Interresting read from the Vatican

This is actually not the first time I had heard the War against Terrorism(IE: Islamo-Facist) as the 4th world war.

Rome - A leading Vatican cardinal said on Tuesday that terrorism was a new world war and fighting it may involve the loss of some civil liberties.

"We have entered the Fourth World War," said Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Vatican's Council for Justice and Peace, saying he believed that the Cold War was World War 3.

"I believe that we are in the midst of another world war," he said in comments published in Italian newspapers on Tuesday.

"And it involves absolutely everyone because we don't know what will happen when we leave a hotel, when we get on a bus, when we go into a coffee bar. War itself is sitting down right next to each and every one of us," he said.

"Every state has to put in place the best possible policing method and this, naturally, might affect some personal freedoms. States have to carry out a defensive policy," he said

Martino, who served for many years as Pope John Paul's ambassador to the United Nations, was opposed to the war in Iraq and last year criticised the United States treatment of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein after his capture.

Martino said at the time that US forces had treated Saddam "like a cow".

Click on this link to see the source of the story. IOL: Europe