A reader writes:

As it stands, Israel has the support of most of the Western World. As it stands, they’re free to complete the task at hand.

So, what do they stand to lose if you let international press in?

Comeon, guys. This isn’t a mystery. You let CNN in there – with their “Heal the world, make it a better place” mentality, and they and every other liberally-biased media outlet is going to turn this into a hand-wringing circus. They’ll be interviewing people who’ve had their homes destroyed, they’ll show (real or fictitious) images of murdered/injured women and children. They’ll do everything they can to focus on the drastic “humanitarian crisis.”

Just like the media has done with every war since Vietnam.

Suddenly, Israel’s public support dwindles. Suddenly, the bleeding hearts – who always let their emotions get in the way of reason, reason dictating that war is hell and means real people die – start to turn on Israel.

In short, Israel’s tactic here is about one thing: fighting a war to win.

Say! Great idea! (Edges of screen get wavy and ripples of harp music play as we cast our minds back to April 2002. An impassioned reader writes in with a brilliant plan):

As it stands, the Catholic Church has the support of most of the Western World. As it stands, they’re free to complete the task of inaugurating the New Springtime of Evangelization at hand.

So, what do they stand to lose if you let international press in to investigate these so-called “child rapes”?

Comeon, guys. This isn’t a mystery. You let CNN in there – with their “Heal the world, make it a better place” mentality, and they and every other liberally-biased media outlet is going to turn this into a hand-wringing circus. They’ll be interviewing people who’ve had their children “raped”, they’ll show (real or fictitious) images of abused/sodomized women and children. They’ll do everything they can to focus on the drastic “humanitarian crisis.”

Just like the media has done with the Church for decades.

Suddenly, the Church’s public support dwindles. Suddenly, the bleeding hearts – who always let their emotions get in the way of reason, reason dictating that religion is hell and means real people suffer – start to turn on the Church.

In short, the Church’s tactic here is about one thing: fighting a war to win souls.

Wow! Who could argue with that? I totally trust the bishops on this. When have they ever lied? Reporters out of our Church!

Update: A reader I *highly* respect (and a convert from a Jewish background, for those inclined to reflexively chalk up what he writes to “anti-semitism”) writes:

I’ve decided that posting on CAEI is a waste of time. Why are you attracting these people to your blog?

“…they’ll show (real or fictitious) images of murdered/injured women and children. “

Which of the photographic images of dead and injured children are fictitious?

What happens when you throw tons of HE around a heavily populated area?

If aborted children die we shed tears. What about children who die when their arms, legs and faces are blown off?

F*** politics. Are you made of stone?

I have come to the conclusion about people who comment on this blog that they are pitiless hypocrites.

I put comboxes on this blog because there was no way I could possibly deal with the volume of mail I got. However, there are days when I am totally inclined to agree with my reader and just scrap the damn things. If I reference the carnage that is happening in Gaza, I’m assured by a buzzing clous of The Usual Suspects that the only trustworthy source for news is the government inflicting the carnage and I get absurd pathological denials that the images we see are all “lies”. If I, God forbid, were to *show* you the carnage–eviscerated children with limbs blown off, whole families killed, aid workers shot, graphic horrors of civilian slaughter constituting nearly half the death toll by all agreed measures, the Usual Suspects would rush in to denounce it as “pornographic” and to block their ears and shut their eyes and shout “lies” anyway.

I can understand my reader’s frustration. It’s pathological what people will do to justify and ignore the very testimony of their eyes. The bizarre cheerleading for news blackouts. The “What Would Machiavelli Do?” appeals to realpolitik. It’s quite morally demented and the only decent reaction to it is disgust. I just hope my reader realizes that, God knows, I have no desire to “attract” people who do this stuff and that, God knows, I wish I didn’t have to read another syllable of it in my comboxes.

I console myself (and, I hope, my reader) by noting that not everybody in my comboxes is a disciple of Machiavelli. But I share with him, this evening, a rather profound depression that the principal response to the slaughter of politically inconvenient children is, in the comboxes of a Catholic blog, blank denial and cheerleading for those who will do whatever is in their power to make sure those children go to their graves unhallowed, unremembered, and denounced as “lies”. God have mercy on the soul of any Christian who does this.

Back Monday. Hopefully the putrid taste of this godawful spectacle of rationalization will fade with two days away from the keyboard.

And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you read?” And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have answered right; do this, and you will live.”

But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was; and when he saw him, he had compassion, and went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; then he set him on his own beast and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii * and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ Which of these three, do you think, proved neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed mercy on him.” And Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”