Chinese Ammo Found in al-Qaida Caves

by Christopher A. Ferrara

       The evidence that Russia’s bosom buddy, Red China, is arming and bankrolling Islamic terrorists continues to mount. On December 17, 2001 WorldNet Daily reported that "Pentagon officials aboard the plane taking Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to Brussels revealed large quantities of Chinese-manufactured ammunition were discovered in the Tora Bora cave hideouts of Osama bin Laden."

       WorldNet Daily notes that "the arms cache included mortar shells, anti-tank rockets and ammunition for various types of automatic rifles and machine guns of Chinese manufacture, abandoned by fleeing al-Qaida men." Further, China is now seeking the return of some "ethnic Uighurs from northwestern Xinjiang province who were captured while fighting with Taliban."

       The WorldNetDaily story follows its earlier report on a new book by Gordon Thomas, which documents his claim that "Beijing is positioning itself to become America's ‘new major enemy.’" And, citing the DEBKA online intelligence journal, WorldNet also reports that Chinese troops, fighting with the Taliban, have been killed in Afghanistan. As WorldNet point out, "the Washington Post earlier confirmed a pact signed between Beijing and the Taliban announced, ironically, Sept. 11 of this year. Sky Television also later reported the presence of Chinese fighters alongside the Taliban and al-Qaida in the battles of Konduz and Khanabad in northern Afghanistan."

       What better time for the Vatican to apologize to Red China! Could the timing be more inept?

       The Vatican’s pandering to Jiang and his fellow cutthroats reminds me of the wise advice of a great Catholic layman, the late Dietrich von Hildebrand, whom Pius Pius XII described as a "20^th Century doctor of the Church." In his book Satan at Work, von Hildebrand rightly criticized the Vatican’s Ostpolitik as practiced with Soviet Russia, which Cardinal Sodano doggedly pursues today with his groveling apology to Red China: "Whether one licks the feet of Soviet Russia or kicks her in the back has not the slightest influence on her definite plans. She will deal with any partner not according to his friendly or unfriendly behavior but according to the long range plans dictated by her ideology." And the same is certainly true with the communist ideology of the Jiang regime, which works hand in glove with "converted" and "former communist" Russia, under a military and friendship pact the two nations signed only months ago.

       Let us be charitable and say that Sodano’s diplomatic policies are terminally naïve. Unfortunately for the Catholics suffering in China and the still-suffering people of Russia, Sodano insists upon imposing his naïveté as the policy of the Church - and it seems that no one, not even Our Lady of Fatima, can persuade him otherwise. So, the Vatican apparatus serves up a humble apology to the diabolical Jiang at the very moment he is trying to destroy the Church in China and foment terror throughout the world. Behold the fruits of Ostpolitik.