Continually, the media tells us we are fighting a “war against terrorism,” or fighting “The War in Afghanistan.” We are told that “Iraq may be next,” and told of the latest rejection by Saddam Hussein of President Bush’s insistence that UNSCOM investigators should be allowed back in Iraq to ferret out Saddam’s programs to build weapons of mass destruction.
Will Iraq be next? And after Iraq will we go after Libya, or Iran, or Syria, or Algeria, or Indonesia, or the Philippines, or Sudan, or Yemen, or Saudi Arabia? All are known to contain, if not support hotbeds of terrorists. In Damascus, for example, several of the most vicious terrorist organizations actually have offices with plainly listed street addresses and telephones!
The U.S. has spent BILLIONS of dollars on the war so far. Few seem to know that each one of those cruise missiles which were launched in the initial attack cost about the same as a small corporate jet aircraft; that the precision guided bombs cost tens of thousands of dollars each. How are our inventories holding up? How many bombs and rockets can those ships hold? What about ammunition ships plying the seas; bringing more tons of multimillion dollar weapons to the carrier battle groups?
From time to time, during my cruise offshore Korea aboard an American aircraft carrier, we took an ammunition ship alongside. I still have pictures of nets filled with 500 pound bombs being swayed aboard from the plodding vessel. I was called from time to time to assist in storage of our incoming ordnance in the magazines. For a long time, we would pass 100 pound bombs or five inch rockets from man to man, storing them in their bins. We would receive big 500 pounders, or 1,000 and 2,000 pound bombs from little elevators, and then skid them along the steel decks, attach winches to them, and swing them into their bins. Exhausted from long hours of such work, I have sometimes snatched forty winks atop a couple of 2,000 pound bombs in the magazine.
The point is, even those huge aircraft carriers have limited storage space for fuel, food, and ammunition. They have to be resupplied. We have been expending our stores of bombs at a prodigious rate in Afghanistan, at enormous cost. How long can we expect to keep it up?
Presumably, the factories which produce such weapons here in the U.S. are humming along at full speed. Presumably, there are ample stocks.
However, as has already been pointed out, our military was so deeply cut during the previous administration that we could not marshal a force the size of the one we deployed during the Gulf War if we had to. Our troop strength was cut by about 30 percent according to some estimates.
At the same time our previous President was cutting troop strength, he was closing U.S. bases, or even leasing them out to the likes of China, and increasing the work load of the military, by assigning them to “peace keeping” duties such as that in Kosovo.
Suppose we began attacking Iraq. What would be the response from our timid “coalition” partners? Russia has already issued warnings against any attack against Saddam. If the militant Islamic nations demanded “proof’” that Bin Laden was the mastermind of the attacks on September 11th, wait until you hear them screaming if we attack Saddam.
The President of Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf, occupies a very shaky office. The bulk of the country’s Islamic population (77% are Sunni, and 20% Shi’a Muslims) are admirers and followers of Bin Laden. While the demonstrations which have taken place virtually nonstop since the U.S. bombing campaign began, and while they have been downplayed by the western media, they indicate the strong sentiments which are rampant in Pakistan. The war which seems winding down in Afghanistan (with Bin Laden still at large as of this writing) is, as President Bush has declared, “only the beginning.”
It is quite likely that governments will topple; violent coups d’etat will occur. Remember the violent uprising in Dili, East Timor, in the Islamic islands of Indonesia? In fairly rapid succession, militant fundamentalist Moslems could overthrow governments in any number of countries.
President Hosni Mubarak succeeded Anwar Sadat. I interviewed President Sadat in Cairo. I have related many times how I suggested to him, in a conversation lasting for quite some time, that he go to Israel. At the time, the suggestion was to him “outrageous.” He told me all the reasons why it would not work. I reminded him that he occupied the top position over the largest population of any Arab country; how Israel, to his north, was like a “brain trust” of specialists, with the highest per capita collection of physicists, doctors, educators, scientists and teachers of any country. I reminded him that he was the only leader in modern history who had kicked the Russians out; how that, once they put a foot down in a foreign country, they were there to stay (this was after the Yom Kippur war, and before the reunification of Germany and the implosion of the USSR). I told him that the Middle East could become like a “United States of the Middle East”; a large, prosperous, peaceful grouping of nations which were cooperating together for their mutual benefit. I said, “If you simply announce you are coming, what will they do? Shoot down the airliner carrying the President of Egypt?”
Exactly one month Later, Anwar Sadat went to Jerusalem to meet Menachem Begin.
And, on October 6, 1981, it cost him his life. President Sadatwas shot to ribbons by vicious Muslim extremists, who also killed and wounded others in the reviewing stand on what was to have been the proudest day of President Sadat’s life. I cried when I saw those horrifying films! One man held up an arm, dangling only by a piece of skin, shot nearly off. The perpetrators of this bloody assassination were not all apprehended. Those who were caught found themselves on trial, and many were executed. However, they had connections to other operatives in Sudan, and other countries.
The fanatics who attempted to bring the Twin Trade Towers down in New York City in the early ‘90s are directly linked to the same organization which carried out Sadat’s assassination, as well as Bin Laden’s Al-Qaida network. Recently, the son of the blind Muslim fanatic who orchestrated the towers bombing was arrested in Afghanistan; is high in the Al-Qaida network sponsored by Bin Laden. Mubarak, who succeeded Sadat, was himself nearly assassinated in Ethiopia on June 26, 1995. He again escaped being killed when a knife-wielding would-be assassin attacked him on September 6, 1999. He, like any number of other so-called “moderate” Arab leaders (Egypt was the first, and for a long time the only Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel), occupies a very uncertain office. If an extremist Muslim should overthrow Mubarak, the entire balance of power in the Mideast would immediately change.
Bible prophecy strongly indicates that the prophetic “king of the south” who will “push at” the Beast power precipitating a whirlwind occupation of the Mideast, may well be an Egyptian leader (Daniel 11:40-45).
Cells of Bin Laden’s “Al-Qaida” organization are in dozens of countries all over the world. They are particularly active in all Islamic countries, but also operate in Europe and the Americas. They are active in the Philippines, have caused numerous riots, carried out assassinations, and eventually won recognition by the government for a substantial section of the large island of Mindanao to become autonomous. Currently, an Al-Qaida cell in the southern Philippines is holding two American missionaries hostage; has been holding them for six months.
The point is, “Islam” is everywhere! It is here, in the United States. It is daily flying over my head near Tyler, as 16 Algerian students are allowed to learn to fly in a local flying school, all supposedly here on “legal student visas.” Of course, we did not know that Atta and his henchmen were terrorists until they were dead, and documents recovered which identified them.
Recently, when Secretary of State Colin Powell attended a dinner with many American Muslims, major news media pointed out that several of them had been taped stridently denouncing the United States; calling us “terrorists,” and accusing us of being complicit in the murder of Palestinian women and children because of our support for Israel. At least one of these Islamic leaders, the same ones who met with President Bush only days after 9/11, are on record as saying that the U.S. is destined to “become an Islamic country.” We were shown the video of these men, smiling, talking at the dinner with Powell, and then shown them standing in front of a microphone, shouting invectives against the United States to a cheering crowd, calling for our overthrow!
That is, after all, their GOAL! They seek the overthrow of our country, and all of the democracies of the West! While we say we are “at war against terror,” they loudly say they are at war with us!
The Islamic fundamentalists characterize our “war against terror” as a “war against Islam”! They should know. After all, it is they who have declared war on us. If you have not yet read it, please read my article about “Islam-Religion of Peace?”Continually they speak of Jihad, or “holy war” against the West!
At least one sect of the Islamic religion sees Islam as a “religion of peace.” Outside of Islam is the religion of satanic “.infidels,” or “unbelievers” who have not accepted Mahomet as their “prophet” and who do not worship his concept of “Allah.” As you know, Islamic fundamentalists refer to the United States as “the Great Satan.” It is the sworn duty of every believer in these concepts to bring all of the “infidels” into Islam, and, if they cannot, to kill them! In much the same way (though drastically different in execution) as idealistic Protestant missionaries go to dozens of countries in order to bring about “Christian conversion” to the uninformed — to “bring Jesus to the masses,” so these Islamic fundamentalists see it as their lifelong commitment to convert the “infidels.”
Isn’t it instructive to note that the United States allows ANY religion to freely espouse its beliefs; to publish, preach and proselyte – to build mosques — while Islamic countries, Asian countries, and even some Catholic countries openly persecute, and sometimes kill, American missionaries?
For centuries, Islamic hordes swept over nations from the Balkans to North Africa; from Persia to Pakistan, bringing the “sword of Islam.”
Traditionally, those who overthrow governments or religions seek to stamp out and erase all the monuments and traditions of their predecessors. This is why Egyptology is such a difficult study. Many Pharaohs destroyed the statues and monuments of their predecessors, or altered the dates of their reigns to make them appear much shorter.
Mahomet, coming along about six centuries after Christ, is therefore accepted by Muslims as having SUPERSEDEDChrist. While they acknowledge Christ may have been a “prophet,” they believe Mahomet was the “last prophet,” and therefore greater than Christ.
When Mahomet put together his concoction of religion, he knew that the Christians believed Christ had ascended to heaven from Jerusalem. As a false Christ, he and his followers perpetrated the myth that he, Mahomet, ascended to heaven from the “Harm al Shaiif,” or the “Holy Mount” in Jerusalem, where the famous “Dome of the Rock” and the Al AksaMosques sit today. Thus did Mahomet not only pretend to usurp the teachings and doctrine of Christ, but also attempted to usurp His ascension, and therefore the claim of Christ’s followers to the “holy places” in Jerusalem. Thus were planted the seeds of centuries-long struggles over the “holy places” in Jerusalem!
Remember, the religion of Islam did not come along until the sixth century. Christ’s teachings were already more than 500 years old. By 637, the Muslims had conquered Palestine. They promptly turned a number of nominal Christian churches into mosques. Nevertheless, they continued to allow Christian pilgrims access to their “holy sites” for four centuries.
Then came the “Fatimite dynasty” who, in 969 AD extended their rule over both Egypt and Palestine. The “Fatimites” or “Fatimides” took their name from Fatima, a daughter of Mahomet. She married Ali, the son of Abu Talib, who was “caliph” (meaning successor). There is much literature on the subject of the ancestry of the founder of Islam, Mahomet. They believed that sovereignty was the right of successors, and this belief survives among various sects of Islam to this day. It is what divides Sunnis from Shiites.
Once the Fatimites had taken over the rulership of Jerusalem, cordial relations with Christian pilgrims and resident nominal Christians came to an end. Abuses became so intolerable that Pope Silvester II, who reigned from 999 to 1003, called for volunteers to free the “holy land” from the Fatimites. But it was not until long after the Seljuk Turks had occupied Palestine that an actual crusade was mounted. The first “crusade” was mounted in 1096 by a group of independent, often undisciplined men who undertook to pass through many countries enroute to Palestine, and who were almost completely destroyed as a consequence. Only a handful of stragglers ever reached their homes again. The protracted struggle of that first crusade makes interesting reading. Many nobles led an army of about 100,000 men to Constantinople, among them Godfrey of Buillon, duke of Lower Lorraine; Hugh of Vermandois, brother to Philip, king of France; Baldwin, brother of Godfrey; Robert II of Flanders; Robert of Normandy, brother of William II, King of England; Raymond of Toulouse; Bohemund I of Otranto, son of Robert Guiscard; Tancred, cousin of Bohemund, and many others. Tancred was the inspiration for many poets of the time, including Chaucer.
And why all this? To free the “holy places” in Jerusalem from “unbelievers,” meaning the Muslim Turks and Arabs! When, after four years, the crusaders succeeded in defeating the garrison in Jerusalem, and Godfrey of Buillon was chosen as king of Jerusalem, he refused to wear the crown where he believed the Savior had worn a crown of thorns, and so took the title as “Defender of the Holy Sepulchre” instead. He died in 1100 and was succeeded by his brother, Baldwin.
So much has been written about the eight crusades that it would require an encyclopedia to contain only a part of it. Suffice it to say that this protracted struggle over who would control the holy places in Jerusalem caused a whole new age of interchanges among and between the nations of Europe; led to the Hanseatic league; introduced Eastern and Middle Eastern luxuries to hungry markets in Europe, and was a huge leap forward in art, literature, and knowledge. Many claim the 13thcentury was the greatest leap forward in all time concerning art, literature, and human liberty.
As you will read in my booklet Middle Eastern Strife – Will It Lead To Armageddon? the struggle for control over the holy places in Jerusalem was also at the root of the Balkan War, involving Britain, Russia, Turkey and the Baltic States.
Today, the struggle remains the same!
At the very root of the hatreds in the Middle East is RELIGION! The believers in Mahomet claim they have divine right to the mosques atop the Temple Mount. The Jews claim they have the right to the Temple Mount, for it is the site of Solomon’s Temple, and the temple that stood during the Herodian Period. Nominal Christians claim they have the right to the holy places because of Christ’s ministry, death and resurrection from those same environs.
Thus, the three “great monotheistic religions” of the world come into conflict in Jerusalem, which is the focal point of Bible prophecy, and the very place to which Christ says he will return to rule this world for a thousand years!
You and I know that the virulent hatred toward the United States is primarily because of OUR SUPPORT FOR ISRAEL. I know apologists claim it is mere jealousy; that some of these deprived, downtrodden people are jealous of our wealth and success, but it is much deeper than that. They HATE the Jews, and they HATE Christians! They hate the United States not only for our wealth and power, but also for our decadence; our hedonistic society. Bin Laden railed against U.S. troops “desecrating the holy soil of Saudi Arabia” which is the birthplace of Islam, and contains the two “holy cities” of Mecca and Medina.
Religious Fervor And Nationalism
The United States has no “state religion.” It would have had such, had not far-seeing men repudiated the concept of a king, and even worse, a king who would be beholden to a foreign potentate, such as the Pope in Rome.
It is purely mythological that the pilgrims came to Plymouth Rock only to escape “religious oppression.” In fact, the early colonials enforced the strictest kind of religious oppression over their residents. When our Bill of Rights, (as the first 12 clarifications of the Constitution were called) or the “Amendments” to the Constitution were adopted, the very first one stated that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” There is no amendment to the Constitution which is entitled “Separation of Church and State,” as many seem to assume.
All arguments concerning the “separation of church and state” eventually stem from the First Amendment. But the amendment clearly is for the purpose of KEEPING THE GOVERNMENT OUT OF RELIGION, and NOT KEEPING RELIGION OUT OF THE GOVERNMENT! Our founding fathers feared any kind of “state religion,” wherein a President would also be the head of the state church! They had seen enough of this in England, France, Spain, and many other nations!
Today, organizations like the ACLU and others become hysterically upset when they perceive that some “violation of the First Amendment” is occurring when a judge dares to display the Ten Commandments in his courtroom. Of course it is no violation! It does not remotely establish a “state religion” or so much as “promote” religion! What it does promote is the same belief in God as our Creator who “endows us with unalienable rights,” and the Creator who has sustained and preserved us all these years!
The Ten Commandments are hardly the doctrine of the mainstream churches, for NONE of them obey the fourth one! Perhaps someone should point this out to the ignorant people who believe the Ten Commandments are “promoting religion.” Oh, that they were!
But the United States, while not unique, is among the very few nations which have adopted similar concepts of freedom and democracy. Many of the states with which we find ourselves in conflict are RELIGIOUS STATES! The problem is when religious fanatics take over the government! As you know, the two young idealistic missionaries who narrowly escaped death in Afghanistan were arrested because the Taliban adopted a law which required the death penalty for “preaching Christianity” in Afghanistan! Women were beaten in the streets for daring to show their faces. One report said a woman had acid thrown in her face for appearing without her “burqua.”
These, then, are the enemies of the entire free world.
They are here, there, and everywhere. They are within our land. Do not doubt for a moment that there are not other “sleepers” here–some of who may well have come to the United States over ten years ago, and some of whom may have been BORN here, but whose minds have been filled with hateful invective and vitriol, and who are willing recruits for the insane terrorists who would send them to commit suicide while committing mass murder!
There are approximately 1.3 BILLION Muslims in the world! According to the World Almanac of 2000, there are approximately 5.5 million of them in the United States! Other estimates have been wildly exaggerated. In an attempt to appear as a much larger minority than they really are, some who have been interviewed on TV have claimed up to “13 million Muslims” in the U.S. This is a lie. Nevertheless, five and a half million is no small number.
Muslims are to be found in over a hundred countries. It only remained for a fanatic like Bin Laden, with hundreds of millions of dollars in hundreds of secret bank accounts in Switzerland, the Bahamas, and dozens of countries, to marshal modern technology in order to begin a network of terrorist cells that girdles the globe! By the use of telecommunications, the Internet, and every sophisticated device commonly available to those with the money, including corporate aircraft, access to satellite communications and/or intelligence information, Bin Laden managed to coordinate the activities of Islamic terrorists in countries all over the world.
It has already been revealed how the terrorists, in their frequent moves about our country (from San Diego to Florida, and from New York to Boston), would purchase hand-held cell phones, use them for a time, and throw them away, in order to avoid detection.
There are terrorist cells operating in Belgium, Holland, Britain, Spain, France, Germany, the United States, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya; Egypt;, Italy,. Syria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, the Philippines, and many other countries!
Which one will the LT.S. attack next?
In some cases, the host government openly protects and supports terrorists. This is true in Iraq and Syria. In other cases, while the host government gives lip service to the “coalition,” and decries terrorism in its official statements, it looks the other way as terrorists freely operate. In still other cases, the government itself is terrified of the terrorists, and fears the possibility of a violent overthrow, torture and death, and so does nothing to arrest them. This is true of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and, to some extent, Egypt. “Moderate” Islamic rulers can go only so far in their cooperation with the West; only so far in their internal interference with terrorist organizations. One of the prime examples of this is Yassir Arafat, who openly supports his “Hamas” guerrillas, who continue to carry out mass murder in Israel.
In one of the bloodiest suicide bombing yet, vicious suicide bombers struck a crowded Jerusalem promenade on a Saturday night; also boarded a bus in Haifa, killing large numbers of teens and children, and injuring more than one hundred fifty. The bombers strap explosives filled with bolts, nuts, and nails around them, hoping to kill and maim as many innocent victims as they can.
Israel struck swiftly, sending IDF helicopter gunships and F-16 fighter planes to bomb, strafe and rocket Hamas hideouts. They struck Arafat’s office, destroyed several of his helicopters. A second attack landed rockets within fifty feet of the Palestinian leader, who was not hurt. Israel sent tanks into Palestinian towns, bombed and closed down the Gaza airport.
For once, the U.S. government did not condemn the raids, but said Arafat must act to arrest and punish leaders of the terrorist organizations. Arafat’s days are numbered. He will either be assassinated by his own people who disagree with his policies, or will be killed in a future retaliatory attack.
Like many other Islamic leaders, he occupies a very shaky .office, paying lip service to a so-called “peace process” while clandestinely encouraging and supporting terror. Deep down, he has never renounced his desire for the destruction of Israel, and the murder of every Jew.
For decades, I have said “WATCH JERUSALEM,” for it is the focal point of Jesus’ prophecies about the end time. Struggles over who controls the “holy places” in Jerusalem are at the root of centuries of hatred and conflict.
This, then, is the world in which we live.
There is no real “front” in such a war, for the “front” is world wide! There is no “rear” where troops and the civilian population may feel entirely secure, for the enemy is among us!
The trouble with attempting to “root them out” (and of course the United States SHOUI.D DO SO, insofar as it is capable) is that they hide like cowards! Not only do they hide in the caves of Afghanistan. They hide behind false identities, false pretenses, false claims. They live and plot their murders in a shadowy world of lies and deceit. If there is any one word in the English language which describes these people, it is “treacherous”!
I have continually warned that, instead of trusting in God for our deliverance, we have trusted in “allies.” Read, archived in our web site, the commentary on how the Saudis claim to be “cooperating” with the U.S. in the war on terrorism. We have tried to “buy” the friendship of the corrupt Saudi government because of our dependence on foreign oil. God says of His people, “She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks: among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her: all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies” (Lamentations 1:2).
One of the great curses prophesied to come upon us is that “The stranger that is within thee shall get up above thee very high; and thou shalt come down very low” (Deuteronomy 28:43).
Yes, we are AT WAR today, just as Christ prophesied we would be: “And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.
“For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
“All these are the beginning of sorrows” (Matthew 24:6-8). Yes, only the BEGINNING! As Winston Churchill said to the British people when the U.S. landed in North Africa during World War II, “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is the end of the beginning!”
We are in a war with no end in sight. And, truly, we are at the end of the beginning. Now, it has BEGUN! But there is no true end in sight. Even as mere children scream invectives, and throw rocks at Israeli police and soldiers in the streets of cities all over Palestine children who know NOTHING about the true history of their own region, so there are CHII.DREN today in dozens of countries all over the world who listen to the vitriol spilling out of the mouths of their bearded “mullas” in their mosques, and who are encouraged to hate the “great Satan” – the United States of America!
Root them all out? In the Philippines? In Belgium, Spain, Argentina, Brazil, Sudan, Yemen, Syria, .Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Germany, Britain, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, and a dozen more countries? What do you think our chances are to rid the world of terrorists?
Maybe, just maybe, it will occur to our people and our leaders at some desperate point in time to CALL UPON GOD FOR OUR DELIVERANCE, and to TRUST Him to “root them out!”
God says, “For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
“But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.
“And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saiththe LORD of hosts” (Malachi 4:1-3).
May God speed that day!
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