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Is the Vatican a Target for Terrorists?
Topic Started: Aug 4 2005, 07:16 AM (376 Views)
Hoss
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Don't make me use my bare hands on you.
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VATICAN CITY — The Vatican is seen as the heart of the Christian world, but some also eye the international iconic symbol of Christianity (search) as a terror target.

"I think the Vatican has to be considered a target because Al Qaeda has said that the Vatican is a target," said Kishore Jayabalan, a former Vatican official, now of the Acton Institute. "One of the things the Vatican has tried to do is to downplay the differences between Islam and Christianity."

In the past, messages released by terrorists often express desire to attack Jews, Christians and Western countries. Some experts see this and the church's influence on Western Civilization as a sign of the Vatican's vulnerability.

But the Rev. John Wauck of the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross Foundation is not convinced terrorists seek to bring down his religion.

"Terrorists of today are not interested in attacking Christianity per se. The pope himself has said that the target isn't Christianity as such. But they're interested in attacking Western Civilization," he said.

Aside from its symbolic importance, the Vatican is seen by some as a potentially strong temptation for terrorists simply because it attracts so many tourists. The Vatican's museums had more than 3.5 million visitors last year.

This summer, a record 23,000 people visited in a single day.


Before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, the police presence at St. Peter's Basilica (search) was strong due to terror threats in the Jubilee Year of 2000. Vatican police are on even higher alert now, although keeping a low profile, with most of the police in plain clothes, according to security experts.
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Hoss
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Don't make me use my bare hands on you.
This might be a huge mistake by al qaida. There is already resentment brewing in Europe over immigrants from the muslim world. There are a lot of Catholics in Europe. An attack on the Vatican may push many over the edge and an even wider war on islamic terrorists may ensue.

The symbolic nature of an Islamic terror organization attacking the heart of the largest denomination of Christianity may move the war on terror beyond politics into personnal vendetta for many. It could ally the Christians in Jews in the way that we are accused of being allied right now.
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Wichita
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The Adminstrator wRench
Then there is the reaction of South and Central America to such an attack ....

I think that some targets are more emotional than others. (The lives at risk being the most important, of course.)

An attack on the Vatican would be one that I think that Catholics and non-Catholics alike would react to negatively.

Edit: BTW, the "yahoo" US Congressman who suggested Mecca be bombed also is an idiot. :realmad:

How would I react to a major Mormon Temple being attacked?

We've been there and done that already. After the Temple in Illinois was destroyed (about 100 years ago), the church actually covered foundation of the partially built Salt Lake City Temple and planted crops over it when a possible attack was imminent.

When the Phillipines were in one its unstable periods, the grounds of the temple there were occupied by insurgents. The church issued a request that they respect the temple site itself. Oddly, they respected the request. Outbuildings were trashed, but there was no evidence that they even entered the Temple itself.
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psyfi
psyfi
Okay, well this is not exactly a political response. However, when Nostradamus predicted a coming war between Christianity and Islam, he said that the Vatican would indeed be attacked, causing the Pope to flee.
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who
Have light saber. Will travel.
For a long time most of the terrorist attacks were on Israel and the world did not care much. I suspect that as attacks on the West increase so will the opposition to Radical Islam.
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WayneSTOSfan
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38957
Aug 4 2005, 07:19 AM
even wider war on islamic terrorists may ensue.


This is exactly correct...

IF Islamo-fascist terrists attack the Vatican...They, of course, expect surrender..the EXACT opposite may/should/would happen.....MUSLIMS would become the new Nazis

I think all of the nicey/nicey no profiling--all Muslums are not responsible for this- would go COMPLETELY by the wayside...

A full scale culture HOT war would insue!!!!
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Dr. Noah
Sistertrek's Asian Correspondant
And the Muslim/Christian 1000 year war ensues........................
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8247
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Apparently we look like this now
Wichita
Aug 4 2005, 07:31 AM


Edit:  BTW, the "yahoo" US Congressman who suggested Mecca be bombed also is an idiot.  :realmad:


That congressman said that only if the US was attacked by nuclear weapons, and that we should use our nukes to end this war if we suffered a nuclear attack. He wasnt suggesting that we go in and just bomb Mecca as a next stage of the war.
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ds9074
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Quote:
 
This might be a huge mistake by al qaida. There is already resentment brewing in Europe over immigrants from the muslim world. There are a lot of Catholics in Europe. An attack on the Vatican may push many over the edge and an even wider war on islamic terrorists may ensue.

Picking up specifically that bit about resentment of Muslims in Europe, it is my opinion that al-Qaeda would like nothing more than to see our tolerance give way to hatred of Muslims. That would in turn serve to radicalize the moderate Muslim world as they became the subject of attacks. It would intensify the fighting and lead to more death and destruction.

Even if there were to be an attack on the Vatican we should hold firm to our values and principles and remain the civilised people in this struggle. That means that we have to see that there is al-Qaeda and the extremists and that there are a majority of Muslims who hate and renounce al-Qaeda as much as we do. Those people are not, and would not be, deserving of punishment for crimes they havent committed.

We should also, as far as is practical, hold firm to our liberal and free societies.

Its my opinion that our liberties, freedoms and tolerance of diversity are the things which al-Qaeda and extremist Islam cannot stand. Therefore there is all the more reason to remain resolved to defend our way of life and not destroy it ourselves by creating police states brimming with religious and cultural hatred and paranoia.
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cptjeff
Captain of the Enterprise-J
psyfi
Aug 4 2005, 08:00 AM
Okay, well this is not exactly a political response. However, when Nostradamus predicted a coming war between Christianity and Islam, he said that the Vatican would indeed be attacked, causing the Pope to flee.

"three leages from the gates of Rome,
A pope named Paul is doomed to die.
The great wall that divides the city
at that time is cast aside"

so, to keep the vatican safe, all we have to do is keep the pope from calling himself Paul. ;)


but seriously, I don't think it will happen soon, but I think that the way we're going, something's going to happen.
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psyfi
psyfi
cptjeff
Aug 4 2005, 02:26 PM
psyfi
Aug 4 2005, 08:00 AM
Okay, well this is not exactly a political response. However, when Nostradamus predicted a coming war between Christianity and Islam, he said that the Vatican would indeed be attacked, causing the Pope to flee.

"three leages from the gates of Rome,
A pope named Paul is doomed to die.
The great wall that divides the city
at that time is cast aside"

so, to keep the vatican safe, all we have to do is keep the pope from calling himself Paul. ;)


but seriously, I don't think it will happen soon, but I think that the way we're going, something's going to happen.

It does seem like something bad is going to happen. Since we are talking psychic impressions, the night before 9-11 I couldn't sleep for getting images of bombings and rockets going off. These impressions were sooo vivid and so strong but I felt that it was Israel. I literally got up and prayed for Israel and only then could I fall asleep. A week before the London bombings both myself and a friend felt that something horrible was going to happen in Europe. We talked about that impression every day to one another. I just don't see any let up in this war with terrorism. As to Nostradamus' predictions, many believe that it will be the next Pope after Benedict.
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Mainiac
Lieutenant Commander
I wouldn't dismiss the Vatican as a target for an al qaida attack, but I suspect it ranks low on their to-do list. Not only would it inflame and antagonize public opinion in the Catholic world population, but it might engender a response in kind by the West against one of their sacred sites in the Arabian peninsula, and that is an unacceptable risk. So far, their terrorist actions against the west have been focused against the US and its main supporters, but the Vatican and all other symbols of western culture are liable to come under their rhetorical attacks.
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somerled
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Admiral MacDonald RN
Why wouldn't it be ?
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24thcenstfan
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Something Wicked This Fae Comes
I do think the Vatican is a possible target, but probably low on their "to do" list.

Right now the terrorists are mainly targeting places that are related to finance and transportation.

Religious institutions have for the most part been viewed as off limits by most people (groups). That is why the insurgents hid in Mosques when we first invaded Iraq. They thought we would be hesitant to bomb or fire on a Mosque. And we mostly are/were for no other reason than for fear of public sentiment turning against us.

I think they know that the moment they start targeting major facilities that are affiliated with a religion (primarily Christianity or Judaism), that the tone of "the war" could change (i.e. we may be less likely to go out of our way to avoid their Mosques and other Holy sites).

Strangely, that could be their ultimate goal. To get us to go after "their" own Holy sites. I suspect these terrorists don't hold Muslim Holy sites/Mosques in as high regard as the average Muslim who doesn't hold such warped views of Islam. More along the lines of claiming to hold these places in high regard. So having us bomb Mecca (for example) may be what they want (to try and turn the average Muslim against us). This would off course be disastrous (i.e. WWIII kind of disastrous).

This may be an eventual scenario. Right now, I think the extremists have other subversive things on their mind.
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Hoss
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Don't make me use my bare hands on you.
Extremist groups in the middle-east regularly bomb each other's mosques. If they'll bomb a mosque, they probably don't give a fig about bombing a temple or cathedral
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