The following guest post is written by reader Jim Dodrill:
It was announced today that Iraq war apologist General Peter Cosgrove has been appointed the new chancellor of Australian Catholic University.
This is an interesting development considering that Cosgrove, former head of the ADF during the Howard era, would have been well aware of warnings of a humanitarian disaster and the non-existence of Iraq’s link to terrorism or any arsenal of WMDs by experts like Britain’s Dr David Kelly, UN arms inspector Scott Ritter and Australia’s own intelligence expert, Andrew Wilkie.
Cosgrove, a Catholic, would also have been aware of warnings by Pope John Paul II that war with Iraq was “a defeat for humanity which could not be morally or legally justified.”
The pope said the U.N. charter and international law “remind us war cannot be decided upon, even when it is a matter of ensuring the common good, except as the last option and in accordance with very strict conditions, without ignoring the consequences for the civilian population both during and after the military options.”
Yet Cosgrove ignored the leaders of his own Church and chose to follow the leaders of the western military-industrial complex into a war which ignored international law and turned Iraq into a humanitarian disaster which would only serve to promote anti-western hatred and terrorism. Why then has Cardinal George Pell and the ACU decided to appoint Cosgrove to such a prestigious position in the Australian Catholic Church?