Cardinal Pell And...Kissinger?

Names I wouldn't normally put together, but we're in strange times. Among the secular authors, Tony Blankley offers the pithiest summary of what the Pope was trying to achieve (I would say there are signs he will achieve it):

In other words, he is inviting Islam to explain whether their God is like ours -- inherently understandable by reason (and thus, is their God opposed to violence, as ours is?) .
He was also, I strongly suspect, speaking to his own flock, both to return to proper Christianity and to consider the nature of Islam. And, I suspect, the pope did not inadvertently quote the now inflammatory passage. If he had not included that quote, the world would not now be debating his lecture. While the pope surely did not want to see violence, he just as surely wanted to engage the world in this vital search for clarity.

Blankley's thesis is:

There is a historically fairly predictable pattern to the unfolding strategies and views of great wars. They often start with a morally ambiguous view of the enemy, a more limited conception of the war's magnitude and a restrained application of violent tactics. Eventually, moral clarity is obtained, war objectives expand -- often to grandiosity -- and tactics become ferocious.

And he thinks the Pope's speech marks the beginning of clarity --his evidence being that Henry Kissinger, the eminence gris of Realpolitik is talking like this:

we are witnessing a carefully conceived assault, not isolated terrorist attacks, on the international system of respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity. The creation of organizations such as Hezbollah and al-Qaida symbolizes the fact that transnational loyalties are replacing national ones. The driving force behind this challenge is the jihadist conviction that it is the existing order that is illegitimate."

(See Abomb and Chavez' UN speeches for illustration. )He went on to warn:

"The debate sparked by the Iraq war over American rashness vs. European escapism is dwarfed by what the world now faces ... the common danger of a wider war merging into a war of civilizations against the backdrop of a nuclear-armed Middle East.

Hmm. For myself, I get nervous if I end up on the same side as Kissinger, but isn't this in essence what Cardinal Pell was saying obliquely in the ominously titled "Talk While We Can"?

Western democracies are at war with Islamic terrorists. Security agencies, including Australia's, are working regularly to thwart terrorist attacks. These Islamic terrorists want a clash of civilisations, they want the West to overreact, to make mistakes and so bring this Armageddon closer.
I do not believe that such a clash is inevitable, but with every massive and successful terrorist attack on the West we lurch closer to such a catastrophe. American anger if there was a succession of September 11-style events in the US does not bear contemplating.

In other words, Pell fears America could become like France and take a mess with us and we nuke you attitude. Yeah, I fear that too... and the moreso if the Dems take office, because they lack the will to take the fight to the enemy on conventional terms now . . .but not the rage to make us all go boom later.