Where is the Line?

Where is the Line?
Vol: 25 Issue: 31 Friday, October 31, 2003

An Army Lt. Col. was given an opportunity to resign from the Army — one day before his retirement — or face court martial and a possible twelve years in prison. If he quit, Lt. Col. Allen West, 42, would lose more than $1 million in pay and health benefits over his life expectancy. His wife is a cancer survivor, his lawyer says, meaning medical insurance will be extremely costly.

His attorney said Col. West may consider accepting “nonjudicial punishment” at an Article 15 hearing before the division’s commander, Maj. Gen. Raymond Odierno. This procedure would allow the officer to retire with benefits.

What did Col. West do to deserve losing a future he spent twenty years securing? He threatened an Iraqi detainee in order to get information that prevented a guerrilla attack against US forces.

Col West explained his side of the story in an email to the Washington Times. According to the Times, West was working as a liaison with the town council of Saba al Boor. His unit learned through an informant of impending attacks.

The next day, some of his soldiers were attacked on a road leading to the town. The informant said an Iraqi police officer was involved. Col. West had the policeman detained.

When two interrogators failed to gain any information, Col. West went to the detention center, brought the detainee outside and fired his 9 mm pistol twice to scare him into talking.

Col. West said the detainee then provided the names of two accomplices and told of another planned sniper attack the next day.

“I have never denied what happened and have always been brutally honest,” said Col. West. “I accept responsibility for the episode, but my intent was to scare this individual and keep my soldiers out of a potential ambush. There were no further attacks from that town. We further apprehended two other conspirators (a third fled town) and found out one of the conspirators was the father of a man we had detained for his Saddam Fedeyeen affiliation.

“[The Iraqi policeman] and his accomplices were a threat to our soldiers and the method was not right, but why should I lose 20 years of service or be forced into prison for protecting my men?”

Assessment:

In essence, Col West is being charged with torture. He didn’t actually shoot the Iraqi, but, since the suspect gave up his accomplices, it is safe to assume Col West convinced the Iraqi that he would.

This week, the Pentagon released a videotape of what it was like to be ‘interrogated’ back when Saddam was still in power. Even after it was sanitized for television, it was impossible to watch — at least for me.

The tape showed Saddam’s henchmen pulling out and snipping off a guy’s tongue. Teams of Iraqis hurled screaming, flailing victims from the roof of a three story building. A blindfolded Iraqi laid his hand on a cement block as instructed.

He didn’t see the 12 lb sledgehammer that crushed it, but he felt it. Another Iraqi had his hand hacked off; others lost fingers. Two others were wrapped in demolition cord and blown to pieces.

That was just the ‘sanitized’ version shown in clips on news broadcasts.

Col. West was trying to obtain information that from the kind of man to whom the events shown on the tape were routine.

The Iraqi KNEW what his associates were capable of doing to him if he turned them in. The only way he would tell Col. West was if the Iraqi was more scared of West than he was of the guys who made that tape.

Lt. Col. West evidently scared the suspect sufficiently. Nobody died in the incident. The ambush was averted and a planned sniper attack never took place.

Said Elaine Donnelly, head of the Center for Military Readiness: “Excuse me while I go to look up Marquis of Queensberry. No wonder we haven’t gotten any information on Hussein’s present location from all of those ‘deck of cards’ people we have captured. Has the Army lost its institutional mind? Or maybe they have forgotten that a state of war exists in Iraq.”

Col. West violated the letter of the law but he saved the lives of his men. But the case brings up a number of questions. If the US could have prevented the September 11 attacks by using Col. West’s tactics, should it?

If the government knew that the information it was after could prevent another 9/11, how far should we go to get that information?

The gentle methods of interrogation employed by civilized societies won’t shake loose information from people used to seeing people’s tongues cut out and hands hacked off.

Nobody really knows how far we would be willing to go to prevent another September 11. One would assume that it would be further than Col. West went.

If not, we’re doomed.

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire
Vol: 25 Issue: 30 Thursday, October 30, 2003

Campaigning this week in Wisconsin and New Hampshire, General Wesley Clark unleashed a broadside against the Bush administration. President Bush not only exaggerated the Iraq threat, Clark said, but also deceived people about it, pulling a “bait and switch” by using Sept. 11 as a “pretext” for going after Saddam Hussein.

In a speech Tuesday, Clark said Bush’s description of Iraq, Iran and North Korea as the “axis of evil” was “probably the single worst formulation in the last half-century in American foreign policy.”

And he assailed Bush not only over Iraq, but also over Sept. 11 – accusing him of trying to duck responsibility for the attacks – and Afghanistan, saying the United States should have gone through the United Nations and NATO as it struck back at Osama bin Laden.

Blah, blah, blah. The same guy gave a speech last year where he cheered “the great work done by our commander-in-chief, our president, George Bush” — but he wasn’t running for president then.

Hillary Clinton has also stepped up her attacks against the administration, slamming Bush in a speech for what she called ‘excessive secrecy’ (As if it were all still business as usual and we weren’t at war with an invisible enemy we don’t want to share our secrets with).

She hinted that the administration is trying to hide the ‘truth’ about Iraq and 9/11 intelligence failures. She even suggested the administration was trying to hide casualty figures in the Iraq war. (Gee, that’s likely, with embedded reporters present at every battle)

Blah, blah, blah. It took two years and multiple Congressional subpoenas to pry loose the Rose Law firm records from the former First Lady’s hands. For Hillary Clinton to be throwing around accusations of secrecy and deception and get away with it shows how easily history can be revised on the fly.

I used to wonder how the antichrist could get elected, or appointed, or chosen, or however he comes to power. But then Hillary Clinton was elected to the New York Senate and is poised for a run at the White House, and now I see how it could happen.

Assessment:

A ‘lie’ is a misrepresentation of reality with the intent to deceive. The entire ‘Bush lied’ scenario hinges on sixteen words uttered in his State of the Union speech in which Bush said that ‘British intelligence believes that Saddam attempted to obtain uranium from Africa.’ Although the report was discredited after the fact by US intelligence, British intelligence believes to this day that its intelligence was accurate. The report was real. It was represented as it existed. If Bush believed the report, whether accurate or not, then where is the intent to deceive?

Falsely asserting that the Bush administration lied is a misrepresentation with the intent to deceive. Do General Clark or Senator Clinton know something the rest of the world does not?

It would seem sensible for them to produce their evidence, then, since that would pretty much assure their nomination and clinch the White House next year. Half the country is ‘sure’ Bush is lying about something, and they are watching, parsing every word, sifting every nuance, looking for the lie they know is in there somewhere.

You’d think that by now, with all the attention, all the focused anti-Bush animosity, the legions of reporters, pundits, observers and disgruntled ‘formers’, by now, SOMEBODY would have produced some evidence.

Do YOU know what the evidence is? Or is somebody misrepresenting the facts with the intent to deceive by saying they DO and that they know that Bush lied?

And what about the WMD? Did Bush lie about that, as Senator Kennedy said during one of his regular periods of dementia last week?

The whole world knew the WMD was there. They didn’t think so, they KNEW! Saddam USED weapons of mass destruction against Iran, against the Kurds and against his own people. That is a matter of historical record. Claiming otherwise is misrepresenting the facts with the intent to deceive.

Now, the U.S. intelligence community has released an assessment that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were transferred to neighboring Syria in the weeks prior to the U.S.-led war against the Saddam Hussein regime.

U.S. officials said the assessment was based on satellite images of convoys of Iraqi trucks that poured into Syria in February and March 2003.

Officials said the briefing yesterday to U.S. defense reporters was based on the assessments of NIMA and the rest of the intelligence community. They have concluded that at least some of the Iraqi WMD, along with Iraqi scientists and technicians, was transferred to Syria.

The U.S. intelligence assessment was discussed publicly for the first time by the director of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency in a briefing in Washington on Tuesday. James Clapper, a retired air force general and a leading member of the U.S. intelligence community, said he linked the disappearance of Iraqi WMD with the huge number of Iraqi trucks that entered Syria before and during the U.S. military campaign to topple the Saddam regime.

Clapper said Iraqi officials, from below the level of Saddam’s sons Uday and Qusay, feared U.S. discovery of Iraqi biological and chemical weapons and ordered subordinates to conceal and destroy evidence of WMD in early 2003.

He said he was certain that components connected to Iraq’s biological, chemical and nuclear programs were sent to Syria in the weeks prior to and during the war.

The leading agencies in the intelligence community are the CIA, the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, NIMA and the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research. These agencies are responsible for the annual National Intelligence Estimate.

“Based on the evidence we had at the time, I thought the conclusions we reached about the presence of at least a latent WMD program was accurate and balanced,” Clapper said.

It’s not about Republican vs. Democrat or which side one favors. It’s about the application of the Big Lie and how easily it can be swallowed by the masses. The intelligence agencies of the United States are not made up of political partisans. So who lied? Bush? Or those who want you to believe he did so they can seize power?

It is as plain as the nose on Arafat’s face, but at least half the country and most of the world can’t see it.

Behold, the power of propaganda!

“And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie . . .” (2nd Thessalonians 2:11)

Bush Hosts Ramadan Dinner

Bush Hosts Ramadan Dinner
Vol: 25 Issue: 29 Wednesday, October 29, 2003

President Bush welcomed American Islamic leaders to the White House for a dinner marking the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. During the month of Ramadan, observent Muslims don’t eat, drink or smoke until after sundown. The evening meal marking the end of the day’s fast is called the Iftaar meal. Bush hosted Tuesday’s Iftaar meal.

In his welcoming remarks, the president praised American Muslims for making America a better and more compassionate country. He also also lauded the contribution American Muslims have made to the United States – economically, culturally and politically.

Bush didn’t explain how, exactly, just that they do. American Muslims make up a tiny fraction of the population, roughly two percent or a bit less. Maybe that’s why Islam’s economic, cultural and political contributions to America are a bit hard to pinpoint, but they must be there somewhere. The president said so.

Then the president took off his president’s hat and put on his Theologian-in-Chief hat, pronouncing Islam a ‘great religion hijacked by terrorists’ and reminded us (again) that the US war on terror is not against Islam.

He also distanced himself from Lt. General Boykin, who said from a church pulpit last week that it was. At a mid-day press conference Tuesday, Bush said that the controversial Boykin “doesn’t reflect my point of view or the view of this administration. Our war is not against the Muslim faith.”

“Americans think terrorists are evil people who have hijacked a great religion,” Bush said, responding to a reporter’s question.

Assessment:

I suppose there is a strategy to hosting a Ramadan dinner at the White House for American Islam. Since there are about as many Muslims in America as there are people who believe they’ve been abducted by aliens, next month’s dinner guests should all be wearing tinfoil hats to protect them from alien mind-control rays. But we aren’t at war with space aliens.

The strategy appears to be convincing America (and the Islamic world) that we are not at war with Islam, but with terrorists who hijacked a ‘peaceful’ religion. The whole ‘peaceful religion’ thing is a hard sell, given Islam’s record.

Instead, we are only at war with the Islamic ‘fundamentalists’ — which makes the doublespeak that much more confusing.

IF Islam is really a peaceful religion, then how is it that those who practice its fundamentals are the ‘hijackers’? I mean, if those who practice the FUNDAMENTALS of Islam are responsible for terror, how can Islam be fundamentally a peaceful religion?

To tell you the truth, I can see the president’s dilemma. It is not in America’s interests to declare war on Islam. About one sixth of the world is Islamic, and we don’t want to have to fight them all.

And, despite his pronouncements, Bush isn’t really an Islamic theologian. He doesn’t really know the difference. Although I believe he is a born-again Christian, I wouldn’t give you a nickel for Bush’s theological understanding of Christianity, let alone Islam.

But he wasn’t elected to be the nation’s top theologian, he was elected to run the country. And, given the situation, it makes political sense not to antagonize the ‘peaceful’ Muslim world any more that we already are.

It’s a Catch-22 — Bush can’t do much else, really.

So, as Christianity continues to be trashed in the public and hammered by the courts, Islam gets invited to dinner at the White House. The only ones angered are the Christian fundamentalists and the Muslim fundamentalists.

In this generation, to be a fundamentalist is to be a wild-eyed fanatic. It doesn’t matter if you are an Islamic fundmentalist, a Jewish fundamentalist, or a Christian fundamentalist — the ‘wild-eyed fanatic’ label is automatic.

According to the Bible, the antichrist’s power rests on three separate pillars; control of the global economy, the global government and the global religion. The first two are already defined, centralized, and awaiting his arrival to take the helm. The third, the global religion, is a little less well-defined, but beginning to take shape. It appears to draw its defintion more from what it is not.

The acceptable global religion is kinder, gentler and more inclusive. That leaves out fundamentalist Jews, Christians and Muslims. It is not hard to envision the day when all fundamentalist religious groups are outlawed.

John envisioned it, two thousand years ago, from the Island of Patmos.

“And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.” (Revelation 13:11-12)

Syria Looks To Europe

Syria Looks To Europe
Vol: 25 Issue: 28 Tuesday, October 28, 2003

The US House of Representatives recently voted 398 to four on a bill to impose economic and diplomatic sanctions against Syria for harboring terrorist organizations.

The proposed legislation is expected to be approved by the Senate and President Bush. The legislation would give the White House a range of options for penalizing Syria, from restricting US exports and business investment to downgrading Washington s diplomatic representation.

It would also ban the exportation of dual-use technology, and allow Washington to freeze Syrian assets in the United States and restrict overflight rights for Syrian planes inside US air space.

The bill likewise provides for imposing travel restrictions on Syrian diplomats in the United States.

Industry sources say several US commercial giants have offices in Syria, such as IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Compaq in the IT sector as well as General Electric for medical products.

In the oil sector, Exxon-Mobil has joint ventures with Syrian businessmen for the production and sale of lubricants.

At the Islamic summit in Malaysia, Syria s President Bashar Assad condemned members of the Bush Administration as fanatics and warmongers.

The 18-member Bureau for the Boycott of Israel, an Arab League body based in Damascus, has expressed solidarity with Syria against the threat of US sanctions.

All the countries taking part in this meeting stand in solidarity with Syria against the US bill, called the Syria Accountability and Lebanon Sovereignty Act , Ahmad Khazaa, the bureau s chief, said in a statement .

Assessment:

The fact that Syria is a proved terrorist state doesn’t seem to faze the European Community, however. Foreign fighters are not the only ones providing aid and comfort to the enemies of Iraqi reconstruction.

And as more Syrian links to attacks in Iraq are exposed, the European Union is expanding its economic links to Syria. Bashar Assad hosted King Juan Carlos of Spain recently, to discuss opening up EU-Syrian trade.

For the past six years, Syria has been negotiating a partnership accord with Brussels due to be signed at the end of 2003, after President Assad ordered discussions to be accelerated.

The accord would attract much-needed investment to modernize Syria s infrastructure and stimulate its economy, which remains under state control, as well as lead to the creation of a free trade area by 2010.

Assad, for his part, called on Spanish businessmen accompanying the royal couple to invest in Syria. We hope that our Spanish friends will find Syria an appropriate place for economic activities and investment .

There were big opportunities for Spanish-Syrian cooperation in tourism, textiles, transport, information technology and banking, the president added, stressing that his country was open to cooperation and would work to overcome difficulties .

That the Syrians sponsor terror is beyond question. The Europeans know it. There are ten terrorist organizations who openly maintain offices in Damascus. Syria openly supports Hezbollah with money, materiel, training and permits it to maintain terrorist bases in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley.

That Syria remains dedicated to Israel’s destruction is also an indisputable fact of which the Europeans are no less aware than we are.

In the most recent attacks in Baghdad, one of the attackers was carrying a Syrian passport, and a number of Palestinian fighters have entered the country from refugee camps in Syria and Lebanon, according to US intelligence.

The Syrian government has supported attacks against Israel and against US forces in Iraq and the Europeans know all this.

It is equally clear that this European coddling of Syria is a direct response to the American sanctions. One Syrian analyst, quoted yesterday by the Financial Times, removed any doubts. “Syria is rushing to deflect U.S. pressure,” he said. “A closer relationship with Europe will help our government feel more secure.”

“History has shown us that they were not effective and created more problems than they solved,” said French President Jacques Chirac about sanctions. The French are behind the EU’s policy to increase trade with Damascus.

The French and Germans together with much of the EU, played the same game with Saddam Hussein, stepping in to fill the economic void created by UN sanctions. And US-imposed sanctions are much easier to circumvent, since they don’t carry the UN’s imprimatur.

It is fairly clear that Assad is destined to share Saddam’s fate — either at Israeli hands or the Pentagon’s. That will further atagonize and alienate Europe and drive a deeper wedge between the US and its European allies.

The Bible says that in the last days, its’ all about Europe.

The revived Roman Empire, according to Daniel, will host the rabidly anti-Semitic government of the antichrist. There is no mention of the US in Scripture for the last days, but there is plenty of mention of Europe.

US-European relations are at an all-time low.

America and Israel stand alone against the world.

“And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.” (Luke 21:28)

Ramadan: Day One

Ramadan: Day One
Vol: 25 Issue: 27 Monday, October 27, 2003

At least forty people have died in terrorist attacks as five car bombs ripped through Baghdad. The targets varied from Iraqi police stations, symbolic of the reconstruction effort, to the Red Cross. The attacks coincided with the first day of the month of Ramadan.

The attacks against the al Rashid hotel revealed a new professionalism not seen previously. Intead of a sucide attacker driving a car bomb, this attack used a forty-round Katyusha rocket launcher described as a portable electrical generator.

This ‘new professionalism’ suggests the administration’s strategy of drawing al-Qaeda into Iraq is working. Iraqi loyalists to Saddam Hussein are, for the most part, soldiers by profession and training. These attacks reveal a depth of planning and improvisation unique to terrorists.

And most of the targets were Iraqi. Most of the dead were Iraqis. Four of the targets were Iraqi police stations. Of the twenty-seven dead in those attacks, only one was an American.

An ambulance with Red Cross markings pulled up to the Baghdad headquarters of the International Red Cross and exploded. The death toll was ten — all Iraqis. There were fifteen wounded — all Iraqi.

Most of the terrorists killed or captured are foreign fighters. That doesn’t sound like Iraqi ‘dead-enders’ — it sounds like al-Qaeda terrorists.

The administration said at the beginning of the war against terrorism that the goal was to fight terrorism outside our borders.

The war against Saddam drew al-Qaeda like a magnet. Shattered nations are perfect cover for them — like rats to a dump.

It doesn’t mean, necessarily, that it makes al-Qaeda any easier to defeat. It only means that instead of FBI agents in suits fighting them in US neighborhoods, US soldiers in Kevlar are fighting them in Baghdad neighborhoods.

Assessment:

But the fires in California suggest not all of al-Qaeda went to Iraq. Some of them are still here.

Joe Farah’s G-2 Report reveals a June 25 FBI memo saying a senior al-Qaeda detainee gave details of a plot to start midsummer forest fires in the US. The memo, obtained by the Arizona Republic newspaper, said an unidentified detainee revealed he hoped to create several large, catastrophic wildfires at once.

“The detainee believed that significant damage to the U.S. economy would result and once it was realized that the fires were terrorist acts, U.S. citizens would put pressure on the U.S. government to change its policies,” the memo said.

The detainee told investigators his plan called for three or four operatives to travel to the U.S. and set timed explosive devices in forests and grasslands.

“Australian security authorities are aware of reports that al-Qaeda has considered starting bushfires in the U.S. as a form of terrorist attack,” said a spokeswoman Australian Attorney General Daryl Williams.

“Arson attacks are just one of a wide range of scenarios which have been considered as part of our investigations into al-Qaeda’s ability to conduct attacks in Australia.”

Note:

Hal Lindsey lives right in the middle of the fire zone. When we last spoke about 8 last night, the fires were less than ten miles from his house. This morning, I had an instant message from him, saying, “Holy Cow! It’s not just really smokey, it’s getting HOT!” Please pray for Hal and his family and all those affected by this catastrophe.

“Bodyguard of Lies” has been converted to an e-book and is now available for download from the main page of the Omega Letter website. It is available online for a donation of any size to the Omega Letter.

Alternatively, Omega Letter members who would rather not donate may email me and I’ll send you a link for free.

I will be online on our live webchat this afternoon at 6 pm EST. The live webchat is restricted to Omega Letter members only, so you’ll be among friends. You are invited to join me. Let’s chat.

Special Report: A Moment in Time

Special Report: A Moment in Time
Vol: 25 Issue: 26 Sunday, October 26, 2003

The ‘Quartet’ — never in tune anyway — aren’t even reading from the same music sheet when it comes to performing the composition that they allegedly wrote together. It looks like ‘The Road Map to Peace’ will be their final performance as a group.

It was doomed to failure from the beginning. European and Russian cultural antisemitism didn’t leave with the fleeing Jews, as those few Jews who remain in Russia or Europe can attest.

When Maylasian Prime Minister Mathahir Mohammed concluded his speech to the Organization of the Islamic Conference Summit last week, he said, “Today the Jews rule this world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them.”

He added that 1.3 billion Muslims could not be defeated by a few million Jews.

When the European Union moved to officially condemn Mathahir’s remarks, it was blocked by Jacques Chirac. Only after global criticism did Chirac send a letter to Mathahir ‘condemning’ his comments saying, “Although you and your government have taken care to rebut any accusation of anti-Semitism, these remarks can only be condemned by those who remember the Holocaust.”

In other words, “you offended everybody else, but maybe you offended me, and maybe you didn’t. Depends on how good my memory is.”

Russian antisemitism is equally alive and well, although not nearly as organized. The United Nations antisemitic views are legendary, having once officially equated Zionism with racism.

After the Second World War and the sudden, forced conversion of millions of ardent antisemites by the victorious Americans, it became unfashionable to hate Jews. Those who only a decade before happily denounced their neighbors and had them sent to concentration camps were now in power in the new post-war Europe.

With the rebirth of Israel, antisemitism had a new outlet, with the problem of ‘Zionist expansionism’ replacing the ‘Jewish Question’ and the ‘Final Solution’ repackaged as the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Instead of the Europeans and Russians wiping the Jews out themselves, they backed the Arab efforts to do it for them.

The United Nations has passed more resolutions condemning Israel than it has all other Arab states combined — including Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Antisemitic rhetoric is standard UN-speak.

The UN Conference on Racism at Durban, South Africa, shocked Americans with its open expressions of antisemitic hatred. What was even more shocking was that the majority of the global population saw nothing wrong with it.

These three entitities, together with the United States, form the Quartet that sought to bring a ‘just and equitable’ solution to the conflict. So it comes as no surprise that the road map led straight to a brick wall.

The United States has decided to quietly drop its opposition to Israel’s security fence, a week after the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly approved a non-binding, EU-backed resolution calling on Israel to halt construction.

Only four countries voted against it. It is always the same four; the US, Israel, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands.

Washington stood alone against the rest of the Quartet over Israel’s security fence, which effectively rends the Quartet and leaves the US and Israel on one side, and the rest of the Quartet looking in from the other side of the fence with the Palestininans.

Assessment:

As we approach the end of the age, so many events are coming together at the same time that it is easy to grow numb to what we are witnessing.

For two thousand years, there was no such place as Israel. Europe spent that period in constant warfare with itself. There was no ‘world community’ and no Middle Eastern conflict. Until the 20th century, there was no ‘Arab world’, just the Turkish Ottoman Empire.

Suddenly, in a moment in time, a Jewish state was reborn on the ‘mountains of Israel, which have been always waste . . .brought forth out of the nations’ (Ezekiel 38:8)

At that same moment in time, (1948) the Soviets detonated an atom bomb and imposed the Berlin Blockade, beginning the Cold War and forcing a series of complex political events that led directly to the current alignment of nations. Among them was the European Union, born out of the 1948 Benelux Treaty as a buffer against the tide of communism eroding its borders.

In 1948, the United Nations issued its Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a kind of ‘Magna Carta’ that outlined the framework for a global government.

The global economy was officially born with the 1948 passage of the General Agreements on Tarrifs and Trade (GATT) which eventually became the World Trade Organization.

In 1947, the prophecies of the Book of Daniel made little sense. How could the antichrist confirm a ‘covenant’ with Israel and her enemies, when there was no Israel? How could he come out of a revived Roman Empire when it lay in the ashes of a destruction of its own making? How could the antichrist control all buying or selling?

Think about this for a second. In 1947, Europe was in ashes, the Cold War was just beginning, and Israel did not exist. But Daniel spoke of a revived Roman Empire and a literal state of Israel.

Ezekiel described Israel as a ‘land of unwalled villages.’ (Ezekiel 38:8) In today’s world, that pretty much describes the whole world, which should render it meaningless in any prophetic sense.

Except that right now, in 2003, Israel is literally walling up its villages, setting the stage for them to come back down again, just as literally, when the Roman leader confirms the covenant between Israel and her enemies.

John spoke of a global government and total control of a global economy. All this was unimaginable in John’s day, or in Daniel’s day. Or in my dad’s day.

Are you getting a sense of the enormity of it all?

In a moment in time, Israel was restored out of all the nations; the old Roman Empire began taking steps to revive itself and the European concepts of a global government and global economy were introduced via the United Nations. The religious war between Islam and Judeo-Christianity began with the first shots fired in Israeli War of Independence.

In 1947, Daniel and John and Ezekiel were largely mysterious books describing nations and events nobody could imagine. By the end of 1948, they were describing headline news. And have been, ever since.

“And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed TILL THE TIME OF THE END.” (Daniel 12:9)

‘You Broke it, You Bought it’

‘You Broke it, You Bought it’
Vol: 25 Issue: 25 Saturday, October 25, 2003

The donor’s conference in Madrid is being hailed by the Bush administration as a success as the international community pledged $13 billion toward the reconstruction of Iraq.

“Clearly this is good news,” said Michael E. O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institution. “It indicates countries will work through multilateral channels even in the aftermath of a unilateral war.”

(Notice the subtle application of the Big Lie here. The ‘uni’ in ‘unilateral’ means, ‘one’; whereas the ‘multi’ in ‘multilateral’ means, ‘more than one’. The coalition already consisted of forty-nine countries before the first shot was fired.)

The donations were deemed a ‘success’ because the $13 billion was more than expected — not that it was enough. The US estimated the costs at more than $57 billion. The difference comes out of Uncle Sam’s pocket — the ‘You Broke it, You Bought it’ principle.

Japan kicked in a $1.5 billion grant — quite a sum, considering Japan’s battered economy and its extremely low profile in the region. Especially compared to the Saudi pledge of $1 billion. The Saudis share a border with Iraq. And in the past, the Saudis have held telethons to support terrorist groups like Hamas. And the billion dollars from the Saudis isn’t a grant — it’s a loan that Riyahd expect Iraq to pay back.

Even Iran put up $300 million — and Iran and Iraq fought a war in the 1980’s that killed off an entire generation. (Saddam was still holding Iranian POW’s as recently as last year)

Canada, which prides itself on being the ‘nice’ country in North America, pledged $200 million — to be spread out over two years, and only if the money is administered by the UN.

Russia offered to invest $4 billion in Iraq, but offered no direct aid.

The French and the Germans didn’t pledge a thin dime. Instead, they reminded the conference that Iraq owes them hundreds of billions of dollars already, and that they expected to be repaid.

“As far as Germany and France are concerned, really, this was a regrettable position,” said Ayad Allawi, current head of the Iraqi Governing Council. “I don’t think Iraqis are going to forget easily that, in our hour of need, those countries wanted to neglect Iraq.”

Neither will we.

New Website Changes:

First, we have added the first in a series of new. members-only features. Real-time, on-site, live chat. We have the capability for group chat, or the ability for members to break off into individual chat rooms.

You won’t need a client, Mike has set it up so you can use it right from your browser. Mike’s posted a notice in the member’s forums with more information on how it works and how to access it. Logged in members at the website will see a link to the chat room on the top left menu bar on the main page.

Wylie is also looking at ways to enhance member services. Here is one that I think is very exciting, and I wanted to run it by you.

We can offer an Omega Letter prescription drug plan to members, if there is enough interest. The plan is good at thousands of pharmacies, including Walmart, and members can save between 15% and 85%, depending on the prescription. On average, plan members should be able to cut their prescription costs in half.

There are other benefits, including discounts on prescription eyeware. There are no health question, no exclusions, and even pre-existing prescriptions are covered. The cost to members would be $9.95 per month. There is no contract. If you aren’t satisfied, you can cancel at any time.

Are you interested? Have more questions? If so, send Wylie an email at wylie@omegaletter.com. If there is enough interest, we’ll move forward. I think it’s a good plan.

Mike is just about finished with the conversion process for the e-book version of ‘Bodyguard of Lies’.

A lot of work went into it, and we were counting on it to retire our mounting debt when it finally hit the bookstores. That didn’t work out. So we are offering it for download to the public for a donation of any size.

When Mike is finished, we’ll post a link to it on the front page of the Omega Letter website. It should be sometime today.

Any member who wants a copy but doesn’t want to or can’t afford to donate, don’t worry about it. Email me and I’ll send you a copy.

I look forward to meeting with you in the chat rooms.

The Perfect Storm

The Perfect Storm
Vol: 25 Issue: 24 Friday, October 24, 2003

Forecasters at NOAA are warning of a perfect storm in outer space that could have serious consequences for Planet Earth, beginning sometime today. NOAA’s ‘Sunspot 484’ developed rapidly over the past three days and is now one of the largest sunspot clusters to emerge during Solar Cycle 23.

It is about 10 times larger than the Earth. This region, which is nearing the center of the sun, already produced a major flare, R-3 on the NOAA Space Weather Scales, producing a radio blackout on October 19.

Larry Combs, a forecaster with the NOAA Space Environment Center s Space Weather Operations, said that this region has developed rapidly over the last three to four days. It s somewhat unusual to have this much activity when we re approximately three-and-a-half years past solar maximum, he said. In fact, just last week, solar activity was very low with an almost spotless sun.

Solar cycles of high and low activity repeat about every eleven years, and the sun has been moving towards solar minimum for the past three years.

A second intense active region is rotating on the southeast quadrant of the sun.

Although the sunspot group is not yet visible, two powerful eruptions occurred on October 21 as seen from the LASCO instrument on the SOHO spacecraft. These eruptions may herald the arrival of another volatile active center with the potential to impact various Earth systems.

During extreme solar storms, weather and military satellites can be damaged, power systems at high latitudes become vulnerable to blackouts, and the aurora borealis, or northern lights, may shimmer across night skies at lower latitudes.

Assessment:

Forecasters invariably warning of dire consequences to earth’s communications satellites, cellular phone traffic and internet communications.

Back in 1859, a solar storm caused telegraph wires in the US and Europe to short out, sparking numerous fires.

In 1989, a solar storm tripped protective switches in Canadian Hydro-Qu bec power company. All of Qu bec lost power for nine hours. The problem nearly spread to the United States through an interconnected grid. Power companies have since developed programs to safeguard their systems, but experts say they remain at risk.

A 1994 solar storm caused major malfunctions to two communications satellites, disrupting newspaper, network television and nationwide radio service throughout Canada.

In 1997, an AT&T Telstar 401 satellite used to broadcast television shows from networks to local affiliates was knocked out during a solar storm.

In May 1998 a space storm disabled PanAmSat s Galaxy 4, used for automated teller machines and airline tracking services, among other things.

Another storm in July 2000 put several satellites temporarily out of contact and caused navigation problems in others.

Forecasters said a second sunspot, developing and about to rotate into an effective position on the sun s surface, could produce additional stormy weather over the next couple of weeks. In fact, early Thursday it unleashed a major flare of its own, one that could generate some space weather near Earth even though it wasn t pointed directly at us.

“And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. And when these things BEGIN to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.” (Luke 21:25-28)

I Won t Ask; You Shut Up About It

I Won t Ask; You Shut Up About It
Vol: 25 Issue: 23 Thursday, October 23, 2003

I Won t Ask; You Shut Up About It

I am sick to death of the whole gay rights thing. I even issued instructions to focus less attention on gay-related stories. Not because I don’t think they are important or significant or worthy of note. I am just tired of the whole argument. It makes my head hurt.

And it s hard to discuss it without my feeling uncomfortable. The whole discussion is born out of, exists over, and is maintained on the basis of sex. And how comfortable should anybody be discussing sex, especially an unnatural form of sex, in a public arena?

Sex used to be something that everybody did, but nobody talked about. It was an issue of privacy.

The whole ‘gay rights’ thing is about equality. If they want to be equal with heterosexuals, the first thing they should learn is to shut up about sex.

Heterosexuals are not stamped as such on their foreheads; a person is assumed heterosexual by default. This annoys the militant gays. Being ‘equal’ means ‘being the same as,’ and if there were no difference, there would be no default assumption. And since the default assumption is ‘heterosexual,’ then, by any reasonable definition, that would be the ‘normal’ (or default) orientation.

It logically follows that something else would be ‘abnormal’ — if we are to use the ‘normal’ understanding of the English language.

Leaving the sex part aside for the moment and looking instead at the movement, we find that ‘normal’ is a nonsense word. It has no meaning.

In the normal course of events, whole segments of the population DON’T mass together in parades to force other segments of the population to participate vicariously in their sexual proclivities. It just isn’t normal.

It isn t normal to WANT to belong to an organization that doesn t want you as a member. Normal men don t want to be Girl Scout leaders. Normal parents wouldn t send their daughters to Girl Scouts if there were.

But when one enters into the realm of gay rights, normal becomes meaningless. Here is one example of normal turned upside down.

A Florida student filed suit against a private Christian school that expelled him. Jeffrey Woodard, 18, says he was expelled for being homosexual.

According to the Florida Sun-Sentinel, Jeffrey s mother, Carol Gload, We were basically given three choices to get counseling for his ‘problem,’ to voluntarily withdraw him, or he would be expelled,” Gload told the paper. “I didn’t think Jeffrey needed therapy … so when I explained he doesn’t need help for anything, he knows who he is, they … expelled him.”

The school in question is private and takes no federal funds. They therefore have the right to expel a homosexual student. The boy s attorney s acknowledge that fact, but say that doesn t matter.

“We’re asking the court to make the school tell us why they expelled Jeffrey and to show us what their policies are on admitting gays as students at the school,” said Woodard’s attorney, Trent Steele, according to the Sun-Sentinel. “They have the right to discriminate, but what’s troubling to us is the way in which they discriminate.”

It seems that the private, Christian school didn t spell out its policy on admitting homosexuals, and that has gay rights attorneys upset. (Maybe they think this is a Christian school that DOESN’T have a Bible?)

Plus there are all the usual suspects, making all the usual arguments; “This is the fear gays and lesbians have, that ‘I can’t tell them I’m gay because I’m going to be fired,'” Tony Plakas, president of Compass Palm Beach County Gay and Lesbian Community Center in West Palm Beach, is quoted by the paper as saying. “Even though we pass ordinances and laws to try to help curb that discrimination, the fact is people feel that inside, and they feel that because of instances like this.”

Of course, this has NOTHING to do with a homosexual student being asked to leave a private Christian school. It’s just the spin cycle on ‘high’.

This isn’t about somebody getting fired for telling their boss they were gay. And that’s the whole point. In a normal world, why would anyone want to?

I am fifty-one years old. Not once have I feared telling someone I was a heterosexual. Because I don t believe that anybody has ever asked me. If asked, I think I d probably be a bit offended and snap, It s none of your business because it isn t.

It s not normal to discuss something that intimate in a public forum. It s not normal to ask.

The spin here is that normal is not, and abnormal is, and that the rejection of the abnormal in favor of the normal as a matter of personal and private choice is somehow discriminatory.

The normal discourse has been stood on its head. One can t even discuss it without being labeled homophobic and if one chooses NOT to discuss it, well, that s homophobic as well.

The Bible is pretty clear. It says the practice of homosexual sex is a sin. The same Bible also says the practice of heterosexual sex outside of marriage is a sin.

In both cases, it is between the practitioners and their God.

I am neither. I don t need to know. So unless you WANT to hear what the Bible says about it, don’t ask. And unless you WANT to hear me say I don’t think it’s normal, stop telling me it is.

And if you want to be treated equally, try this.

Shut up about it.

The UN’s ‘International Law’

The UN’s ‘International Law’
Vol: 25 Issue: 22 Wednesday, October 22, 2003

The UN General Assembly has passed a resolution demanding that Israel halt the construction of a controversial security barrier separating Israel from Palestinian areas in the West Bank.

One hundred and forty-four countries voted with the UN to demand Israel halt construction of its security fence. Backed by the 15-member European Union, the resolution stated that the fence is “in contradiction to relevant provisions of international law.”

This is particularly interesting. There is an international law against building a fence around your border?

How many countries, do you suppose, have border fences? Lessee, America has fenced portions of its southern border to prevent illegal aliens from sneaking into the country. There are even fenced areas along the US-Canadian border.

So where is the UN resolution condemning the US for its border fences?

Just for the record, there is no international law that forbids countries from building border fences. But there IS an international law that forbids the UN from involving itself in the internal domestic affairs of a member state. It is part of the UN’s own charter.

Israel, although the UN doesn’t like to admit it, is a member state of the UN. On the other hand, there is no state of Palestine. What the Palestinians claim as their state is legally, under international law, Israel.

If not, then California and Texas are not part of America, since we got them the same way. We won them in a war.

The same way Israel got possession of the West Bank from Jordan and Gaza from Egypt. Israel WON possesion of them in a war of aggression STARTED by the other side.

On June 1, 1967, the West Bank was part of Jordan and Gaza and the Gaza Strip were part of Egypt. Egypt and Jordan were among the combatants defeated by Isrel in the Six Days’ War. Had the Arabs won, would the UN now be condemning Yasser Arafat for fencing out the Jews? Unlikely. There wouldn’t BE any Jews.

But the Arabs lost. When the war was over, the West Bank and Gaza were part of Israel. Nothing unusual about that. There is only so much land. Nobody will make anymore. That is how countries are built. Every country on the face of the planet was once somebody else’s land. Every UN member state used to be something else.

Every Arab state in the UN was created by the same pen that drew the borders of Israel at the San Remo Conference in 1923.

Since British Foreign Secretary Winston Churchill drew the borders of Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Yemen, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, if their borders are legitimate, then Israel’s is equally legitimate.

Assessment:

In this case, however, the UN finds itself interfering in the domestic affairs of a member state on behalf of an insurgent population. If the UN is going to pontificate about ‘international law’, they should start there.

That is all the UN is doing is pontificating — because there is no such thing as ‘international law’. If there were, the UN would be its principle violator.

‘International law’ is what the UN says it is on any given day. Since it doesn’t actually exist in fact, the UN can declare anything it wants to be a violation.

That is how the UN arrived at the conclusion that the legal state of Israel has no right to build a fence through the MIDDLE of its territory — since, under ‘international law’, either the West Bank and Gaza are part of Israel, or California and Texas are part of Mexico.

The United Nations resolution demands Israel stop building its security fence, but contains not a single word referencing why the fence was necessary in the first place.

“As long as the majority in this assembly will pander and tolerate these rituals, no one should wonder why the victims of terrorism and those who hope for peace look elsewhere for guidance, protection and inspiration,” Israeli Ambassador Dan Gillerman said after the vote.

The resolution requests Secretary-General Kofi Annan to submit periodic reports on Israel’s compliance, with the first due within one month. Once the report is received, it says, “further actions should be considered, if necessary, within the United Nations system.”

The resolution “demands that Israel stop and reverse the construction of the wall in the occupied Palestinian territory, including in and around East Jerusalem, which is in departure of the Armistice Line of 1949 and is in contradiction to relevant provisions of international law.”

As we’ve already pointed out, there is no ‘relevant provision of international law’ that is applicable here. The proof is in the fact that the UN resolution fails to cite the ‘relevant provision’ that Israel is in contravention of.

Gillerman demanded to know whether any nation “seriously thinks it legitimate for the secretary-general to focus a report on Israeli security measures but not on Palestinian violations and terrorism that necessitate those measures.”

Think of it! Israel is a UN member state. The Palestinians are an insurgent rebel population using terrorism against women and children to force Israel to surrender land legally annexed following its victory in a war of aggression forced upon them by neighboring states.

The United Nations is siding with the insurgent rebels against a UN member state, to the point where they have passed a resolution that, in effect, forbids the member state from protecting its citizens against attack by rebel insurgents!

Now we turn again to the words of the prophet Zechariah, who predicted this exact situation, 2,500 years ago.

“Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though ALL THE PEOPLE OF THE EARTH be gathered together against it.” (Zechariah 12:2-3)

Of all the nations of the world, only Israel, the US, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands voted against the assembly resolution.