Mr. Hannity: In the age of international "Islamic" terrorism, preemptive war can sometimes be justified and even necessary to protect our country. (pp. 154-55)

My response: In fact, the Catholic Church imposes very strict conditions even for normal defensive war, including the danger of a certain, imminent attack with lasting and grave consequences. The Church's just war doctrine is based on a presumption against the use of force. Despite the fact that the Church has no definitive teaching on the morality of preemptive war, it does not admit that such a war could ever be necessary. A large majority of Church leaders around the world have condemned preemptive war as in their view unjust and immoral. When talk of a preemptive strike on Iraq was flying around some years ago, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger stated several times: "The concept of a 'preventive war' does not appear in the Catechism of the Catholic Church."

Mr. Hannity: "Liberals," including US Catholic bishops, reproachfully stirred up millions of people to join nuclear freeze demonstrations in the early 1980s. (p. 76)

My response: Some brief background on this issue might help clarify the discussion. Early in the Cold War, American administrations pursued a strategic, offensive-defense security doctrine known as Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD). The idea was for the US to maintain "strategic parity" with the Soviet Union --that is, a balance among number, power, sophistication and readiness of atomic bombs such that neither country would dare to start a nuclear war against the other thanks to fear of equally destructive retaliation by the adversary. Except for a temporary challenge during President John F. Kennedy's administration, which began courageously downsizing America's nuclear arsenal, the MAD doctrine more or less continued to guide American nuclear policy through containment to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) of the 1970s, which aimed to mutually reduce US and Soviet nuclear forces. The acronym of MAD was quite appropriate; this delicate policy was truly insane, as it could not be continued for long without leading eventually to a global nuclear disaster.

The topic below was originally posted in my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal.

Gerald R. Ford, a man fate placed on a stage far bigger than his modest persona suggested he belonged is dead at 93. In August 1974 he was appointed America's 38th president when Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace because of the Watergate scandal. Had he not resigned Nixon surely would've been impeached in the House of Representatives and convicted by the Senate.