The Blast replies for The Daily Telegraph (04/03/04)

Often, when a murder convict awaits judicial execution in the United States, some death-penalty opponents will be heard to utter a slogan such as: “What is done is done – the evil is in the past”. Through this they hope to persuade the listener that the carrying out of capital punishment at this stage would be purely vindictive. As we quickly approach the first anniversary of the end of the War against Saddam – universally recognised to have accomplished the good of removing a wicked tyrant from power – there appears to be no let up in the attempts by some persons to in some way “punish” the leaders of those nations that fought it. The following letter provides just one example of the kind of selective justification employed in this process. . .

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Stop the Revolution (and the Great Power Carve-up) (02/04/03)

Current wisdom has it that twentieth century world politics began with several Great Powers and ended, following the collapse of Communism, with one superpower. This perception is based on two illusions: the disappearance of Great Powers and the disappearance of Communism.

Sanctions and the Socialist Lust for Power (07/04/03)

Were the United States and Britain able to turn back the clock and undo the UN regime of sanctions against Iraq, would they also be able to avert the relentless and unforgiving attacks of their Socialist opponents? Indeed would the latter have given Washington and Whitehall their blessing and support in any attempt to remove Saddam Hussein's brutal regime by less severe means? An answer to these questions is offered here by supplying an alternative history of government action and Left-wing response.

“Labour as a Good Soldier” (21/04/03)

With 42 million Britons declaring themselves Christian in the 2001 census, the influence of Christian thinking on the morality of war must surely have had a major impact on British attitudes to the conflict in Iraq. The rather loose phrase, “Christian thinking”, is intended to accommodate all forms of opinion which claim to be derived from the teachings of Jesus Christ.

Just as, however, it is proper to defer to the greater expertise of philologists in order to learn the precise literal meaning of ancient texts such as the Gospels, so also is it proper to defer to the expertise of the teachers of the Christian Church so as not to commit the logical fallacy of vicious abstraction – that is, to take Biblical quotes out of context and interpret them in isolation – but rather, to determine the true meaning of the whole of Scripture.

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