I have as much concern as anybody over who will be the next president. But I have equal concern over the world that person will inherit. And in my morning op ed reading, I encountered two pieces that gave me pause. The first, by James Carroll in the Boston Globe, is entitled Reviving an old insult to the Jews and is about the reestablishment of the Tridentine Mass. The second, in the New York Time, is by an Israeli journalist named Romen Bergman, entitled Bracing for Revenge, and offers a clear warning of the possible consequences - here in the U. S. - of the recent killing of Hezbollah leader Imad Mugniyah in Damascus, only yards from where Palestinian Hamas political leader Khaled Mashal was meeting with Syrian intelligence personnel.
Both events represent a mindset that I fear will have serious consequences which we ignore at our peril. And in the latter case, the eventual consequences in the United States are horrendous to contemplate.
Let me start with the Carroll, with which I will spend only a little time. For those who don't know, Carroll was a Roman Catholic priest and is an historian whose expertise includes the historic relationship between the Church and the Jews. He examines the context in which Vatican II abandoned the Latin Mass by a vote of 1,922 - 11, thereby changing the Mass from a sacrifice
enacted on an altar by the priest, with the laity present as mere spectators. It was a meal, like the Last Supper, to be shared in by all. The altar was refashioned as a banquet table and moved away from the far wall of the church, into the center of the community - "facing the people."
This made the people more completely participants in this basic ritual of the church.
There is also a change in consciousness of the Church as a result of this, starting with the recognition of something basic:
It was as if Jesus were remembered by conservatives as speaking Latin, when, of course, he spoke Aramaic.
The most important change in Catholic belief involved recovering the memory that Jesus was a Jew, and that his preaching was an affirmation, not a repudiation, of Jewish belief. Vatican II's high point was the declaration "Nostra Aetate," which condemned the idea that Jews could be blamed for the murder of Jesus, and affirmed the permanence of God's Covenant with Israel. The "replacement" theology by which the church was understood as "superseding" Judaism was no more. Corollary to this was a rejection of the traditional Christian goal of converting Jews to Jesus. The new liturgy of Vatican II dropped all such prayers.
Absent "Nostra Aetate" the attempt of the Church to heal the damage done over many centuries towards Judaism by the Church would not have been possible, and one might argue, as Carroll clearly implies, that the declaration would not have been possible without first moving from the Latin that dominated the mindset of the Church and its leaders. We saw even a Pope as conservative as John Paul II recognize the histroic responsibility of the Church for what it had done in his outreadh to jews - attending a synagogue in Rome, having as his personal musician a Jew, travelling to Israel.
And yet we now see a retrenchment by the current conservative Papal administration. Let me offer Carroll's final paragraph:
But the Latin Mass published by the Vatican last year resuscitated the conversion insult, praying on Good Friday that God "lift the veil" from "Jewish blindness." Catholics and Jews both objected. In last week's formal promulgation of the Latin Mass, the Vatican stepped back from that extreme language, but Catholics are still to pray that God "enlighten" the hearts of Jews "so that they recognize Jesus Christ, Savior of all mankind." This is a drastic retreat from the most important theological development of the modern era. Something is wrong with that development, now say Vatican reactionaries. To which the people reply, "No. What's wrong is you."
What's wrong is you. Because it is a church leadership that is withdrawing from interrelationships with others except from a position of perceived superiority and assumed power, the superiority that its beliefs are the only correct ones, and the power to enforce those beliefs. But both the perception and the assumption might be tragically wrong, for the legitimize those of other persuasions to act in a similar fashion, and the lack of openness to and acceptance of differences inevitably le3ads to escalation of the conflicts, and rationalizing of the use of power - even force - to impose its viewpoints or at least to ward off the attempted impositions of others.
What I have written in the preceding paragraph is how I connect Carroll's article to that of Bergman. Bergman mentions Mashal because in 1997 Mossad, the Israeli equivalent of the CIA, botched an attempt to kill him by poisoning, and misstep that led directly an inexorably to the failed 2006 war in Lebanon.
So now let me offer several key paragraphs to set the context of what I wish to explore:
Although Israel has denied carrying it out, the Mugniyah hit was exactly the kind of thing needed to restore that reputation. Pinpointing the location of this evasive quarry, placing an explosive charge in his S.U.V. precise enough to kill him and no one else ("Pity about that new Pajero," chuckled one intelligence official in Tel Aviv), and operating in the heart of an Arab capital saturated with secret police — this is the stuff that gave the Mossad its name.
Indeed, Israeli and American intelligence agencies have recently racked up a number of successes in their clandestine war against Iran and the terrorist movements it backs. It may be no coincidence that the Damascus operation followed the apparent defection to the United States last year of an Iranian general, Ali Reza Asgari, who in the 1980s had helped Mr. Mugniyah establish Hezbollah as a military force in Lebanon.
But however much backslapping and Champagne-cork popping may be going on in Tel Aviv and Langley, Va., the questions remains: Was it worth the effort and resources and the mortal risk to the agents involved? Few would deny that Mr. Mugniyah, who had the blood of many hundreds of Americans and Israelis, not to mention Frenchmen, Germans and Britons, on his hands, deserved the violent death that befell him, or that eliminating this top-flight mass murderer might prevent more death. But this act of combined vengeance, punishment and pre-emption might extract a far greater cost in the future.
At Mr. Mugniyah’s funeral on Thursday, Hezbollah’s leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, threatened to retaliate against Israel, saying, "Let it be an open war anywhere." The Israeli Counterterrorism Bureau warned Israelis traveling outside the country to avoid Arab or Muslim countries, remain on "high alert" and beware of kidnapping.
Let it be an open war anywhere." Keep those words in mind.
Bergman explores precedents for the cycle of revenge that he warns is probably about to occur, starting in 1992 when Ehud Barak ordered the successful assassination of then-leader of Hezbollah Sheik Abbas Musawi, the responses for which included Katyusha rockets raining down on Norther Israel, the assassination of the chief of security of the Israeli Embassy in Ankara, followed shortly thereafter with the blowing up of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, and several years later with the destruction of a Jewish community center, also in Buenos Aires. Relevant to the most recent assassination:
A joint investigation by Mossad and the Central Intelligence Agency uncovered clear evidence of Mr. Mugniyah’s involvement in all three bombings. The telephone monitors of the United States National Security Agency turned up "not a smoking gun, but a blazing cannon," in the words of a Mossad official. A senior Hezbollah operative, Talal Hamiyah, was taped rejoicing with Mr. Mugniyah over "our project in Argentina" and mocking Israeli security services for not preventing it.
Bergman notes that in 2000 Israel had Mugniyah in its sights, but Ehud Barak passed on the opportunity to take him out, with Bergman believing that it was not operational reasons but rather the lessons learned from the Musawi hit that gave Barak pause.
Bergman has no doubt that the acts previously done by Mugniyah can justify the attack that took his life. But the end of his op ed should give us all pause:
...Hezbollah has no doubt that it was Israel who eliminated its top terrorist, and once more it is bent on vengeance. As Hezbollah draws no fine distinctions between the United States and Israel, both nations, along with Jews around the world, might well have to pay the price for the loss of the man whose mystical aura was as important as his operational prowess.
In the immediate aftermath, Hezbollah has chosen not to respond with volleys of rockets aimed at Galilee, as many Israelis feared. But an inkling of how the group might respond can be found in the July 2007 statements of Michael McConnell, America’s director of national intelligence, expressing grave apprehension about Hezbollah sleeper cells in the United States that could go into action should the Americans cross the organization’s "red line."
This line has now been crossed. Only the severest of countermeasures by the intelligence services of Israel and the United States will prevent last week’s assassination, justified as it was, from costing a vastly disproportionate price in blood.
Hebollah sleeper cells what if one of those were to act? Might not this administration use such an action as a justification for suspending what is left of our civil liberties? I remember Hugh Shelton saying about 4 years ago that if there were another 9/11 type incident in the US we might well see the Constitution suspended. And given how this administration has tried to whip up fear, how strongly would most of the American people protest were the results of such an incident to be rounding up of people the administration claimed represented a threat to our safety, even if they were only people who politically opposed the Bush administration? Remember those camps for which KBR Halliburton was given a contract?
Let me be clear: there are times when a nation must act to protect its people, and some of those actions are inevitably going to take place in the shadowy world of covert action. And one might well argue that targetted assassinations are less risky than full-blown invasions - such as what we did in Panama under the first President Bush.
But there is something like a Newtonian principle involved - the idea that to ever action there is an opposite and equal reaction. But the equality is in the minds of the actor. Perhaps we should think of it in terms of the lines spoken by Sean Connery in "The Untouchables" -
You wanna know how to get Capone? They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way! And that's how you get Capone.
The question is who does the escalation, who is Malone, the character played by Connery, in this situation. We like to think that we have the capability of continuing levels of escalation beyond the reach of our opponents - after all, we have the world's most powerful military. But that did no avail us in Vietnam, because no matter how many we killed and how much destruction was rained down upon N Vietnam by our bombers, the Vietnamese were willing to die to force us out, and at some point the American people lost the will to continue the killing and we went home.
The conservatives in the Vatican think Vatican II and openness went too far. Their insistence upon reestablishing Latin and retaining a prayer for the conversion of the Jews seems an appropriate restoration of the church. As Dick Cheney things the refusal of this administration to abide by orders of courts and subponeas from Congress is an appropriate restoriation of executive prerogatives. In both cases those on that side of the equation seem to have historical blindness, ignoring the events which led to the situations to which they object, and thus recreating an environment in which the distrust could lead to the destruction of all they hold dear.
After Vietnam some in our military and intelligence and political communities believed we had a need to reestablish the willingness to project American power. The current debacle in Iraq is an example of to where such a mindset can lead. The Israeli action in the recent assassination seems parallel - the Israelis suffered real embarrassment in Lebanon in 2006, they had a real nemesis in their sights, and without appropriate regard for possible consequences they took him out, forgetting the history which should remind them that violence inevitably begets violence, and in that tit-for-tat escalation it is almost always the democracy that has to step back lest it lose its soul and cease to be democracy.
The Catholic Church is not a democracy. But insofar as it moves back from the democratization of Vatican II it will lead itself into escalating conflict with other religions, now rhetorical, ans the current Pope has unfortunately repeatedly demonstrated, but potentially a conflict with actions carrying tragic consequences. And the church's words and actions cause reactions from others, and contribute to an environment of escalating hostility and fear.
This morning I read two op ed pieces, in two different newspapers. This diary, which will probably get little attention, is the result. It is related to our politics, because we need to understand how our words and actions can create exactly the opposite of what we desire. And as we consider which candidates we will support, and not only for the highest office, perhaps we need to consider the long term consequences of the decisions we are making, as unfortunately the leaders whose actions are examined in the two op eds have not.
Peace. At least I hope it is still possible.