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| William Pooley, seen here, worked as a volunteer for The Shepherd's Hospice in Sierra Leone before he moved to serve on an Ebola treatment ward |
William Pooley is a brave young man among many who has risked his own life showing mercy to help others affected by the Ebola virus outbreak in Africa, an unavoidable, hideous disease for which there is no cure, story here.
By contrast, merciless Islamists who have benefited from the hospitality of this country among others flock to the Middle East to spread an avoidable virus which slaughters others simply because they do not share the misguided belief that it is the will of Allah. In the latest skirmish according to Aljazeera hundreds have been killed as fighters storm the Tabqa base in northeast Syria, the army's last foothold in the area (here).
Syria has said that it was willing to work with the international community, including the United States, to tackle "terrorism" but that any strikes on its territory must be coordinated with Damascus (here). The Foreign Secretary has ruled out sharing intelligence with President Assad to take on Islamic State forces because 'my enemy's enemy is not my friend' (here). That too is misguided. His sentiments are understandable but regrettable.
It is clear from the lessons of Iraq, Libya and indeed from Syria that the devil you know can be better than the devil you don't. Sir Christopher Meyer, former British Ambassador to the United States, responded "Britain’s foreign policy has to reflect the world as we find it – not as we would like it to be". He is correct. 'Islamic state' must be stopped. Sir Christopher concluded his remarks by saying "This would be the mother of all U-turns. It would stick in the craw of many. But, as the great Victorian foreign secretary, Lord Palmerston, once said, we have no permanent friends or enemies, only permanent interests."
Postscript
"Islamist groups work together in perfect harmony like an orchestra that sings to the tune of “Allahu Akbar.” And when Islamic terrorism and beheadings anger the world and turn public opinion against Islam, that orchestra starts playing a different tune to confuse and prevent the world from uncovering their coordinated handy work". Read here.
I write in reference to you previous entry "The Sword" , which links to "Merciful and merciless ".
ReplyDeleteI am concerned about the naivety portrayed in the entry by Llandaff Pelican, for example.
The Islamic State- IS- is run by jihadists from the West, namely UK Holland and Denmark. They already control about 4 million people. They employ such tactics as supplying bread at rock bottom prices to win people over ,which is a similar tactic to Llandaff Pelican's lunch date. Yes ,they can portray a 'nice side', and a prison chaplain will similarly find the murderer or the child molester he visits to be full of apparent good intentions. Christian communities who have lived in Syria and northern parts of Iraq for 2000 years are being driven out if they will not succumb to Islam after being cajoled with cheap bread and similar 'carrots'.
Those who are wooed by benevolent faces over lunch, should, or must,reflect that they are betraying their Christian brothers and sisters who are being so persecuted in IS.
It is a failing of some local Christian communities or parishes to behave in a parochial ,self centred way and forget about the suffering Christ in the Middle East . We should ask ourselves whether in acting in an apparent Christian way over lunch with one's Muslim friends is self- fulfilling.
Listen to the BBC World Service ; it is only trivialities ,such as Scotland independence reported on the one o'clock news.
There is nothing taking place at Llandaff Cathedral to give thanks for the work of NATO and for the troops of the member nations who are the ones that provide our protection, putting themselves on the line during the
ReplyDeletehumanitarian missions they carry out on our behalf.
But fear not, the glove puppet has it all under control with a planned "Vigil of Prayer" scheduled for 6th September. It reminds me of the story Jesus told about the public displays of piety by the priests in the temple that were put on for the benefit of any others who might be watching and had their appropriate reward.
September edition of The Bell:
'To this end I am planning to hold a Vigil of Prayer in the Cathedral on Saturday 6th September - the Cathedral will be in silence for us to pray for our brothers and sisters in Iraq and I do hope that people will feel able to join me on that day in the Cathedral. The day will begin with the Holy Eucharist at 9.30 and will end with Evensong at 5.30pm. There will be public prayers at Midday. Please support this if you can.'
'I too will be taking a retiring collection each Sunday and on the 6th September to help the parish of St George’s Baghdad. This is a call for any of us who Sunday by Sunday recite the words “We believe in one Holy catholic and apostolic Church”.'
This from the Church in Wales which is no longer Catholic or Apostolic!
It is rumoured that His ++Darkness might be making an appearance.
DeleteIf he shows up, the Capon had better keep a close eye on the retiring collection in case it disappears into the Bishop's Discretionary Mission Fund.
It's only a couple of weeks since one of Bazza's oompah loompah's was telephoning the Cathedral office demanding to know what had happened to the collection money taken at the Parish Confirmation on July 17th and why it had not been forwarded to Llys Esgob.
The Foreign Secretary prefers to allow ISIS to flourish rather than deal with the only person in Syria who can defeat it. One has to wonder just how much money is secretly being slipped into politicians' hidden Swiss bank accounts by the jihadists! Clearly no lessons of any kind have been learned by the West about interfering in the Middle East, where the only effective leaders are men like Saddam, Gaddafi, and Assad. Remove them and what follows? ISIS, and all the other variants of Al-Quaida - including Hamas, which is too weak to do what it would really like to do to Israelis. The West should be supporting Israel but what happens? It is subjected to a totally one-sided propaganda campaign waged by al-BBCeera, reporting every incident in the Gaza Strip on behalf of Hamas, while the day to day actions of ISIS in Mosul and Aleppo are large ignored! And now that Mosul has been ethnically/religiously cleansed, the victims of ISIS no longer matter to the news editors.
ReplyDeleteInteresting Insider : they may have had dictatorship in the hands of Saddam and Gadafi,but now the West has taken the very short-sighted action to remove these leaders,we have anarchy which is proving to be a worse mess. These cultures are tribal and the word 'democracy' (the lifestyle we aim to force upon them)is not even in their dictionary. Unless the West talk to Dr Assad - well you just imagine.
ReplyDelete