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If you allow yourself to be manipulated, are you still being manipulated?

This is along the same lines of "prostitutes can't be raped".

Former Jesuit Comments Criticized

Roman Catholic Church officials are distancing themselves from comments by a retired Jesuit official who suggested that a priest's alleged abuse of native Alaskan boys wouldn't have much effect because their culture was "fairly loose" on sexual matters.

[...] Loyens, who was in charge of Jesuits in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and Alaska from 1976 to 1980, said in the deposition he had no indication or suspicion that Convert might have acted inappropriately.

But when asked whether a white priest fondling an Alaska Native boy would have an impact, positive or negative, Loyens said the Athabascan Indian and Yupik Eskimo cultures were "fairly loose" on sexual matters.

He said he knew mothers in villages who played with their baby boys' testicles "and the little boy was enjoying this immensely."

Asked how that applied to a priest accused of molesting boys ages 6 to 12, Loyens replied that, 30 or 40 years ago, "that would be less impressive than it would be for, say, somebody in Fairbanks or Spokane."

Plaintiffs' attorney John Manly then asked: "So basically, it wouldn't have, in your view, much of an impact?"

"That's what I'm inclined to say in terms of the anthropological background," Loyens replied.

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"I am not suggesting that Blair and Bush spoke in bad faith, but I am suggesting that it would not have taken much critical thinking on their own part or the part of their close advisers to prevent statements that misled the public," he writes.

"It is understood and accepted that governments must simplify complex international matters in explaining them to the public in democratic states.

"However they are not vendors of merchandise but leaders of whom some sincerity should be asked when they exercise their responsibility for war and peace in the world."

Blix: Bush, Blair Knew They Were Hyping Case for War

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The circumstances of Aristide's departure remain under dispute. Aristide says a huge number of US and Haitian "agents" came to his house and forced him on to a plane that eventually landed in the Central African Republic. The US says Aristide was resigned to exile once it was understood that he could no longer hold on to power, his life was in danger and bloodshed was inevitable. What cannot be seriously contested is that Aristide did not go voluntarily in any meaningful sense, and that the Bush administration was the primary instrument in his removal. It is debatable, yet doubtful, whether the Haitian rebels could have achieved his removal on their own. Whoever the US came into protect, it was not the Haitian people.

The ouster of democracy

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There is no me without thee.