Simon Harak: Leftist Marquette Faculty “Peace” Activist Against Military Robots

Simon Harak is a hard left “peace activist” ensconced in Marquette’s Center for Peacemaking.

In fact, his notion of “peace” is that America should never fight anybody. He has little bad to say about America’s enemies, and has even defended Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait.

He is much more a leftist than a peace activist.

At any rate, Harak is recently been vocal in opposing the U.S. military’s use of robots in combat.

Some argue that military robotics will also increase the threat of terrorism. “If people know that they are going to be killed by these robots,” argues Fr. G. Simon Harak, director of the Marquette University Center for Peacemaking, “then why would they not therefore retaliate against civilian centers in the United States? It only makes military sense that they’ll find where we are vulnerable.”

Of course, they have been trying to do this for a couple of decades now, and without much success since the Bush Administration’s clamp down on terrorism in the wake of 9/11.

More than anything else, the prospect of U.S. troops dying on some far-off battlefield limits public support for military force. Therefore, if the number of soldiers coming home in body bags can be significantly reduced, then the public will probably pay even less attention to foreign policy and future wars. This will in turn make it easier for politicians to start wars.

For instance, John Pike, the director of GlobalSecurity.org, recently wrote in the Washington Post that robots would allow the United States to intervene militarily in Darfur or other hot spots where politicians are currently reluctant to send flesh-and-blood soldiers.

Another hard-left periodical, Mother Jones also quotes Harak.

The Rev. G. Simon Harak, an ethicist and the director of the Marquette University Center for Peacemaking, says, “Effectively, what these remote control robots are doing is removing people farther and farther from the consequences of their actions.”

Translation: if America goes to war, fewer Americans will be killed. For Harak, this is a bad thing.

Moreover, the similarity that the robots have to the life-like video games that young people grow up playing will blur reality further.

“If guys in the field already have difficulties distinguishing between civilians and combatants,” Harak asks, “what about when they are looking through a video screen?”

It is not only possible but likely that a surge of armed robots would lead to an increase in the number of civilian casualties, not a decrease.

The supposed conversation-ender that armed robots will save U.S. lives isn’t nearly as clear as it is often presented, either. “If you take a narrow view, fewer soldiers would die,” Harak says, “but that would be only on the battlefield.”

As happens in every war, however, those facing new technology will adapt to them.

“If those people being attacked feel helpless to strike at the robots themselves, they will try to strike at their command centers,” Harak says, “which might well be back in the United States or among civilian centers. That would then displace the battlefield to manufacturing plants and research facilities at universities where such things are being invented or assembled… The whole notion that we can be invulnerable is just a delusion.”

Harak somehow believes that terrorists, who have been trying to strike the American homeland, and dearly want to strike the Amercan homeland, would somehow gain the capability of doing so if the U.S. military uses robots.

Of course, under Obama, they may very well gain that capability. But if so, they will use it, robots or no robots.

Harak, it seems, is so anti-American that he actually wants any American intervention to create more American casualties. “Peace” is no part of his agenda. Hating America is.

Catholic “Social Justice” Bureaucracy Dominated by Leftists

We are a little late on this, but it’s still worth noting.

From the Free Republic:

This Sunday (Nov. 23rd) is the annual collection for the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD). You may have heard that the CCHD had given over a million dollars per year to ACORN, a radically leftist group which seeks the election of “progressive” anti-life politicians among other things. The CCHD says that they will no longer be giving our donations to ACORN because there was reported embezzlement by [the brother of ] ACORN founder Wade Rathke some time ago. (see: http://www.usccb.org/cchd/morin_acorn_report.shtml)

[Editors Note: Wade Rathke was involved in covering up his brother’s embezzlement.]

There is a lot of confusion about what the CCHD is, how it works and whether faithful Catholics can be sure their donations will be put to use in a way consistent with Catholic teaching.

The CCHD is a social justice group established by the US Bishops. They collect money and then farm it out to various local and national organizations throughout the US. This is absolutely a fine and legitimate thing to do. Unfortunately, the groups selected by the CCHD to be stewards of our donations include many organizations which promote either Marxist socialism or anti-life/anti- church teaching. A complete list of last years grantees can be found here.

Just hearing the name “Catholic Campaign for Human Development” might make one think that money goes to scholarships for needy students, or youth centers in poor neighborhoods, or job training for women trying to get off welfare.

That assumption would be dead wrong. The list of people getting the money includes virtually nobody with anything other than a leftist political agenda.

Some random examples:

The Intercommunity Peace and Justice Center: This Seattle-based leftist Catholic group actively promotes women’s ordination, radical feminism, socialism, radical environmentalism, and a disregard for Church tradition. Read the brochure for their “Northwest Catholic Women’s Convocation” and ask yourself if this is something you would like to support via your CCHD donation. Also, note that one of the featured speakers is Sister Elizabeth A. Johnson who worships God as a goddess and stated “every aspect” of the Catholic faith “is not just tainted but perverted by the evil of patriarchy. It is not that the tradition has some problems; the tradition is the problem.” (see: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/nov/07111305.html)

Chinese Progressive Association: A Marxist/socialist group. (listed as a “meeting ground” in the communist newsletter “Voice of Revolution”
http://www.usmlo.org/arch2006/2006-04/VR060407.HTM) Supports Homosexual Marriage
(http://www.marriageequality.org/?page=supporters).

The Somali Action Alliance: lists both the CCHD and the very pro-abortion Women’s Foundation of MN as partners. (see: http://www.somaliactionalliance.org/news.php and http://www.wfmn.org/health.shtml)

Los Angeles chapter of Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice: Chairman is Rev. James M. Lawson Jr. who in 2001 stated in a speech: “The U.S. has become the number-one enemy of peace and justice in the world today.” He regularly speaks on Marxist themes and has stated “The revolution this nation needs has not yet begun.”

(http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/)

The simple fact is that the Church has always been subject to penetration by secular forces, and the leftist tilt of the “social justice” bureaucracy is just the latest example of something that has been happening for 2,000 years.

But there may still be, out there, some devout but somewhat naïve Catholics who think that if some institution is part of the church bureaucracy it is actually loyal to Church teaching.

They might also assume that if they happen to have a relatively conservative Archbishop (like Dolan) that people and projects radically contrary to Church teaching and subversive of church doctrine will be kept out of the Archdiocese.

The reality: the enemy is within.

The Convention for the Common Good : Catholic, or Just Liberal?

Catholic social teaching ought to get a fair amount of attention at a Catholic university, which is why it’s good to see Professor Mark Johnson in Theology giving some attention to something called the Platform for the Common Good propagated by The Convention for the Common Good, which describes itself as “Over 800 Catholics and faith leaders [from] across the country.”

The group’s position on abortion is rather anemic. It wants to . . .

Promote policies that prevent and reduce abortions by supporting women and families. Ensure robust alternatives to abortion, including adoption.

But then what does it say about the death penalty?

Abolish the death penalty.

Johnson notes:

Now, I have no bone to pick with the moral truth-value of either of these demands; I support both. But why is it that, in comparison to the pithy demand on the death penalty, the demand on abortion appears to be a serpentine and supine wish, with which no one in contemporary politics disagrees? It was the Clinton administration of the 1990’s, after all, that gave us the desire that abortions should be “safe, legal, and rare.” Was the Platform, by addressing abortion in a verbiage ratio of almost 4-to-1 compared to its treatment of the death penalty, really saying nothing much?

There is a bit more rhetoric about abortion in the statement, all of it equally mealy-mouthed.

Johnson then concludes:

Policy-promotion and ensuring alternatives rarely attain to what abolition accomplishes. If the death penalty can only be abolished by laws—would the Platform be satisfied with “policies that reduce” the death penalty?—then it stands to reason that the same will be true of abortion. If the angel Gabriel were to appear to me today with the offer that abortion would be steadily reduced to the point of complete extinction, but would still remain legal, would I take the offer? Yes, in a heart-beat. But since law exists both to restrain and to instruct, I would ask Gabriel to take back to the Lord my prayer that the law would soon reflect and perpetuate the community’s conviction that citizenship and civil rights exist from conception forward.

Johnson, in fact, understates the leftist bias of the document, which endorses every leftist policy one might think of.

This is all too typical of the things that happen when the more established types of Catholic political activists tackle an issue. They pay lip-service to the Catholic position on abortion, but in their hearts of hearts they are liberals. They feel uncomforatble taking positions like those of the Christian Coalition or the Republican party, and they’re happy taking positions consistent with voting for Barack Obama.

Christianity, of course, has a 2,000 year history of struggling with a worldly culture sharply at odds with Christian culture, and with some frequency it has lost. This appears to be the latest example.