the way, when the scandal in Britain’s top echelons was hushed up, Gordon Brown sold (sold off) gold from the UK’s reserves.8 More importantly, public debts in many countries have reached such proportions that they have not only become unmanageable but they can no longer be concealed or their repayment put off much longer, for the future is upon us, now.

According to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), not AsiaNews or some extremist or daft blogger, the US debt/GDP ratio is expected to reach 400 per cent. This means that the huge fraud involving selling precious metals short in London and New York, that no one can now meet, must be covered up. The power system that controls big media must especially find ways to justify the inevitable and certain insolvency of the Federal Reserve and US Treasury.

History teaches us that rulers use war to swamp everything with hyperinflation. The Falklands War is one example (led by Argentina’s bankrupt military junta); Yugoslavia’s civil war is another. It is a simple and ingenious way, tested over the millennia.

What more can be said? The Catholic Church and the Pope had to be targeted; their moral authority attacked at any cost. But perhaps this is just a coincidence.