The Greatest Story Seldom Told

The Greatest Story Seldom Told
Vol: 50 Issue: 30 Wednesday, November 30, 2005

The Bible is under attack, as it has been since it was first compiled, but with a special fervor and intensity unique to this generation. What makes this generation unique is that the principle attackers are believers themselves.

It is possible to be a believer in the Bible and not be a Christian, although it doesn’t seem so until you think about it.

Personally, I know lots of people who say they believe in God, or believe in the Bible, but who have never surrendered themselves to Christ. Most other religions reference it among their sacred texts, from Buddhists to Jews.

And there are ‘cultural Christians’ as well. Most Americans were raised in a Christian culture, and identify with Christianity whether they are born-again or not.

It is actually quite easy to believe in the Bible without even having read it. Which makes it even easier to attack it. Just turn on A&E and watch some of the ‘Mysteries of the Bible’ series. After watching a couple of them, you’ll conclude that the most mysterious thing about the Bible is that ANYBODY really believes it.

If you don’t know anything about the Bible except that you believe in it, then it is pretty easy to plant misconceptions as part of an effort to discover the ‘truth’ about it.

After all, who doesn’t want to know the ‘truth’ about a Book as mysterious as the Bible? Especially if it comes packaged as a TV program saving the effort of having to actually read its ponderous text?

Assessment:

The Scriptures say, “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:18)

That anyone could attack the Bible escapes me. Especially when one considers that the Bible isn’t one book, but is actually a collection of sixty-six books, written by forty different human authors. Reading through it, it seems to have penned by the same individual.

But the Bible’s authors were shepherds and kings, intinerant preachers and traveling salesmen, tax collectors, tent-makers and fishermen, captives and slaves.

In most instances, the Bible’s authors had never met one another and had no access to each other’s works. Ezekiel and Daniel were contemporaries, but Daniel was held captive in Babylon. Ezekiel lived hundreds of miles away in what remained of Israel. Each book refers to the other, although neither prophet met to compare notes.

There were no libraries where each writer of Scripture could cross reference the other. But each book flows smoothly to the next, some books referencing passages written by the authors who came before, while others reference books not yet written for centuries.

It is obvious to any honest seeker of truth that the Bible actually has only one Author. The alleged ‘quests for truth’ about the Bible like “Mysteries of the Bible” are predicated by that fact.

What escapes A&E is the Identity of the Author, although the Bible clearly identifies Him. “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

The word translated here as ‘scripture’ comes from the Greek word ‘gramma’. This means a ‘letter’ — meaning even the smallest details are from God and are perfect.

The Bible is not just a body of unrelated religious writings on various subjects. It is a systematic revelation of history from creation that continues to unfold before our eyes and continues to outline human history to its ultimate conclusion.

The entire Bible revolves around only one central theme. The need for man’s salvation and God’s provision for it through Jesus Christ.

The Bible is a gift from God to all men — a ‘love letter’, some say, from God to you. I like that synopsis, since that is how I have viewed it for most of my adult life. A love letter from God, that starts, “Dear Jack: In the beginning . . .”

What a God we serve! Allow yourself to dwell on the Bible’s magnificence. Meditate on how impossible it would be for the Bible to have come into being through human effort, apart from God, as is now the popular angle of attack.

Many have made much of the alleged ‘Bible codes’ which indeed appear to be real, although not of any particular value apart from serving as the Signature of God for a high tech generation.

Jesus said, “A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign . . .” -(Matthew 16:4) and that is what the Bible codes are to this generation. A sign.

But the Bible proves itself by its very existence. The Bible wasn’t divided into chapters until the 13th century by Stephen Langton. It wasn’t divided into individual verses until the 15th and 16th centuries.

But its contents have been debated by the best and brightest of every generation and has withstood every single attack.

The King James Bible contains sixty-six books — 39 in the Old Testament, and twenty-seven in the New. There are 31,173 verses, 774,746 words and 3,556,480 letters that make up the entire Bible. In all of that, nobody in all human history has ever disproved a single word.

Dead center in the middle of the Bible is Psalm 118:8:

“It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man.”

Note: The above is a republication of an Omega Letter from our archives dated 11/24/2003. I am ill this morning and beg your indulgence.

The New Diplomacy

The New Diplomacy
Vol: 50 Issue: 29 Tuesday, November 29, 2005

As the media frets about secret CIA jails and revives the ‘what did the president know and when did he know it?’ game, both Iran and North Korea continue to work away industriously at their nuclear weapons programs while the global community looks on disinterestedly.

It is really quite amazing. The two most dangerous regimes in the world are on the verge of developing nuclear weapons — and global attention is transfixed by its opposition to all things American.

Even if it means almost certain national suicide for many of the nations now blocking intervention for no other reason than the Bush administration favors it.

South Korea, having been under America’s protective wing since World War Two, is among America’s bitterest critics of US policy towards Pyongyang.

There is an element of nervous appeasement involved — Seoul is well within reach of North Korean missiles and it doesn’t want to push Kim Jong Il’s buttons unnecessarily.

So it turns on its protector to appease the enemy, hoping the protector will understand, and will go along with the fiction.

This has become the proper diplomatic position to take in the brave, new 21st century. Take a harsh stance against all things American in the vain hope that will deter America’s enemies from adding you to the list. (While continuing to accept American aid)

It has long been the global diplomatic policy insofar as Israel is concerned. Any nation who opens relations with Israel risks bringing down the wrath of its enemies on its own head.

Those who have relations with Israel suffer terror attacks proportionate to the level of importance of those relationships.

The United States is viewed as Israel’s principle protector. That, together with it’s global reputation as the world’s most Christian nation, earned America the title of ‘the Great Satan’. The global Islamic jihad is directed at primarily at Israel, making America’s destruction a necessary first objective.

That accomplished, the rest of the world need only be cowed into acquiescence, not necessarily conquered, while the jihad turns its attention to its primary goal of annihilating the Jewish State and reclaiming all of Jerusalem for Islam.

There will be plenty of time to return to Islamic conquest of the appeasers later.

That, in a nutshell, is the working blueprint as it continues to evolve across the global diplomatic community. Israel is diplomatic plutonium – for some, merely shaking an Israeli diplomat’s hand in public can mean anything from immediate assassination to a quick recall and quiet retirement.

The same threat exists, but to a lesser extent, for those few remaining nations who maintain a warm relationship with the United States.

Pop Quiz: Name five nations in the world — out of the 191 UN member states — with whom you believe we have ‘warm’ relations? The clock is running . . . . time’s up!

Scary, isn’t it? Maybe YOU could think of five. I couldn’t.

To my mind, the old standards like Canada, Mexico, and Western Europe no longer make the ‘warm’ list. Their friendship is predicated on enlightened self-interest, not kinship.

That era is gone.

That leaves Japan, Australia, Israel and . . . ??

(I might have missed one or two, and it is admittedly a subjective exercise. But I think the point is clear)

Assessment:

Iran’s ability to pursue its nuclear program unimpeded is primarily due to American and Israeli opposition. Had it been a purely European initiative, it would likely have met with considerably more success.

The International Atomic Energy Commission is rabidly anti-American and still smarting from what it perceives as a backhand across the mouth by the Bush administration over the war with Saddam Hussein.

The IAEA is part of the equally anti-American UN, having been subjected to a withering US-led investigation into UN corruption at the highest levels.

Those corrupt officials remain at the helm of a corrupt organization whose only hope of survival is to attack its critics until one side or the other gives up.

So, while the global community decries secret CIA prisons, the Russians are free to help the Iranians build nuclear weapons, the Iranians are free to build them under the nose of the IAEA, and the North Koreans are free to expand their already-existing nuclear arsenal.

Fueled by outrageous and irresponsible charges emanating from within America’s own government, the perception of America as a more dangerous threat to world peace than either Tehran or Pyongyang have handed both those governments carte blanche to thumb their nose at the global community.

Opposing Tehran or Pyongyang carries with it the label of ‘American lapdog’ and the threat of becoming a target of jihad. (Ask Tony Blair)

It has been a slow conditioning process that began with the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut.

Ronald Reagan made the greatest strateguc miscalculation of his presidency (and maybe of the century) when he responded ot the attack by withdrawing the Marines and canceling the mission. It confirmed America’s post-Vietnam image as a paper tiger.

Over the ensuing decade, nations formerly friendly to Israel began to withdraw as the threat of terrorism raised the price of friendship. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, America’s friends began to follow suit.

In post-9/11 America, there is a growing call for the United States to adopt the same diplomatic policy of veiled appeasement sweeping the globe. Members of Congress are calling the war with al-Qaeda ‘unwinnable’ and are advocating what amounts to surrendering Iraq to the terrorists and withdrawing US forces to ‘prevent unnecessary further casualties’.

At the same time, the calls for a harder line against Israel are also growing louder. There is no discernible reason for American lawmakers to want to establish a Palestinian state composed and governed by unrepentant terrorists while America is itself embroiled in a war against Islamic terrorism, apart from the appeasement factor.

But the pressure is there, and the administration is clearly beginning to heed it. Recently, the White House reset the Israeli/Arab foundation for negotiation at the 1948 Armistice Line, granting the Palestinian side veto power over any Israeli presence on land outside the 1948 Armistice Lines.

While the US presses its own war on terror, it is not only urging Israel to ‘show restraint’ — it is putting teeth into it by linking Israeli compliance to US aid.

Washington is simply following the 21st century global diplomatic blueprint mapped out for it by the world community. It isn’t that difficult a transition, really.

America has been appeasing the Arabs as a matter of policy for decades as part of the politics of oil — now it is becoming a tactic of war.

For example, in 1995, the Congress passed the “Jerusalem Relocation Act” which declared it to be the official policy of the United States toward Jerusalem that it should remain a united city (under Israeli rule) and that the U.S. Embassy should be established there no later than May 31, 1999.

To enforce the Act, the Congress tied it to US spending on foreign missions. The Act stipulates that fifty percent of the money earmarked for foreign missions be withheld unless the embassy was relocated in 1999. The Act was adopted on October 23, 1995, by both the Senate (93-5) and the House (374-37).

But the Congress included an ‘appeasement clause’ which has been invoked every six months since May 31, 1999:

“The President may waive the fifty percent spending restriction on U.S. buildings abroad beginning in October 1998 for six month periods, and then only if he determines and reports to Congress that such a suspension is necessary to protect the national security interests of the United States and details how such interests would be affected.”

For ten years, Bill Clinton and George Bush have circumvented the terms of the Jerusalem Relocation Act by invoking its built-in ‘appeasement clause’. Not even the United States, the world’s only superpower, dares to take on the burden of Jerusalem.

Incredibly, we see the exact global diplomatic blueprint forecast by the prophet Zechariah, writing from his historical vantage point, sometime around 520 BC. Not merely close, but exact!

Take a look at the entire tapestry. At its heart is Jerusalem. Recovering Jerusalem for Islam is the religious duty of every observant Muslim. It is the stated goal of the global jihad. Secondary to the recovery of Jerusalem is the destruction of the Jewish State.

Before either can be accomplished, America must be eliminated as Israel’s protector and the rest of the world either otherwise distracted or cowed into submission.

“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. 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)

In 702 BC, Sargon II conquered the ten tribes of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. As was the practice of conquerors at the time, to prevent insurrection, the ten tribes of Israel were relocated elsewhere in Assyria. From there, they were lost to history.

Zechariah lived 182 years later. By contrast, the Civil War ended 140 years ago. More time elapsed between Zechariah’s day and the historical existence of a nation called ‘Israel’ than has elapsed since the existence of the Confederate States of America!

But Zechariah is not only forecasting events almost 2600 years in the future, he is forecasting them in the context of a nation that was then as dead as the Confederacy is now.

To summarize, this is but one example among many, and each grows more obvious with each passing day. The events forecast for the last days are already in motion, and are moving inexorably toward the exact same destiny predicted by the ancient Hebrew prophets.

The same Author that inspired those prophecies we now see in the process of fulfillment promised that He would never leave or forsake His Church and that we are to occupy until He comes for us. As we watch events unfold before our eyes, our time of occupation grows short.

Each of us has an eternal destiny. Either we will spend eternity in unspeakable joy and fulfillment in the presence of the Savior, or we will spend eternity alone, nameless, cast from God’s presence, with nothing but our memories to add to our eternal torment.

Each of us has a responsibility before God to tell people of the choice before them, and to offer them the good news of the Gospel, before it is too late.

That is the mission of the Omega Letter; to equip and train an army of evangelists and watchmen, armed with the indisputable evidence that God’s Plan for the Ages is underway.

And that the time remaining to choose grows short.

Members’ Note:

Please continue to pray for God’s provision and protection as we move ahead towards our next Year of Destiny. Help us where you can as you find our efforts bless you and as the Holy Spirit leads you and gives you the increase.

To that end, forgive the following commercial message: If you haven’t already, I’d like to encourage you to order a copy of Steve Spillman’s book, “Breaking the Treasure Code”.

(http://www.omegaletter.com/bttc/)

Members also get a free copy of Jim Spillman’s satirical allegory, ‘Animal Church’. Either book would make a great Christmas gift, and in the process, you’d be helping the Omega Letter pay its way as we move forward together.

America on Trial in Iraq

America on Trial in Iraq
Vol: 50 Issue: 28 Monday, November 28, 2005

America on Trial in Iraq

The trial of Saddam Hussein resumed after a five-week recess granted to give Saddam’s lawyers a chance to prepare his defense. When the trial reconvened, sitting at the defense table were Saddam’s lawyers, former Qatari Justice Minister Najib al-Nueimi and the newest member of the defense team, former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark.

Saddam is charged with crimes against humanity. Iraqi prosecutors decided to begin with the 1982 killing of 140 Shi’ites rounded up and murdered at Saddam’s personal direction following an assassination attempt against him.

Neither Clark nor al-Nueimi has been officially recognized by the court as legal counsel. U.S. and Iraqi officials said Saddam’s chief lawyer, Khalil al-Dulaimi, did not officially request permission for any foreign attorneys to attend the trial.

Iraqi law permits foreign lawyers to act as advisers but requires that those arguing cases in court must be members of the local bar association.

Clark, who served as attorney general under President Johnson, wrote last month that Saddam’s rights had been systematically violated since his December 2003 capture, including his right “to a lawyer of his own choosing.”

Clark and others say a fair trial is impossible in Iraq because of the insurgency and because, they argue, the country is effectively under foreign military occupation. U.S. and Iraqi officials insist the trial will conform to international standards.

Clark, who never met a dictator he didn’t like, said he intends to challenge the court’s legal status. Clark plans to argue, if permitted, that the United States violated international law by invading Iraq and imposed a new government on the Iraqis. Therefore, Clark hopes to argue, the court is really just an illegal American construct imposed under occupation and therefore has no jurisdiction.

Clark has a long history of anti-American activism. Clark served as US Attorney General until January 20, 1969. In 1972, he visited the Communist government of North Vietnam while the war was ongoing and American forces were still on the battlefield.

Clark made the trip on behalf of the Stockholm-based International Commission for Inquiry, a Communist peace front. He was taken on a guided tour and denounced the U.S. bombing of North Vietnam.

He also visited American POWs held by Hanoi, falsely declaring that they were in good health and their conditions could not be better. Such visits by American figures gave the communists the confidence to continue in the face of defeats on the battlefield.

Clark was an outspoken opponent of the Reagan administration’s support for the anti-Communist Nicaraguan contras. (Despite strong liberal opposition, led in the Senate by John Kerry and in the press by Clark, that policy resulted in the defeat of the Communist Sandinista, free elections, and the end of Nicaraguan communism.)

Clark was legal advisor to the Advisory Board of NORML (National Organization for the Repeal of Marijuana Laws), Branch Davidian David Koresh, antiwar activist Phillip Berrigan, Crimes of America conference in Teheran in 1980, and Elizaphan Ntakirutimana, a leader of the Rwandan genocide.

He also defended PLO leaders in a lawsuit brought by the family of Leon Klinghoffer, the wheelchair bound elderly tourist who was shot and tossed overboard from the hijacked Achille Lauro cruise ship by Palestinian terrorists in 1986 and Slobodon Milosevic, the Butcher of Belgrade.

Clark is affiliated with VoteToImpeach, an organization advocating the impeachment of President George W. Bush. He has been an opponent of both Gulf Wars.

Clark is also the founder of the International Action Center, which has much overlapping membership with the openly communist Workers’ World Party. (Although in origin a Trotskyite group, the WWP describes itself as Marxist-Leninist.)

Clark and the IAC helped found the protest organization ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism).

Clark’s ANSWER fronts for the WWP, formed in the late 1950’s for the purpose of supporting even the most dictatorial regimes, provided their mission was to undermine the United States and its allies. It split from its parent Socialist Worker’s Party over the WWP’s support for the 1956 Soviet crushing of the Hungarian anti-Soviet revolution.

The WWP went on to back the Chinese government and its tanks against the dissidents in Tiananmen Square, tout the virtue of the North Korean regime and openly state its support for dictators like Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic.

Among ANSWER’s more prominent members is British parliamentarian and Oil-For-Food beneficiary George Galloway, who was a recent speaker at one of Cindy Sheehan’s antiwar rallies.

Assessment:

In watching portions of the opening moments of Saddam’s trial, I was impressed with just how fair the judge was. Especially when one considers the fate meted out to Romania’s Nicolae Ceaucescu and his wife when his regime fell in 1989.

(After a ten minute trial before a revolutionary court, they were machine-gunned in a garden behind the court).

Clark likes to style himself as anti-war, but his record is one of consistent support FOR war, from the Red Army in Eastern Europe to the Serbian ethnic cleansing to the Taliban and now, Saddam Hussein. Clark is decidedly pro-war, as long as it is against the United States.

His hypocrisy is breath-taking, but not as breath-taking as the list of useful idiots who are too propaganda-blind to see it for themselves. Clark enjoys wide support among liberal senators, not the least of whom is John Kerry,.

Following the 2002 elections in which the GOP enlarged its majority in both Houses of Congress, Clark sent a message of support to a meeting of the Committee in Support of the Arab Cause taking place in Madrid to discuss the upcoming US invasion of Iraq.

Before continuing, allow me to call your attention to the fact the United States was, at that time, preparing for war with a declared enemy regime of the United States. Addressing a conference composed of America’s enemies at a meeting intending to oppose American objectives, a former Attorney General of the United States wrote;

“Eleven days ago, on Nov. 5, the U.S. elections showed that most people in the United States saw no choice worth voting for. It showed that incumbency and wealth-especially wealth which wants war–decide who wins. The will of the people was nowhere to be seen. The United States is not a democracy, it is a plutocracy. The people don’t rule in the United States.”

Message to the Arab world from a top former US official: “America IS the great Satan. Its much vaunted democracy is a sham. America only wants to steal wealth. America should be opposed.”

Clark openly called for the people of the world to oppose the US government, telling the Committee in Support of the Arab Cause (CSAC) that the US elections’ “show without any doubts that the U.S. government has set its course for war and that only the people of the world, and especially those of the United States, can stop this war and must stop this war.”

Speaking of American conduct of the first Gulf War, Clark told the CSAC; “It was slaughter. Under international law, you don’t slaughter with impunity. It is a war crime. It is a crime against humanity.”

He said of the current administration; “Lately, the second President Bush has said he doesn’t want war, the choice is up to Saddam Hussein. This is the same as a robber demanding all your money saying “I don’t want to shoot you, the choice is yours.”

He exhorted the CSAC to “persevere beyond January 18-19, 2003 until the power of the people forces the U.S. government to end its policies of militarism and economic exploitation of the poor at home and abroad.”

Message: “America is a thief preparing to steal Arab lands. America should be opposed.”

He called on the Arabs to “liberate the United States from repression,” a textbook example of sedition as defined by the United States Code. “Don’t we know,” asked Clark, “we’ve got 2 million people in prison? Don’t we know we execute more than one person a week in this country? Let’s liberate the United States of America!”

Clark’s ANSWER is supported by the unofficial media arm of the DNC, Moveon.org. Does any of this sound a bit disturbing to you?

Does it sound like treason? Not to the brainwashed Useful Idiot Brigade members like Cindy Sheehan and her supporters. They are convinced they are anti-warriors. How can one be simultaneously anti-war and pro-Saddam?

They are not merely deluded, one could argue that they are STRONGLY deluded — but they’ve managed to convince a significant minority of Americans of their treasonous and double-minded self-delusion that being pro-Saddam is the semantic equivalent of being an anti-war American ‘patriot’.

They are intoxicated with the heady drug of self-righteousness. Most of them are convinced that the Bush administration is worse than Saddam’s government, despite the evidence that Saddam’s regime made Hitler’s look like a benevolent dictatorship by comparison.

So they have no problem with repeating accusations invented by Moveon.org and Ramsey Clark to the effect that the administration lied to make a case for war against Saddam Hussein in order to steal oil wealth.

They continue to make false accusations, despite the growing mountain of evidence that al-Qaeda was in collusion with Saddam’s regime. That there was ‘no evidence’ found of WMD in Iraq, which is manifestly untrue. There were no actual stockpiles of WMD found — a different matter entirely.

It is nothing short of incredible to me that the antiwarriors seem to have no natural affection for their own country at all. It is all being showered on whoever is most at odds with America.

They have nothing but contempt for conservatives of all stripes, saving their greatest venom for the ‘Christian far right’ which they claim is composed of greedy, self-righteous white men bent on oppressing those who disagree with them.

During the Tribulation, the United States of America is notably absent from the Scripture’s record. However, I believe that the United States IS represented in Scripture for the last days – just not during the Tribulation.

Just as Israel is the exemplar of Judaism in the last days references, I believe the United States represents the Church in the last days of the Church Age, just before the Rapture.

Paul wrote, “This know also, that in the LAST DAYS, perilous times shall come.” The world ‘perilous’ is translated from the Greek, “chalepos” which means, ‘harsh, fierce or savage’.

Jesus begins His Discourse on the last days by warning of ‘wars and rumors of wars’ before saying, ‘let not your heart be troubled, for the end is not yet.’

America fought two world wars, but has not faced an existential threat since 1948. The period running from 1948 to 1990 was known to history as the ‘Cold War’ — the ultimate ‘rumor’ of war. But the end was not yet.

Paul notes in 2nd Thessalonians 5:3, “For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.”

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the hot topic in American politics was what to do with the ‘peace dividend’. The Soviet Union was no more. Israel and the Palestinians signed a peace deal. Peace and safety seemed to be breaking out all over the place.

Until September 11, when ‘sudden destruction’ visited America and plunged her into a third world war.

The conduct of that war is opposed by the liberal left to the degree that they have consciously swung their allegiance over to the enemy because they blindly oppose the policies of their elected government, which they say is blinded by Christian conservative ideals and not representative of secular America.

Paul described the prevailing worldview of the last days during those perilous times, saying, “Men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy.”

The antiwarriors self-righteously claim they were denied the power they coveted in the 2000 Election. It hurt their pride. Among the platforms embraced by the conservative voters in 2000 were family values, ‘faith-based initiatives’, the role of religion in public life, restrictions on abortion, a strong foreign policy and personal responsibility.

The Left rejected each issue on principle and narrowly lost at the polls. It has since mounted a concerted effort to accomplish by legislative fiat what it failed to accomplish at the polls.

This all sounds harsh and partisan at first glance. But allow your mind to drift back to the campaign and post election rhetoric. Who was saying what?

(Now we rejoin Paul’s outline of the last days of the Church . . . already in progress.)

“Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof . . .”

And finally, the direct Scriptural command, “From such, turn away.” (2nd Timothy 3:1-5)

I got an email from someone over the weekend complaining that I ‘defend’ George Bush too much and suggesting my time would be better served preaching the Gospel at a soup kitchen. This still astonishes me.

If there are two versions of an event, only one of them can be true. If the true version favors George Bush, nobody seems to notice that there is ANOTHER version — they see only a ‘defense’ of George Bush.

The fact that somebody HAS to be lying (for their to be two versions in the first place) is irrelevant, unless, of course, the perceived liar is a member of the Bush administration.

It is the mission of the Omega Letter to provide its subscribers with the evidence that these are the last days foretold by Bible prophets, to the exclusion of any other generation to come.

Simply quoting the relevant Scriptures doesn’t do the job. Demonstrating where those relevant Scriptures play a role in the life of the last-days Church does.

When Jesus was asked what would be the signs that would herald His soon return, the first words out of His mouth were these:

“Take heed that no man deceive you.” (Matthew 24:4)

The Reckoning

The Reckoning
Vol: 50 Issue: 26 Saturday, November 26, 2005

Back in 1973, as the recession was heating up, American prestige was taking a beating over Vietnam and Watergate, Canadian broadcaster Gordon Sinclair broadcast an impassioned defense of America and Americans, as seen from Canada’s uniquely liberal perspective:

“You talk about Japanese technocracy and you get radios. You talk about German technocracy and you get automobiles. You talk about American technocracy and you find men on the moon, not once, but several times … and safely home again. You talk about scandals and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everyone to look at. Even the draft dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They are here on our streets, most of them … unless they are breaking Canadian laws .. are getting American dollars from Ma and Pa at home to spend here.”

Reading it again after a number of years, one sentence jumped out at me. Sinclair says, with obvious admiration, “You talk about scandals and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everyone to look at.”

In 1973, scandal-mongering was a relatively new tactic in national politics. Most of the politicians themselves were veteran scandal-mongerers themselves — that’s how politics works at the local level. But as a national partisan tactic, it was viewed as unpatriotic. JFK had his mistresses, his health problems, his addiction to prescription drugs, mafia connections, election irregularities, etc.

All of this was well-known in Washington circles. JFK came to the White House from a Senate comprised of old-time politicians, mostly veterans of one of the world wars, and keenly aware of the power of propaganda.

Most of them had met its victims first-hand on the battlefields of Europe, and marveled at the fanatical devotion of the enemy. They had seen it reflected in the hollowed eyes of concentration camp survivors, had felt it up close and personal, watched it claim the lives of a whole generation.

By 1973, a new generation, having never heard jackboots marching in lock-step, began to clamor for power, and, learning all the wrong lessons from history, reopened Pandora’s box, declaring it the “Age of Aquarius”.

Under the banner, “Never Trust Anyone Over Thirty” the pampered Baby Boomer generation turned the power of propaganda on its own government, blinded by the light of ‘truth’ and blithely unaware of the Biblical consequences that come from ‘troubling one’s own house.’

The Watergate scandal broke the unwritten Senate rule of handling scandals in-house. In part, it was because the shocked Nixon administration over reacted after reading all about it in the Washington Post. Another reason was because many of these formerly-cautious veterans got a taste of the same intoxicant that addicted their former enemy of a generation ago. Power.

Propaganda, as was used by the fascists, employed what is called the ‘Hegelian Dialectic’. It was formulated by Georg Hegel, feted by historians as “perhaps the greatest of the German idealist philosophers.”

Hegel’s dialectic is the tool which manipulates us into a frenzied circular pattern of thought and action. Every time we fight for or defend against an ideology we are playing a necessary role in Marx and Engels’ grand design to advance humanity into a dictatorship of the proletariat.

The synthetic Hegelian solution to all these conflicts can’t be introduced unless we all take a side that will advance the agenda. That is what makes guys like war-hero veteran John Murtha start talking about ‘immediate withdrawal from Iraq.’ Murtha knew it would never fly; his agenda wasn’t to pull out the troops, but to put the administration on the defensive, advancing the partisan goal of discrediting the other side in advance of next year’s elections.

When the GOP forced a vote on immediate withdrawal, it failed 403-3. (Not even Murtha voted in favor of it.)

The purpose was never what it seemed to be. Its only purpose was to introduce conflict and force people to take sides. The GOP tactic to force a vote was bitterly decried by the Democrats because it exposed the conflict as a fraud. It is hard to introduce conflict into a policy supported by a margin of 403-3.

Merriam-Webster’s definition of ‘dialectic’: “The Hegelian process of change in which a concept or its realization passes over into and is preserved and fulfilled by its opposite; also : the critical investigation of this process b (1) usually plural but singular or plural in construction : development through the stages of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis in accordance with the laws of dialectical materialism (2) : the investigation of this process (3) : the theoretical application of this process especially in the social sciences.”

It’s a complicated theory by design; it is supposed to so complicated that it takes too long for the masses being conditioned to bother trying to stop the facts from spinning long enough to see them for what they are.

I’ll try and explain it in a nutshell:

Thesis: Identify a particular desired, but unpopular political objective. An obvious example would be the disarming of the American public. America was born in a cloud of gunsmoke. For generations, the 2nd Amendment assumed the Constitutional right of Americans to bear arms, since, as Jefferson astutely noted, “an armed population ensures an honest government.”

How then, to condition a nation built on the premise that the “tree of freedom is watered by the blood of patriots” to voluntarily disarm?

Synthesis: Having identified the goal, through the use of the media and political operatives, convince the population that the goal is actually the problem. The absurd principle that guns kill people and the solution is to remove the guns rather than address the moral issue of killers is a perfect illustration of Hegelian logic.

Consider it this way: If it made sense, then it would make equal sense to ban cars in response to the problem of drunk driving? No?

Antithesis: Having created a managed panic among the population, reluctantly acquiesce to popular demand after the public begins to clamor for the objective identified in the thesis.

By the time you get to the end of the formula, there are crowds of demonstrators clamoring for laws that, in the end, only accomplish the disarmament of law-abiding citizens. The bumper sticker, “When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns” untwists the Hegelian knot in a single sentence.

Assessment:

What hath the politics of scandal, so admired by Gordon Sinclair in 1973, wrought since? It isn’t too hard to trace. Having been so successful in effecting a legislative coup de etat with Watergate, both sides began to rethink the unwritten taboo on the injection of propaganda into national politics.

Compare the very worst scandal of the Bush administration to the litany of scandals that never saw the light of day during the Kennedy years. One could argue with hindsight that even the Clinton administration had fewer skeletons than JFK. But the Cold War was in full bloom, and it was not in America’s best interests to hand the Soviet propaganda machine any more reasons to hate us.

But Watergate changed all that. The Nixon resignation handed the Soviets a windfall; but the world didn’t end. It brought an end to the hated Vietnam War. America won every single battle of the war except the propaganda war. Peasants armed with antique weapons (and the power of propaganda) defeated the most powerful military machine the world had ever seen. America evacuated under fire, Vietnam fell to the Communists, but the world didn’t end. Nobody stopped to unspin the facts. Nobody blamed the purveyors of Hegelian conflict, they blamed its victims.

That emboldened the scandal mongerers.

During the Reagan administration, the Iran-Contra scandal erupted over a deal that would have effectively traded arms for hostages while simultaneously arming the anti-Communist Nicaraguan rebels. A Communist state in North America wasn’t in America’s best interests by anybody’s definition, but it provided an excuse for conflict. It almost brought down the Reagan administration at the same time the Soviets were about to crumble.

But it served a partisan interest, which had, by this time, begun to supersede national interests, as more and more politicians succumbed to the intoxicated effect of the dialectic.

America’s image abroad continued to take a beating, as Republican politicians were handed a propaganda windfall by the Clinton administration. By the time the dust cleared in 2000, America’s national image was that of a wilful, immoral and decadent society obsessed with sex and unperturbed by perjury.

By the time George Bush assumed the Oval Office, Pandora’s propaganda demon had been tried and tested over six successive administrations with seemingly no ill effect. The nation had just experienced its longest period of sustained prosperity in its history. With the exception of a few minor terrorist incidents and the minor annoyance of the Saddam Hussein regime, America was a nation at peace, strong and secure.

The reckoning came on September 11, 2001. Pandora’s demon had done its work. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. For every politician condemning PART of America to advance his own agenda, there is an enemy or would-be enemy hearing the condemnation pronounced on ALL America.

“This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.” (2nd Timothy 3:1-5)

Gaza Honeymoon is Over

Gaza Honeymoon is Over
Vol: 50 Issue: 25 Friday, November 25, 2005

Whatever good will Israel garnered among the Quartet following Sharon’s unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip was bound to be short-lived. And the signs suggest it is already over.

The European Union is preparing a report for the EU foreign ministers, who will meet on December 12 to discuss its contents. The report was prepared at the behest of the UK, which is currently doing its six-month stint as the EU’s rotating presidency.

It was prepared by British and EU representatives posted in Jerusalem and Ramallah. And, as with most EU reports, it reserved its harshest criticism for Israel. The report suggests that the Gaza withdrawal was an Israeli ruse to lull the Quartet to sleep while it quietly made preparations to eventually annex East Jerusalem, uniting the city as Israel’s eternal capital.

It said that Israeli policies aimed at that eventual goal risked “radicalizing the hitherto relatively quiescent Palestinian population of east Jerusalem

The EU report recommended that EU officials should immediately demand a change of venue for meeting with Palestinian officials. The EU has, up to the present, met with Palestinian officials in Ramallah. The EU report wants future PA/EU meetings held in Jerusalem.

It is worth noting that the ‘relatively quiescent’ East Jerusalem Palestinian population is ‘relatively quiet’ because most of its residents would prefer to live under Israeli rule to that of the Palestinian Authority.

Noted Daniel Pipes in a column this spring entitled “The Hell of Israel Is Better than the Paradise of Arafat”;

“In the view of Fadal Tahabub, a member of the Palestinian National Council, an estimated 70 percent of the 200,000 Arab residents of Jerusalem preferred to remain under Israeli sovereignty. A social worker living in Ras al- Amud, one of the areas possibly falling under PA control, said: “If a secret poll was conducted, I am sure an overwhelming majority of Jerusalem Arabs would say they would prefer to stay in Israel.””

Recently, Sharon reiterated his commitment to develop Maale Adumim, the lynchpin of the settlement bloc adjacent to Jerusalem.

He refused to suspend the expansion of building based on natural growth or the ongoing development of a Jewish populated corridor to link the settlement with Jerusalem, without which the capital will almost certainly be divided.

Condi Rice reacted by telling a Senate committee that, “we told the Israelis in no uncertain terms that [this] would contravene American policy” and that Israeli activity in that area had already resulted in Washington deducting “some of the resources we provide to the Israelis as part of their loan guarantees”.

Despite the risk it poses to Jerusalem’s reunification, US resistance forced Sharon to back down.

When Sharon tried to prevent Hamas from participating in the Palestinian elections, the White House refused to support the move. The White House continues to pressure Israel to open its borders and allow the free movement of goods and people from the West Bank to Gaza through Israel.

They are also demanding that Israel allow Palestinian workers to return to their jobs inside the Green Line. President Bush even warned Israel would “held to account” for actions that negatively impacted on the quality of Palestinian lives.”

Assessment:

It is truly bizarre. Mind-numbingly so. It is no criticism of the Palestinian people to say they do not deserve any consideration at all.

The Road Map to Peace that the Quartet has its knickers in a knot over is clear and specific. Before Israel is obligated to do anything, the PA must first stop the terror attacks, and then disarm and dismantle the various terrorist groups.

It says so, in clear and unmistakable terms, under the heading, “Phase One: Ending Terror And Violence, Normalizing Palestinian Life, and Building Palestinian Institutions.”

That agreement was signed by the Palestinians nearly three years ago, and obligated the Palestinians to meet the conditions of Phase One by May, 2003.

One of the most prolific terrorist groups after Hamas is the al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade, who was behind the October 28 targeting of an open air market attack that killed five Israeli civilians and wounded thirty.

Stop right there for a moment. The al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade is the ‘militant wing’ of Fatah, the Palestinian political party HEADED by Mahmoud Abbas, the very man that the Quartet pins their hopes for peace on.

Abbas’ therefore not only heads his own openly terrorist organization, he has not yet disarmed a single terrorist or disbanded a single terrorist organization.

Instead, he absorbed them into the Palestinian security services, making them Palestinian policemen. Abbas told the Quartet he had disarmed and disbanded the terrorists and demanded Israel supply weapons to arm the new police ‘recruits.’

It is incomprehensible that the combined intelligence services of the EU, UN, US and Russia could be unaware of what is so obvious. It then follows that they are aware of the true facts on the ground, but prefer the official fiction that Israel is the obstacle to peace. Indeed, in the minds of many world leaders, that is the unvarnished truth.

It IS Israel, in a sense, that is the obstacle to peace. The only workable solution they see is to facilitate the Arab effort to remove the obstacle. No Israel, no Arab-Israeli conflict. It is devastatingly simple.

Try and imagine a scenario in which Mexicans started blowing up Safeway stores in Dallas as part of an effort to reclaim Texas for Mexico. Now, picture the United Nations and EU demanding that Washington display “greater restraint and flexibility” in dealing with illegal Mexican immigrants in response.

Not crazy enough? Add the demands from the Mexican separatists that Washington supply them with arms with which to fight off any American attempt to put a stop to the separatist terror attacks. But wait! There’s more!

If the Mexicans PROMISE to stop attacking, then Washington is obligated to cut Texas in half and let the Mexican separatists have their own state, dividing Dallas in half and taking South Dallas for its capital?

Not finished with the analogy yet. The terrorists promise to stop attacking, but the attacks not only continue, they increase in frequency as they grow more deadly.

Washington is then pressured to ignore the increase in attacks, agree that it is the fault of Washington’s failed policy in the Southwest, accelerate the timetable for statehood, and is forbidden to close its borders to those terrorists who want to return unimpeded to their illegal immigrant jobs in Oklahoma.

All in the name of keeping the proposed new enemy state on the North Texas border ‘viable’.

Not only that, but Washington is required to turn a blind eye to the new state’s decision to allow al-Qaeda to field candidates in the new state’s national elections.

If not, Washington would be “held to account” for actions that negatively impacted on the quality of living of the enemy terrorist state’s citizenry.

That is a rough equivalent to situation Israel finds itself in.

There is little doubt that, in the coldest and most unblinking assessment possible, most of the countries of the world believe they would be better off if Israel ceased to exist. Israel is the root and branch of Islamic terror by its very existence.

The Islamic war against America is fueled by American support for Israel. US support for Israel is cited in every fatwa, at every mosque, and at every opportunity. Remove Israel from the equation, turn over Jerusalem and the Temple Mount to the Arabs, and the principle rallying cry of the jihadist falls silent.

Israel finds itself being eyed as an involuntary sacrificial lamb on the altar of world peace. The world would welcome being rid of what one French diplomat described as “that sh–ty little country” but has not yet figured out how to do so without openly showing its hand.

It is an amazing scene, made all the more amazing by its exact conformance to the prophecies of Scripture concerning Israel and Jerusalem during the Tribulation Period.

Daniel prophesied a seven year covenant, brokered by a European leader, but says the treaty will collapse half-way through its term.

Daniel looked forward 2500 years to that event. We need look back only 12 years to the litany of broken deals that make any genuine agreement between the two sides seem unlikely to the point of unimaginable.

Zechariah said that in the last days, Jerusalem, despite its tiny size and unlikely location, would again become the focus of global attention.

“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 12:3)

The precision with which this prophecy is already being fulfilled is breath-taking. Tiny, out-of-the-way Jerusalem is the central prize in a global struggle between the forces of Islam and ‘the people of the Book’ — Christians and Jews.

The burden of Jerusalem weighs so heavily on the shoulders of the United States that it is slowly reversing pro-Israeli policies dating back to the Kennedy administration.

The terror war is becoming the ‘death of a thousand cuts’ for the West, and as a consequence, global patience with Israel is running to the end of its tether.

At the present time, the whole world is, figuratively speaking, already gathered together against it. Zechariah’s prophecy that it will become a literal reality in the not-too-distant future is a growing likelihood, as the world’s patience with the peace process is finally exhausted.

The Bush administration’s prestige and influence in the region is collapsing and the European ‘Barcelona Agreement’ literally brings Israel within the EU’s sphere of influence through its ‘Mediterranean Neighborhood’ policy.

EU Chief Javier Solana has been a strong advocate of imposing a solution, warning Ariel Sharon last year that the “EU will be part of the peace process, whether Israel likes it or not.”

The story of Israel vs the whole world is so bizarre, so other-worldly, that it defies rational, natural explanation. If there was ever a comparable situation in human history, I’ve been unable to find it.

Israel has never had any expansionist desires beyond its Biblical borders of Judea and Samaria. Israel’s land claim amounts to 1/6th of one percent of the Arab’s Middle East holdings.

Its population is a fraction of a percent of the total population of the region. The Arabs have controlled the Middle East for centuries. It is one of the least developed regions in the world.

Israel took its 1/6th of 1 percent of the Middle East and transformed it into an economic and agricultural powerhouse capable of supplying 90% of Europe’s citrus fruit market. (Israeli greenhouses export tulips to Holland!)

More Jews have won Nobel Prizes since its inception than any other identifiable ethnic group.

It is the only genuine democracy in the entire Middle East, and its respect for human rights and individual freedoms is on a par with that of the United States. And it is the most hated nation on earth.

In the natural, it is baffling. But taken from the hindsight perspective of Bible prophecy, it makes perfect sense.

“For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Then shall the LORD go forth, and fight against those nations, as when He fought in the day of battle. And His feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives . . .” (Zechariah 14:2-4)

“Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all be fulfilled.” (Luke 21:32)

My Favorite Holiday

My Favorite Holiday
Vol: 50 Issue: 24 Thursday, November 24, 2005

Of all of the various holidays, Christmas is the most fun. To my mind, it always has been. I loved it as a kid, but I’ve loved it even more since becoming an adult.

It is the one time of the year when I get to express my love and appreciation to my family and friends without anybody feeling awkward about it.

But Christmas isn’t my favorite holiday. Thanksgiving Day is.

I love its historical purpose. It is the one time of the year when America expresses its collective love and appreciation to our Creator God for the many blessings showered upon us as a nation.

Thanks to the foresight and faithfulness of America’s Founding Fathers, even in the rabidly secular post-Christian America of the 21st century, there remain a significant number of Americans who still heed 2nd Chronicles 7:14:

“If My people, which are called by My Name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”

The fact that despite America’s many sins, America remains the most Divinely favored nation on the face of the earth is evidence that God heeds His promise in 2nd Chronicles 7:14 as well.

That is what I love most about Thanksgiving Day. The opportunity to witness God’s continued involvement in the affairs of men.

During the American Revolutionary War the Continental Congress appointed one or more days of thanksgiving each year. And each one carried a recommendation to the executives of the various states for the observance of these days in their states.

George Washington, leader of the Revolutionary forces in the American Revolutionary War, proclaimed a day of Thanksgiving in December 1777 as a victory celebration honoring the defeat of the British at Saratoga. The Continental Congress proclaimed annual December Thanksgivings from 1777 to 1783 (except in 1782).

The concept of setting aside a day of thanksgiving is as old and as universal as mankind.

Many countries, such as for example, Asia, Japan, India, Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka have celebrated in gratitude for their rich rice harvest for many, many centuries.

In Africa, many tribal expressions of gratitude are similar as this ancient prayer: “The Year Has Come Around Again, Great Lord Of Our Land – Never Can We Thank You For Your Good Deeds And All Your Blessings.”

In South America you find many of the native Indian cultures have expressions of gratitude and thanksgiving. Modern Brazil has a special public day of thanksgiving and prayers and has been celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November since 1949.

In Chaldea. ancient Egypt and Greece, harvest festival has been celebrated with great rejoicing.

The Hindus and the Chinese marked their harvest with a holiday. The Romans celebrated their Thanksgiving early October. They dedicated it to the Goddess Of The Harvest, Ceres, and the holiday was named “Cerelia.”

Egypt, Syria and Mesopotamia, offered the first or last sheaf of wheat to the “Great Mother” or the “Mother Of The Wheat”, believing that earth power was a feminine force.

The annual “Declaration of World Thanksgiving”, is signed by 12 world leaders — religious leaders, scholars, scientists, philosophers, artists — representing various religions and cultures from around the world.

Assessment:

If everybody celebrates thanksgiving in some form or another, and if the tradition goes back to the ancient Chaldeans, then what is so American (or Christian) about Thanksgiving?

The answer should be obvious. “By their fruits ye shall know them,” Scripture tells us.

America is, hands-down, the most abundantly blessed nation on the face of the earth. Sharing in that blessing are Canada, Australia, New Zealand and some of the nations of Western Europe.

Those nations also share the tradition of offering thanks to the Almighty God of the Bible for their blessings.

Israel also has a tradition of thanksgiving, called Sukkot. Sukkot has three names: Hag HaAsif – The Festival of Ingathering, Hag HaSukkot – The Festival of Booths, HaHag – The Festival), which comes on the fifth day after Yom Kippur, lasts for seven days.

During that time the Israelis remember the protection God gave them during the forty years they spent traveling in the desert. The Jews also celebrate the ingathering of crops during the Feast of Tabernacles.

Like the Christians, the Jews offer their thanks to the True Author of blessing, and like the Christian nations, are among the biggest recipients of God’s provision and protection.

Places like India, Sri Lanka, Africa, Indonesia, Thailand, etc., have traditional celebrations in which they give thanks to pagan gods.

What the pagan gods are able to deliver in return is self-evident.

“Yet ye have forsaken Me, and served other gods: wherefore I will deliver you no more.” (Judges 10:13)

The reason that I love Thanksgiving Day above all other holiday seasons isn’t the turkey (but I love that) and it isn’t the feasting (but I love that) or the parades, or the football games or any of the secular trappings that go along with it.

It is because I get to watch God keep His promises. When God told Abraham of the coming destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham pleaded with God until the Lord agreed that if there remained yet ten righteous men in the city, He would stay His execution on the city.

Even though not ten righteous men could not be found, for the sake of Lot and his family, the Lord arranged first for their evacuation, before bringing judgement on the city.

Each Thanksgiving Day, Americans acknowledge the Creator and offer Him thanks for His blessings. And a walk through American history shows that every year was more abundantly blessed than the year before, with one notable exception.

The longest period of economic stagnation in US history was the period between the War of 1812 and the Civil War. Economic growth was all but non-existent and banking panics were commonplace.

The Banking Panic of 1837 almost tanked America — in 1861, Abe Lincoln had to issue ‘greenbacks’ — in essence government IOU’s — to finance the Civil War.

It is especially interesting in light of the fact that, from 1816 to 1861, there were no presidential Thanksgiving proclamations issued.

America was therefore ‘blessed’ accordingly.

We live in a post-Christian era, but there remain a few righteous men left, in a handful of nations, that still heed the national call for thanksgiving and prayer.

Thanksgiving Day renews my hope that, as in Lot’s case, the Church will be evacuated before God executes judgement on a lost and sin-sick world.

“And out of them shall proceed thanksgiving and the voice of them that make merry: and I will multiply them, and they shall not be few; I will also glorify them, and they shall not be small.” (Jeremiah 30:19)

Offer up thanks to Our Creator, the Almighty God of Israel, Isaac, Jacob. Let Him hear the ‘voice of them that make merry’ — wherever you may be.

I pray each of you have a happy Thanksgiving Day. God bless you all.

Sharon Rejects “Land For Peace” Principle

Sharon Rejects “Land For Peace” Principle
Vol: 50 Issue: 23 Wednesday, November 23, 2005

Israel’s political establishment was rocked to its heels by Ariel Sharon’s decision to quit the Likud Party (which he founded in 1973) to form a new party titled “National Responsibility.” The split resulted in Sharon’s asking Israel’s president, Moshe Katsav, to dissolve the government.

His former party, the Likud, was reeling from his breakaway and hurried to set an early date for electing a new party leader. The leading candidate is former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

The split draws new political lines with clearer distinctions between hawkish and dovish parties. Labor’s Chairman Amir Peretz is a left wing dove, Sharon is a centrist. His defection leaves the Likud in the hands of the hawks.

Sharon broke with the Likud’s guiding ideology when he accepted the Quartet-imposed ‘road map’ to peace. The Likud opposes both a Palestinian State or giving up any more of what it says is Greater Israel.

Speaking of Sharon’s withdrawal from the Likud, party leader Limor Livnat urged his compatriots to remain committed to the “old ideology” even if it means losing power. For them, he said, accepting an Arab sovereignty west of the Jordan River “was impossible.”

Eyal Arad, speaking for Sharon, said that Sharon’s acceptance of the road map – and its vision of a two-state solution – caused an ideological revolution inside the Likud, which long dreamt of Greater Israel. Once the road map was accepted, he said, a split inside the Likud became unavoidable and was a “natural and logical outgrowth” of Sharon’s acceptance of the idea of a Palestinian state.

Even those of us who are well versed in Israeli politics have trouble understanding just how big a deal Sharon’s political makeover is for Israel. Joel Rosenberg put it into perspective in a column at National Review.

“Imagine if George W. Bush elected president of the United States with overwhelming conservative Republican support suddenly woke up one morning, called a press conference, and announced, “I believe Hillary Clinton was right about how to reform health care, and I hereby intend to implement her plan to nationalize America’s health-care system.”

Rosenberg goes on, “Imagine then that a furious GOP demanded that President Bush at the very least hold a referendum within the party to decide whether embracing HillaryCare was really a good idea, and abide by its results. Now imagine that having lost that referendum decisively, and choosing to ignore the results, President Bush now asked Dick Cheney to step down and asked Hillary to serve as his vice president for the sake of “national unity.”

“Finally,” Rosenberg writes, “Imagine that having begun to implement HillaryCare and thus alienating most of the GOP, President Bush decided to bolt the party that nominated and elected him and create his own “centrist” party.”

Assessment:

Ariel Sharon’s top strategist, Eyal Arad, is to Sharon what Karl Rove is to President Bush. Arad outlined Sharon’s new political strategy, saying that the land-for-peace process set in motion at Oslo, ” erroneously presupposed that the root of the conflict was the occupation of the territories, and that if the occupation would only end, then peace would follow.”

This has proven “false philosophically, and naive politically,” he said, pointing out that the Oslo process, which was based on the land-for-peace formula, was followed by the worst terror the country ever faced. Instead, Sharon’s embrace of the road map’s new formula, “independence-for-security” would likely “revolutionize the Israeli political structure.”

The shift from ‘land-for-peace’ to ‘independence-for-security’ was inevitable. Israel could only give away so much of itself, and it appears that Sharon plans to draw the line in the sand where things are right now.

It is expected that he might negotiate away a few isolated settlements, but basically, Sharon has decided that he will draw Israel’s borders along current lines.

The shift is also in line with the Bible’s chronology for the last days. The Oslo peace accords were set up in a framework that called for Israel to exchange territory in the West Bank and Gaza in exchange for peace with the Palestinians — “dividing the land for gain” — so to speak.

The outline of the process called for it to be completed exactly seven years after it was signed on September 13, 2000. Daniel said that the coming antichrist will be a ‘prince’ of the people “that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary.”

Looking forward from Daniel’s day, the ‘city’ (Jerusalem) and the ‘sanctuary’ (the Temple) were destroyed by Titus of Rome in AD 70. Since the ‘people’ were the Romans, the ‘coming prince’ should arise from the Roman Empire.

The only qualifying body is modern Europe. The imposition of the formula of ‘independence-for-security’ by the Quartet is the natural followup to Oslo, but it leaves a major element of the land-for-peace formula unresolved.

The third and final leg of the Oslo journey, scheduled for implementation by September 13, 2000, was to be a resolution of the ‘final status’ of Jerusalem.

Daniel envisioned the ‘confirmation’ of the terms of a seven-year peace deal, but notes that it is a false peace agreement that will last for the first 3 1/2 years before being broken. (Daniel 9:27)

Its metamorphosis from the ‘land-for-peace’ formula to one of ‘security-for-independence’ is foreseen by Ezekiel, who described Israel as a ‘land of unwalled villages’ in which Israel is pictured as being ‘at rest’ and dwelling ‘safely’. (Ezekiel 38:11)

And the prophet Zechariah forecasts the total breakdown of Israel’s false sense of security that results in the whole world gathering itself against the Jewish state will be over the as-yet-unconfirmed issue of Jerusalem’s final status. (Zechariah 12:3-4)

Following the Bible’s timeline, Israel’s current political upheaval is right on schedule.

“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)

The X Files: Washing and Spin Drying Your Brain

The X Files: Washing and Spin Drying Your Brain
Vol: 50 Issue: 22 Tuesday, November 22, 2005

The X Files: Washing and Spin Drying Your Brain

The mainstream media’s war against the administration has come out into the open — they aren’t even pretending to be fair and balanced anymore.

They’ve even dropped the pretense that they care what effect their attacks have on either America as a country or America’s forces in combat.

Vice President Dick Cheney gave a speech before the American Enterprise Institute in Washington DC in which he took on charges that the administration lied to make its case for war with Iraq.

It was no ordinary speech; Cheney came down hard on charges that the president lied, quoting John McCain’s statement that claiming the president lied was itself ‘a lie’.

Cheney said in his speech that criticism is justified, but that lies were over the top.

While Cheney was saying that criticism was justified, CNN flashed a big, black ‘X’ across his face. The ‘X’ pulsed on-screen, appearing every 1/15th of a second, not long enough to be picked up easily by the naked eye, but long enough to implant a subliminal ‘message’ in viewer’s brains.

CNN defended itself by claiming it was a malfunctioning ‘switcher’. A ‘switcher’ is the term to describe a special effect when the camera view ‘switches’ — like going from tight shot out to a wider two-camera view, or to flash a name or title across the screen over a speaker.

So, CNN’s ‘defense’ against implanting a negative subliminal message over the vice president’s face while he was giving a speech is this.

They just happened to have a big, black ‘X’ already loaded on their switcher, just in case they needed that particular graphic at some point, (but certainly not during a political speech by the Vice President!)

Then, by accident, (honest!) that durned switcher just picked that particular image at random and began flashing it at subliminal speeds (all by itself) over Cheney’s face at just the right time to implant a message that the Vice President was lying as he was defending the administration against charges of lying.

CNN’s technical trick was largely ignored by the mainstream media. A Google search using the keywords “Cheney and CNN” turned up only two hits on the story, “Dick Cheney Rated X by CNN?” in Arizona’s National Ledger and “Cheney Continues Attack on President’s War Critics” in the Arizona Daily Star.

That isn’t to say those were the only outlets to carry the story. By changing the keywords to ‘Cheney and X’ I found a total of six stories. But using the keywords ‘Cheney’ and ‘speech’ I got six thousand, three hundred and seventy hits, so the speech got plenty of coverage. (Just not CNN’s use of subliminals)

Most news accounts carried a few lines from the Cheney speech, followed by comments from Democrats like John Kerry and Harry Reid.

The ‘Michigan Daily’ said nothing about CNN’s subliminal editorial comment, but chose instead to quote Harry Reid’s comment that Cheney “missed another opportunity to come clean with the American people and lay out a strategy for success in Iraq. (“Cheney’s a liar”)

In case the ‘Michigan Daily’s’ readers didn’t get the message, the account closed with a quote from Kerry telling reporters that Bush and Cheney have misled America and they’re still misleading America.

(“Cheney’s a big, fat, double-dog liar”)

Assessment:

The open use of subliminal messaging is more than troubling — it is downright scary.

First, what is subliminal messaging? The short answer is that a subliminal message is a signal or message designed to pass below the normal limits of perception.

The term itself was popularized by a 1957 book called ‘The Hidden Persuaders’ by Vance Packard. In 1973, another book, ‘Subliminal Seduction’ by Wilson Bryan Key claimed that subliminal techniques were in wide use in advertising.

The book contributed to a general climate of fear with regard to Orwellian dangers of subliminal messaging. Public concern was enough to lead the Federal Communications Commission to hold hearings and to declare subliminal advertising “contrary to the public interest”.

Subliminal messaging is a form of brainwashing, which is why it was banned by the FCC in the first place. It is illegal to use subliminal messaging in advertising, but it is used all the time, mainly because subliminal messaging is supposed to be subtle; therefore, proving it is intentional is nearly impossible.

But this message wasn’t used to influence the buying habits of consumers, it was used to subliminally brainwash viewer’s POLITICAL view by putting a big, black ‘X’ over Cheney’s face as Cheney defended the administration against charges of lying.

The essence of what constitutes democracy in a free society is that voters are able to come to an informed decision. Brainwashing is a technique used by totalitarian societies as a method of thought control.

The seminal 1964 movie, “The Manchurian Candidate” was based on brainwashing techniques perfected by the Communist Chinese during the Korean War.

There exists a common quest to bring about a new global mindset as part of the global New World Order’s agenda for social transformation.

The media, the entertainment industry, computer companies, government agencies, educational institutions, the United Nations and its accredited non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have all joined together in a common quest worldwide unity based on a new set of beliefs and values.

It’s all part of the plan: create and/or publicize a crisis, vilify the “enemy of the people”, then market the pre-planned solution.

Al Gore explained the technique (and advocated its use), in his book, “Earth in the Balance’:

“Adopting a central organizing principle one agreed to voluntarily means embarking on an all-out effort to use every policy and program, every law and institution, every treaty and alliance, every tactic and strategy, every plan and course of action to use, in short, every means. . .”

Gore’s book was aimed at creating an army of environmental warriors by using propaganda to advance what he believed was a worthy cause. That is one of the main reasons that, although Earth in the Balance was filled with factual inaccuracies and theological inconsistencies, it never received the kind of criticism it deserved.

Maybe it was propaganda, but it was propaganda for a good cause. . .

The same could be said of CNN’s use of the subliminal ‘X’ over Cheney’s face to subliminally suggest he was lying in his speech. The liberals see the administration as being composed of dangerous ideologues bent on reshaping the world in the administration’s image.

Since that image is at odds with the liberal worldview that prefers globalism to nationalism, the use of subliminals by CNN to discredit Dick Cheney is a public service, so why quibble about the means employed?

Two thousand years ago, the Apostle John penned a truly mystifying prophecy — one that baffled scholars for the next 19 centuries.

John wrote that the beast of Revelation 13 would somehow gain control of the global government. But he would seize global control using peace as a weapon.

The prophet Daniel said of the antichrist that, ‘by peace [he] shall destroy many.’ (Daniel 8:25)

And John described the antichrist as the rider on the white horse. John described the rider cryptically: “he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.” (Revelation 6:2)

The rider on the white horse had a ‘bow’ — but no arrows. Thusly unarmed, John says, he went forth ‘conquering’. We cut to John’s vision in Revelation 13 of the beast and the false prophet, and we find a perfect word picture describing hordes of brainwashed masses:

“And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, “Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?” (Revelation 13:4)

Whenever I read this passage, my mind’s eye replays images from old Nazi newsreel footage of thousands of families; housewives, students, factory workers; eyes glittering (even in the old black and white footage) as they raised their arms to render unto Adolf Hitler the Nazi salute while chanting “Seig heil” — a German expression of worship that translates ‘All Hail’ in English.

Putting an ‘X’ over Dick Cheney’s face won’t bring the masses to the point of worship of the beast. The intent here is exactly the opposite.

John says that the antichrist and false prophet will use brainwashing techniques, (Paul calls it the ‘strong delusion’ in 2nd Thessalonians 2:11) but they will use them to promote worship.

CNN’s effort was aimed in the exact opposite direction. It’s intent was to promote distrust and hatred. But they are two sides of the same coin.

What is noteworthy about it all is that CNN can openly deploy it, and get away with it. It is a case of the ends justifying the means.

After all, it is for a good cause. . .

“There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death,” Proverbs 14:12, 16:25)

Old Friends and Memories . . .

Old Friends and Memories . . .
Vol: 50 Issue: 21 Monday, November 21, 2005

As I was researching our archives yesterday, I came upon an Omega Letter I had written from a motel room in Louisville, Kentucky. Although it was only a bit over two years ago, it seems like much, much longer.

It brought back bitter-sweet memories, and, although I was researching another topic altogether, I stopped to read it through. It was the night before I was to meet with an old friend for the first time in two decades. . . .

I wasn’t planning to write about it today — I had a completely different column outlined, and, although I kept hacking away at it, it wasn’t flowing. The Lord kept nudging me in a different direction, but since I already had so much time invested, I kept plugging away . . . then my computer froze solid.

Apparently, there is a message in that old column the Lord wants revisited. . .

“Some months back, an unexpected sequence of events brought an old friend back into my life. The details surrounding how it all happened are a bit fuzzy, but, to make a long story short, I found myself on the phone with one of my very first partners when I was a police officer in Texas, many more years ago than I like to contemplate.

Wylie Porterfield and I went to the police academy together, and instantly became fast friends. A few years later, we were fortunate enough to be able to work together as a team. And what a team we were! It was all very heady; we were young, we were on a mission, and we were invulnerable. (Or so I thought at the time.)

There is something unique about the partnership between two cops that defies conventional explanation. We knew everything about each other, our wives, our kids, what we thought was important in life, and how we hoped to do something special.

In some ways, we were like brothers. In other ways, we were like an old married couple, bickering over nothing, too close to hide our moods and too honest with each other to hold back the truth.

Sometimes, that had a tendency to rub the wrong way, and there were more than a few times when it wasn’t pretty. Like family, only closer.

So when I heard Wylie s voice on the phone, it was quite an experience. We caught up on such things as we could, given that we hadn’t seen each other in close to twenty-five years. In fact, we still haven’t.

The other day, my old friend called me up again. We talked about the old days, and how nice it would be to see each other again. After I hung up, I thought about our conversation.

I thought about how excited I was to hear from Wylie, all these years later. Even more, that he was as glad to hear from me as I was from him. Try as I might, I can’t recall anything about my old friend and our years of service together that was remotely negative.

I know we had fights, but I can’t recall them or what they were about. I know that there were times when I disappointed him, and I am sure there were times that he disappointed me.

But I can’t remember the specifics, and, if I could, I would prefer not to. I wouldn’t want some past event to cloud the joy I felt when I heard my friend s voice.

I called Wylie back day before yesterday to accept his invitation to visit. Accordingly, Gayle and I are on another walkabout this time to Texas, to the same town Wylie and I patrolled all those years ago.

Gayle and I haven’t arrived at Wylie s yet, but we are on the road. I am in a hotel room in Louisville, Kentucky at the moment I anticipate seeing Wylie sometime tomorrow evening.

So, what does my this is what I did at summer camp story have to do with the Omega Letter and our mission?

I couldn’t help but meditate on the joy I felt having heard from my old friend, after so many years. We hadn’t talked in decades, but after the initial awkward moments, we picked up right where we had been before, as if no time had elapsed at all.

It made me think of that Christian who, having been out of touch for so many years, now fears that God will demand an explanation for where he s been, and why he s been out of contact for so long. So that phone call gets put off indefinitely.

I thought about what it must be like for God to hear unexpectedly from one of His old partners somebody with whom He had patrolled the mean streets long ago, before time and circumstances created that distance between them.

After all that they’d been through together, it was as if the relationship was only important to one of them. Until God gets that call He s been waiting for and then all is forgiven and forgotten. Nothing is more important to God than restoring that relationship.

It was so important that it was worth His Own Blood to make it right. And God sits there, waiting for the phone call that will restore that fellowship He so desperately misses.

You don’t even need a quarter. You can call collect.” (The Omega Letter, Volume 24, Issue 23)

Assessment:

Almost one year to the day after that first meeting, I made the trip back to Texas, but this time, it was to say goodbye. Wylie had been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor six months before and was not expected to live much longer.

By this time, Wylie had become a force in the member’s forums, and many of you came to love him as I did. He shared his thoughts with us in the forums, and when the Lord finally called him home, his loss was felt by OL members on every continent.

I miss Wylie. I miss hearing his voice on the other end of the phone, I miss the funny messages he used to leave on the answering machine, and most of all, I miss his counsel. But I know that I will see him again.

Jesus Christ unlocked many mysteries for the Church, not the least of which was what happens when we die. Until Jesus defeated death at His resurrection, the general understanding was that man dies, and then awaits the resurrection of the dead.

The Book of Job, chronologically the oldest book in the Bible, spoke of the resurrection of the dead even before the time of Abraham, confidently saying;

“For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me.” (Job 19:25-27)

But Jesus gave us additional revelation, a new ‘mystery’ for the Church, telling us exactly what happens when we die. There is no ‘soul sleep’ as the OT prophets supposed.

Jesus taught specifically and incontrovertibly that, when the moment of death comes, our conscious spirit lives on, AWAITING the resurrection of the dead, which is when our spirit is united with our new and improved physical bodies.

At the Cross, Jesus told the repentant thief, “Verily I say unto thee, TODAY shalt thou be with Me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43)

Our spirits exist and have substance, and they are not only conscious after death, they are completely self-aware.

The rich man of Luke 16 remembered he had five brothers. He begged Abraham to send Lazarus to warn them ‘lest they also come into this place of torment.’

Death is not the end of our existence; it isn’t even the end of our consciousness. But it is the end of our opportunity to choose to accept or reject the free gift of salvation procured for us by our Savior.

The Bible assures me that I will not only meet Wylie again, but that I will know him and he will know me. Speaking of the separation of death, Paul wrote, “But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.” (1st Thessalonians 4:14)

To the lost, death means eternal separation. The rich man of Luke 16 will spend eternity alone, nameless, and separated from all but his memories, whereas Lazarus is known to God by name, and ‘comforted’.

Paul says of believers;

“For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.” Paul is speaking of the Rapture of the Church, and assures us that the dead in Christ rise first.

Then Paul says; “Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up TOGETHER WITH THEM in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”

Paul exhorts us to “comfort one another with these words.” (1st Thessalonians 4:17-18)

Like Job, I am certain that ‘mine eyes shall behold, and not another’ the Lord when He returns for His Church, (an event I anticipate taking place almost any day now.)

“. . . then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” (1st Corinthians 15:54-55)

Where, indeed?

House Not-So-Divided, After All?

House Not-So-Divided, After All?
Vol: 50 Issue: 19 Saturday, November 19, 2005

If it weren’t literally a matter of life and death, it would be amusing. It literally came to a head when Pennsylvania Democrat John Murtha took to the floor of the House and told lawmakers (and the world) that US forces have done ‘all that they could do’ in the war against the Iraq insurgency and that it is time to withdraw the troops immediately.

According to Murtha, US troops are the ‘prime target’ of the insurgency. He told lawmakers that he believed military officials when he visited Kuwait just before the war and they showed him where American forces would be attacked by weapons of mass destruction when they approach Baghdad.

By mid-summer, Murtha said administration officials were “not honest in their assessment” that they were winning the ongoing battle.

But now, with no end to the killing in sight, he said, “The US cannot accomplish anything further in Iraq militarily. It’s time to bring the troops home. . . They have become the enemy.”

Murtha was the perfect choice to be the spokesman for the Surrender Now Movement of the Democratic Left. He is a bona fide war hero who earned two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star in combat in Vietnam. Every Democratic defense of Murtha’s comments begins with a reference to Murtha’s military service, followed by a reminder Bush didn’t serve in combat and Cheney didn’t serve in the military at all.

Murtha’s military service is cited so often and his defenders are so shrill that it evidently escapes everybody’s attention that the discussion was really about which Democratic politician was best qualified to advocate surrender.

This would be a good place to note that America has a Pentagon FULL of military veterans, including lots and lots and lots of war heroes — none of whom share Murtha’s military assessment of the battlefield situation.

The absurdity of watching reporters skeptically grilling four-star generals, chests all but obscured by rows of medals, and then fawning over the tactical assessment advanced by a 73 year-old veteran of a forty-year-old war would, as I noted, be funny, if it weren’t so serious.

That isn’t to take anything away from Rep. Murtha or to denigrate in any way his military service to America. But the jungles of Vietnam bear as much resemblance to the Iraqi desert as, ummm. . . well, the jungles of Vietnam to the Iraqi desert.

And Murtha’s military assessment, which is that America is losing, is in direct contrast to the assessment of professional military minds at the Pentagon. Not to mention being wholly at odds with the military assessment of the commanders in the field.

In any case, anyone who dared to call Murtha’s proposal what it was, was immediately beaten about the head and shoulders with Murtha’s military record. How dare anyone question the wisdom of such a great patriot, etc.,etc.

Murtha became the instant darling of the liberal media.

The Boston Globe ran an editorial under the headline “White House Plays Chicken with a War Hero.” CNN styled its coverage to fit its headline; “A Hawk Rattles GOP Cage.”

The Washington Post called the White House’s reaction to Murtha’s call for a US surrender “Trash Talk” and called the administration’s incredulous reaction in which Scott MeClellan expressed bafflement that Murtha “is endorsing the policy positions of Michael Moore and the extreme liberal wing of the Democratic party” a ‘smear tactic’.

(This one is one of my very favorite examples of spinning something until everybody is too dizzy to stand up, let alone think. If being part of the extreme liberal wing of the Democratic Party is a ‘smear’, what does that say about Howard Dean? And I thought they LIKED Michael Moore. They invited him to speak at their convention)

The story played well abroad, too. China’s ‘People’s Daily Online’ headlined its story, “Top Democrat Calls for US Troop Withdrawal.” The Globe and Mail informed its Canadian readers that “Pressure Rises for Bush to Quit Iraq.”

The Australian stood apart from the foreign press, noting that “the biggest weapon in the arsenal of the US’s critics is carefully selective amnesia. Conveniently forgetting important historical facts enables tactical amnesiacs to make claims about US policy that seem to support their contention that the country’s Government is uniquely evil.”

There you have it. Liberal ‘patriotism’ as defined from abroad; “their contention that the country’s government is uniquely evil.” Think the implications through carefully.

There are few countries in the world more friendly to the United States than Australia. This friendship is not a friendship between Australia and the Bush administration — it is a friendship between two peoples.

Now look at how liberal ‘patriotism’ plays among America’s friends — tactical amnesiacs selectively cherry picking events for the purpose of portraying their own government to the rest of the world as ‘uniquely evil’.

We are in the midst of a world war against a determined enemy dedicated to our destruction. And it is obvious, even from the other side of the world, that the enemy’s most effective tactical weapon against the United States is liberal ‘patriotism’.

Assessment:

The liberal left portrays their anti-war stance as one of ‘principled opposition to a failed policy’ and denies any suggestion that it is really a cynical effort to use the war (and the troops engaged in it) for political gain. Yesterday, they were given the opportunity to display the courage of their convictions and put those charges to rest.

They were given the chance to express those convictions when a resolution calling for the immediate withdrawal of US forces from Iraq was put before them for a vote. Each member could express his true convictions, stand by their votes and let the chips fall where they may.

The proposed resolution was simple and to the point, and left little room for selective interpretation: “It is the sense of the House of Representatives that the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be terminated immediately.”

The Democrats were horrified at what they labeled a ‘political stunt’. “It’s just heinous,” said Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Calif. “A disgrace,” declared House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. “The rankest of politics and the absence of any sense of shame,” added Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the No. 2 House Democrat.

But when it came to putting their convictions on the line, only three voted in favor of withdrawal, Cynthia McKinney [D-Ga] Robert Wexler, [D- Fla] and Jose Serrano [D-NY]. It was ultimately defeated by a margin of 403-3.

What is disgraceful about forcing politicians to demonstrate the courage of their expressed convictions? How does insisting on a democratic vote in the Congress qualify as the ‘rankest of politics’?

“Whoever thought up this pipe dream should be ashamed of themselves. It brings incredible shame to this House,” said Rep. David R. Obey, Wisconsin Democrat.

What is so shameful about forcing politicians to record their true positions on the war? The ‘shame’ was when the vote exposed the antiwarriors as frauds caught in the act of using the war (and America’s warriors) as cannon fodder in a political battle.

The hypocrisy makes one’s head spin.

Rep. Jack Kingston, the George Republican whose district includes the home base of the Army’s 3rd Infantry, summed up the GOP’s ‘heinous tactics’ this way: “We’ll put it to a vote, see if Democrats really want immediate withdrawal,” before observing what the vote count made obvious.

“Their hate for George Bush is so great they don’t seem to care about the ramifications of reckless statements.”

Even if it hurts America abroad, increases the risks to US troops, aids the enemy in its effort to recruit new jihadists to fight the Great Satan and holds up America’s much-vaunted political system for global ridicule.

George Bush is the real enemy. If, in defeating him, it means defeating America, so be it.

According to the outline of Bible prophecy, during the Tribulation, the world will divide up into four main spheres of influence relative to Israel’s geographic location. To the north, the Gog-Magog Alliance. To Israel’s west is the revived Roman Empire of antichrist. The kings of the east and the kings of the south cover the rest of the compass points.

There is no mention of a fifth superpower resembling the United States.

“They would none of My counsel: they despised all My reproof. Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices. For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them. But whoso hearkeneth unto Me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.” (Proverbs 1:30-33)