"The pope?" Josef Stalin dismissively asked. "How many divisions has he got?" One of Stalin's successors apparently was more impressed with the power of the Church. Documents out of the late East Germany implicate the late Soviet Union in the 1981 assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II.
Bulgaria, East Germany? Back in 1981 it all boiled down to KGB, and it is not really news. It should remind those who shed a tear for the socialist standard bearer USSR just what sort of people socialists ultimately are. Cuba, PRC, North Korea . . . Ptui!
Hooray for the Pope and hooray for Ronald Reagan!
Webster: Sure, for sane people, it's not really news. I read a mainstream news story ("MyWay", I think) a month back or so that called that the assassination a "RIGHT-WING" plot!
While short is correct to laugh at such a ridiculous notion (see "right wing plot"), there is the so-called "Catholic Taliban" and shell-shocked, post-Vatican II crowd that has no love for the current pontiff. Of course, I can't see them plotting an assination, but these people capture the media's attention very often (Mel Gibson, for instance). I guess it the "my enemy's enemy" syndrome, and I suspect that's where these idiotic ideas come from.
BTW, I just read on Drudge the Pope has been given last rites.
Homer,
The actual source of the mistaken notion that the Turkish would-be assassin of JPII was part of a right-wing plot was the assassin's ties to Turkish nationalist groups as well as the note apparently found in his pocket when captured that said his act was in protest of Soviet and American imperialist acts (Afghanistan for the commies and Latin America for the U.S.).
The media fell for the note explanation and for some reason has always had trouble understanding that various communist movements are in fact nationalist (I suppose they all read Marx and assumed that commies were totally cosmopolitan).
The media elites have always been decades behind sane people in recognizing the sinister and evil acts done by the Soviet Union. Whatever the so-called "Catholic Taliban" might be I can't see how it would relate to this mischracterization of the assassination attempt.
As for the Pope, his dignified and public process of dying has been a heart-wrenching counterpoint to the judicial and social murder of Terri Shiavo. This has been some kind of Easter week so far.
Uh...yeah. Well...I knew that...I just wanted to see if...you guys...did.
lol Homer. I didn't mean to seem so pedantic. I had read that same article that Short mentions and so looked up info on the assassination attempt. That is how I found out the Turkish gunman had those connections (to "something Wolf"? terrorist organization)and that note in his pocket.
Anyway, it is time for prayers today for the pope as he nears his death and particular judgment.
The KGB ordered the hit on the Pope? This has been known since like, what, twenty minutes after he shot the guy?
I had a really wierd dream last night that the college of cardinals consisted of James Brolin, Bill Maher, Martin Sheen, Bono,Tim Robbins,Jeneane Garrafolo, Andrea Dworkin,Cujo,Gene Shallit,Ted Turner,Tipper Gore, Rob Delarocha,Rob Halford,James Carville, Terry McCauliffe,Kiwesi Mfume and Tony Larussa because he is the manager of the St Louis Cardinals. When they finally ecected a Pope, they decided to elect Madonna.
Sound more like a nightmare to me.
