Yours Truly has been reticent to discuss the Snowden Affair for a host of reasons. For one, I’m not fond of what PFC Bradley Manning did. Though I have long come to the conclusion that with the killing of Bin Laden, we should have decamped from Afghanistan, the fact that it still remains a hotbed of military activity means that what Manning did was treasonable and that he should have suffered the full force of military justice.
With Snowden things are somewhat different. We aren’t at war with Russia and what Snowden took with him was information purloined by the various intelligence agencies of the United States. A lot of what they had was stolen from the American people and foreign governments. Snowden therefore, was a thief who robbed from a thief. He may not be a hero but he isn’t a traitor. If anything, he did us all a huge favor in that he exposed for the world to see that the government of the United States, known throughout history as the Arsenal of Democracy, no longer believes in the rule of law.
This is not insignificant.
More, the United States has gone on a world-wide crusade against traditional morality, imposing the demonic precepts of homosexual jihadists and feminazis on traditionalist societies in the Third World. It seems that we are hell-bent on destroying the nuclear family as well as the ancient Christian communities of the Near East. Though this may sound inflammatory, what else are we to make of our recent actions throughout the world?
It seems to me that Patrick J Buchanan has seen through the obfuscation, that our insistence on “human rights” is nothing more than a smokescreen for yet another disastrous war brought to us by the Trotskyite Neocons. Is Putin a saint? No. But before we castigate him for supposedly restricting the rights of jouurnalists, we should remember that when Empress Hillary needed a scapegoat for Benghazi, we rounded up a poor sap from Egypt and threw his butt in jail because he made a movie that nobody ever saw.
Source: Human Events | Patrick J. Buchanan
“There have been times when they slip back into Cold War thinking,” said President Obama in his tutorial with Jay Leno.
And to show the Russians that such Cold War thinking is antiquated, Obama canceled his September summit with Vladimir Putin.
The reason: Putin’s grant of asylum to Edward Snowden, who showed up at the Moscow airport, his computers full of secrets that our National Security Agency has been thieving from every country on earth, including Russia.
Yet there are many KGB defectors in the United States, and Russia has never used this as an excuse to cancel a summit.
The Washington Post and Wall Street Journal are delighted, hopeful that cancellation presages a more confrontational policy toward Putin.
But is a second Cold War really a good idea? And if it is coming, who is more responsible for it?
From 1989 to 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to let Eastern Europe go free and withdraw his troops and tank armies back to the Urals. The Soviet Union was allowed to dissolve into 15 nations. In three years, the USSR gave up an empire, a third of its territory, and half its people.
And it extended to us a hand of friendship.
How did we respond? We pushed NATO right up to Russia’s borders, bringing in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria, even former Soviet republics Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
European objections alone prevented us from handing out NATO war guarantees to Ukraine and Georgia. Was this a friendly act?
Would we have regarded post-Cold War Russian alliances with Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Mexico as friendly acts?
To cut Moscow out of the Caspian Sea oil, we helped build a pipeline through two former Soviet republics, Azerbaijan and Georgia, and, thence, under the Black Sea to our NATO ally Turkey.
In the Boris Yeltsin decade, the 1990s, U.S. hustlers colluded with local oligarchs in looting Russia of her natural resources.
In the past decade, the National Endowment for Democracy and its Republican and Democratic subsidiaries helped dump over governments in Serbia, Ukraine and Georgia, and replace them with regimes friendlier to us and more distant from Moscow.
George W. Bush sought to put an anti-missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic. Neither country had requested it. We said it was aimed at Iran.
When my late friend, columnist Tony Blankley, visited Russia in the Bush II era, he was astounded at the hostility he encountered from Russians who felt we had responded to their offer of friendship at the end of the Cold War by taking advantage of them.
Putin is a former intelligence officer, a patriot, a nationalist.
How did we think he would react to U.S. encirclement of his country by NATO and U.S. meddling in his internal affairs?
How did American patriots in the Truman-McCarthy era react to the discovery that Hollywood, the U.S. government and our atom bomb project were riddled with communists loyal to Josef Stalin?
Why cannot we Americans see ourselves as others see us?
Why is Russia still supporting the brutal regime of Bashar Assad in Syria, the Post and Journal demand to know.
Well, Russia has a long relationship with the Assad family, selling it arms and maintaining a naval base on Syria’s coast. Did we expect Russia to behave as we did when our autocratic ally of 30 years, Hosni Mubarak, was challenged by crowds in Tahrir Square?
We ditched Mubarak and washed our hands of him in weeks.
Russia stood by its man. And does not Putin have a point when he asks why we are backing Syrian rebels among whom are elements of that same al-Qaida that killed thousands of us in the twin towers?
Is the Syrian war so clear-cut a case of good and evil that the Russians should dump their friends and support ours?
If the Assad family is irredeemably wicked, why did George H.W. Bush enlist Hafez Assad in his war to liberate Kuwait in 1991, a war to which Damascus contributed 4,000 troops?
There is another reason Russia is recoiling from America.
With the death of its Marxist-Leninist ideology, Russia is moving back toward its religious and Orthodox roots. Secretly baptized at birth by his mother, Putin has embraced this.
Increasingly, religious Russians look on America, with our Hollywood values and celebrations of homosexuality, as a sick society, a focus of cultural and moral evil in the world.
Much of the Islamic world that once admired America has reached the same conclusion. Yet the Post is demanding that our government stand with “the persecuted rock band” of young women who desecrated with obscene acts the high altar of Moscow’s most sacred cathedral.
Upon what ground do we Americans, 53 million abortions behind us since Roe v. Wade, stand to lecture other nations on morality?
Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, trade, arms reduction — we have fish to fry with Putin. As for our lectures on democracy and morality, how ’bout we put a sock in it?
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of “Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?”
Amen, Pat!
I have really changed my views on America in the last few years. Christians who believe in traditional morality should really face the fact that we are on the wrong side of a number of conflicts. Our democratization of other countries either creates governments that impose Western progressivism or which result in Islamist dictatorships. We export “our values” even though these values are often sick and unchristian. I simply see America and her present government as an enemy of Christ. Our actions result in the spread of unchristian ideologies and the actual killing and persecution of Christians abroad at the same time our latitude to practice our faith here in America is growing narrower.
It’s not just a problem with the evil party, the Democrats, but the stupid party, the Republicans, too. Lindsay Graham and John McCain are every bit as bad as the Democratic leadership, just on different issues. It’s tragic really. I cannot say that America is a force for good in the world. We do the work of the evil one at home and abroad. This is Babylon. Fortunately, the system of government found here and in Western Europe seems to be self destructing through economic bankruptcy, demographic transformation and general decadence. Hopefully our ability to inflict evil on ourselves and the world will be further circumscribed in the not too distant future.
What to do? Pray, fast, live an Orthodox life . . . my plans include emigration as well. That may not be an option for some but it seems pretty wise to me. I will likely have the ability to do so next summer. I read a news story today that there has been a surge in emigration of Americans to other countries and a stark rise in Americans renouncing their citizenship for tax purposes.
All good things come to an end, and in this end lie the seeds of a new beginning. We can all thank God that we have the freedom to choose to find a better life elsewhere. For those who stay, all we can do is pray for them. When a civilization sinks this low, it gets much worse before some great cathartic event shakes it for better or for destruction.
For more on “Lindsay Graham and John McCain are every bit as bad as the Democratic leadership” see
“Egyptians Enraged by U.S. Outreach to Muslim Brotherhood
In the eyes of tens of millions of Egyptians, Senators John McCain’s and Lindsey Graham’s recent words and deeds in Egypt—which have the “blessing” of President Obama—have unequivocally proven that U.S. leadership is aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood.
Egyptian media is awash with stories of the growing anger regarding this policy”
at
http://www.raymondibrahim.com/from-the-arab-world/john-mccain-proves-u-s-leadership-allied-to-muslim-brotherhood/
For qualifications of author see
http://www.raymondibrahim.com/about/
Also, according to The Daily Beast Washington Bureau, McCain explained that “We told [the Muslim Brother leaders] that in our view, the best way to resolve this issue was to renounce and condemn violence, that they should be willing to negotiate”
Is that not what Putin is recommending for the current situation Syria which the US is rejecting? Why the double standard?
Lindsay Graham and John McCain are every bit as bad as the Democratic leadership, just on different issues.
Not only with respect to Egypt, but earlier with respect to Syria.
When I think of all the Blessings our Lord has given to the United States, Russia, and Europe. I cannot agree with you more.I agree with your post, and George’s.
Today in cognitive dissonance theatre!
Oh, the handwringing! Next think you know, you’ll be bemoaning convicted felons flagrantly and publicly violating the terms of their parole without consequence!
Wait a moment, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, convicted of fraud on federal charges that included identity theft, gets a free pass from having to obey the rule of law. Not only do you hold him up as a martyr, you are comparing a financial fraudster and dope runner who got sent back to the poke for a year, with investigative journalists in Russia who suffer fates like ending up dead in the stairwell of their apartment building with a bullet to the head.
Equating these things is utter madness.
I would be so tempted to start a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds to a “The Monomakhos Take Moscow” roadshow, where we can take bets on how long you could do your shtick until you were bundled up and sent off to join Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina.
Mr Trost, what happened to that poor Nakhoula sap proves my point. That the Feds decided to throw the book at him is indicative of how desperate they were to pin Benghazi on a scapegoat. Do you not think that out of the millions of illegal aliens there are similarly no other crimes they’ve committed (besides unlawful entry)? Are you aware of how many of these felons commit rape, muggings, vehicular manslaughter as well as burglary, drug-trafficking, etc?
What happened to Nakoula illustrates the old Russian saying, if you want to beat a dog, you’ll always find a stick. Nakoula=bad because we needed somebody to blame for Benghazi, illegal aliens=good because they’re exploitable (and eventually Democrat voters).
In other words, Mr. Michalopulos, you think that if a man is released on parole, restrictions on his activities based on his past crimes are merely suggestions which only have to be respected if the person involved feels like it. I ask you two questions: Question one: did Nakhoula violated the conditions of his parole? Question two: Was the consequence of him violating his parole (year back in prison, four years supervised release) a similar result to other transgressors? You dodge grapping with these issues to again bemoan Nakhoula’s fate and rant about illegal immigrants. It won’t work.
In effect, you aren’t complaining because the Feds gave him special treatment in punishing him, but rather that they did not give him special treatment by giving him leniency despite the very public nature of his transgression.
If you truly believe in the rule of law, then Nakhoula should go back to prison.
False narrative. If the Feds had pulled a Martha Stewart and hammered Nakoula under something like Section 1001 shenanigans. Then you might have a valid argument. But, of course, that’s not what happened.
Given your past rantings, one might tend to assume, if you opened the paper and read a story about an African-American man, who previously convicted on drug and fraud charges, was out on parole and had violated its conditions forbidding him from using an alias or unapproved Internet access by making a rap video and uploading it under his stage name you’d probably chuckle and shake your head and think “what a dumbass” with no sympathy for his plight whatsoever. But Nakoula is a martyr because you despise Hilary. You may protest that you are not profoundly morally and intellectually inconsistent, but it isn’t very convincing.
Not at all! By all means go after Mr Nakoula for any crime he may have committed. But go after the illegal aliens who are causing mayhem as well. All I ask for is a little consistency here.
But let’s put our cards on the table: Liberals needed a scapegoat for Benghazi but want millions of new Democrat voters on the other. It’s that simple. A blind man can see it.
Once again, you fail to answer the simplest of questions. You have dodged both questions to mouth a platitude that contradicts your previous outrage. You say “By all means go after Mr Nakoula for any crime he may have committed”, in a comment to an essay where you express indignation and disgust that this exact thing was done!
By all means, explain how this is not a hypocritical or inconsistent statement.
Are you completely blind to your own fallacies? You are, in essence, suggesting that law enforcement doesn’t bother investigating or prosecuting crimes when those crimes are committed by illegal immigrants. Hogwash. You do not receive an immunity from prosecution for committing crimes by virtue of being in the US illegally. Are you really suggesting that a homicide detective, upon learning the prime suspect in a case is an illegal immigrant just throws up their hands and tosses the folder to the inactive pile? Ridiculous.
The only thing consistent is your ability to claim what you really wanted is the opposite of what you previously asserted, while attempting to handwave away the inconsistency by bringing in a false equivalence constructed out of pure fantasy.
In no sense was Nakoula a scapegoat for Benghazi. If Terry Jones had made the video, Terry Jones will still be walking around a free man.
I could put another two questions to you. What president did the illegal immigration population in the US peak under? Is the deportation rate higher under Bush or Obama? While you may not like the proposed immigration reforms, it is not a concept only backed by “liberals”, and when it actually comes to your hobbyhorses of population and border security, things are stricter now then they were before. Your oversimplified narratives are like a child’s dabbling on a canvas of stupid. And the Internet is not a PC classroom where everyone is a special snowflake and you get a gold star for producing crap work.
I’m temped to launch into your misconceptions of what it was that Snowden actually did, but lunch is short…
Mr Trost, you and I obviously live on two different planets. On my planet, there is a country called the USA in which illegal aliens commit all sorts of mayhem and maybe, possibly, if the INS feels like it, deports them. Also on my planet, illegal aliens regularly cross the Rio Grande while groups like the Minutemen are harassed for simply pointing out the obvious. Also on my planet, police in Arizona are forbidden from arresting speeders and asking to see their identification. Election officials in many jurisdictions are forbidden from asking to see proper photo ID when people show up to vote.
And yet CVS pharmacy is going to start taking IDs to buy nail polish.
Mr, Bauman,
Tell me you’re kidding! Now I’m going to have to go to Walmart?
Not kidding, apparently the meth makers are using nail polish now. Where is the ACLU when you need them.
I know you were being facetious, but the answer is sounding the alarm for things like threats to the First Amendment that would have negative consequences for this blog.
When you compare using an ID for buying drug chemicals to voting, don’t you find it the least bit disingenuous? I mean the two really aren’t the same. If a kid starts college in Purdue in September, but focuses on her studies; it is very likely she won’t get an ID and won’t be getting her nail polish unless she buys it in her home state. This is the part where Rove is wringing his hands with a smirk on his face.
The score is well understood and well known. It will have a backbite…just wait n see.
When the Democrats twist it into telling the college kids the Republicans don’t want them to vote; the imprint will take years to erase.
If there were basis in fact beyond the 50 arrests in a population of 330 million or so; you’d all have a legitimate, honest beef. It just isn’t there. 150 parts per billion
The cost to MN taxpayers for voter ID is estimated to be about 30 million. And you say you are conservatives?
I voted with an electric bill once as proof. Imprinted.
By all means, some college twinkie needs an ID to buy nail polish remover at CVS but a great political party will face a “backlash” because some Guatamalan alien must show an ID. We have now officially gone through The Looking Glass.
I’m sorry, but I gotta say lunch with Nate has been fun.
It wouldn’t have mattered who was President. The anti-Muslim movie maker would have got the same deal, but the right wing pundits got a lot of free miles from it. In their defense, Benghazi was a failure of government, but it wasn’t a movie promotion failure. Oh boy.
And, if a Snowden style event happened under Bush; the events would have rolled out similarly.
Or are you suggesting Bush would have been friendlier to Russia? Or Romney? Ha! Our number one enemy per Romney.
It just ain’t so, but made for good humor.
Much of our present security state can be laid at the feet of President Bush I grant you, but in regards to his relationship with Putin, W was widely ridiculed for the open admiration he showed for the Russian president. So yes, I am suggesting that Bush would have been friendlier to Putin. As for Romney, we’ll never know and anyway it’s a hypothetical.
The problem essentially is deeper: our foreign policy establishment is decidedly anti-Russian and anti-traditionalist Christianity. In the end, it probably doesn’t matter who the president is.
I see your planet never evolved the ability to actually answer questions, merely mouth disingenuous platitudes. You’re about three evasion cycles away from resorting to “and what about who shot J.R.?” and “Look! Isn’t that the Goodyear Blimp?!?”
On the contrary, I have more than answered your questions. Just go to any local police department and ask how the local crime situation has become since illegal aliens have overwhelmed their respective cities. (This leaves aside the very basic fact that illegal aliens have broken a fundamental law by definition. All I’m asking for are the additional laws broken and crimes committed besides the initial one.)
On the contrary, let us list the questions you failed to address once again:
Question one: Did Nakhoula violate the conditions of his parole?
Question two: Was the consequence of him violating his parole (year back in prison, four years supervised release) a similar result to other transgressors?
Question three: What president did the illegal immigration population in the US peak under?
Question four: Is the deportation rate higher under Bush or Obama?
The last two were related to the irrelevant immigration tangent you attempted to zoom away on to avoid addressing the hypocrisy of your statements regarding Nakhoula, but you wouldn’t even answer those.
My local police department is not overwhelmed by a crime wave caused by illegal immigrants. And “all you are asking for” is already the way things are. Your wide sweeping assertions and proclamations lacking any factual basis in reality grow tiresome. Not to mention the endless tangents any time the consequences of your own muddled thinking and intellectual laziness catch up with you.
Nate, I think you are setting up a straw man. The question isn’t about the appropriateness of Mr Nakoula being punished for parole violations, though that is what you are going on about, The question is about the appropriateness of the US government trotting him out as a scapegoat for Benghazi in order to avoid their own culpability. Would you care to address that instead of trying to avoid the issue by attacking George? I suggest you do since the ad hominem tactic you are using is generally an admission of failure to have a real argument to advance.
These multiple levels of assertions you make:
require support. By all means, link me to video or transcripts where the US government explicitly “scapegoats” Mr Nakoula personally. I’m happy to address it, but the prerequisite step is to challenge you to prove your assertions for which you currently offer no support.
But this is a question I raised and I think it is an appropriate question to ask in the light of assertions like:
Which completely ignores the question of whether or not there was in fact a valid reason for Mr. Nakoula to have ended up in jail after creating a video that even in an alternate universe where there was no Benghazi attack, went viral internationally and would have resulted in his being doxxed. And once doxxed, that his true identity was a man who was barred from using alias is kind of hard to ignore.
Here’s another old saying: “An angry man will always find something to be angry about.”
One conservative politician that wants relations with Putin is Dana Ronabacher.
A much more pointed question to me is, why does Obama want a Cold War?
America does NOT want this. America’s unguided president does.
Just imagine if America had elected the guy who called Russia “America’s number one geopolitical foe”.
Obama does not necessarily want a new Cold War. Obama is incompetent. He does not know what he is doing. He is in over his head. He is the most unqualified president in modern American history. Everything that he has done has shown that he should never have been elected. His basic problem is that he is an egomaniac. He refuses to work with Congress because he had no ability to compromise or engage in the give and take necessary to accomplish anything in Congress. He has made a total disaster of his foreign policy because he has no understanding of foreign affairs and refuses to listen to those who do. He has made a real mess in the Middle East because he has no understanding of the complexity of the region and is too stupid to realize that he does not. He is a living example of the famous peter principle. We live in a dangerous world. Holding hands and singing Koombaya will not solve the world’s problems. Obama does not understand that the weight of his personality will not cause the rest of the world fall over in admiration for him and get in line with his ideas, whatever they are.
The American foreign policy establishment keeps making the same mistakes. For one thing it is led by a closed community that is made up of career diplomats who were all educated at the same schools and resist input of new ideas from those they consider beneath them. These people that represent the same school of thought that got us into the disaster in Vietnam. We never consider the history of the region with which we are dealing. It does not make any difference whether Russia has a Tsar, a Communist dictator or a popularly elected president. Whoever controls Russia will feel threatened by any effort of another power to extend its influence in Eastern Europe. I do not care who governs Russia or what kind of government they have, an extension of NATO to the boarders of Russia will provoke the same hostility. Russia has been invaded too many times from Poland and Eastern Europe for any intelligent Russian leader not to be concerned when a potential foe extends its influence there. We should have known that and should not have made the mistake of getting too involved in Eastern Europe. We also need to learn that the kind of government that we think works for us is not necessarily best for the rest of the world. Besides with Obama and Reid, it is not working so well for us right now.
Fr. I couldn’t have said it better myself. However I do have a minor quibble: while I do agree that Obama is incompetent in many areas, I think he knows what he is doing, that is he harbors a lingering antipathy towards the West because of his father’s colonialist experience. As such, there is a confluence of opinion between himself and the Wilsonian Neocons regarding European Christendom in general. He’s probably not as anti-Russian/Orthodox as they are (if at all) but his antipathy towards the West (because of his father’s anti-colonialist experiences) causes him to make common cause with Neocons. Anyway, they both have a mutual interest in seeing the destruction of Christian nationhood. Neocons expect the flowering of transnational democratic de-Christianized capitalism in the aftermath while he wants to see Europeans brought down to the same level as the Third World.
George, to which “father” are you referring? The one he never knew, Barack Obama, Sr. or the one who actually inculcated in him his political worldview, Frank Davis?
It’s been a little while since Poland invaded Russia. It hasn’t been long since Russia invaded Poland, and it’s been a veritable blink of an eye since it stopped occupying it.
I think that it was very wise for the English to have placed their country on an island, and even wiser for the US to have done so on a separate continent with a really big ocean on either side. Among the benefits is avoiding invasion (for a millenium in the case of England) and thereby avoiding all sorts of national and ethnic grievances, which are quite impossible to sort out.
I see your point, but it’s not so much Poland which exercises the Russian dread, but invasion from and through Poland, in the manner of Napoleon and Hitler. (A lot of us forget that Poles made up a significant portion of Napoleon’s Grand Armee.)
George, even the wise and deep denizens of this blog can be forgiven for forgetting that the Poles made up a significant portion of Napoleon’s army. I would be interested in knowing how many, but in any event I would accept that even a few companies of men would be “significant”!
Yes, Poland has found itself in an unfortunate geographical position in the centuries since the days of its power. And let us not forget that it was invaded in 1939 by both Russia and Germany, in pretty much a 50-50 handshake deal, quite unprovoked needless to say, leaving nothing for the Poles but Katyn first, and then the Nazi killing-ground.
I hasten to say that I speak as one with no Polish connections at all. But I’ll put in a plug for Norman Davies great 2-volume history of Poland: “God’s Playground”. It is so well regarded that, translated into Polish, it has become sort of the de-facto standard history in Poland itself. It is also of great interest to students of Russian history, particularly of the “other”, non-Muscovite, Russias.
I think what the Russians are really concerned about is that the US/NATO/EU seem to be bringing everyone around them into economic and military alliances, insofar as possible. Russians like a buffer for historical reasons, as are alluded to above. On missile defense, at the end of the day, we are proposing putting a system of missiles that shoot down missiles on the territory of Russia’s neighbors, ostensibly to offset any threat from the Middle East. But a missile is a missile is a missile. By definition these systems can target any incoming missile, Russian included. Militaries calculate on the basis of balance of power. To the Russian military, it doesn’t matter one whit against whom the missiles happen to be targeted today, the fact they are there means we are giving Russia’s neighbors missile defense capability. This affects their calculations as to their defense capability because it takes some percentage of their missiles out of play and so they must look at their neighbors’ missile capability and their other conventional forces. That’s why Putin allowed one if his generals to say that if missile defense were installed in Poland, the Russian Federation would destroy it before it became operational. This is serious business.
Russia offered to cooperate in a joint missile defense effort located in neutral countries, manned by both US and Russian personnel, but the US declined.
Military isolation and balance of power is one problem, economic isolation is another. There is or was an opportunity to form an alliance with a fellow mixed-market capitalist country, in the midst of a Christian revival. We have blown that by constantly comparing them to the Soviets, communists, the KGB, etc. Communism was an economic system. It is dead. Even the Chinese don’t really practice it anymore. As for democracy, even if that were going to work out well (and it has really screwed things up in North Africa), we do business and have friendly relations with many non-democratic regimes (the Gulf States, for example) some of whose record on (progressive liberal) “human rights” make Russia look like Sweden.
Now, who’s acting like a child and resurrecting the Cold War? It isn’t Russia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakoula_Basseley_Nakoula
The guy’s a shady character, but he was prosecuted for making a film that the Obama Administration falsely blamed for an embassy attack by al-Qaida operatives in Libya which was downplayed as a spontaneous act of violence based on the film he produced. The whole thing stinks of corruption to high heaven. Yes, he did violate the terms of his probation. Yes, he belongs in prison. And yes, nonetheless, he probably would not have been prosecuted had not the Administration wanted to punish someone for exercising freedom of speech in order to cover up their lies about the (in)activity of al-Qaida before the election.
Benghazi probably is not going away any time soon. The Administration outright, knowingly lied for weeks about the facts surrounding a terrorist attack which killed several Americans in order to make the president look better, or not look bad, before an election. They blamed a work of art (however poorly made) for a well orchestrated terrorist attack which they claimed was simply an incited reaction of the people. Well, it’s bad enough that the adherents of the “religion of peace” can be relied on so confidently to engage in animalistic violence in reaction to art. How cynical is it of the Administration to blame the whole thing on Nakoula? It’s as if Hillary got attacked by terrorists and Obama blamed it on “two blacks from the hood”, upset over Trayvon Martin, who took off in an old Chevy. Apparently a crisis is not the only thing that should be taken advantage of, but stereotypes as well.
If you believe what you say, why aren’t more Americans illustrating their rightful contempt of that religion?
08.11.13. Healing of two blind men. Sermon by Archpriest Victor Potapov – Russian
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQBGUiquC_c
08.11.13. Healing of two blind men. Sermon by Metropolitan Jonah (Paffhausen) – English
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5deD1DVRNQ
08.09.13. Orthodoxy 101. Orthodoxy as a Spiritual Discipline Talk #9
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-OiQdfaTJs
The archangel Gabriel told the Prophet Daniel that the ram with 2 horns is Media/Persia. It is quite plainly stated that this is the beginning of the end. There are no good guys, everybody in power just lies to each other. The Christ describes this time as the worst suffering mankind will ever experience.
The end only comes after the mark of the beast is set up. Russia and China will accept it. I do not know how the threat which Iran poses to Israel, Basel III Banking and US interest is resolved, but when the threat is gone. They will say Peace and Safety. Sudden destruction will come upon them. I believe these scriptures. Gentlemen, we may all well live to be called to endure this to the end. Viewing political maneuvering between these godless lovers of power, is like pulling on a giant ball of string and attempting to unravel it. There righteousness of the lovers of power does not exceed the righteousness of the scribes and pharisees. It matters nothing to me which one is more evil. None of these offers hope.Carry the love of God in your virgin lamps, and trim your lamp, with total absolute trust in God. God is Holy and Good, nothing will ever change this. The evils are powerless. Yet, though He slay me, I will trust Him.
Hal Lindsey called. He wants his eschatology back.
Mr Trost, you and I obviously live on two different planets. On my planet, there is a country called the USA in which illegal aliens commit all sorts of mayhem and maybe, possibly, if the INS feels like it, deports them. Also on my planet, illegal aliens regularly cross the Rio Grande while groups like the Minutemen are harassed for simply pointing out the obvious. Also on my planet, police in Arizona are forbidden from arresting speeders and asking to see their identification. Election officials in many jurisdictions are forbidden from asking to see proper photo ID when people show up to vote.
George, Reagan open Pandora’s box on immigration years ago, the best thing to do is an unlibertarian thing is to make e-verify more available and fine companies Pushed for the use of robotics in farming and cleaning jobs as well.
I agree, Reagan should have never signed on to Simpson-Mazzoli.
SIGH, well here we go again.
A neo-Neo-Con pundit flack re-writes history, and our resident purveyors of Orthodoxy as a nationalist ideology lap it up.
Reality check:
1. Russia did not extend a hand of friendship after the fall of the Soviet Union, it extended a beggar’s palm. The United States, the World Bank and the IMF bailed out a bankrupt Russian government twice, in 1992 and 1999.
2. The US and NATO extended protection to the newly independent states, not to encircle Russia – look at the globe- the very idea is absurd! – but to insure the independence of those small non Russian states –that had at last achieved freedom. Three invasions of Georgia, the occupation of Georgian and Moldovan territories, and cyber-attacks against Lithuania and Estonia show the wisdom and necessity of that action.
3. US business interests had no part in the sell off of Soviet industrial assets. The liquidation of state assets was accomplished by the Komsomoltsi, who rigged the process so that those assets landed in their own hands. All of the oligarch’s were former leaders of the Komsomol. Communists cum capitalists. The oligararchs then used Caucasian gangsters as henchmen in turf battles that made Moscow into a shooting gallery. The chaos of the 1990’s was hardly a Western import.
4. Putin is hardly a champion of the Orthodox faith. He personally led the invasion forces that attacked, sacked and burned the Orthodox cathedral in Nikazi, Georgia on 8/8-9/2008. For more on that, see the attached WSJ article and video documentaries below. Putin recently announced his separation and divorce from his wife of 30+ decades for frivolous reasons. In reality Putin has not lived with his wife for years. He rather lives with his mistress, gymnast Alina Kabaeva, who bore his son in 2011. Look for an introduction to the next Ms Putin next year in Sochi.
5. As for the superior Russian morality, that too is an illusion. Apparently, Mr . Buchanan is unaware that Russia has a rate of abortions that is 3 times that found in the U. S.
6.
Top 5 Countries with the Highest Total number of Abortions in the World –
http://www.whichcountry.co/top-5-countries-with-the-highest-total-number-of-abor\
tions-in-the-world/
April 25, 2013
Abortion Rate Per 1000 Women
China 26.1
April 25, 2013
Russian Federation 68.4
Vietnam 83.3
United States 22.9
1. Ukraine 635,600 57.2
We might add that Russia consumes 70% of the world-wide production of heroin, despite the fact that Russia’s population is less than half that of the U.S. For more on that see the following excerpts from the BBC today attached below:
In a fit of pique over the Magnitsky Act, the Russian government banned US adoptions of Russian orphans, thus condemning those children to an early grave; since most of them suffer from HIV, fetal alcohol syndrome or other congenital illnesses due to parental drug abuse – conditions for which there is little available treatment in Russia. These children are never adopted IN Russia, have you not wondered why?
As for the Magnitsky affair, that brings us to the multitude (over 300) political assassinations of independent journalists; the illegal imprisonments and torture inflicted on all those who seem to pose a threat to Putin’s power vertical. This is Christian nationalism? Give me atheistic liberty over that any day.
From Todays’ BBC News:
Russia surgeon ‘stole heroin from drug mule’s stomach
Russian police have arrested a surgeon suspected of stealing heroin he removed from the stomach of a drug courier in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia.
Officers who checked drug containers removed from the courier believed one was missing and carried out a search.
Five grams were found in the clothing of the surgeon, who was himself found to be in a state of narcotic intoxication, police say.
The suspect told police he would not comment without his lawyer.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23682068
The number of HIV cases in Russia was 12% higher in the first six months of 2012 than in the same period last year, government health experts say.
Official data shows that in the first 10 months, 703,781 Russians had the virus, of whom 90,396 died.
In nearly 60% of new cases, drug injection using dirty needles was the cause of infection.
Meanwhile, worldwide, the number of new infections in adults has stayed broadly stable for the past four years.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20526639
As for US foreign policy, I wholeheartedly agree that it is both ill informed and incompetent. In fact there has not been a coherent and proactive foreign policy since the Reagan era.
Instead of clearing house after the fall of the Soviet Union, GWH Bush catered to the fallen communists, insuring their continued control over the Russian government and economy, with the bitter fruit we see even today.
While Clinton tried to manage the Yugoslav deconstruction, leading to the war there, the Russians were allowed to invade independent Georgia in1992 and massacre 50,000 Orthodox Christians and drive out 300,000 from their ancestral homes in vicious campaigns of ethnic religious cleansing, carried out by Muslim militias from the North Caucasus – paid and armed by the Russian army.
As for GW bush’s adventures, well its still a mess. Obama simply has not a clue, and what is more, he doesn’t care.
What I do find distressing is how readily self described Orthodox Christians are willing to substitute an ideology of “Christian nationalism” for the Savior’s Gospel. Perhaps, someday we might remember: “My kingdom is not of this world” May the almighty and loving Savior at last call us back to the truth of the Gospel and the life of repentance.
Francis Frost
SEPTEMBER 24, 2008
What the Russians Left In Their Wake in Georgia
By MELIK KAYLAN
Having devastated vast areas of its own lands in the Caucasus, such as Chechnya and Ingushetia, in order to “protect” them from instability, Moscow’s obliterating shadow has settled deep over Georgia — with the usual consequences. The full barbarism of Russian actions in Georgia may not emerge for years; much of the evidence lies behind the lines in terrain newly annexed by Russia. But some details are now beyond dispute. Alongside the various human atrocities, such as the bombing and purging of civilian areas, the invaders looted and destroyed numerous historical sites, some of which were profoundly revered by the Georgians as sacred building blocks in their national identity. This is especially true of the region around South Ossetia that served as a kind of cradle of early Georgian culture. The Georgian Ministry of Culture lists some 500 monuments and archaeological sites now mostly under Russian occupation and out of sight.
After the interminable Soviet decades, the Georgians from 1990 onward made a special push nationwide to reconsecrate churches and build local museums to revive their own interrupted national narrative. No doubt that in itself acted as a kind of provocation to Russia’s hair-trigger sensitivities over loss of empire. Using satellite imagery and interviews with refugees from the August invasion, the Georgian government is in the process of identifying damage to the most important monuments.
Thus far the destruction includes severe bomb damage to the Museum of Prince Matchabelli, which housed the personal effects of the Georgian royal family’s famed anti-Russian rebel, who was native to the region; destruction by arson of the church of St. George in Sveri, a rare 19th-century wooden structure; shelling damage to the 12th-century Ikorta church with its graves of revered Georgians; and extensive bomb damage to the monastery complex of Nikozi Church — dating from the 11th century, it is perhaps the most important site of all. This is an extremely selective list, but it gives the reader an idea of why the area matters deeply to Georgians, and in a perverse way to Russian-backed militias allowed to plunder as they drove out residents at gunpoint and, according to eyewitness accounts, began looting buildings. Satellite imagery shows that specifically Georgian villages were extensively torched and in some places are being bulldozed flat.
Here one should firmly scotch any budding moral equivalency arguments comparing Russian conduct in Georgia with allied conduct in Iraq or Kosovo. Whatever other mistakes have been made, the U.S. has meticulously avoided bomb damage to ancient sites and never has encouraged any allies to attack or obliterate the culture of rivals. To be clear, the U.S. simply does not harbor that kind of targeted animus toward the cultural patrimony of others.
I was in the Georgian war zone during a chunk of August and with the help of local friends I was able to traverse occupied terrain via country roads and over hills on foot — a highly dodgy undertaking as one moved into South Ossetia without Russian permits. Georgian refugees were still streaming out. Bodies and burned vehicles were left behind. To view the damage to Nikozi, my friends got me to a hillside at dusk for a short spell, before it got dark enough for night-vision lenses to pick us out, making it suicidal for us to move around. One could make out rubble and destruction in the village and the church complex. The church itself seemed unharmed, but the equally historic bishop’s palace nearby appeared roofless and fire-damaged. In the advancing twilight, visibility was bad. But what I saw has now been confirmed by multiple eyewitness and other reports.
The site of Nikozi Church dates back to the fifth century and is known to Georgians as the Church of the First Martyr. The story goes that St. Rajdeny was a Persian soldier of high rank stationed in the area under the Sassanid empire. He converted to Christianity and was tortured to reconvert to Zoroastrianism. He refused and died under torture, and his grave became a center of pilgrimage around which a church was built by Vakhtang Gorgaseli, the fifth-century Georgian king who founded Tblisi. A bishop’s palace was added and the church rebuilt in the 11th century.
The Soviets expunged all religious activity there with particular force because Stalin hailed from the nearby town of Gori, where they built the Stalin museum in his lifetime. At the Soviets’ demise, Nikozi became again a center of pilgrimage for Georgians. And as the national church came back to life, Nikozi reacquired a bishop who revived the annual mid-August festivities in honor of St. Rajdeny.
The fiercest aerial bombardment of the village took place this year on Aug. 12 and 14. Bishop Andrea Gvazava of Gori, who was helping conduct services at the church at the time, later told me that he had organized the evacuation of villagers but the bishop of Nikozi had stayed to face further bombing. There is some confusion over the condition of the church — some say it sustained some fire damage and little else — but the medieval bishop’s palace was gutted and everything inside torched. New outbuildings to house a school were destroyed. Bishop Andrea believes that the complex likely suffered looting, because in Gori and outlying villages he and other priests were later robbed at gunpoint by Ossetian militias.
In contrast, Stalin’s museum in Gori, which I visited during the occupation, went unmolested except for the Georgian flag flying on the tower above — a sniper had shot out its red St. George crosses. In fact, the museum became a center of pilgrimage for Russian soldiers who daily stood around having their pictures taken. The custodian, a sturdy elderly lady, also had refused to flee. She told me that teary-eyed Russian officers, drunk by evening as most Russian soldiers were, kept turning up and complimenting her for watching the place. They had hugged her and said: “He was a great man. He kept our country unified.”
Had they mentioned that he’d done so by decimating an entire generation of Georgians and by settling Ossetians in and around Tskhinvali, the source of all the present trouble? “They were alcoholics,” she sniffed. Why hadn’t she fled? “Because it is a piece of history, whatever you think of Stalin,” she said, “and we have a responsibility to preserve it.”
Mr. Kaylan writes about culture for the Journal.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122220864672268787.html#articleTabs=article
The 2008 documentary “Orthodox Occupation” has been re-released and posted on You Tube at the following url:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FRMy143Nm0
Portions of this documentary plus additional footage are now available with English voice over, titled “Orthodox Occupancy Part 1 and Part 2” at the following urls:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dWSx4scmP0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmw7jY3gzj4&feature=related
A television documentary on the destruction of Ghvertaeba and the work of reconstruction carried out by Metropolitan Isaiah may be viewed at:
http://pik.tv/en/war/film/1755
Mr Frost, your roseatte view of the Yeltsin period in which American “investors” were “helping” the former Soviet state deserves a little scrutiny. This was a time of Wall Street plutocrats plundering Russia of resources to the tune of 1 Trillion dollars. Even Neoconservative publications like The Weekly Standard (the flagship journal of Neoconservatism) has had to admit this reality, albeit in more discreet terms: “rigged privatizations,” etc. Vladimir Putin, for all his sins put a stop to this.
It was from the start of his ascendancy that the Neocon/Neoliberal axis took it upon themselves to blacken his name. He shut down their gravy train, its that simple.
Dear Francis,
Gotta agree with you on some of the terminology on this blog. I , too, gag whenever I hear terms like feminazi and muslim jihadist
http://www.nypost.com/p/pagesix/son_in_putin_yule_stocking_OcvvWAUJ2yyMFdtLtq2OeM
and
http://www.nypost.com/p/pagesix/putin_new_kid_2dgxwoZBLRMD9SAgYsYFLJ
As for yours views on Georgia and RUssia, do you think that all the fault for conflicts there goes to Russia and none to Georgia?
and fan page
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Alina-Kabaeva/197945596885120
and religion
http://samiaserageldin.blogspot.com/2012/08/muslim-olympians-invisible-in-spotlight.html
How many of y’all actually clicked on the links?
“SIGH, well here we go again.
A neo-Neo-Con pundit flack re-writes history, and our resident purveyors of Orthodoxy as a nationalist ideology lap it up.
Reality check:
1. Russia did not extend a hand of friendship after the fall of the Soviet Union, it extended a beggar’s palm. The United States, the World Bank and the IMF bailed out a bankrupt Russian government twice, in 1992 and 1999.”
Russia was in an economic crisis after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Its transition from communism to mixed market capitalism was necessarily traumatic. Yeltsin sought and obtained a one year grace period on all loans of the Soviet Union in exchange for agreeing that the Russian Federation would assume all debt of the Soviet Union. The Russian Federation and the USSR were two distinct legal entities. He didn’t have to assume the debt, although it certainly helped with Russian credit.
Extending a hand of friendship and requesting aid are not mutually exclusive actions. The Soviet Union, during the Cold War, accepted large imports of grains and other goods which it could not provide for its own people. Yet it was not interested in friendship at that point because of its ideology. We blew a huge opportunity during the Clinton Administration to befriend Russia. Instead, we treated them as if their ideology had not changed, as your points below concede, in so many words.
“2. The US and NATO extended protection to the newly independent states, not to encircle Russia – look at the globe- the very idea is absurd! – but to insure the independence of those small non Russian states –that had at last achieved freedom. Three invasions of Georgia, the occupation of Georgian and Moldovan territories, and cyber-attacks against Lithuania and Estonia show the wisdom and necessity of that action.”
It is not at all absurd to suggest that we tried to surround Russia. Obviously we could not do this in the East. In the West and South, we have done just about everything possible to “surround” them. “Freedom” is not a religion and is always relative.
In the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s dissolution, there was a little war on the Abkhaz and Ossetian territories arbitrarily assigned to Georgia. These two ethnic groups obtained a defacto autonomy which was respected for some time. Saakashvili then, probably with the encouragement of US Senator John McCain, decided to violate this truce or status quo and bombard and invade these territories, territories which had been contested from the moment they were assigned to Georgia. In the process of doing this, Georgia intentionally killed a number of civilians and Russian peacekeepers. Investigations by the United Nations cleared Russia of wrongdoing in the startup of this war and placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of Georgia. The Ossetian refugees were fleeing toward the Russian forces for protection after the Russians invaded.
“3. US business interests had no part in the sell off of Soviet industrial assets. The liquidation of state assets was accomplished by the Komsomoltsi, who rigged the process so that those assets landed in their own hands. All of the oligarch’s were former leaders of the Komsomol. Communists cum capitalists. The oligararchs then used Caucasian gangsters as henchmen in turf battles that made Moscow into a shooting gallery. The chaos of the 1990’s was hardly a Western import.”
This is simply untrue and has been refuted elsewhere. The West was deeply involved in profiteering from the demise of the Soviet Union and its privatization. Putin put the brakes on the looting by all involved.
“4. Putin is hardly a champion of the Orthodox faith. He personally led the invasion forces that attacked, sacked and burned the Orthodox cathedral in Nikazi, Georgia on 8/8-9/2008. For more on that, see the attached WSJ article and video documentaries below.”
http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/daze-war-russia-georgia-conflict-film
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93Georgia_war
Two things do not seem to be in doubt: 1) Georgia started the war, and 2) both sides committed “atrocities”.
Nikozi is located very close to Tskhinvali where much of the action took place. In general, after the initial Georgian aggression, the Russian strategy seemed to be to overwhelm the Georgians and inflict enough damage to make them think long and hard about another excursion and, hopefully, to destabilize the Saakashvili government.
“Putin recently announced his separation and divorce from his wife of 30+ decades for frivolous reasons. In reality Putin has not lived with his wife for years. He rather lives with his mistress, gymnast Alina Kabaeva, who bore his son in 2011. Look for an introduction to the next Ms Putin next year in Sochi.”
There are many rumors about Putin’s love life. Actually, the story about Kabayeva may be old news. I’d heard he’s moved on from her. This is irrelevant to whether he is a “protector of Orthodoxy”. Furthering the status of the Orthodox Church in Russia and abroad, as well as being open to the gradual Orthodoxization of the Russian Federation in terms of moral/legal norms would be the proper touchstone to evaluate that. By all accounts, he seems committed to these objectives. The Orthodox Church does allow divorce. His personal indiscretions are between him and his confessor priest. I can’t believe that he does not know or needs to be told that extramarital sex is a no-no.
“5. As for the superior Russian morality, that too is an illusion. Apparently, Mr . Buchanan is unaware that Russia has a rate of abortions that is 3 times that found in the U. S.”
I am at a loss as to who has asserted that there is a “superior Russian morality”. Sounds like a strawman. Nonetheless, over the past decade or so, abortion has been increasingly discouraged by the government and by the medical profession, probably for demographic reasons as much or more than morality. Abortion was the primary form of birth control during the Soviet period. This is a cultural change as much as anything and will take time.
“In a fit of pique over the Magnitsky Act, the Russian government banned US adoptions of Russian orphans, thus condemning those children to an early grave; since most of them suffer from HIV, fetal alcohol syndrome or other congenital illnesses due to parental drug abuse – conditions for which there is little available treatment in Russia. These children are never adopted IN Russia, have you not wondered why?”
While the Magnitsky Act no doubt was involved in the timing of the adoption ban, the fact is that Russian children had been abused by homosexual pedophiles here in the United States and homosexuality is still considered abominable there, as is pedophilia. Banning adoptions to countries where homosexuality is not a bar to adoption is a pragmatic precaution. The Magnitsky Act was an interference by the United States in the internal affairs of the Russian Federation. We don’t like other countries threatening to haul our officials before the Hague or giving asylum to NSA whistleblowers. If we expect that consideration, we should stay out of their affairs as well.
“As for the Magnitsky affair, that brings us to the multitude (over 300) political assassinations of independent journalists; the illegal imprisonments and torture inflicted on all those who seem to pose a threat to Putin’s power vertical. This is Christian nationalism? Give me atheistic liberty over that any day.”
“Atheistic liberty?” What the hell is that? If it is the “liberty” found in any of the openly atheistic regimes of the 20th century, you would be insane to choose it over that of the Russian Federation. But seriously though, and this is hard for Westerners to understand and perhaps very difficult to accept, but a liberal progressive “free press” which acts as a fourth branch of government is simply unacceptable to the Russian government. That is the vehicle for the gradual progressive liberalization of Russia. They do not wish to go down that road. Thus, such a “free” press is not welcome.
Recall, Putin was a KGB officer in East Germany during the Cold War when he worked on Soviet and Western propaganda efforts; i.e., he evaluated Western propaganda and designed Soviet propaganda – – ideological warfare. Put simply, he is a student of the media and its uses. He knows perfectly well how to rule a country and obtain maximum consensus: The state must “occupy the field” when it comes to the narrative the people experience. That does not mean that there cannot be opposition media and dissenting voices. However, it does mean that they can only go so far and that they must not be the loudest voice in the public arena.
I seriously doubt if Putin has personally ordered the murder or serious mistreatment of any significant number of journalists, if any. However, Russia not being America, those journalists who accuse him, for example, of being the real perpetrator of the Beslan tragedy or other terrorist incidences (the same type of tripe that was slung at Bush regarding 9/11) should fear for their safety and perhaps their lives. Putin, as former director of the FSB, most certainly has many, many friends in the intelligence community and special forces. They do not need orders to protect or defend his reputation. All they need is some reasonable expectation that any investigation will lead nowhere. Being experts in covering their tracks, and being as how such journalists are seldom popular with law enforcement, this is not a tall order.
Misha, thank you for demolishing Mr Frost’s arguments. Particularly the one in which he asserted that no foreigners were involved in the wholesale plundering of the ex-Soviet Union in the 90s. Even the Neocon flagship journal The Weekly Standard has backed away from this categorical denial, choosing instead to view this grand larceny as “rigged privatizations.”
As for the refusal of the Russians to allow the adoption of Russian children by homosexual couples, I’m sorry I haven’t made more of it. But their refusal is for the reasons you state. Of those adoptions that had taken place, the homosexual “parents” used their young charges for paedophilic purposes including child pornography.
You’re welcome, George.
The US gov’t, Harvard University and the IMF were the designers of the program of “shock privatization” which the Yeltsin government implemented. You had Western advisers telling the Russians this was the only way to accomplish their goal. Moreover, Western businesses were responsible for a number of loans involved in funding the eventual owners of former state assets. There were other means by which Western interests profited such as controlling contractual access to privatized industries through subsidiaries located in Western tax havens. You can find much of this online if you dig a bit.
That was their first mistake. I would not hire a Harvard professor to advise me on how to run a peanut stand.
Agreed, Father John. But they had to get advice from somewhere. Their experience with Western style economics and government was confined to a disastrous period of 7 months in the spring and summer of 1917 between the abdication of the tsar and the Bolshevik Revolution. Very few, if any, adults living then survived to 1991. Kerensky’s democratic government was incompetent anyway, that’s why they couldn’t hold on to power, they actually armed the Bolsheviks.
At the end of the Soviet period, all they had was socialism and a black market run by the Russian mafia, which explains somewhat why what followed resembled Chicago in the 1920’s . . . well, also Chicago today, but that’s our disaster.
Not all professors are bad of course. I remember when you were a thorn in the flesh of the quisling administration of the Austin Community College. 😉
In any case, here is one professor that we can all be proud of: Fr. John Behr.
http://www.svots.edu/headlines/dean-becomes-only-author-publish-three-oxford-university-press-series?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenews
Yes, never let it be said that that big, continental nation with a thousand-plus years of history, a highly-educated population, chock full of resources, far away and over the seas, is responsible for its own problems. Must be Harvard University and Uncle Sam’s other proxies!
So likewise when the Turk and the Arab oppress the Christian– Uncle Sam’s on the hook for that, too. Notwithstanding that the Turk finished the job 40 years before Columbus set sail, and the Arabs nigh on a millennium before that…..
Excellent article:
http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2013/08/21/what_russia_wants_in_the_middle_east_105390.html
It is apparent most of you have not taken a serious look at what these scripture state. I write with concern for eternal salvation.It is anyone’s benefit to be aware of what these scriptures warn of..If you don’t believe the scriptures, so be it. Viewing my interpretations of scripture as bogus, needs presentation of something more in accord with the Truth. No one has matched my definition of the abomination of desolation with a greater explanation of Truth, Being snarky, does not get the job done.You got something better , hot shots, lets see it. If not , your just raging heathens. Let the heathens rage St. Paul said.
Apocalyptics have been predicting that the Apocalypse is imminent for millennia now. Always, they read the Scriptures and signs as meaning it will happen within their lifetimes and those of their contemporaries. I’ve always found this very curious.
Why is there never one, who, after careful study, tells us that the End will come in 130 years, or 67 years, or 545, etc. etc.? It can’t be a mere coincidence that they always put it in terms of current events.
Why are the wars, rumors of wars, catastrophes, etc. of the “current” era always more portentious than those of some other era which failed to produce the Apocalypse?
One thing we do know for sure is that we will each die and face judgment.
The present collection of lying false teachers and preachers is only a constant continuation of the spirit of Simon Magus and the Gnostic heresy. They are everywhere, TV, radio, internet sites.and in 100,000 churches.It appears to me that false predictions are the norm, present company, excluded for the most part. While genuinely Christian Spirited inspirations, revelations intuitions, discernment, and visions and even miracles still occur, they do not command the audience of the liars. Therefore, the possibility of the correct understanding of scripture and it’s fulfillment is also predicted in the scriptures.Even in a barrel of rotten apples, there may still be a few that are edible. If your really hungry, and seeking, God shows you where to look among the garbage and the flowers. Seek, Ask, Knock is what we are required to do, if we wish to know those things Our Father in Heaven want us to be aware of in the present.
For my part, I genuinely wanted to understand what the abomination of desolation was. I remember when each thrill of understanding struck my mind. The great whore is the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth. What does this mean? Can anyone make any sense of it. There are some men standing here who will not taste death until they see the Returning of the Christ. How can this be Truth. Are they 20?? years old? Reincarnated?. It is appointed a man once to die, and then judgement, which appears to contradict the 20?? men, and the maxim age we can attain to stated in the scripture. It makes no sense. Read what I wrote, it does make sense of these scriptures. The Will of the only Holy One is stated plainly by the Purest, Highest Authority, Jesus Christ, which contain Absolute Spiritual and Moral Authority.. Love the Lord thy God and serve Him alone, man does not live by bread alone,( the duo nature, spirit and flesh of mankind is addressed here), do not tempt God. These simple Words are the Vision given to all mankind, so the people do not perish. The Vision is important to our eternal salvation, It is central to my explanation of the abomination of desolation.
.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323407104579036173795495190.html
It appears that despite the wishes of the Obama and Cameron administrations, the UN inspectors are doing their work bravely even though they’ve had to deal with snipers (after the Syrian government granted them permission to enter, I note). Prediction: I may be wrong, but I would wager a small amount that this will turn out similar to the episode in May in which it was the rebels who were eventually found responsible. Why would Assad cross this line if he is winning (by most accounts)? Why would he let inspectors in if the UN says that they can detect whether these weapons have been used for months after the alleged use? Why would the US claim that the evidence may have been destroyed despite the UN’s statements to the contrary?