{"id":5872,"date":"2011-05-07T22:18:30","date_gmt":"2011-05-07T22:18:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/?p=5872"},"modified":"2011-05-07T22:18:30","modified_gmt":"2011-05-07T22:18:30","slug":"decline-of-the-west","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/decline-of-the-west\/","title":{"rendered":"Decline of the West"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Writing over on the Corner, I’ve put up a few posts on the hand-wringing in Europe<\/a> over the allegedly unseemly American response to the death of bin Laden, not to speak of the (manufactured) outrage over the the failure to bring him to trial. <\/p>\n

As one might expect, England’s idiot savant Archbishop of Canterbury<\/a> has been prominent amongst the hand-wringers, but it’s his German brethren <\/a>who have really taken the lead, prompted, it seems, by a few mild words from Angela Merkel. <\/p>\n

The Financial Times<\/em> has a useful summary here<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, is a cautious and risk-averse leader who normally chooses her words with great care. Above all, she avoids saying anything to alarm the supersensitive German electorate. On the subject of the US operation that resulted in the killing of Osama bin Laden, however, she has risked the wrath of many voters to demonstrate her solidarity with Washington. <\/p>\n

It is good news. I am happy that they have succeeded in killing bin Laden,\u201d Ms Merkel declared at a press conference shortly after his death was announced on Monday. <\/p>\n

Ever since, she has been the target of criticism from all political parties, including her own, as well as from representatives of leading German churches. Alois Gl\u00fcck, president of the central committee of German Catholics, called her words \u201cmistaken and very annoying\u201d. Martin Dutzmann, army bishop for the Protestant evangelical church, said: \u201cIt would have been good news if he had been arrested, leading to a proper judicial process.\u201d<\/p>\n

From within her own Christian Democratic Union \u2013 a party that boasts strong Christian roots \u2013 came sharp words from Siegfried Kauder, brother of the party\u2019s parliamentary leader Volker Kauder, and chairman of the legal affairs committee in the Bundestag. \u201cThe principle that the end justifies the means has no legal foundation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Eberhard Schockenhoff, a Catholic theologian, whose brother Andreas is the foreign affairs spokesman for the CDU in parliament, said: \u201cThe violent death of a man should never be a cause for joy.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

These people really<\/em> need to get over themselves. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Writing over on the Corner, I’ve put up a few posts on the hand-wringing in Europe over the allegedly unseemly American response to the death of bin Laden, not to speak of the (manufactured) outrage over the the failure to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[15],"tags":[770,773,771,772,580],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5872"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5872"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5875,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5872\/revisions\/5875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}