Author Archives: Doug Fuda

About Doug Fuda

Doug Fuda is a Catholic returnee. He lives in Roslindale, MA and he runs a Boston CAM Meetup.

Planned Parenthood and the US Government — Partners in Crime

[this article by Ron Paul contains important lessons for Catholics and all pro-life folks. I made a couple of paragraphs bold because they are particularly relevant to both the anti-abortion and the anti-militarism cause — Doug]

Politics Is Not the Path to Pro-Life Victory
by Ron Paul

During my time in Congress, I regularly introduced legislation forbidding organizations that perform abortions from receiving federal funding. The US Government should not force taxpayers to subsidize an activity they believe is murder. Thus, while I was horrified by the recently released videos showing Planned Parenthood officials casually discussing selling the organs of aborted babies, I am glad that the reaction to these videos has renewed efforts to end federal funding of abortion.

My experience in Congress does not leave me optimistic that federal funding of Planned Parenthood will be ended this year, however. This is not just because the current US president is pro-abortion. When I started my efforts to end taxpayer support of abortion, I was shocked to find out how many Republicans, including some self-described “pro-life” leaders, were unsupportive of, and sometimes hostile to, my efforts.

Most pro-life politicians preferred to add language to funding bills prohibiting federal funds from being used for abortions, rather than denying federal funds to abortion providers. This approach does not stop US taxpayers from subsidizing abortions. The reason is that money is fungible. Giving Planned Parenthood $100 to use for non-abortion activities allows it to spend an additional $100 of its non-government funds on abortion.

Foreign interventionists in both parties were particularly hostile to my efforts to eliminate federal funding for international organizations that performed or promoted abortions. This is a foolish policy that gives people around the globe another reason to resent the US government.

Planned Parenthood may have abandoned the explicitly racist and eugenic views of its founder Margaret Sanger, but the majority of its abortion “services” are still provided to lower-income and minority women. Every day nearly 2,000 African-American babies lose their lives to abortion, a rate five times higher than the Caucasian abortion rates.

I support the black lives matter movement. I have long advocated an end to the drug war, police militarization, and other threats to liberty that disproportionately victimize African-Americans. However, I wish some of the black lives matter movement’s passion and energy was directed to ending abortion. Unborn black lives also matter.

The federal government has no constitutional authority to permit, fund, or even outlaw abortion. Therefore, efforts to make abortion a federal crime are just as unconstitutional as efforts to prohibit states from outlawing abortion. A Congress that truly cared about the Constitution would end all federal funding for abortion and pass legislation restricting federal jurisdiction over abortion, thus returning the issue to the states.

While passing legislation may help limit abortion, the pro-life movement will never succeed unless it changes people’s attitudes toward the unborn. This is why crisis pregnancy centers, which provide care and compassion to women facing unplanned pregnancies, have done more to advance the pro-life cause then any politician. By showing women they have viable alternatives to abortion, these centers have saved many lives.

One factor hindering the anti-abortion movement’s ability to change people’s minds is that too many abortion opponents also support a militaristic foreign policy. These pro-lifers undercut their moral credibility as advocates for unborn American lives when they display a callous indifference to the lives of Iraqi, Iranian, and Afghan children.

Libertarians who support abortion should ask themselves how they can expect a government that does not respect the unborn’s right to life to respect their property rights. Therefore, all those who wish to create a society of liberty, peace, and prosperity should join me in advocating for a consistent ethic of life and liberty that respects the rights of all persons, born and unborn.

Here is the link to the original article:

Politics Is Not the Path to Pro-Life Victory

Before Roe v. Wade…

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Before Roe v. Wade,

….there was the Eugenic Protection Act.

World War II is often called The Good War and is widely accepted by Catholics as being the best modern example of a “just war.” But what should we think when a just war is fought with unjust means? Or has evil results?

When I was a kid, my friends and I (all boys, of course) were infatuated with WW II. Many of our fathers had fought in that war and Hollywood promoted it endlessly in exciting movies about heroic American and Brit efforts to defeat “the Krauts and the Japs.” We saw every movie and TV show and even knew the details of the fascinating weaponry that was employed by the American infantrymen, whom we emulated in our play.

But all of us kids were Catholics, and I’ll never forget how one day that made us different. In grammar school a nun told the class about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and how Catholic morality condemned those acts of war because the American decision makers had deliberately targeted non-combatants and the innocent. At one point we were even assigned to read John Hersey’s book, Hiroshima, and that was the beginning for me of a lifetime of skepticism about war and the U.S. Government.

The bombings were and still are the two greatest single acts of terrorism in history. But the aftermath of the war also brought into the world another instance of targeted killing of the innocent. It is a lesser known episode but it has had an ongoing worldwide impact which is arguably a greater threat to mankind than the advent of nuclear weapons.

In 1948, during the time of the American post-war military occupation, Japan legalized abortion. The enabling law was called the Eugenic Protection Act and, according to a book written in 2011 by Mara Hvistendahl, it was allowed and encouraged by the occupying force, under Supreme Commander General Douglas MacArthur. Continue reading →

An Invitation to All Catholic Killers

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Recently we here at Catholics Against Militarism made a small effort to counter a very troubling article promoting militarism which appeared in the National Catholic Register. The article, by Wayne Laugeson, was provocatively entitled Catholic, and Killing for a Living, and it was about the “hot topic” of American snipers.

Our email drawing attention to the article and asking for people’s help appeared on the Lew Rockwell blog.

I would like to make a few comments about what I consider to be the most remarkable and disturbing aspect of the article — the emphasis on the Christian, pro-life credentials of the snipers. My comments are directed strictly at pro-life Catholics and Christians who join the military, not police or law enforcement snipers who are in a completely different situation. It is a serious weakness of the article that the author conflates the two different types of snipers.

The basic premise of the article is that being an “American sniper,” including participating as a sniper in America’s foreign wars in Iraq and elsewhere, is all about protecting innocent life and fighting evil, just like being against abortion and part of the pro-life movement.

Jack Coughlin, the Marine Corps sniper who is the principle subject of the article, is a “devout pro-life Catholic.” The people Jack killed were “ruthless killers,” and being a sniper is about saving innocent lives.

Butch Nery, another devout Catholic and Vietnam veteran says that an American sniper defends the “country and the oppressed” and “helps disadvantaged individuals … survive evil aggression.” Nery also says this:

“When you are overseas, and you see some of what the enemy does to innocent women and children, you don’t have any questions about the morality of a sniper’s role in the overall mission.”

And, we are told, police sniper Derek Bartlett believes that the Bible contains many justifications of violence in defense of innocent life in war and peace.

Dave Agata, a “nondenominational Christian,” says that snipers are “mostly a moral pro-life community” and that “an American sniper is someone tactically trained to save innocent lives.” Mr. Agata makes the most dramatic statement about abortion in America:

“In this country, you can take a young girl to a clinic and pay some butcher to take the life of a baby.”

But for Catholics, of course, this is actually an understatement. Catholics believe that abortion is murder and that this “butchery” has been going on for decades and has taken millions of innocent lives. It is often described correctly by pro-life activists as a holocaust, a genocide and mass murder. Consider that in 2012 alone, the Planned Parenthood clinic on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston, where I live, performed nearly 7000 abortions.

It seems to me that our first obligation is to defend the innocent and fight evil right here in our own backyard. If we had a decent, healthy society then Dave Agata’s “butcher” would be arrested and prosecuted and prevented from doing further harm. But who is protecting this ruthless killer?

It is, without a doubt, the U.S. Federal Government that is the most powerful defender and promoter of the abortion industry in our country. If it wasn’t for Roe v. Wade, which overturned state and local authority and made abortion the law of the land for hundreds of millions of people, we would have some state and local governments that would restrict and even abolish abortion.

American Snipers, I am ready to take you at your word that you are devout Catholics and/or pro-life Christians who want to defend the innocent and oppose evil in the world. We are of like mind on this matter. The only thing I hate more than war is abortion. But I believe you are making a terrible mistake. You are devoting your talents and courage and sacred honor to assisting and strengthening our great enemy, the U.S. Federal Government. This government is the enemy of the unborn and the innocent, and I would add that it is also an enemy of peace. Is it that hard to imagine that this amoral, anti-Christian entity which enforces the unjust, diabolical abortion law, might also be engaging in unjust wars? This question is not honestly discussed in the article.

If Catholics and other pro-life folks were willing to non-violently resist Federal power and challenge it with the local authority of states and cities, Church and family, we might be able to establish a beachhead in North Dakota or Alabama, or even in “liberal” Massachusetts and Rhode Island, the two most Catholic states in the union. We might create an example of a state or city with genuinely Christian pro-life laws and values that might spread to other places. But this can never happen as long as good Catholics are so submissive to and entranced by the immensely powerful and increasingly totalitarian central government and its armed forces. In effect, America’s perpetual wars and suffocating militarism serve to distract American Catholics from the fundamental evil of abortion which exists at the core of our society. In order to make inroads against the culture of death, the Catholic love affair with the military and the state must end.

Ultimately, both literally and figuratively, between us pro-life Catholics and the walls of that Planned Parenthood clinic stand the U.S. Army and the Marine Corps.

So obviously I have some serious disagreements with the Catholic snipers and other Catholic soldiers regarding the foreign wars of the US military, but our Catholic Faith and our pro-life commitment should enable us to find some common ground and possibly even work together. I’d like to hear from Jack Coughlin or Butch Nery or any “Catholic killer” who shares their viewpoint. Just post a comment to this blog or use the contact page and I’ll get back to you and we can have a private conversation. Perhaps we can even meet face to face at some point and talk, man to man, brother to brother, Catholic to Catholic. You never know what might come out of such a meeting, since “the Lord works in mysterious ways.”

Thank you for your service

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An article on “National Security” from the Center for Public Integrity.

This story is not just about stealing from the government or “deeply corrupted local cultures” in the Middle East. It’s about a very sick American culture. Call it Americanism Unchained. We have to ask, “who is corrupting whom?” May God have mercy on us all.

It’s a long article, but even if you can’t read the whole thing, save the link. It would be especially helpful to show to Catholic parents who might have a daughter who’s thinking of joining the military.

William Pfaff has died.

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From his obituary in the New York Times:

—“He rejected the messianic illusions of successive American administrations,” said a longtime friend, John Rielly, president emeritus of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. “Although many American pundits consider him a liberal, he was in many respects a classic Christian conservative — one who was skeptical about liberal notions of inevitable progress and always aware of the limitations of human activity.”

—Over time he became more pessimistic, his wife, the former Carolyn Cleary, said. “He lashed out at America because he loved it, but he became sadder and sadder about the nation that was so great, yet was belittling itself. He wanted America to stay home and fix its own country.”

Visit his website and please say a prayer for him:

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let thy perpetual light shine upon him. May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

The Horrible Tribe

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The Horrible Tribe of the Medina-Ussah

by Thomas R. Eddlem

My name is Husan and I was from Kabul.
And I recall that terrible day of hell,
When the killers painted their name on that shell.
The day Papa was killed during Russian rule.

A boy of just four, I could not read nor write.
But I learned that the bombers weren’t from Russia
She read: it’s the tribe of “Medina-Ussah.”
When I brought the shell to my Meme that night.

I studied all of Islam’s holy Qu’ran
At a madrassah under the Taliban
But try as I might, and try as I could
Of the killing, of deaths I never understood
Why the foreign tribe of Medina-Ussah would.

How could a tribe named after Islam’s second-most holy city
Murder and kill an innocent peddler without pity?
Why would they do this to my home land?
And take the name of Muhammad’s Holy Land?

Years later, the Medina-Ussah returned.
When I was at school, and Meme at table.
New bombs at home with the same hated label
Except for that label, everything had burned.

So I found a job and raised a family,
When I left home, that land of unholy war,
As an orphan in the land of Peshawar.
Though I learned English there, I still didn’t see.

Because I studied Islam’s holy Qu’ran
At a madrasa under the Taliban.
And try as I might, and try as I could
Of the killing, of deaths I never understood
Why the foreign tribe of Medina-Ussah would.

How could a tribe named after Islam’s second-most holy city
Murder and kill my innocent Meme without pity?
Why would they do this to my home land?
And take the name of Muhammad’s Holy Land?

My only son would have turned eight yesterday.
He died instantly, mercifully by the flash
With that evil tribe’s label in the blast crash.
It was an accident, so officials say.

The Medina-Ussah, as Meme would say,
Bombed the child’s school and painted their name on top.
The same words I showed Meme in our bombed shop.
And I read the charred words “Made in U.S.A.”

I have long studied Islam’s holy Qu’ran
And I read English, or my friends say I can.
So with all my might, I still don’t understand.
Why all the killing and the drone strikes unmanned?
Collateral damage, the evil tribe’s brand.

This tribe was not named after Islam’s second-most holy city
But they still murdered and killed without pity.
Why would they do this to my new land?
Why does “Made in U.S.A.” take such a stand?

***************
Tom Eddlem writes for The New American and he is a U.S. history teacher in a Catholic high school south of Boston.

The Consummate Fallen Angel

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The Consummate Fallen Angel

by Robert Higgs

The devil is agile and quick on his feet
He fought at Gettysburg
From beginning to end
And never got a single scratch

At Verdun and the Somme back in ‘16
He displayed his great flair
For adding large numbers
Of young souls wickedly squandered

Dulce et decorum est, he shrieked,
As the Brits and the Yanks
Stoked the fires of hell at Hamburg
In Operation Gomorrah

A master linguist, he spoke fluently in
Vietnamese, French, and English
Amid fetid fields and burnt villages
Fouled by napalm and rotting flesh

He never tires and needs no maps
Finding his way through the world with ease
As if he has visited each place
Many times before, since the dawn of time

********

this poem is reposted with the permission of the author. It originally appeared on the blog The Beacon at the website of the Independent Institute.

The Sniper and the Drone

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Modern American militarism presents Catholics with many grave ethical considerations. One current dilemma is how we should respond to the popularity of the movie American Sniper and the tendency of many people to declare Chris Kyle an “American Hero.”

Jacob Hornberger at the Future of Freedom Foundation has written a thoughtful and provocative review of the controversial movie. Mr. Hornberger, taking a Catholic perspective, focuses on the sin of wrongful killing by American soldiers:

“The assumption has always been that if you simply convince soldiers that they are fighting in a just cause, even if it’s not true, they won’t feel guilty about what they are doing. I don’t think the human conscience can be so easily fooled. I think that slowly it starts eating away at a person, sort of like acid.

And the problem is that soldiers who killed people in Iraq have a difficult time healing because they can’t confront the central problem — that they killed people wrongfully in an illegal, unconstitutional, immoral war of aggression. They can’t confess that grave sin. They relegate themselves to dealing with PTSD rather than with unresolved guilt over the wrongful killing of people.”

Similar moral quandaries arise over the use of executioner drones, especially for those Catholics who defend participation in warfare as a form of self-sacrifice worthy of a Christian — i.e., risking one’s own life to protect your comrades-in-arms and countrymen back home. Just last Memorial Day weekend, I heard a priest in California give a homily praising military service based on the words of Jesus in John 15:13:

“Greater love than this no one has, that one lay down his life for his friends.”

But what is sacrificial or risky about drone warfare, the infamous tactical innovation of the War on Terror?

Neve Gordon has written a review of a new book called The Theory of the Drone. Mr. Gordon outlines the profound moral questions raised in the book:

“Just as importantly, drones change the ethics of war. According to the new military morality, to kill while exposing one’s life to danger is bad; to take lives without ever endangering one’s own is good. Bradley Jay Strawser, a professor of philosophy at the US naval Postgraduate school in California, is a prominent spokesperson of the ‘principle of unnecessary risk.’ It is, in his view, wrong to command someone to take an unnecessary risk, and consequently it becomes a moral imperative to deploy drones.

Exposing the lives of one’s troops was never considered good, but historically it was believed to be necessary. Therefore dying for one’s country was deemed to be the greatest sacrifice and those who did die were recognized as heroes. The drone wars, however, are introducing a risk-free ethics of killing. What is taking place is a switch from an ethics of ‘self-sacrifice and courage to one of self-preservation and more or less assumed cowardice.’” [my emphasis].

We can only imagine what demons will torment the drone operators as they struggle for the rest of their lives with the severe cognitive dissonance of “heroic” drone warfare.

Catholics beware of the Sniper and the Drone.

Make them think of Nuremberg

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Militarism leads inevitably to torture and war crimes and, as I have pointed out previously, war crimes are a serious matter for Catholics.

We need to break the back of U.S. militarism and one way to begin doing that is to target the worst war criminals and “put the Fear of God into them.”

Here is Catholic military veteran and foreign policy expert William Pfaff, writing about the Senate CIA Torture Report:

“In my view, those in the American government who ordered and conducted this program of torture by the CIA since the autumn of 2001 should be arrested, tried for self-evident common crimes, and if convicted, hanged.”

A Catholic friend, Tom Eddlem, writes for the New American and he is a passionate and well-informed enemy of the “torture lobby.” Here is a letter he wrote to the U.S. Attorney for D.C., calling for prosecutions:

Dear Atty. Ronald Machen Jr.:

The release of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee Report documenting torture last week, combined with the public statements of former Vice President Dick Cheney and former CIA Directors George Tenet and Michael Hayden, have left on the public record evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that they have ordered torture and violated 18 USC 2340A, “Conspiracy to torture.”

As U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, this conspiracy to commit torture originated in your district and it is your responsibility to prosecute criminals who masterminded these heinous crimes. I am a high school U.S. history teacher in a Catholic school south of Boston. As I have taught my students the Bill of Rights in class this week, I noted that the logic of the torture lobby present on television news shows over the past week must destroy not only the “cruel and unusual punishments” clauses of the Eighth Amendment, but that it also threatens virtually the entire Bill of Rights. For example, the right to trial by jury (Sixth Amendment), right to an attorney (Sixth Amendment), due process (Fifth Amendment) and right against self-incrimination (Fifth Amendment) must be done away with by the logic of the torture lobby, who argue that detainees must be tortured before a trial sorts the guilty from the innocent in order to get timely “battlefield” intelligence.

This torture policy has resulted in the torture of not just actual terrorists, but also of innocent people, including innocent American citizens Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel.

This is not a partisan issue; it is a criminal issue. I am a life-long donor and supporter to Republican Party causes, and it matters nothing to me that all of the perpetrators happen to be of the Republican Party. I would note that Republican Senator John McCain and the Republican members of the House Liberty Caucus have also spoken out strongly against these crimes.

Please do not let politics be the undoing of the law you are charged with enforcing.

Sincerely,

Thomas R. Eddlem

Catholics need to face reality

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American Catholics need to deal with the following “facts on the ground.”

1. “Iraq no longer exists.”

see Malarkey on the Potomac by Andrew Bacevich.

2. Christians are leaving that area and won’t be going back.

see Isis in Iraq by Patrick Cockburn:

“But in the past six months Father Yako has changed his mind, and he now believes that, after 2,000 years of history, Christians must leave Iraq. Speaking at the entrance of a half-built mall in the Kurdish capital Irbil where 1,650 people from Qaraqosh have taken refuge, he said that ‘everything has changed since the coming of Daesh (the Arabic acronym for Islamic State). We should flee. There is nothing for us here.’”

3. The United States government caused this catastophe.

see Hagel Didn’t Start the Fire by Pat Buchanan:

“But what were the ‘decisions’ that produced the ‘incredible debacle’?…

The first would be George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq, a war for which Sens. John McCain, Joe Biden, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton all voted.”