Sunday, July 10, 2005

Welsh statesman, or Oregon Catholic Press hymn?

"The countries of the world must unite against international terrorism, and unite in the work of making injustice and poverty - wherever they exist - history.."

Dafydd Iwan has been my hero since I was a teenager, but his unflinching leftism gets my goat. (My sheep? This is Wales we're talking about.) In particular, I hate to hear him sound so much like something out of a bland OCP missalette. Especially since he's a master of political rhetoric - he was a protest singer back in the sixties - Mr. Iwan should be able in these of all times to find something stronger to say about the sort of pig-droppings-disguised-as-men who would blow up civilians in the hope of intimidating soldiers.

I'm sorry, but we're not going to make these people go away by eliminating injustice and poverty. Would that it were that easy. Injustice and poverty are not the problem; evil is. The correct response to evil is not compassion and equitability; it's contempt and eradication, and those right quickly. Any other method of dealing with it is like taking small doses of antibiotics - you don't get rid of the disease, but you eliminate your ability to cure it.

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