By: Hani Chibli.
Pope Francis has announced that World War 3 has begun, saying it is not a religious war but a New World Order generated conflict over “interests, money and resources.” The pope made the statement during a visit to Italy’s largest military cemetery, where he was commemorating the centenary of World War I, and in his mind scenes of what is happening in Iraq and Syria regarding the attacks on Christians and Yazidi minorities. If anyone wants to know how World War III looks like he does not have to look beyond Syria, and if anyone doubts that the war in Syria is a global war, he should check with a few definitions of the term world war, the definition of the World War-according to a political dictionary, it is: "the war that most of the major countries in the world are involving in a war”. The Macmillan Dictionary defines world war as "a war that many large states from various countries of the world take part in it.". Pope Francis admitted that armed force shall be permitted to stop the brutal aggression, but he expressed his rejection to use bombs that kill innocent citizens, stressing that the goal is to stop the injustice and not overthrow the aggressor and he believes that an international coalition is capable of making such a work. According to Terence Ryan in her new book "Jesus peacemaker": Catholics are moving away from the theory of just war and are turning to become a provocative force in Peace making and its preservation. While the Catholic theory about just war seems old and unsuitable for modern conflicts, paradox lies in the fact that the global extending of the Catholic Church makes it the only body capable of extending local bridges and build confidence which enables it to communicate with the enemy and to work for peace-building .The Pope is not the first person who used the term “world war III” the term has been used to refer for the cold war which ended in 1991 and also some referred to the Korean war 1950 ,the Cuban missile of 1962,and the Nato’ bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 as a
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third world war. Since the last decade, the world witnessed growing in terrorism at the global level, one of the most important international issues on the global agenda today is countering terrorism, the toll of victims estimated 658 deaths in 46 terror attacks across Europe and the America since the beginning of 2015. In Middle East, Africa and Asia, by comparison, the death toll reaches 28,031 in 2063 terror attacks. Some critics says that Pope speech came out in response to the cunning questions about the Vatican’s role as a spiritual motivating power used in united nations and international community for pushing war against ISIS; indeed, it seems that in his mind that problematic question concerning the spiritual role in countering terrorism especially after the Vatican’s head commission to the United Nations Monsignor Selvato Tommasi supported the US decision of airstrikes on (ISIS) and stressing that “we must act immediately before it is too late” cited Pope’s speech that:” the United Nations can only make a decision on how to stop the aggressor, where there is an unjust aggression I can only say that it is legitimate to stop the unjust aggressor.” Upon the attacks of eleven September we heard words and statements indicate that a prolonged war is initiated, the US president, his defense minister and foreign secretary, Stated explicitly: "when we fight it will not be a short war". "Americans must be ready for a long war and heavy losses". "There will be a great loss and the military to be prepared for that". "We will not limit ourselves to airstrikes but we would intervene and we will control terrorist sites". "This war will not only create to defeat bin Laden but it will counter terrorism in any country". "They are owners of sick minds and they want to kill Christians and Jews over the whole world!" ."It would be justified when Americans response by a nuclear weapon to any country suspected produced weapons of mass destruction". These statements refer that America is entered in greatness and unique paranoia which is a historical disease that hit all old empires and was the beginning of its disintegration. As soon as any state feels by force and elation, it thinks for expansion and proliferation. Last fifty years proves that America is rarely get out of any land they entered; its bases in Germany and Japan are still lingering since World War II, as well as its bases in Thailand and Korea are still the same since the fifties and the seventies, and recently they established a base in North Syria in a town called Rmelan which is an oily town. The Pope asserted the UN role when he used in his statement the word "stop" instead of “bombing” or “war”, and this was a clear message that no one nation could take responsibility of stopping
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aggression, this task turns to the united nations after world war II. Pope Francis and his diplomatic team have urged greater engagement by the United Nations, and recently the Vatican has been very supportive of the U.N.-sponsored talks concerning Syrian peace talks to preserve Christianity in the region. Pope of Rome carried a warning related to the U. S hegemony strategy which provokes “world war III” whether directly or indirectly, he warns many times: “we have to remember how many times excuse has been used to stop the aggression by the major powers who wanted to enslave nations. However, worldwide and in Middle East the conflict’s complexity increases as the number of military interests expands. For instance, Turkish forces have been bombing Kurdish targets in Iraq and Syria despite the Kurds being among the bravest fighters against ISIS, this bombing came
following a car-bomb blast against a police headquarters in a Kurdish-majority in Turkish province. The Kurds are a large ethnic minority in Turkey, as they are in Iraq and Syria. Turkey fears the consolidation of a Kurdish state as a result of general upheaval as they have strong interest in establishing their own promised state which included lands from Turkey, Iraq, and Syria. The Turkish airstrikes destroyed a village where Christian families have taken refuge, people from the Nineveh Plain who fled ISIS, according to Chaldean-Catholic Bishop Rabban al-Qas, speaking to Asia News, a press agency and news site sponsored by the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions. “It is high time to denounce these Turkish acts of terrorism,” the bishop declared. “We must have the courage to call this for what it is:” real terrorism” These poor people are now terrified and scared. As if the threat from Daesh (ISIS) was not bad enough.” Many Church leaders in the Arab-Christian community, such as Jesuit Father Samir Kahlil Samir, saw recent violence in the Middle East as manifestations of a growing sectarian war within Islam, between Sunni and Shiite interests. Turkey is on the Sunni side, with Saudi Arabia against Iran and its ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. after the Paris attacks in November last year, King Abdullah II of Jordan warned the world is facing World War III. “We are facing a Third World War against humanity and this is what brings us all together,” he told a news conference in Pristina. “This is a war... within Islam and unfortunately over 100,000 Muslims have been murdered by (ISIS) alone over the past two years, and that doesn’t also count
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for the atrocities like-minded groups have also done in Africa and Asia.” Pope Francis isn’t the only world leader who has compared the fight against jihadist terrorism to a world war. last year even before the horrific terror attacks that occurred in Paris, Brussels, Nice and Ansbach Iraq’s Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari declared that the War on ISIS was “effectively World War III”, cautioning that all the world’s capitals were under threat. “Economic markets, schools and all sorts of places frequented by human beings are under threat,” he said. “Therefore, this is a world war. I believe the main concern for western countries, and the European Union in particular, is to prepare for this danger, since the danger has already begun in some of the European capitals.” The recent attacks on Paris by the so-called Islamic State may not mark the beginning of a “piecemeal World War III”, as Pope Francis called it, but it parallels to previous global conflicts which were preceded the two world wars. For one, we are seeing several nations, including some fierce rivals, come together to defeat a totalitarian organization. If the United States, Russia, France and Nato powers can effectively mobilize their military power and secure the active participation of Arab countries, Islamic State can be destroyed, but not the transnational menace it poses. Pope Francis Believes the young who are indulged in terrorism are also victims and urgent procedures concerning Eliminating the perverted ideology that has attracted many disaffected youths worldwide will be a much harder, longer-term challenge. Under no circumstances cannot separate the pope’s perspective on Iraq and ISIS from the rest of his revolutionary positions since his papacy, within all of his speech, human rights and humanitarian issues were included. It seems that the position of the Pope of Rome has made a dynamic religious mobility in Europe characterized by political feature, this is clearly manifested in the response of bishops of the council of Europe to the Secretary-general of the United nations which contained Pope’s Francis terms of “ending terrorism” with all possible legitimate means and the inevitability of the application of a concrete intervention which will save lives of hundred thousands of people who are at starvation and thirst .Most probably ,the pope of Rome ,in his remarks ,kept in his mind St. Augustine words :”if you want peace, prepare for war”
Professor of political science at the University of Michigan-U. S Moataz Abulfatah, refused concept of third world war because in his opinion these wars are among groups of coalition of
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countries which are facing a range of other countries, such as the World War I and II. He pointed out that the current situation is not so alarming because the war is now circulating among group of states against terrorist entities which does not constitute countries, but it is closer to the entities took advantage of the vacuum caused by the power and governance systems, to espouse violence and terror against innocent people. "they are closer to the international coalition fighting the terrorist entity, after it became apparent terror against everyone, without exception, regardless of the state or religion, professor Abdulfatah stressing on the need to change the counter terrorism policy that is held by countries of the world.
What world needs is Empathy, the Pope Recently explicitly said that “the people who talk about peace during the day selling arms by night, we live in a piecemeal Third World War, there is a state of war in the world and someone seeks it by creating and raising conflict among civilizations, and by speculation in selling weapons because some strong powers in the world talking about peace and then sell weapons under the table. "but peace is possible, it is" God's scheme. “. Hence, the Pope reminds us of what the English poet John Donne talked about war, Donne said: ”No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were.