An Amazing Coincidence

An Amazing Coincidence
Vol: 68 Issue: 31 Thursday, May 31, 2007

Today, I ordered Al Gore’s seminal 1992 tome, “Earth in the Balance” from Amazon.com. (It was marked down to $3.92 from its original price of $15.95 so I am not exactly helping Gore finance the ‘eco-credits’ he buys from himself.)

I read Gore’s book when it was first published for a piece I was writing for the TV show, “This Week in Bible Prophecy” but the only part of it I can remember is the part where Al asks rhetorically, “Why does it feel faintly heretical to see a connection between the percentage of minerals in the sea and the percentages that make up human beings?”

(That is only an approximation of the original quote. It’s been more than fifteen years since I read the original.)

Gore was musing about the dichotomy that exists between his claim of being a Bible-believing Southern Baptist and his contention that we evolved from some primordial ooze uncounted billions of years ago.

It seemed to Gore to be ‘faintly heretical’ back then, because, to any Bible-believing Christian, his contention would be extremely heretical — and he was running on the Clinton-Gore ticket as one-half of a Southern Baptist ticket.

In his DNC acceptance speech, running mate Bill Clinton enlisted the Apostle Paul as a campaign spokesman, offering this mangled quote of 1st Corinthians 2:9:

“But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which WE CAN BUILD.”

(The actual verse reads: “But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.”)

Bill Clinton’s humanist version of 1st Corinthians does not exist in any English version of the Bible.

In Gore’s acceptance speech, Southern Baptist Gore was evidently so unfamiliar with the Bible that he was unable to come up with a real Bible verse to mangle, so he made one up off the top of his head to fit his subject material:

“In the words of the Bible, “Do not lose heart, this nation will be renewed.”

(I couldn’t find anything even remotely resembling that quote in any Bible — not even in the New Life Version).

Of course, that was 1992 — America had not yet fully entered its post-Christian era and the Clinton-Gore team was hoping to attract Christian voters to their camp. By the end of the Clinton-Gore era, being a Bible-believing Christian had become a campaign liability, rather than a campaign asset.

(In 2000, when George Bush declared Jesus Christ to be the most admirable figure in history, it nearly torpedoed his campaign. Being the quick study that he is, Bush never made the ‘mistake’ of mentioning Jesus Christ by Name in public again . . . sad, isn’t it?)

The reason that I ordered Al Gore’s “Earth in the Balance” is because I am outlining a book about global warming. Actually, not global warming. The term ‘global warming’ is SO last year.

The new catch phrase is ‘global climate change.’ The reason for revising it is made abundantly clear by the news headlines.

Last week, for example, the Drudge Report grouped together four interesting headlines; the first was about global warming, and the next three were about the freak snowstorms and sub-freezing temperatures rocking America, Canada, Great Britain and Europe.

Blaming snowstorms in May on global warming is even too bizarre for the most extreme liberal ‘thinker’ to swallow, no matter how blinded he is by ideology.

Remember the Reuters report we discussed in last week’s “Not All the News is Bad”?

“Temperatures and precipitation in the Midwest have an equal chance of being above or below normal in June, the National Weather Service said in its latest monthly forecast released on Thursday.”

But ‘climate change’ covers all the bases nicely.

Assessment:

We’re running out of fads. It is getting harder and harder to invent a new ‘hot button’ issue.

In the first half of the 20th century, the alarmists were worried about global warming, as global temperatures appeared to be on the rise. Then, beginning with the Second World War, global temperatures began to cool.

Adolph Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union failed as Europe suddenly and inexplicably began experiencing some of the coldest temperatures and harshest winters in fifty years.

During the 1944 Battle of the Bulge, normally temperate Bastogne suffered such severe winter weather that author Alex Kershaw titled his book on the battle, “The Longest Winter.”

Of the 81,000 casualties suffered by US troops defending Bastogne, it is estimated that half were weather-related. (COLD weather-related)

By the mid-1970’s, decades of unusually harsh winter weather had news magazines like TIME and Newsweek featuring cover stories warning of a coming Ice Age.

Since losing the 2000 presidential election, Al Gore has made a cottage industry of out dire predictions of global warming and scientific ‘consensus’ –defined as any scientist that agrees with him.

(It brings to mind his 2000 mantra, “every vote should count” while his lawyers were in court trying to disqualify the military votes expected to break for Bush.)

But this isn’t about Al Gore, although he makes too inviting a target to ignore. Nor is it about global warming, other than as a topical example of human gullibility. It is about fear.

It seems that, as a race, we aren’t quite happy unless we have something to be scared of.

If it isn’t global warming, its global cooling. When neither pan out to be scientific, it becomes a fear of climate change. If it isn’t climate change, its fear of the earth being destroyed by killer asteroids from Beyond the Stars.

Or fear that we are running out of energy. There is enough shale oil in Alberta alone to supply our energy needs for generations to come.

And Appell Technologies has proven technology that can turn turkey guts (or any other carbon based garbage) into No 6 sweet crude oil suitable for refining into gasoline. (The Politics of Oil and a Butterball Turkey)

“Employing the politics of fear” is a charge routinely laid by ideologues on both the Left and the Right.

The antiwarriors on the Left accused the Bush administration of using the politics of fear since September 11 as justification for everything from the 2003 Iraq invasion to the imposition of Patriot Act II.

The Right charges that the globalists are employing the politics of fear to force the US to ratify the Kyoto Treaty, which is less about climate change than it is about forcing the US into submitting to a global government.

Kyoto would give the United Nations the authority to impose ‘energy use’ taxes on the United States. The effort to find ways to force the US into paying internationally-imposed taxes has been the ‘Holy Grail’ of the globalist elite since the Bretton Woods Agreement in 1944 created the International Monetary Fund.

(The ability to impose taxes is the definition of “government” — Jesus referred to Roman taxation as ‘tribute’ — which is a time-honored acknowledgment of conquest by the conquered. [Matthew 17:24-25, 22:19, Mark 12:14, Luke 20:22])

But of all the efforts to use the politics of fear as a weapon to control the masses, none has enjoyed the successes of the fear of climate change, although climate change is the least convincing of them all.

It relies entirely on our willingness to believe that the science of weather forecasting that can’t accurately forecast tomorrow’s weather will be 100% accurate in fifty years, justifying the imposition of a global government to prevent catastrophic weather changes in the future, based on a ‘scientific consensus’.

How accurate is weather forecasting technology? Most cities have at least three local news stations that also produce their own local weather forecasts. No two of them are identical, even for the same city.

Does that not strike you as odd for an infallible ‘science’ accepted by a vast majority of the public as ‘scientific consensus’?

As I said, the fear of climate change is the most unlikely to be successful, since it is so clearly the least convincing. Yet it has convinced the majority of the populations of the majority of countries on the planet that ‘something must be done’ — and fast, before the inexact science of weather forecasting finishes morphing into the consensus scientific law of the universe fifty years from now.

Since it is the most unlikely of all, only someone with their head firmly planted in the sand would be unable to connect the fact that it is the exact choice forecast by Jesus Christ 2000 years ago with the Divine inspiration of Bible prophecy.

Jesus described one of the signs of His impending return thusly:

“And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.” (Luke 21:25-26)

Is it POSSIBLE to come up with a more unlikely forecast? The fear of global climate change being the consuming fear of mankind — two thousand years into the future?

Jesus spoke of the ‘distress of NATIONS’. “Distress” means ‘fear’. He related that fear to “perplexity”. ‘Perplexity’ means ‘confusion’.

What is more confusing than global warming being responsible for snowstorms in May?

Jesus even quoted Al Gore’s oft-repeated warning of rising sea levels inundating the world’s coastlines; “the sea and the waves roaring.”

Yet climate change has taken on the status of a global religion. Anyone who dares question the concept that global warming is the result of man-made carbon emissions is immediately labeled a ‘heretic’.

Whole segments of the population are so afraid of what they believe is ‘coming upon the earth’ that they are willing to turn their lives, both individually and nationally, over to the same UN that cheerfully and openly stole billions of dollars from the people of Iraq under the pretense of regulating “Oil for Food.”

The same UN that holds an annual ‘moment of silence’ for the victims of the Rwanda genocide while resisting efforts to put an end to the genocide that has been ongoing, unabated, in Darfur for half a decade?

Can you find any logical sequence of thought that works, here? I can’t. But maybe I am just a bit thicker than the average bear.

Instead, what I see is a two thousand year old forecast made by an itinerant Jewish preacher, aimed at a single generation, somewhere in time, a forecast offering the most unlikely scenario imaginable from His perspective on the global timeline and coming to pass in the most specific manner possible, given the context of the forecast.

And the same people who are willing to trust their children’s future to the most corrupt human institution in history call THAT a ‘coincidence.’

It is nothing short of amazing.

Myths and Facts About the SPP

Myths and Facts About the SPP
Vol: 68 Issue: 30 Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Depending upon whom you ask, the North American Security and Prosperity Partnership that envisions an EU-like entity for Mexico, the US and Canada is:

1) a urban legend;

2) an unfounded conspiracy theory;

3) an end-run around US sovereignty.

It is all three, sort of, and at the same time, it is none of the above. Confused? Don’t let THAT bother you. You are SUPPOSED to be confused.

Ever seen a magician perform a feat of prestidigitation? The first thing he does is pull up one of his sleeves. “Nothing up my sleeve,” he says, in order to draw your attention TO his sleeve.

While you are staring at his shirt sleeve, he is using the other hand to do the trick. That’s why you can’t see how he does it.

Testifying before the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure in January, DOT Undersecretary Jeffrey Shane called reports of a planned NAFTA Superhighway an ‘urban legend’.

But in 2004, Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta told a meeting of NASCO (North America s SuperCorridor Coalition, Inc):

“NAFTA has opened the doors to expanding and flourishing trade across our borders. Since its implementation, total U.S. trade with Mexico has increased almost 200 percent with 70 percent of the U.S./Mexico trade passing through Texas.

“There are, however, some things that we still need to do in the United States to fulfill our obligations under the NAFTA treaty. One of them is to finally open the market between Mexico and the United States for trucking and busing.”

Mineta described the proposed corridor thusly:

“It flows across our nation’s busiest southern border crossing in Laredo; over North America’s busiest commercial crossing, the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit; and through Duluth, and Pembina, North Dakota, and all the places in between.”

For an ‘urban legend’, it sure is specific — again, depending on who you ask.

On the SPP’s website, under the headline, “Myths Vs Facts, it claims:

“The U.S. government is not planning a NAFTA Super Highway. The U.S. government does not have the authority to designate any highway as a NAFTA Super Highway, nor has it sought such authority, nor is it planning to seek such authority. There are private and state level interests planning highway projects which they themselves describe as “NAFTA Corridors,” but these are not Federally-driven initiatives, and they are not a part of the SPP.”

Maybe the feds don’t have the authority, maybe they do. It all depends on how you define “authority.” It certainly isn’t opposing the so-called “private and state-level initiatives”.

If it isn’t opposing it, then one could certainly argue that is is authorizing it. The SPP website also contains this entry:

“Myth: The SPP was an agreement signed by Presidents Bush and his Mexican and Canadian counterparts in Waco, TX, on March 23, 2005.”

“Fact: The SPP is a dialogue to increase security and enhance prosperity among the three countries. The SPP is not an agreement nor is it a treaty. In fact, no agreement was ever signed.”

This particular ‘myth’ DID take place, so the denial only holds water if one redefines the word ‘agreement.’

The truth is, on March 23, 2005, President Bush met at his ranch in Crawford, Texas with Vicente Fox and Paul Martin (then PM of Canada) in what they called a Summit.

The three heads of state then drove to Baylor University in Waco, where they issued a press release announcing their signing of an agreement to form the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP).

In March, 2006, Bush, Fox and new Canadian PM, Stephen Harper met in Cancun, Mexico. This time their press release celebrated what they called the first anniversary of the SPP.

But this time, they called the ‘agreement’ a ‘dialogue’. In government circles, employing such a euphemism is called, ‘plausible deniability.’

And, says the SPP Myths and Facts document, it strongly rejects the idea that it is creating a European Union-like structure. It says it is simply a trade and security ‘framework’.

Even the denial is European Union-like. The EU concept was initially sold to the nations of Europe as a trade and security ‘framework’.

At first, the Europlanners said the EU ‘framework’ was designed create an economic structure to allow a combined European economy to compete with the United States and other economic powerhouses.

The SPP “Myths and Facts” worksheet denies any plan to create a North American currency called the “Amero.” (Just like the EU initially denied it had any plans to create the Euro — until it finished selling the idea of the trade and security ‘framework’.

Once that idea was in place, the Europlanners ‘discovered’ that, to make it work, it needed a common currency to provide ‘seamless trade’.

The SPP, while allegedly a private and state-level ‘initiative’, has twenty ‘working groups’ who are:

1) writing policy initiatives for the SPP, covering a wide range of issues including, the manufacture and movement of goods across the borders of the three North American nations:

2) creating a common energy policy and common environmental regulations over the three nations;

3) regulating E-commerce and information communications and technologies;

4) establishing financial services, including loan policy and foreign aid policy;

5) overseeing business facilitation, creating the rules under which businesses will operate in the three nations;

6) establishing food and agriculture policy; and,

7) overseeing transportation and health policy.

Those ‘initiatives’ cannot work without the creation of a unified currency. So, on April 6, 2006, the SPP announced the formation of the Financial Services Working Group.

According to its own news release, the Financial Group will focus on enhancing processes for addressing banking, securities, and insurance issues.”

The Bank of Canada functions as Canada’s Federal Reserve. It’s governor is the Canadian equivalent to the Chairman of the US Federal Reserve Board.

Last week, Bank of Canada Governor David Dodge told the Chicago Council on Global Affairs to prepare itself for the introduction of a ‘euro-style’ currency.

Dodge was addressing the sudden rise in the value of the Canadian dollar against the US, which Dodge noted makes Canadian products a lot less competitive — a reasonable-enough sounding argument.

And in October of last year, El Universal, a Mexican newspaper published in Spanish, reported then-president-elect Calderon of Mexico and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper shared a vision of a future North America united under a common currency.

That report raised the ire of “the Canadian,” a liberal newspaper that supports preserving Canadian sovereignty. It expressed surprise at Duceppe s support of what the paper characterized as the amero. (Amero? What Amero?)

The paper commented, Mr. Duceppe and other elites of the so-called Qu bec sovereignty movement view selling-out to U.S. based neo-cons to be much more commercially profitable than forming a new Qu bec nation.

The paper commented, Mr. Duceppe and other elites of the so-called Qu bec sovereignty movement view selling-out to U.S. based neo-cons to be much more commercially profitable than forming a new Qu bec nation.

And CNBC reported last November that the amero is the proposed new currency for the North American Community, which is being developed right now between Canada, the U.S., and Mexico.

Assessment:

The SPP is the embodiment of the old rhetorical question: How to you eat an elephant? Answer: One bite at a time.

It will take years before everything is in place. (It took the European Union several years to overcome opposition to the Euro.)

Official denials notwithstanding, the SPP is not a myth. The official denials, however, are.

It is not an unfounded conspiracy theory. It is an open conspiracy fact.

It is not an ‘end run’ around US sovereignty. It is a frontal assault upon it.

The US dollar has almost run its course. The dollar is not backed by gold or silver — there is about $48 billion worth of US gold reserves, but the national debt is approaching ten trillion.

Once again, let’s illustrate the difference between million, billion and trillion using something we can understand — time.

A million seconds equals about twelve days. A billion seconds is thirty-two years. And a TRILLION seconds is thirty-two THOUSAND years.

The dollar is backed, not by the US government reserves, but by the property and future earnings of the United States and its people. (In other words, YOUR property and YOUR future earnings.)

The problem is, we’ve just about exceeded our collateral. We’ve mortgaged the national house up to our national shingles. We need more house. And a new mortgage to finance it.

The Canadian industry ranks first in the global production of zinc, uranium, nickel and potash; second in sulphur, asbestos, aluminium and cadmium; third in copper and platinum group metals; fourth in gold; and fifth in lead.

Mexico is equally rich in similar natural resources, not to mention both countries have vast untapped oil reserves.

An ‘Amero’ would be backed by the combined national and natural resources of all three nations as a single, unified financial guarantor.

Of course, nothing is for nothing. The price of the Security and Prosperity Partnership is the sovereignty of the United States of America.

But the cost of NOT doing it is equally frightening.

If you wonder what an economic meltdown of the United States would look like, one need only look back two years to what New Orleans became when Katrina destroyed that city’s security and prosperity infrastructure.

Murders, thefts, looting, assaults, rapes, an exodus of police and firefighters, the imposition of martial law and National Guardsmen on every street corner.

The SPP sounds like a good idea, in theory. And the cost of not implementing it is too terrifying to contemplate.

Bible prophecy forecasts four spheres of global power in the last days; the Kings of the East, the Kings of the South, the Gog-Magog Alliance and the revived Roman Empire of the antichrist.

Of the four, the most powerful is that of revived Rome. The SPP is modeled after the EU’s revived Rome, and of the four, the EU is North America’s only natural ally.

There is no fifth sphere of power in Bible prophecy resembling America, which can only lead to one of three conclusions.

Option 1 — America’s destruction; Option 2 — an alliance with Rome, or, Option 3 — the Rapture.

Without the SPP, the first option is the most likely. With the SPP, the second option becomes a viable possibility.

The third option, the Rapture, would force either the implementation of Option two, or would force Option one.

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

The SPP is a perfect example. That said, I am neither an advocate for the SPP or against it. . .

I don’t like either Option 1 or Option 2. My preference is Option 3. Unfortunately, my will isn’t supreme here.

My job isn’t to advocate AGAINST the fulfillment of Bible prophecy, but rather, to report on the Big Picture as it unfolds, and to sound the warning that time is running out.

If that sounds like a fatalistic perspective, it is because the Bible says this world has a fatal, spiritual disease.

The signs are all around us, and they are increasing in both frequency and intensity, exactly as the Bible predicted for the last days.

So, consider yourself warned. The Lord is coming back. And He may be coming sooner than we think.

“And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.” (Romans 13:11)

Maranatha!

“Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani”

“Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani”
Vol: 68 Issue: 29 Tuesday, May 29, 2007

In its most common definition, an ‘evangelist’ is a ‘tent preacher’ — a person who travels from place to place, holding tent meetings and giving the Gospel to the lost.

The most celebrated evangelist of our time, hands down, would be Billy Graham. However, there’s no tent big enough for Billy Graham, whose evangelistic crusades tend to pack baseball and football stadiums, rather than tents.

The word “evangelist” is a Greek compound word; ‘eu’ meaning ‘good’ and ‘angelos’ meaning ‘messenger’, or “one who is sent to announce, teach or perform [anything].” It is the word “angelos” from which we derive our word ‘angel’.

The idea conveyed by the Greek compound word is that of proclaiming a good message, or good news. In the KJV, the verb evangelizo is translated preach, preach the gospel, bring good tidings, show the glad tidings, addressed with the gospel, and declared.

Another Greek word pertinent to this topic is kerusso, which is variously translated by the KJV translators in the NT as ‘preach’, ‘preaching’, ‘published’ and ‘proclaimed’.

There are a number of different senses in which we understand the term ‘evangelist’.

Al Gore is often called an ‘evangelist of global warming,’ but applying that term to Gore is only half right.

Gore introduces himself by saying, “I’m Al Gore and I used to be the next president of the United States.” [That’s the good news].

But his topic is all bad news; “Global warming threatens to end human existence”.

It is also necessary, if one is to be considered an ‘evangelist’, that the news must be true.

So calling Al Gore an ‘evangelist of global warming’ is more tongue-in-cheek than accurate.

Assessment:

According to Scripture, an evangelist is one of a handful of Divinely-ordained church offices:

“And He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers. . .”

The Apostle Paul also gives the job description and goal of an evangelist:

“For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.” (Ephesians 4:11-13)

Paul charged Timothy with the job of ‘doing the work of an evangelist’ which included, “enduring afflictions” and being a watchman on the wall.

“But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.” (2nd Timothy 4:5)

D.T. Niles, who dedicated his life to doing the work of an evangelist in Sri Lanka, provided this beautiful word picture of what the work of a Christian evangelist REALLY is.

In an interview in, of all places, the New York Times back in 1986; he defined it as, “one beggar telling another beggar where he found bread.”

An evangelist, then, is one who is a messenger of good news, and there is no better news than that Jesus Christ paid the full penalty for all sins for all mankind at the Cross.

My calling is that of an evangelist, but my mission is not so much to the lost as it is to the saved. My mission is aimed at the “perfecting (training) of the saints for the work of the ministry.”

In that sense, my mission is to train you for that work in your own, day-to-day evangelistic ministry.

I am just one man. I can only be at one place at one time, and can only reach out to a handful of people at any given moment. You, on the other hand, are everywhere at once.

You are in Houston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Johannesburg, South Africa, Melbourne, Australia, Auckland, New Zealand, Vancouver, Canada, and Lagos, Nigeria. Your reach far exceeds my grasp.

It is you, in your capacity AS you, that hears that seminal question being asked by every one who sees man’s inhumanity to man: “What is this world coming to?”

My job is to ensure you are “ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.” (1st Peter 3:15)

Each human being owes his own sin debt, and because of that debt, he cannot pay the sin debt for another. God’s plan for the redemption of mankind is therefore perfect and completely logical.

The Lord Himself stepped out of eternity into space and time, took on the form of sinful man, lived the life God requires of each of us, and, having no sin debt of His own, was qualified to pay the sin debt for all mankind.

His death was excruciating, long and painful. Crucifixion was reserved by the Romans for only the most heinous crimes, and was considered so shameful that it could not be imposed on a Roman citizen.

It was a snapshot of how God views sin.

Through His manner of execution, Jesus was temporarily stripped of His heavenly citizenship, literally separated from God, becoming the embodiment of sin on our behalf.

From the Cross, Jesus looked up and cried out, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” (Mark 15:34)

Of course, as God-man in the flesh, Jesus knew why, but by His Words, He conveyed to us the full measure of His sacrifice on our behalf. We are all separated from God by our sin.

To pay our sin debt, Jesus was also, for the first and last time in eternity past, present and future, separated from the Godhead as a sacrifice for our sin.

On the Cross, He was literally forsaken by the Father.

For the space of three hours, He was sin incarnate, alone and comfortless, as your sin and mine was heaped upon Him.

Matthew says that during those three hours, there was “darkness over all the land” as the sins of the world were charged to His account.

Allow yourself to think about that for a second. See if you can get your head around the concept. Try to imagine the scene.

Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity, in His moment of supreme agony, looked to the Father, only to see that GOD HAD TURNED HIS BACK ON HIM!

For three agonizing hours, Jesus hung, alone and forsaken, temporarily stripped of His Heavenly citizenship as an offering for sin in which God Incarnate became sin incarnate.

Jesus suffered the agonies of sin on our behalf, before declaring, “It is finished.” John says at that moment, “He bowed His head, and gave up the ghost.” (John 19:29)

The word group translated, “It is finished” was “Tetelestai.” Like all words, it had both a specific meaning and a conventional application. It meant, ‘paid in full.’

It was the word that was written on a slave’s manumission papers. When a slave was freed by his master, he carried a document bearing the phrase ‘telestai’ which indicated his indentured status was forever remitted, and he was henceforth and forever a free man.

When a debtor finally paid off his debt, he received back his original loan agreement with the word ‘tetelestai’ printed at the bottom, meaning ‘paid in full.’ It was a quit claim that signified a lender no longer had a lien on the property put up as collateral.

Jesus didn’t pay your debt for sin up to the moment of salvation. He paid your sin debt in its entirety.

“By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ ONCE for ALL. And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God . . . For by One offering He hath perfected FOREVER them that are sanctified.” (Hebrews 10:10-12,14)

THAT is the “eu angelos” — the message of good news that each of us carries. That is the good news that was given for the ‘perfection of the saints for the work of the ministry.’

Each of us is an ‘evangelist’ in his or her own right. Each of us is REQUIRED to carry that message to the lost. Each of us is REQUIRED to be ‘ready to give the reason for the hope that is in you.’

Some of us are called to teach it, others are called to share it.

According to Scripture, there are a finite number of believers who will accept the Gospel. (Romans 8:29)

It isn’t that God has condemned others to a Christ-less eternity.

It is simply that God, in His foreknowledge, already knows who will accept salvation and who will reject it. But everybody must have a chance.

To reject it, one must hear it. That is God’s plan. The work of the ministry can be boiled down into a single phrase; “Each one, tell one.”

“And this Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and THEN shall the end come.” (Matthew 24:14)

“Tetelestai!”

Duty, Honor, Country

Duty, Honor, Country
Vol: 68 Issue: 28 Monday, May 28, 2007

According to the liberal left, US forces routinely “torture” prisoners using techniques such as sleep deprivation, extremes of hot and cold (by “extremes” here, we are talking about turning down the air conditioning or turning up the heat) withholding food or water (for short durations, humiliation, and a technique known as ‘water-boarding’.

“Water boarding” causes no physical pain and causes no physical damage. It involves covering someone’s face with a towel and pouring water on it until they get the sense of drowning –and, of course, they DON’T drown.

In essence, what is defined by the Left as ‘torture’ is no worse than what the average Marine Corps recruit was subjected to in America in 1969. Instead of water-boarding, in 1969, we had the gas chamber.

The gas chamber was filled with CS gas, something like the tear gas used on civilians during a riot, but harsher. Recruits were sent in there wearing gas masks. The instructor would pull off a recruit’s mask to teach the recruit how to ‘clear’ it and put it back on.

The purpose for the gas was to induce a state of panic. The purpose for the training was to teach a recruit to respond calmly in a REAL gas attack, despite the panic.

But after each recruit had properly cleared and re-donned his gas mask, we were all ordered to take them off altogether, still in the gas chamber, while standing at attention.

Then, in a sealed room so thick with CS gas that one could scarcely see the drill instructor five feet away, we were required to sing the first two stanzas of the Marine Corps hymn.

After completing the chorus, we were ordered to file out in an orderly manner.

Any former Marine who experienced the gas chamber would laugh at ‘water-boarding.’

During the first three days I was at Parris Island, I was not allowed to sit down, let alone sleep. After three days of standing at attention on the ‘yellow footprints’ or standing at attention in the JRC barracks (in FRONT of perfectly good racks (bunks, for you civilians), we were ‘herded’ like cattle, carrying footlockers and seabags containing almost 100 pounds of gear, across the depot to our barracks.

Throughout recruit training, Marine recruits in 1969 were forced to stand at attention for hours at a time, often punctuated by seemingly impossible bouts of physical exercise. (I recall once being ordered, “bends and ******** [can’t say what WE called them — but they were four-count squat thrusts] one MILLION of them. Ready. . . Begin!”)

We didn’t actually have to do a million of them. What it really meant was that we would PT until the last man dropped.

I went to Parris Island in January. At 0430, it was around eighteen degrees. We would stand outside in the freezing weather at attention, before being marched to the drill circle where we would then run laps equalling three miles.

THEN we would march to the mess hall for breakfast.

By mid-day, the temps in South Carolina would climb into the eighties sometimes, even in winter. Marine recruits would PT for hours in the heat. And there was a particularly nasty punitive exercise called “up and over shoulders” usually reserved for an infraction involving a weapon.

I once dropped my rifle and experienced “up and over shoulders.” The exercise involved raising the rifle over one’s head, bringing it down once in front, and once behind one’s head, over and over, faster and faster, until at last, you’d bring the thing down ON your head, knocking off a few sparks in the process. I nearly knocked myself cold. I had a bump that lasted a week.

Torture?

Assessment:

I “Googled” ‘torture’ this morning. The first headline read, “UK Army Must Come Clean on Torture.” The second headline was “CIA Torture Program Ensnares Innocents.” There were two stories about actual (non-military) torture by sicko criminals.

It wasn’t until half-way down the page that one came to the story headlined: “al-Qaeda Torture Center Discovered.”

Halfway down the page?

Google displayed the top four hits on the front page. None were from an American newspaper. When one dug deep enough, when one did find an American newspaper story, it was the same AP report, over and over.

Few that I found cared enough to even do their own reporting on it. Most simply ran the wire service story, because it was, well, on the wire services.

The Los Angeles Times had what appeared to be an original report, written by Alexandra Zavis. Since everybody else was simply going by the AP or Reuters story, we’ll focus on the LA Times piece to take a look what al-Qaeda thinks is torture when they are the ones doing the torturing.

Acting on a tip from local residents, U.S. forces in Diyala raided a site in palm groves south of the province’s capital, Baqouba. There, they discovered some forty-two individuals being held by al-Qaeda terrorists.

The LA Times reported: “Some of the captives appeared to be suffering from heat exhaustion. Others gave harrowing accounts of having been hung from the ceiling and tortured, said Army Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, another military spokesman. Evidence of abuse, including broken limbs, appeared to back up their account.

Some of the captives said they had been held for four months, Garver said. Most were middle-age men, but one said he was 14.”

The AP report gave its first paragraph to the fact that US forces rescued forty-two victims of torture, “some of whom had be hung from ceilings and tortured for months,” it said. But that was ALL it said. The rest of the report was given over to details about US deaths, including a running total for the month.

In essence, while obliquely referencing al-Qaeda’s torture chambers, most of the article was crafted to keep the attention focused on the dangers facing US troops.

(So John Edwards, etc., ad nauseum would have lots of ammunition available for the growing “surrender now” faction of what is becoming the world’s largest supercower.)

I have to wonder. What kind of people are they? What kind of people could argue in favor of giving Iraq to these animals on the grounds that it is ‘not our fight’? When middle-aged men and fourteen year-old boys are tortured for months by al-Qaeda’s professional torturers, WHOSE FIGHT SHOULD IT BE?

A week ago, national news programs were showing video (over and over again) of a 91 year-old man being repeatedly punched in the head by a car-jacker while a half dozen people stood close enough to be captured by the same camera frame. Much was made of the fact that they did nothing to help this poor old man.

After indignantly chastising those cowardly onlookers, the anchors turned their attention back to covering the reasons why America, as a country, should do the same thing in Iraq.

Cowardice is cowardice, whether or not it is six cowards in California or 54 cowards in the US Senate.

Whose fight should it be? If you happen on a rape in progress, should you walk on by on the grounds it isn’t YOUR wife, mother or sister?

If you are Harry Reid, John Edwards, Barak Obama or Hillary Clinton, the answer is evidently ‘yes’.

al-Qaeda doesn’t ‘torture’ its prisoners the way the US ‘tortures’ al-Qaeda detainees (or US Marine recruits.) They use blowtorches, Black and Decker cordless electric drills, knives, ice-picks and Procter-Silex Steam Irons.

They hang their victims by the arms until they come out of their sockets. The use steam irons against bare skin. They drill through kneecaps and elbows and hands, sever limbs, poke out eyes, cut out tongues, or blowtorch unprotected flesh.

What kind of people could advocate averting their eyes and walking quickly away, mumbling something about it not being ‘our fight?’

This isn’t politics. It is humanity. We can stop this. We can’t stop it without cost, but we CAN stop this.

Today is Memorial Day. All weekend, the networks have been running old WWII propaganda movies depicting the brutality of the Nazis and Imperial Japanese, and the heroism of those who fought to end their reign of terror.

We’ve been bombarded by stories of courage from a bygone era, punctuated by news reports from quisling politicians urging America to withdraw and cower within our own borders, allowing these animals free reign in Iraq on the grounds that it is not in our back yard.

And worse, besmirching those few, brave Americans with the courage celebrated by those old war movies as ‘occupiers’ and ‘torturers’.

John Edwards used Memorial Day to tell America that “Congress let America down” by funding our forces in Iraq without attaching a ‘timetable for withdrawal’, in essence, a date certain for surrender.

Said Edwards, “If you disagree with him, you’re unpatriotic. I want to say to George Bush: I am a patriot, and I disagree with you, and we need to be leaving Iraq, and I speak on behalf of most Americans.”

If John Edwards is “a patriot” we need a new definition for the word to replace the existing one. The dictionary defines “patriot” as “one who loves or defends his own country.”

If John Edwards is a patriot, then “patriot” must be redefined as; “one whose self-interest trumps national interests.”

Too harsh? Who attacked and killed 3000 Americans on September 11? Was it, ummm, 19 members of the Swedish Olympic Ski Team? 19 members of the Boy Scouts of America? Or even, 19 members of the Iraqi Revolutionary Guard?

Or was it, 19 members of an international Islamic terrorist franchise under the name of al-Qaeda?

Now, who ran the torture camp southeast of Baghdad raided by US military forces?

Was it members of the Swedish Olympic Ski Team? Members of the Boy Scouts of America? Or even, members of the Iraqi Revolutionary Guard?

Or was it members of al-Qaeda who attacked America on September 11 and have sworn to set up similar camps in America if the chance presented itself?

So, did John Edwards, the ‘patriot’ (or any of the rest of the ‘patriots’ on the Left) risk losing the election to call for the elimination of the threat before it made it to America’s shores?

If John Edwards is the definition of ‘patriot’ then how would the Left define “duty?” The dictionary defines it as: “work that you are obliged to perform for moral or legal reasons.”

Do Americans today have less of a moral obligation to defend Iraqis from al-Qaeda’s torturers than did our grandfathers to defend Europeans from Gestapo torturers or Imperial Japanese torturers in the 1940’s?

What about “honor”? The dictionary defines ‘honor’ as: “the reputation, self-perception or moral identity of an individual or of a group.”

What is America’s reputation in the enemy camp? ” We can conclude that America is a superpower, with enormous military strength and vast economic power, but that all this is built on foundations of straw.” – Osama bin-Laden February, 2003.

If you started suicide attacks you will see the fear of Americans all over the world. Osama Bin Laden, April 2003.

The Americans: These, as you know, are the most cowardly of God’s creatures. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, February 2004.

What about America’s ‘self-perception and moral identity’?

“The United States an ‘occupying force,’ it’s hard for me to say those words.” – Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, March 14, 2007.

(But it gets easier every time he repeats them. Practice makes perfect)

“Why would we expect George Bush to level with us about Iraq? He never has.” John Kerry, Sept 14, 2004.

(As with Harry Reid, Kerry’s charges gained resonance with repetition)

ABC/Washington Post Poll 11/02/05: “Bush Intentionally Lied about the Case for War” Yes – 55%

CBS/NYT Poll 12/06/05: Yes 52%

CNN/Gallup Poll 10/30/05: Yes 53%

We already know how Edwards, his co-candidates and the Left define ‘country’. “Country” is Blue State America. Red State America is some other country called “JesusLand.”

“Torture” is what Americans do to al-Qaeda (and US Marine recruits), not what al-Qaeda does to middle-aged men and 14 year-old boys.

(That, evidently, is legitimate resistance to the Nazi-like occupation of American forces of Iraq. Just ask Rosie O’Donnell.)

The Iraqi Kurds have a word for ‘duty’. It is pewana. It means ‘commitment’. The Kurds have a word for honor. It is ar akakan. It means ‘responsibility.’

They have a word for John Edwards, et al, AND those with whom his cynical quisling rhetoric finds resonance on a day like Memorial Day.

Unfortunately, I can’t print it in a G-rated publication.

But there IS a three word definition for what our forces are ACTUALLY doing in Iraq, and on this Memorial Day, I am proud to say it boldly and loudly: Duty, Honor, Country.

May God bless the forces defending freedom in faraway lands and may God grant them victory over the animals who would torture middle-aged men and 14 year old boys.

On behalf of honorable people who WOULDN’T avert their eyes and ignore the beating of an old man, or the walk quickly past the rape of somebody else’s sister, mother or wife, may I again offer my heartfelt thanks on this Memorial Day.

Semper Fi.

“Always Faithful”

“Always Faithful”
Vol: 68 Issue: 26 Saturday, May 26, 2007

Memorial Day weekend has evolved from the holiday known as ‘Decoration Day’.

It was first proclaimed back in 1868 by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, when he ordered that the graves of the Civil War dead interred at Arlington national cemetery be decorated with flowers to commemorate their sacrifice.

It was a national holiday — his order included both Union and Confederate soldiers. More Americans were killed in combat during the Civil War than in all foreign wars combined.

No matter which side they were on in the conflict, they were ALL Americans.

‘Decoration Day’ became ‘Memorial Day’ by an act of Congress in 1971. Sadly, the traditions of Memorial Day have diminished through the years, as many Americans have forgotten both the meaning of the holiday and its traditions.

Today, many of the graves of the fallen have been ignored. Few people observe the proper flag etiquette for that day. On Memorial Day, proper flag etiquette requires that the Stars and Stripes be raised only to half-staff until noon, to symbolize a nation in mourning for its fallen heroes.

In December, 2000, in one of his few shining moments as President, Bill Clinton issued an Official White House Memorandum asking all Americans to pause for one minute at 3 PM on Memorial Day to reflect on the price paid by our fellow citizens for our continued freedom.

In part, the Memorandum states: “Memorial Day represents one day of national awareness and reverence, honoring those Americans who died while defending our Nation and its values. While we should honor these heroes every day for the profound contribution they have made to securing our Nation’s freedom, we should honor them especially on Memorial Day.”

Unfortunately, because it was Bill Clinton responsible for this rare moment of patriotism, the memorandum has largely been ignored — to our everlasting shame.

Memorial Day is set aside to remember those young soldiers, sailors and Marines who gave up all of their tomorrows in exchange for our todays.

They will remain forever young.

Assessment:

Right now — at this moment — our young men and women stand between us and an enemy sworn to our national destruction. They stand in the breech, protecting us from those who consider it their highest duty to kill as many of us as possible — no holds barred.

Our enemy would cheerfully kill himself if it meant he could kill you in the process. Indeed, in one foiled attack, a young couple intended to blow an airliner out of the sky, with themselves aboard.

To avoid close scrutiny, they brought with them their young baby, who would also have died in the attack.

NO sacrifice is too great for them, if it means killing you in the process.

You and your family. If they are willing to kill their own children, they certainly would have no compunction about killing yours.

Many of the young Marine veterans of the Iraq war with whom I am personally acquainted have told me that they save their last bullet for themselves, rather than risk being taken prisoner.

Each of our young men who have fallen into enemy hands so far have turned up dead. Each was hideously tortured before dying. Some of al-Qaeda’s methods have turned up in a ‘torture handbook’ captured last month in Iraq.

The following is pretty graphic; you may want to skip the following paragraphs. But as you do, remember that our forces don’t have that option. As painful as it is to read, they face experiencing it first hand.

The manual is a how-to book on the best way to use a knife to remove an eye or cut out a tongue. It contains graphics on how to use an electric drill as an implement of torture.

How to use a blow torch, meat cleaver, whip, wire cutters, how to beat a prisoner across the soles of their feet with a rod . . . ; the ‘trick’, explains the manual, is to stop before the victim loses consciousness or dies, in order to prolong it as long as possible.

The torture isn’t being conducted to extract information. It is conducted for the express purpose of inflicting as much pain as possible before killing your brother, son, father, nephew, or friend — for the crime of being an American who loves you enough to die for you.

Joseph Anzack was just twenty years old. He played football in high school and was a member of his school’s swimming and wrestling teams. His friends remembered him as a caring buddy who was always ready to offer a helping hand or a comforting word.

PFC Anzack was captured, along with two other young men by al-Qaeda two weeks ago. His body was later found floating in the Euphrates River. Most accounts say simply that he had been shot in the chest and head. Only a few noted that the military said his body showed ‘signs of torture.’

If you didn’t skip over the paragraphs regarding the al-Qaeda torture manual, you know what ‘signs of torture’ really means. If possible, imagine what that knowledge means to his family — how much more grief it piles on them.

THAT extra measure of grief is what the enemy intended. It wasn’t enough for them to kill Joe Anzack. They wanted to kill him as much as possible, and they wanted his family to feel his terror and his torment as vividly as he did.

But most people see Memorial Day as just another three day holiday — the ‘kickoff date’ for summer. They don’t see Joe Anzack.

They aren’t praying for his two still-missing comrades, nineteen year-old Bryon Fouty or twenty-five year old Alex Jimenez — who are presumably being tortured — right now — as viciously as Joe was.

Personally, I do see Joe Anzack and I am praying for Byron and Alex. They are my brothers, my comrades and my friends, although I’ve not had the honor of meeting any of them. I’ve met many others like them, though.

Each of them knows what awaits them if they fall into the hands of our enemy. But they don’t run. They stand between you and me and those who would do the same to us, if not FOR them.

Thousands of others, just like them, keep signing up for duty, knowing full well that, in so doing, they will also find themselves in harm’s way. Why? They do it for YOU.

For YOU. And for your family. And for their siblings. They do it in the hope that you won’t have to face what they are willing to face FOR you.

I was sickened by presidential candidate John Edwards’ effort to co-opt Memorial Day as a cynical political tool.

His website, disingenously named “supporthetroopsendthewar.com” is urging supporters to crash Memorial Day ceremonies and parades with political protests.

Those on the battlefield want to end the war more than these sick, pathetic excuses for Americans do. But they know who the enemy is, and they know there is only one way to end the war.

It will only end if we win it. There is no option for a ‘draw.’ Those willing to end their own lives to take yours won’t go back home if we do. They will come here. They know that quitting the battlefield and leaving the enemy intact means Joe Anzack’s tortured death was in vain.

It means there will be many more Joe Anzacks — but not just in Iraq. In New York. In Washington. In small towns across America. Anywhere that the enemy can find Americans not under the protection of young men like Joe Anzack, Byron Fouty and Alex Jimenez.

This weekend is not just the beginning of summer. It is set aside to honor those who make the supreme sacrifice on your behalf. It is a time set aside to pray for those who protect us from harm. It is a time for us to love those who love us with a love beyond human comprehension.

It is a time when we Americans are to remember the words of Jesus Christ, the Founder of our nation and the Bestower of our prosperity:

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13)

God bless you, my brothers, comrades, the defenders of America! I honor you and offer you my most profound thanks, admiration and respect.

I beg your forgiveness for the actions of those like John Edwards and his ilk. They do not represent me. They do not represent America. They represent themselves. Pay no attention to them. They are without honor and undeserving of your notice.

Again, quoting our Lord: “Father, forgive them. For they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34)

Semper Fidelis. “Always faithful.” I pray America will see that, not as a slogan, but as a life principle. You certainly have.

Edwards and his ilk have no concept of what that means. But we, the people for whom you’ve expressed your love, not with words, but with deeds and your own blood, salute you!

Thank you for doing for us what we cannot do for ourselves. And may our God watch over you, protect you, and grant you victory. And may we never break faith with you, for we will then be richly deserving of our fate.

Semper Fi!

Not All the News Is Bad. . .

Not All the News Is Bad. . .
Vol: 68 Issue: 25 Friday, May 25, 2007

Not All the News Is Bad. . .

Actually, I suppose that title is a bit misleading. Mostly, ALL the news IS bad, but some of it is kind of funny. If you are at all like me, you could use a laugh after all the heavy news of the week.

The Democrats have dug in their heels on the issue of funding the Iraq War, vowing to continue to use the purse strings to force the White House to bend to their will, despite the 80-14 Senate vote approving another temporary funding measure without a surrender timeline attached.

Every one of the Democratic hopefuls in the Senate voted against the bill, with the exception of Joe Biden, who doesn’t have the hope of a snowball in, well, you know where, of winning anyway.

Hillary Clinton voted against it. So did Barack Hussein Obama (no surprise there) John Edwards also voted against funding the war effort, but, like Clinton and Obama, all claimed that they refused to support the troops BECAUSE they support the troops.

It reminds me of a deadbeat parent demanding a Parent of the Year award for refusing to pay child support as a measure aimed at forcing his/her ex-spouse to get a job. After all, the ex can make more money from a full time paycheck than from child support.

Ipso facto, by not paying child support, he/she is supporting a better lifestyle for his/her kids.

(“See? I support the kids. I just oppose the ex.”)

Most judges are Democrats, so it ought to make sense to them. It could open up a whole new line of defense in criminal non-support prosecutions.

Clinton knows better, but she is pandering to the extreme left because she can FEEL the nomination slipping from her grasp.

Obama doesn’t know any better, but he doesn’t care, as long as he can clinch the nomination and become the first black Christian named Hussein and educated in an Islamic madrassas to be elected president during a war against guys mostly named Hussein and primarily educated in Islamic madrassas.

John Edwards knows better, but has irrefutable evidence that the voters of the Far Left are, umm, er, well, gee, what’s the right word? Ummm, stupid? No, that’s not it.

(Is there a word that means, really, really, REALLY stupid, but isn’t insulting? If there is, that’s the word I was looking for.)

Edwards recently defended his work for a hedge fund that earned him millions by claiming he wanted to learn about poverty. The richest man in his county back home in North Carolina took $55,000 in speaking fees from a university recently.

His topic? Poverty in America. His platform? “There are two Americas. One for the rich, and the other for the ‘rest of us’.”

But Edwards has great hair, which means he doesn’t actually have to worry about making sense.

Think Bill Clinton. Think John Kerry. Has there ever been a successful Democratic nominee who paid LESS than four hundred bucks for a haircut? Mike Dukkakis had lots of hair, but looked like his wife cut it for him in his kitchen.

(Who is Mike Dukkakis, you ask? I rest my case.)

While American forces find themselves on the battlefield hoping that the enemy will drop some of his ammunition they can use until the Democrats stop supporting them and start buying them bullets again, the Congress recently approved the “Guam World War II Loyalty Act by a vote of 288-113.

That bill; “. . .directs the Secretary of the Treasury to make specified payments to: (1) living Guam residents who were KILLED, injured, interned, or subjected to forced labor or marches resulting from, or incident to, such occupation and subsequent liberation. . .”

I am sure the living Guam residents killed by the Japanese sixty years ago are grateful to hear that their deaths did not go unnoticed by a grateful Democratic-controlled Congress.

Former President Jimmy Carter’s recent assessment of the Bush administration as the ‘worst presidency’ in US history was widely reported by the US media and re-broadcast across the Middle East.

Not so widely reported were the results of a coincidental poll jointly conducted by the Wall Street Journal and the Federalist Society.

The poll divided the respondents according to party. Republicans put Bush sixth from the top. DEMOCRATS ranked Carter sixth from the bottom.

Overall, including Democrats, Bush ranked 19th out of 40, a hair above dead average.

Including the Republican assessment, Carter STILL came out sixth from the bottom.

(Finally! Some bi-partisan consensus! Look out, al-Qaeda! America is united again!)

A recent mainstream news report headlined “Children Are Bad For the Planet” argued that each child a family DOESN’T have will reduce global warming.

(Liberal math. If you want to leave the planet a fit place for your grandchildren, then you shouldn’t have children. Sort of like the liberal plan to save Social Security for future generations by encouraging the abortion of the next generation of workers.)

The Washington Post recently headlined its liberal credentials in a column by Sally Quinn. Describing her feelings about Barack Obama, she crowed;

“Now, I am from Savannah, Ga. I had never in my life not noticed whether someone was black or white. I felt an overwhelming sense of exhilaration. It was possible, then, to see someone as just another person, regardless of color. I felt good about myself.”

(In other words, “I’m not racist. I think SOME people of color are just as good as white people!”)

Quinn blathers on; “I was reminded of this the other day watching Barack Obama. I realized that when I look at him, I don’t see a person of color. I see a really smart, appealing, thoughtful person.”

Does that mean that she thinks that most other ‘persons of color’ are NOT “smart, appealing and thoughtful?”

Readers at the uber-liberal Daily Kos posted comments about a column attacking Democrat Joe Liebermann for his support of the Iraq War. Liebermann, an observant Jew, refuses to sell out Israel’s future for political gain.

Wrote one reader, “Given a choice between my dog and Lieberman, I’d gas him [presumably, Liebermann. She seems to like her dog] without thinking twice.”

Responded another, evidently wanting to keep their agenda hidden, replied;

“I know you didn’t mean it that way, but a reference to gassing a Jew needs to be hidden.”

(Yeah. At least until after the anti-racist Democrats recapture the White House.)

A recent headline in the Chicago Tribune trumpeted; “Bill Clinton Courting Non-Voters.” (Lock up your daughters.)

Another headline, this time from the AP, informed its readers; “WHO Rejects Taiwan’s Bid for Membership”. (Who? If you have to ask . . . )

And then there is this startling bit of news from the AP’s Stunning Facts You Didn’t Know division: “Doctors: Pot Triggers Psychotic Symptoms” (If it didn’t, would anybody buy it?)

TownHall’s website carried the following ominous headline on May 9: “Romney: Wife Donated to Pro-Choice Group” (I guess he was getting tired of her?)

Iran is on the verge of having nuclear weapons that it promises to use to destroy Israel. Lebanese tanks are currently firing artillery shells indiscriminately into Palestinian ‘refugee’ camps.

The Democrats are trying to seize command and control of American forces on the battlefield from the Executive Branch by disarming them on the battlefield until the White House cries ‘Uncle’.

Iraqi civilians continue to die by the hundreds at the hands of Islamic terrorists. Twenty-six percent of American Muslims favor suicide bombings in support of Islam.

The San Jose Mercury found a REAL news story among all that fluff, however. “Squirrel Enters S. San Jose Classroom, Attacks Two Adults and a Student”

(Great. It isn’t enough we have to worry about unprovoked terror attacks by our own citizens. NOW we have to worry about macho squirrels. Oh, the inhumanity!)

Staying with the animal kingdom for one more moment, a headline in the Sheyboygan (Wi) Press reveals mankind isn’t taking unprovoked animal attacks lying down: “Man With Dementia Attacks Dog With Mallet”

(A guy would HAVE to be demented — or at least pretty brave — to take on a dog armed with a mallet.)

And then there is this reassuring headline about global warming: “UN Says Global Warming Is Confusing Birds and Whales” (Thank heavens! I thought it was only conservatives who were confused.)

It is clear to everybody except birds, whales and conservatives that existing weather forecasting technology can be depended on to forecast (accurately) the weather fifty years from now.

Look at how great they are doing with that same technology today. Here is the lead sentence from a report from Reuters last week:

“Temperatures and precipitation in the Midwest have an equal chance of being above or below normal in June, the National Weather Service said in its latest monthly forecast released on Thursday.”

(Buy an umbrella and plenty of sunblock. It’s gonna be a hot (or cool) rainy (or dry) June this year. It’s global warming! Or global cooling. Is that rain outside?)

And last, but not least, people in Fremont, Ohio are going to a special school to learn how to forget what they went there to learn:

“Dementia Training Scheduled for June 1 in Perrysburg”. (Where?)

Note:

In case you can’t tell, I was up all night signing books. I had to stop for the night when I spelled my name wrong. But I am halfway there (a wonderful ‘dilemma’ for which I am MOST grateful) and I expect to be finished today.

Thanks to all of you who’ve ordered a copy. I am both honored and humbled.

(Although I mean it in all sincerity, that last sentence seems a bit awkward. If the book doesn’t take off, however, I may have a future as a headline writer for the AP?)

Maranatha!

The World’s Only Supercower

The World’s Only Supercower
Vol: 68 Issue: 24 Thursday, May 24, 2007

By now, you have probably heard all about the new Pew Research poll of American Muslim attitudes, and if you haven’t, you will. Prepare yourself to be amazed — on two counts.

In the first, there is the results of the poll. Several things to note at the outset; the targets of the survey were American Muslims. They weren’t immigrants. They were American citizens — most of them American-born.

They weren’t all Americans of Arab descent. Many of them were African American Muslims or Muslim converts. That said, let’s go to the results.

When asked if suicide bombings in defense of Islam could be justified, one in four American Muslims under the age of thirty said “yes”.

One in four!

Let’s do a little comparison analysis. According to some, one American in ten is gay. But that figure is widely disputed by almost everybody except gay rights activists as being wildly exaggerated.

Most surveys, polls, and other guesstimations suggest the real percentage is somewhere around four percent, give or take a bit. But let’s stay with ten percent, just to keep gay rights activists from picketing my RV.

One in ten Americans is a lot. It is such a lot of folks that they can’t be ignored or marginalized. There are laws passed by Congress that give being gay the status of a protected minority, with special provisions attached that make discriminating against them a federal hate crime.

A church cannot refuse to hire a gay person on the grounds that the Bible calls homosexuality a sin. A landlord cannot refuse to rent to a gay person on the grounds that they don’t want gay people living near their children.

A school cannot refuse to hire a gay teacher on the grounds they may corrupt the morals of the students.

And gays are, at most, ten percent of the US population, and most probably, really less than half of that figure.

Indeed, if one reverses the numbers, it means that at least 90% of Americans are NOT gay. But it can be a crime, under certain circumstances, to say that being gay is not ‘normal’ — despite the definition of ‘normal’ being: “not deviating very much from the average.”

According to the United States Central Intelligence Agency’s World Factbook estimates, just under one in ten Americans identify themselves as atheists.

That number is significant enough to have had God unceremoniously booted from public schools. It is a significant enough minority to have had the Ten Commandments removed from public view.

Michael Newdow, citing his rights as an American under the Constitution, has argued before the Supreme Court that the words “In God We Trust” printed on US currency is hurtful enough to a significant enough minority of Americans that the words should be stricken from US currency — and he got a hearing by the nation’s highest court.

Evidently, ten percent is a significant enough minority to warrant America’s undivided attention.

But two and one-half times that number is a ‘tiny’ minority, not even worthy of consideration.

Or something.

Assessment:

Now, let’s turn back to the results of the Pew Research Poll on American Muslims. As already noted, one out of every four American Muslims under the age of thirty think suicide bombings in defense of Islam are justified, at least rarely.

The figure is actually 26% — a shade more than one in four. Taking the Muslim population as a whole, rather than just those under thirty, 22% could not say it was unjustified under any circumstances.

Is that a lot?

It would be a lot if we were talking about homosexuals. It would be a lot if we were talking about atheists. Here’s the second amazing fact I promised you. When we are talking about Muslims, well, not so much.

Most liberal news reports about the poll are quick to point out that, if 26% favor suicide bombings, what it REALLY means is that 74% of American Muslims do not.

The Washington Post headlined its story: “Survey: US Muslims Assimilated, Opposed to Extremism”.

Honest. That was the headline. The Post writer, Alan Cooperman, lead his story saying:

“The survey by the Pew Research Center found that 78 percent of U.S. Muslims said the use of suicide bombings against civilian targets to defend Islam is never justified.”

The Dallas Morning News headline read: “Poll: Most Muslim-Americans Reject Suicide Bombings.”

The Detroit News headlined its story, “Most Muslims are Moderate, But. . .”

Taking the poll results apart, what the survey found is that fully thirteen percent of all American Muslims of all ages believe that suicide bombings “can be justified, at least rarely.”

I listened to the talking heads on the various news programs, all of whom called prominent Muslims to task to explain the poll results.

One of the phrases used most often to characterize the pro-jihadists was ‘tiny minority.’ (You say tomato, I say tomahto)

That ‘tiny’ minority was more than the percentage of American gays. It was more than the percentage of American atheists. Include those Muslims under thirty and it is two and one half times as many as either of the other groups.

If ten percent of Americans can influence the legal and social conventions of an entire nation, then what significance should one attach to 26% of any demographic that support jihad?

How many potential suicide bombers does it take to be a ‘significant’ minority? If you are among the victims of just one, it is pretty significant. However, if you are a liberal who hasn’t been the victim of a suicide bomber, 26% is a ‘tiny’ minority.

(Which brings to mind the old joke that, “a liberal is just a conservative who has never been mugged,” — but I digress.)

Some other findings were equally not disturbing to the liberal mainstream. About 29 percent of those surveyed had either favorable views about al Qaeda or did not express an opinion. That is just under a third (one in three) so it is only a ‘tiny’ minority’ as well.

A third of those polled believe the invasion of Afghanistan to take out al Qaeda training camps after 9/11 was wrong. In addition, only 40 percent of all American Muslims believe Arab men carried about the 9/11 attacks. (Meaning that 60% do not.)

What is the issue here is NOT that one in four American Muslims under thirty are potential suicide bombers — although it should be. What is the real issue is the spin being put on it the American mainstream press; that spin being that the majority of Muslims oppose suicide bombings.

See? The majority of Muslims really ARE moderate. (Or maybe, the majority of Muslims don’t want to blow themselves up? Is not wanting to commit suicide the same as being peaceful moderates?)

The REAL story is reflected by the headline carried by the Wyoming News: “Some US Muslims Say Suicide Attacks OK.”

Why is it that the mainstream is trying to minimize what is a terrifying statistic? I think the best answer is because it is such a terrifying statistic, they are terrified to say it out loud.

Do you remember what happened in Europe when European newspapers dared to publish cartoons depicting Mohammed as a suicide bomber? Of course you do. Muslims rose up in anger, rioting, burning, looting and pillaging.

Do you remember seeing the cartoons themselves? Probably not. In their coverage, virtually every mainstream news organization in America either refused to show the offending cartoons, or pixelated them for fear of a Muslim backlash.

The same newspapers had no compunction about graphically depicting Christ on a cross immersed in a jar of urine — indeed, they defended Robert Maplethorpe’s 1st Amendment right to create his work of ‘art’ and proudly displayed it on their front pages.

Do you remember the ACLU’s protest when George Bush pronounced Islam a ‘religion of peace and love’ or when Bush said that Allah was God? Me neither.

What I DO remember was the ACLU’s outrage when candidate Bush admitted that the historical personage he admired most was Jesus Christ.

It is worth noting at this point (again) that the CIA World Factbook estimates that some 87% of Americans self-identify themselves as Christians — evidently an INsignificant majority.

(Up is down, black is white, and the March Hare has invited us all over for tea. “Will you have one lump? Or two?”)

The public outcry was so great that Bush shut up about Jesus Christ altogether. (I don’t recall the Name ‘Jesus’ escaping his lips in public since. Do you?)

The survey results are being minimized by a thoroughly “dhimmitized” media. The actual truth is this:

There are those among us, our neighbors, co-workers, our children’s teachers, our doctors (one US Muslim doctor was recently convicted of giving medical aid to al-Qaeda) cabdrivers, truck drivers, who would cheerfully kill themselves in order to kill you, your children and your whole family, if they felt it was in the best interests of Islam.

But the mainstream (mainly liberal) media doesn’t want to tell you that. Instead, they’d prefer you to believe that American Muslims are happier in America than they are in, say, Great Britain. (“US Muslims More Assimilated that British” says one California headline).

In February, 2002, Osama bin Laden gave an interview to al-Jazeera in which he sneered: “We experienced the Americans through our brothers who went into combat against them in Somalia, for example. We found they had no power worthy of mention. There was a huge aura over America–the United States–that terrified people even before they entered combat.”

No wonder al-Qaeda believes America is a nation of easily-defeated cowards. He read it in our newspapers.

Or, as James Taranto dubbed us in his WSJ’s ‘Best of the Web’ “The World’s Only Supercower.”

Special Report: The Coming Summer Storm

Special Report: The Coming Summer Storm
Vol: 68 Issue: 23 Wednesday, May 23, 2007

All the signs seem to be pointing to an all-out effort by al-Qaeda and its allies (which pretty much now includes Iran and every Islamic terror group on the planet) for a mid-summer maximum offensive against Israel and the West.

Less than a year ago, the CIA had believed that al-Qaeda’s funding was all but done, and that al-Qaeda’s organization was all but in total disarray. But al-Qaeda has a new source of funding right under America’s nose in Iraq.

According to the CIA, al-Qaeda’s command base in Pakistan is increasingly being funded by cash coming out of Iraq, where the terrorist network’s operatives are raising substantial sums from donations to the anti-American insurgency as well as kidnappings of wealthy Iraqis and other criminal activity.

The influx of money has bolstered al-Qaeda’s leadership ranks at a time when the core command is regrouping and reasserting influence over its network.

The trend also signals a reversal in the traditional flow of al-Qaeda funds, with the network’s leadership surviving to a large extent on money coming in from its most profitable franchise, rather than distributing funds from headquarters to distant cells.

According to intelligence sources, Qaeda’s efforts were aided by Pakistan’s withdrawal in September of tens of thousands of troops from the tribal areas along the Afghanistan border where Bin Laden and his top deputy, Ayman Zawahiri, are believed to be hiding.

Little more than a year ago, al-Qaeda’s core command was thought to be in a financial crunch, but cash shipped from Iraq has eased those troubles.

“Iraq is a big moneymaker for them,” according to one senior U.S. counter-terrorism official.

The evolving picture of al-Qaeda’s finances is based in part on intelligence from an aggressive effort launched last year to intensify the pressure on bin Laden and his senior deputies.

The CIA deployed as many as 50 clandestine operatives to Pakistan and Afghanistan – a dramatic increase over the number of CIA case officers permanently stationed in those countries.

All of the new arrivals were given the primary objective of finding what counter-terrorism officials call “HVT1” and “HVT2.” Those “high value target” designations refer to Bin Laden and Zawahiri.

The surge was part of a broader shake-up at the CIA designed to refocus on the hunt for Bin Laden. The CIA had formed a task force from all four directorates at the agency, including analysts, scientists and technical experts, as well as covert operators.

But despite the surge, the US has yet to produce a single lead on either bin-Laden or Zawahiri’s location.

Assessment:

It seems that al-Qaeda has been energized by the antiwar movement in the US Congress, which, despite protestations to the contrary, has them convinced that they can win.

Zawahiri just released a 67-minute video on the internet in which he claimed the Democrat’s bill calling for a troop withdrawal was proof that the US has already lost the war in Iraq.

In addition, there was Israel’s less-than-stellar performance in last summer’s war with Hezbollah, which has both Syria and Iran believing they can win there.

A report in the Pakistani press says that Iran has all but formed an open alliance with al-Qaeda, despite arguments from the Left that “there is no way that Sunni al-Qaeda would get into bed with Shi’ite Iran.”

It has long been a principle of warfare that ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” It isn’t just an Islamic principle. It is a universal principle.

In 1940, Stalin and Hitler were allies. In 1941, Hitler invaded the USSR. In a flash, America’s new best friend was “Uncle Joe” Stalin. Five minutes after Hitler went down in flames, Stalin resumed his former job as America’s worst enemy.

US commanders in Iraq are predicting a nation-wide, Iranian-orchestrated summer offensive in Iraq in which Sunni insurgents and al-Qaeda will link up with Tehran’s Shia militia allies. Iran hopes to trigger a political mutiny in Iraq, with a corresponding political mutiny in Washington.

One top US commander reported: “There is significant latent capability in Iraq, especially Iranian-sponsored capability. They can turn it up whenever they want. You can see that from the pre-positioning that s been going on and the huge stockpiles of Iranian weapons that we ve turned up in the last couple of months. The relationships between Iran and groups like Al Qaeda are very fluid.”

The CIA claims it has proof that Iran has reversed its previous policy in Afghanistan and is now supporting and supplying the Taliban s campaign there. Iran is also expanding contacts across the board with paramilitary forces and political groups, including Kurdish parties such as the PUK, a US ally.

Tehran continues to provide support for violence, weapons smuggling and training inside Iraq, hoping to build on the Left’s call for retreat under any circumstances.

If all the intel reports are correct, what does it all mean? First off, it means even higher gas prices. Remember, the main target is the US economy.

As gas prices go up, so does everything that gets delivered by truck — which means, essentially everything. Iran is continuing to use its Oil Bourse plan to weaken the dollar by demanding payment in euros.

The stock market may be posting record highs, but the US dollar is posting record lows abroad.

The Venezuela-Tehran-Damascus air corridor is ferrying Islamic terrorists into Central America, where they are creating an underground army of Hispanic terrorist cells to infiltrate across our southern borders.

This air corridor is also being used to bring biological and chemical WMD from the Middle East into the Western hemisphere for use in mass attacks against the US homeland.

Hezbollah continues to prepare its forces for war with Israel. The conflict between the Lebanese government and the Palestinians it has interned in ‘refugee’ camps is flooding Hezbollah and al-Qaeda with new recruits.

And everything seems to be pointing towards a major Islamic offensive sometime this summer.

We’ve been drawing the historical parallels between the developing global alliances of the past year and those of 1938 for more than a year. On September 2nd, 1939, Hitler’s invasion of Poland kicked off World War II. And if last year was 1938, then this year is 1939.

Things are heating up exponentially. Pray that the Lord will preserve and protect our nation and Western civilization. While you are at it, pray that the idiots on the Left will realize that the enemy isn’t the US administration.

If the Lord grants our prayers, then this assessment will turn out to be wrong, and nothing would please me more than to be 100% wrong today.

But keep your powder dry. The intelligence forecasts suggest that it’s going to be a long, hot summer.

I wish that I had better news.

‘Take Heed That No Man Deceive You’

‘Take Heed That No Man Deceive You’
Vol: 68 Issue: 22 Tuesday, May 22, 2007

When He was asked, ‘what will be the sign of Thy coming, and of the end of the world?’ (Matt 24:3) one of the first things Jesus said was: “take heed that no man deceive you,” but He warns us not to follow them.

He warned the Church that in ‘the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world’ (John 16:33).

That is not to say that the Church plays a role in the time generally referred to as the Tribulation Period. There’s plenty of tribulation in the world for the Christian right now already, but Jesus is letting us know its all according to Plan, so don’t worry.

I believe the Bible makes it clear that the Tribulation Period is the Seventieth Week of Daniel, the time of ‘Jacob’s Trouble’.

It is for this reason that I believe the pre-Tribulation Rapture doctrine to be correct according to the Scripture.

To follow the flow of Bible prophecy during the final hours of the Church Age, there must first be an understanding that there IS a ‘Church Age’.

There are few Christians who deny the existence of a ‘Church Age’ — the Bible is divided into Old Testament and New, after all — most churches acknowledge the Birth of the Church at Pentecost, and so on.

But when it comes to the Tribulation, understanding Bible prophecy and the signs of the times, conflicting doctrines are often preached within the same messages by the well-meaning who solemnly pronounce the conflicts as ‘mysteries of faith’ — or they ignore Bible prophecy altogether.

If there IS a Church Age, then there was something before — and something that comes after. That is the basic premise of Dispensationalism. Dispensational theologians divide human history according to the way God interacted with man at that time, into seven ‘dispensations’ of God’s grace.

The time before the Fall was the Age of Innocence, after the Fall, but before the Flood the Age of Conscience, and so on.

Of interest to us at this juncture are the Ages of the Law and the Age of Grace (Church Age).

Don’t get pulled down a rabbit trail, stay with me here. Forget all the clever but somewhat cloudy arguments from those who’ve ‘dug deeper into God’s truth’ and just follow the simple map for now.

You can always go back later if you get lost. I’m not trying to deceive anyone.

Either there was an age under the Law of Moses that ended with the introduction of the Age of Grace at Pentecost, or there was not. If your Sunday School doesn’t teach that, better take another look at your Bible.

The Bible teaches there is a purpose FOR the Church Age. The Jews first, then also the Gentiles.

“For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in,” Paul writes in Romans 11:25.

The blindness of Israel to the coming of the Messiah Jesus is ‘in part’ and conditional — ‘until the fullness of the Gentiles is come in’ to the Church.

I needn’t go into exhaustive exegesis — it is either clearly what God intended to be understood as written, or it is not. Truth needs no propping up — it can stand by itself nicely, thank you.

Paul pictures the three kinds of spiritual human beings — Jews, Gentiles, and the Christian redeemed out of each group. There is no fourth option in Scripture. Every human falls into one of these three categories, according to the Scriptures.

What happens when ‘the fulness of the Gentiles be come in’ then?

According to Daniel, the Dispensation of the Age of the Law was limited to seventy ‘weeks’ (of years) totaling 490 altogether, starting from the command to rebuild the temple given Ezra by Artexerxes.

Daniel said the time would run concurrently until the Messiah is ‘cut off’ after 69 weeks (483 years). The seventieth week resumes sometime in the future with the introduction of antichrist. (See Daniel’s 70th Week for more information)

The ‘fullness of the Gentiles’ is the conclusion of the Church Age. It is hard to see that any other way.

Misunderstanding the Dispensations allows one to end the Church age in the middle of the tribulation with the Rapture. But then there is no sense to Daniel’s 70th Week, since it is now just three and a half years.

Set aside all the deep thinking and careful, painstaking calculations and tortured interpretations for now and just look at the obvious, clear and logical flow.

If there IS a point when the ‘fullness of the Gentiles is come in’ AND there is a point in which the 70th Week of Daniel resumes, then there is a point BEFORE and a POINT after. Just like beginning of the Church Age. There was a point BEFORE Pentecost, and a point AFTER.

Since the Church Age is for the gathering of the saints, and Daniel’s 70th Week is set aside for the national redemption of Israel (the purpose specifically given by Daniel FOR the 70th Week) and for the judgment of God against a Christ-rejecting world (the purpose from the perspective of John) why, logically, would the Church Age end with any less definition than it began?

Why would the Age of the Law resume while the Church is still here? What then, is the ‘fullness’ of the Gentiles? Logically, I mean, following the simple path, not the contorted one that creates so much friction and division.

Ignoring the clear pattern of dispensational truth in the Scripture in favor of something more complicated and therefore, somehow, deeper, appeals to the human propensity for pride. (“I know something you’re too stupid to figure out”)

But does it make clear sense? Where does it lead?

Christians are exhorted to walk ‘by faith and not by sight’ but I’ve heard pre-tribulationalism decried as ‘the Great Escape’ and its preachers called false teachers who were not preparing the Church for the coming tribulation.

From this perspective, if I don’t teach that we are going to go through the Tribulation, you won’t be prepared to stand. So you need survival gear, a year’s supply of dessicated food, some gold (money won’t be any good) and maybe a nice underground shelter.

THEN, you will be ‘prepared’ for the coming troubles, during which time you’ll walk by faith and not by sight when the antichrist is about to kill your children in front of you unless you take the Mark. Uh-huh.

My favorite argument is that Dispensational pretribulationism is a new doctrine first introduced by Margaret MacDonald in 1820. So how come I’m quoting the Bible instead of her?

Regardless of when you think the Rapture happens personally, did you ever notice how MAD people get if you don’t agree with THEM?

There is no profit in preaching a pretribulation Rapture and eternal security. I can’t sell you dessicated food, gold for the coming catastrophe or even a book on what to do if you get left behind, because if you are saved, you won’t need it and you won’t get left behind. No money in that.

And if you believe me — then neither can anybody else. (Maybe that’s why they get so mad, who knows?)

We are living in the last days. The signs of the times are all around us. The Lord is coming soon, and when He comes, the Bible says that the dead in Christ will rise first, then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with the Lord in the air. (1 Thessalonians 4)

When Jesus ascended into heaven, an angel appeared to the Apostles, (not to the Gentiles) “Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven. ” Acts 1:11

To the Gentile world at the Second Coming; “Behold, He cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him.” (Revelation 1:7)

What would Christians be ‘wailing about’ at the Lord’s 2nd Coming?

There’s nothing to sell. No motive to deceive. Like the Gospel, it’s simple and direct.

First, the ‘fullness of the Gentiles be come in’ and the Rapture, then the pouring out of God’s Wrath on those who make war against the Jews, then the national redemption of Israel at the Second Coming, and finally, the destruction of antichrist and introduction of the Millennial Kingdom.

Simple. In harmony with Scripture.

The only incentive for preaching it is to tell people they need to get saved — NOW, not later when the antichrist hands them his calling card.

“And as He sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto Him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of Thy coming, and of the end of the world? And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.” (Matthew 24:3-4)

Note:

Really big South Texas thunderboomer this morning. Power keeps going in and out. In between power spikes, I dug out this Omega Letter from our archives. (It’s been awhile since we revisited this subject anyway.)

Special Report: Logic Out of Chaos

Special Report: Logic Out of Chaos
Vol: 68 Issue: 21 Monday, May 21, 2007

The Associated Press published a report on the exploding conflict in Lebanon under the headline; “Facts and Figures on Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon.”

What caught my attention was the way the AP manipulated those facts and figures to blame Israel for a situation it could only rectify by committing immediate national suicide — and then criticized the Jewish state for stubbornly refusing to do so.

According to the AP, there are nearly “400,000 Palestinian refugees” in Lebanon, — which it re-defines as those “who fled to the country after Israel’s formation in 1948 — and their descendants.”

For the AP to be accurate in its ‘facts’ portion of the column, one needs to shred the dictionary.

What ‘nationality’ are ‘Palestinians’? Historically, until 1948, the phrase was used to describe Diaspora Jews.

Prior to 1917, ‘Palestine’ was part of a larger province of the Ottoman Empire. The Balfour Declaration was issued by the British government on November 2, 1917, and designated ‘Palestine’ as the homeland for the Jewish people. The word ‘Arab’ does not appear in the declaration.

According to the Peel Commission, appointed by the British Government to investigate the cause of the 1936 Arab riots, “the field in which the Jewish National Home was to be established was understood, at the time of the Balfour Declaration, to be the whole of historic Palestine, including Transjordan.”

In 1937, a local Arab leader, Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, told the Peel Commission, (which ultimately suggested the partition of ‘Palestine’):

“There is no such country [as Palestine]! ‘Palestine’ is a term the Zionists invented! There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria.”

The representative of the Arab Higher Committee to the United Nations submitted a statement to the General Assembly in May 1947 that said “Palestine was part of the Province of Syria” and that, “politically, the Arabs of Palestine were not independent in the sense of forming a separate political entity.”

A few years later, Ahmed Shuqeiri, later the chairman of the PLO, told the Security Council:

“It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but southern Syria.” Under international law and convention, from 1917 to 1948, ‘Palestinians’ were those who lived under the British Mandate of ‘Palestine,’ — both Jews and Arabs. There is no uniquely Palestinian language. There is no uniquely Palestinian culture. There is no uniquely Palestinian history. No independent Arab or Palestinian state ever existed in Palestine.

When the distinguished Arab-American historian, Princeton University Prof. Philip Hitti, testified against partition before the Anglo-American Committee in 1946, he said: “There is no such thing as ‘Palestine’ in history, absolutely not.”

‘Palestine’ as either a political entity or as an Arab possession is never explicitly mentioned in the Koran. (For that matter, neither is Jerusalem.)

On June 1st, 1967, ‘Palestinians’ living in the West Bank were citizens of Jordan, not ‘Palestine’. East Jerusalem was part of Jordan, not ‘Palestine’. The residents of Gaza were citizens of Egypt.

Now, let’s return to the AP’s version of fact, as outlined in just the first paragraph of its column. “They [the ‘Palestinian refugees’] are crammed into 12 impoverished and often violent camps in Beirut and across Lebanon.”

WHY did the ‘Palestinians’ ‘flee’ in 1948? And, WHO ‘crammed’ them into camps in Lebanon? WHAT is the difference between an ‘Israeli Arab’ and a ‘Palestinian Arab’? These are fair questions seldom asked and almost never answered directly. Let’s answer them in reverse order.

In 1948, as the combined armies of the Arab Legions prepared to invade and crush the fledgling Jewish state, the Arabs living inside the Jewish Mandate were urged by the Arab Legion to temporarily flee the area to get out of the line of fire.

The Arab world promised them that they would be allowed to return after Israel’s destruction, where they would not only reclaim their own property, but also that of the Jews.

The Jews tried to get them to stay and help them build their new state, offering those who refused to flee full citizenship in their new country. Israel kept that promise, and those who stayed were granted full citizenship as Israeli Arabs, including the right to vote and the right to political representation in the Israeli parliament.

The Arabs, having failed to destroy Israel, promptly crammed those who trusted in their promises of Israeli booty into concentration camps, where they’ve remained for almost sixty years.

The AP report accurately describes the plight of the ‘refugees’ in Lebanon, saying, “the Palestinians are still banned from all but menial jobs and mostly live off U.N. agency handouts. They can’t get state health care, are prohibited from owning property and are generally unwelcome outside the camps.”

This isn’t what ISRAEL did to the ‘Palestinians’ — it is what the Arabs did to their own people.

I looked up the definition of “refugee” after reading the column, and this is what I found:

“Under international law, a refugee is a person who is outside his/her country of nationality or habitual residence; has a well-founded fear of persecution because of his/her race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion; and is unable or unwilling to avail himself/herself of the protection of that country, or to return there, for fear of persecution. They are subgroup of the broader category of displaced persons. . .”

By any possible understanding of the word ‘refugees’ therefore, the ‘Palestinians’ are refugees from Jordan and Egypt interned in concentration camps by Arabs. By any possible reading of history, ‘Palestine’ was a subdivision of the Islamic Ottoman Empire, not a political subdivision of the Arab world.

The 1917 Balfour Declaration is dismissed by the Arabs as meaningless because the British had no authority to issue it.

In 1923, the victorious Allied Powers agreed at the San Remo Conference to subdivide what had been the Ottoman Empire into individual Arab states. They appointed the British government to draw the borders of the modern states of Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Yemen, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the member states of the United Arab Republics. No provision was made for an Arab “Palestinian” state.

(See “Who Really Owns the Land?”)

Israel’s right to exist either predates that of the rest of the Arab world, or there isn’t a valid country in the Middle East.

It is reasonable to believe that the worldwide media, the United Nations, the nations of the European Union, etc., etc, ad nauseum, have historical archives.

would consistently support claims of Palestinian nationality, when it knows it to be a myth? Why would the world consistently deny Israeli claims of sovereignty when by any measure of international law, it is no less firm than those of Jordan or Iraq or Saudi Arabia?

All are British creations younger than the Balfour Declaration that established a Jewish homeland.

Why does the world take the position that a Jewish homeland is racist, whereas a Palestinian Arab state — where Jews would be excluded — is not?

And why in the world would the Western democracies consistently side with the Arab enemies of democratic principles against the only western-style democracy in the region?

If there is anything that defines the ‘Palestinians’ as a people, if there is any common heritage they share, if there is anything the world immediately identifies with the word ‘Palestinian’ — it is terrorism.

Yet the world demands the creation of a Palestinian state as a solution for Palestinian terrorism — and blames Israel for creating the problem by its existence.

Israel is one of the oldest nations in recorded history. It’s history is among the best-known and well-documented of the ancient world. No national history has been studied by more people than that of Israel.

There are few people in the world, either today, or four hundred years ago, who could not name Israel’s King David, who lived 3,000 years ago. Name ONE other king who lived in that period.

But Israel’s prior existence is the most hotly-contested reality in the modern world.

It makes no logical sense. It makes no political sense. It doesn’t even make any economic sense. It is nothing short of surreal.

But it makes PERFECT sense from the perspective of Bible prophecy. It is exactly the scenario forecast by the Bible for the last days. The situation, as it now exists, shouldn’t be. It defies every logical and historical convention.

By any logical analysis, therefore, the state of chaos stands as irrefutable evidence that God is real, the Bible is true, and we can trust its promises.

Including the promise of salvation for all those who believe in Israel’s greatest historical Gift, the Jew named Jesus Christ, Who promised;

“I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no man comes to the Father, but by Me.” (John 14:6)