The Towers of Babylon
"Does the trumpet sound in the city without the populace becoming alarmed?
Does misfortune come to a city if God has not sent it? "
Amos 3:6-7
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"If the Lord does not build the house, in vain the masons toil; If God does not guard the city, in vain the sentry's watch." (Ps.127:1).
Not since the birth of Jesus has such a spectacular fulfillment of ancient visions been seen on earth. Over the last 60 years a sequence of prophecies have unfolded so astonishing they have stunned even the most staid Bible scholars.
Witness the re-establishment of an Israeli state which ended almost 2000 years of exile for Jewish citizens;
2., the rebuilding of the city of Jerusalem, a sure sign of the end of the world;
3., the holocaust of the Jews in World War II that manifested a taste of the tribulation forecast by Jesus;
4., the flame of the stars falling from the sky in a huge ball of fire onto the earth, and
5., the appearance of the seventh head of the beast (Adolph Hitler) who murdered almost ten million members of the House of Israel, amplifing beyond any past mold, an image of Satan in man.
Scores of prophecies like these have cascaded out of the Bible into historic reality over the last century. The complete list is prodigious. A great many of them have been chronicled analytically in the books and papers on this web site.
They continue to unfold.
Any one of these events might be argued away, but taken collectively in such density they stand as blaring testimony to the times we find ourselves in today. The world, indeed stands now on the threshold of its end.
The event of September 11th, 2001, gargantuan by any standard, must take its place in this unfolding sequence. Like the Jewish holocaust, its sheer size and scope is too large for metaphor. The burning of New York was a fulcrum that dramatically and permanently changed western civilization, altering world history forever. That city's fire commissioner called it "the greatest tragedy that has ever hit any city anywhere, any time."
A seminal event and heavily documented in scripture, it fits the time-line predicted for its occurrance too closely to be ignored, for it matches with precision the size and details of the visions which foresaw it.
The attack this September was the signal all Christians since the beginning of the religion have been waiting with great expectation to see. God's judgment of Babylon.
Exactly nine months into the third day (Ex.19:10)), the handwriting of the Lord etched itself on the walls of the city (Dn.5:5), incarnating scripture in stunning images that left the whole world (who watched in horror) transfixed by its unfolding message.
Graphically, it brought to sight a far deeper understanding of the mysterious prophecies which proclaimed an end to the millenium of reconciliation, and the beginning of the eastern world's vengeance against Babylon. It was the moment when spiritual words became physical: "I will light a fire inside her towns; it shall devour all her surroundings." (Jer. 50:32). In a single day Babylon will be burned up. The handwriting is now on the wall, and we are that wall, the military force that guards the western world.
"Look at the land of Kittim...they have set up towers." (Is.23:13-14)
On every high mountain and upon every high hill, there will be streams and watercourses, on the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall" (Is.30:25)
"Trust in God forever for the Lord is the everlasting Rock; he has brought low those who lived high up in the steep citadel; he brings it down, brings it down to the ground, flings it down in the dust; the feet of the lowly, the footsteps of the poor trample on it." (Is.28:4-6).
"They will destroy the walls of Tyre, they will demolish her towers; I will sweep away her dust and leave her a naked rock." (Ez.26:3-4).
"Your wealth will be seized, your merchandise looted, your walls razed, your luxurious houses shattered, your stones, your timbers, your very dust, thrown into the sea. I will stop your music and songs...I will reduce you to a naked rock..." (Ez.26:12-14).
"Take up your positions around Babylon...Shout against her on every side! She surrenders, her towers fall, her walls are torn down since this is the vengeance of the Lord..." (Jer.50:15).
"Were Babylon to scale the heavens, or reinforce her towering citadel, destroyers would still fall on her at my command, it is God who speaks." (Jer.51:53)..
"I am queen on my throne, she says to herself, and I am no widow and shall never be in mourning. For that, within a single day, the plagues will fall on her: disease and mourning and famine. She will be burnt right up. The Lord God has condemned her, and he has great power." (Rev.18:7-8).
"There will be mourning and weeping for her by the kings of the earth who have fornicated with her and lived with her in luxury. They see the smoke as she burns, while they keep at a safe distance from fear of her agony. (Rev.18:9).
"They will say: 'Mourn, mourn for this great city, Babylon, so powerful a city, dimmed as you are within a single hour'. (Rev.18:10)
'All the fruits you had set your hearts on have failed you; gone forever, never to return, is your life of magnificence and ease.' (Rev.18:14).
"The traders who had made a fortune out of her will be standing at a safe distance from fear of her agony, mourning and weeping. ·They will be saying: 'Mourn, mourn for this great city; for all the linen and purple and scarlet that you wore, for all your finery of gold and jewels and pearls; your riches are all destroyed within a single hour'. (Rev.18:15-17).
"All the captains and seafaring men, sailors and all those who make a living from the sea will be keeping a safe distance, ·watching the smoke as she burns, and crying out, 'Has there ever been a city as great as this!' (Rev.18:17-18).
"They will throw dust on their heads and say, with tears and groans: 'Mourn, mourn for this great city whose lavish living has made a fortune for every owner of a seagoing ship; ruined within a single hour. (Rev.18:19).
"The Lord God says this: The wide ramparts of Babylon will be razed to the ground, and her high gates will be burnt down. Thus the laboring of the peoples comes to nothing, the toiling of the nations ends in fire." (Jer.51:58).
The body of scripture predicting September 11th is vast. This paper will explore many of those predictions and examine some of the more important circumstances that surround each one of them.
THE THIRD DAY
The timing of the tower attack coincides with the inauguration of scripture's "third day". It is written in the Book of Exodus,
"The Lord said to Moses, 'Go to the people and tell them to prepare themselves today and tomorrow. Let them wash their clothing and hold themselves in readiness for the third day, because on the third day, the Lord will descend on the mountains of Sinai in the sight of all the people." -Ex.19:10)
The Psalm of David tells us that a day to God is like a thousand years to man. Peter wrote,
"But there is one thing my friends, that you must never forget: that with the Lord, 'a day' can mean a thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day." (2 Peter 3:8; Ps.90:4). Days in scripture have always been measured in prophecy by this code.
That means the order to wash and clean for two days and on the third day, see God face to face, covers an era more than 2000 years in length. It marks the duration of the Christian era. The washing and cleaning foretells baptism and repentance while the 'third day' foretells the Second Coming of Christ. Those days began with the calendar birth of Jesus, January 1st, 1 A.D.
The third day began January 1, 2001.
Just nine months later, (the gestation period of a human embryo), on September 11, 2001, the city was attacked, the towers fell and a part of Babylon burned. The handwriting was on the wall. The sign showed the return of Christ was imminent. The kings of the East had begun their attack.
In the flaming wreckage of New York City, the ages changed.
THE DAY OF ATONEMENT
The Day of God is called the 'Day of Atonement'. In keeping with the code of scripture, this day is measured in terms of a thousand years, and so is called the "millenium". It is the millenium of Christ the length of time His word has shined among men, bringing the light of God into their hearts with the offer of His divine reconciliation.
The thousand-year millenium (the millenium of His Word preached on earth) has lasted for almost 2000 years. This was foretold. A prophecy in the Book of Joshua revealed that God would stop the "Son" in the sky for almost a whole day, making one day into almost two.
"Is this not written in the Book of the Just? The sun stood still in the middle of the sky and delayed its setting for almost a whole day (making one day into two). There was never a day like that before or since, when God obeyed the voice of a man, for God was fighting for Israel." (Joshua 10:12-14).
This two-thousand year "millenium" is the period of "washing and cleaning" defined by Moses. It symbolizes the rebuilding of the spiritual ruins of Jerusalem. It was for that purpose that Christ was sent to this earth. During this period, the Book of Revelation tells us that Satan was locked up in prison in the Abyss
"Then I saw an angel come down from heaven with the key of the Abyss in his hand and an enormous chain. He overpowered the dragon...Satan, and chained him up for a thousand years." (Rv.20:1-2)
"The angel threw Satan into the Abyss, and shut the entrance and sealed it over him to make sure he would not deceive the nations again until the thousand years had passed. At the end of that time he must be released, but only for a short while." (Rev.20:3)
The thousand years of Satan's imprisonment coincides with the millenium of Christ's rule on earth. It is the age of the Church and is the reason why church-rule was possible in Satan's world during the past 2000 years.
"When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive all the nations in the four quarters of the earth Cog and Magog, and mobilise them for war. His armies will be as many as the sands of the sea; ·they will come swarming over the entire country and besiege the camp of the saints, which is the city that God loves. But fire will come down on them from heaven and consume them. ·Then the devil, who misled them, will be thrown into the lake of fire and sulphur, where the beast and the false prophet are, and their torture will not stop, day or night, for ever and ever." (Rev.20:7-10).
The date of Satan's release is not known, but there can be little question he is back in the world now. The Church is under assault, world wars have rocked the globe and a mysterious anger has gripped the populations. Satan's return is synonymous with the tribulation. He is the one who is agitating the world to the violence scripture has predicted for these times. His appearance is the signal. God is about to terminate Babylon and wipe the wicked off the earth forever.
"After this, I saw another angel come down from heaven, with great authority given to him; the earth was lit up with his glory. At the top of his voice he shouted, 'Babylon has fallen, Babylon the Great has fallen, and has become the haunt of devils and a lodging for every foul spirit...all the nations have been intoxicated by the wine of her prostitution; every king on earth has committed fornication with her, and every merchant grown rich through her debauchery'." (Rv.18:1-3).
"There will be mourning and weeping for her by the kings of the earth who have fornicated with her and lived with her in luxury. They see the smoke as she burns, while they keep at a safe distance from fear of her agony. They will say: 'Mourn, mourn for this great city, Babylon, so powerful a city, doomed as you are within a single hour'." (Rv.18:9-10).
"All the captains and seafaring men, sailors and all those who make a living from the sea will be keeping a safe distance, watching the smoke as she burns, and crying out, 'Has there ever been a city as great as this!'" (Rv.18:17-18).
"A new voice spoke from heaven; I heard it say, 'Come out, my people, away from her so that you do not share in her crimes and have the same plagues to bear. (Rv.18:4-5).
The people who choose God are going to be protected. Those who pray will be made secure by a wall of faith. Though times will be hard, those who wrap themselves in God's power; in faith and prayer, the Lord will lead to the safety He has promised.
But the pagan world's sentence is going to be very severe.
According to scripture, the consequences of Babylon's condemnation and Satan's return shall be marked with signs of catastrophe throughout the world. There will be earthquakes and tidal waves and flaming debris from the skies. Famine, pestilence and disease will become rampant. The Book of Revelation reveals that the times of magnificence and ease have come to an end and will never come again; there will be immense poverty.
A great mourning will spread across the land -- the dirge for pagan Babylon.
"Earth trembles at the sound of the capture of Babylon, the dirge for her is heard throughout the nations." (Jer.50:46).
The Bible says that God's power to protect us from harm comes entirely from prayer. But in this country, prayer is missing; our leaders ordered it removed from public life. Those who complied with this order were very thorough. (see footnote)
By ordering prayer taken away, the government has left itself helpless in the face of its enemies. Banning prayer, our governing officials have torn down the spiritual wall of defense that once protected this people and this nation from harm. The result has been catastrophic.
This paper is a chronicle of the consequences of that disaster.
THE TWO TOWERS OF BABYLON
The attack on the towers of New York is the handwriting on the wall of Babylon.
"Suddenly the fingers of a human hand appeared, and began to write on the plaster of the palace wall, directly behind the lamp-stand; and the king could see the hand as it wrote. The king turned pale with alarm: his thigh-joints went slack and his knees began to knock." (Dn.5:5-6).
He sent for Daniel, the only sage in his kingdom who could read the words. Daniel told him:
"The writing reads: 'Mene, Mene, Tekel and Parsin,' The meaning of the words is this: Mene: God has measured your sovereignty and put an end to it; Tekel: you have been weighed in the balance and found wanting; Parsin: your kingdom has been divided and given to the Medes and the Persians." (Dn.5:25-28).
That same night, the Babylonian king was murdered, and Darius the Mede received the kingdom.
The United States is the wall of Babylon. It is the military force that guards the western world from attack. In a single hour this defense was penetrated, the city was set on fire, its towers crashing to the ground in clouds of dust that rolled out to the sea. The smoke of its burning was seen from one end of the earth to the other. World traders blanched white at the agony of the loss. They were filled with disbelief. Who would have believed such a thing could ever happen.
In vain the sentry's had watched.
The fingers of a human hand has appeared, and the message they have inscribed is clear: the day for Babylon's grief has arrived. The end is near. The king will be murdered. The guardian will fall and the western world will be given over to the Persians.
In the Book of Revelation almost two pages are devoted to the attack on Babylon. This astonishing dedication of space (including the entire 18th chapter of that book) guarantees an overwhelming importance to this event; the words themselves speak to the complete destruction of pagan Babylon.
The words focus on one city -- on one attack. But they describe an event that is to encompass all of the world in an unfolding process. One side of the world will mobilize to destroy the other. It is east versus west. We have already shown that Babylon is synonomous with the western world that lives outside of Christ.
The False Prophet is whipping up the east into a frenzy that will bring both itself and the pagans of the western world to catastrophe and utter ruin. God has determined that this shall happen. That disaster began in New York, but it will extend everywhere.
New York is more than just a city in the western world, it is the financial capitol of the world. Dedicated to mammon, and home to the United Nations, it symbolizes one of the highest towers of paganism -- a true capitol city of Babylon.
It is the financial hub of the whole pagan world.
Scripture shows that there is a spiritual dichotomy between God and money. No one, Jesus revealed, can love them both. It is either one or the other.
The classic capitol of pagan Babylon is Rome. That is the city implicated by scripture as the symbolic capitol of the pagan world. That is the city the Apostles viewed as the fulfillment of the Bible's prophecies in this regard. Thus it symbolizes the highest tower of paganism in the world.
Throughout the millenium, Christianity ruled Rome. Babylon lay mortally wounded, impotent. That is the physical meaning of the mortal wound, the death of secularism. Rome was made subservient to Christ's Church.
But the Great Revolt which is now in progress in the world has seen Rome separate from the Church (the first official separation of church and state in the world). The coming darkness will return Rome to paganism completely.
The attack on New York shows that Babylon has two towers, not just one. That means it has two capitol cities. The Book of Revelation had already shown us one of them. Now we know the second, the capitol city of mammon.
One is economic, the other symbolic. The planes of the terrorists toppled both towers. So both capitols will fall. And here the symbolism will hold true again; the one struck first will fall last.
BABYLON AND KITTIM
The events of September 11th seem to have shown New York and Babylon to be symbolic soul-mates, locked together in an unholy alliance for all time.
Yet when we look closely at the symbolism of the planes involved, a clearer definition emerges. The plan of attack differed significantly from its results. The results proved catastrophic to Wall Street, but not to the democracy. The capitol building was spared by the courage of its citizens. Heavily damaged, however, though not destroyed, was the source of the wall itself, the military headquarters of the United States.
Even though the United States is a part of Babylon (a part of the western world) the effects of the attack suggests a difference between Babylon and the people's government here.
What came down in flames were the commercial and financial interests of New York and the world community, not a government founded in, or by, or of the people. Planes headed for the institutions which represent those ideals failed completely.
One was felled by the power of the people within it. Another was diverted to land, thwarting its hijacking completely. A third, crashed into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the U.S. war machine, but the building that symbolized the United States military was so well built the plane failed to penetrate it deeply. The building survived, damaged but intact.
It was only against the city of New York and specifically the financial interests centered there that the attacks proved devastating and terrible beyond words. There, truly catastrophic damage occurred. The full fury of destruction. Not just the trade towers, but all the financial buildings surrounding them were destroyed. The scene of the ruin superimposed across the world's most prosperous city-scape was surreal and without rival. It's scope, beyond imagining. The chaos inconceivable.
Therein stands the image of the 'tower' of Babylon in whose fall God has imaged His coming purpose. The target leveled by the Destroyer was mammon itself. And the message it sent was from God. The end of Babylon is at hand. The millenium is over.
It is hard to separate the city of New York from the Wall Street contained within it. Speaking of the United States, George Will said that it is "neuroligically wired to the stock market". Perhaps that is true. Certainly it is true of New York, a city deeply ensconsed in the glitz and opulence of luxury's culture.
This obsession with wealth testifies to a society once dedicated to the well-being of its people somehow hijacked by the selfish interests of unbridled capitalism where morality itself is measured in stock values. The poor of the world have been devastated by the runaway greed that emanates from this unholy community. It has been built on their backs.
Consider the toxic wastes, the rape of the environment, the institution of pornography, judgment and the lawyers, the witholding of medicines and healthcare from the people, the poor and the aged, the price gouging and the usury. Sin on sin, corporation after corporation, the list seems endless. . The reason is always the same: the bottom line.
Never has there been a celebration of God on Wall Street. Outside of curses, not a reference to the Creator of life has ever been heard in its halls. There, money is god. All creation to them is financial. Nothing is there for the needy or the poor.
A markedly different response rose from the people of the country after the attacks, however. From out of the flags, riding a wave of prayer, came the sound of singing; praising God. The whole country, united as one in worship, singing songs of deliverance and faith. Wrapped in the spirit of God, they opened their hearts and savings without thought to recompense to do something Wall Street had never done, helping those who were afflicted.
A great dichotomy of purpose in the United States was made visible in that outpouring. The dreams of those who had hijacked our society lay buried in the rubble of the collapsed towers. But faith had saved the country. Gone was the glitz and the triviality of extravagence. Buried in the rubble of New York was the hedonism -- the opulence and unmitigated greed of a culture made irrelevant in one hour of time. A new society rose out of the ashes. The country returned to its foundation.
This is the other side to the terror of the message on the wall. God is rescuing His people, not destroying them. All who have faith in Him will be protected. The end of Babylon will prove the salvation of God's chosen.
If the outpouring of faith continues, the walls of God's defense will rise again. The beast will not capture our shores. He will be beaten back and forced to flee across the sea to his own shores.
This disparity between faith and lucre attests to the difference between Kittim and Babylon. Both are the same, but they differ markedly from one another. 'Kittim' and 'Babylon' are names that come from prophecy. Both describe the western world, but Kittim is special. It is a country filled with faith in God.
That is why it is written in scripture that America will still be worshipping the Lord when the end comes. Even the predictions of the sign of the sudden fiery end to Babylon, the handwriting of the twin towers, define that faith:
On every high mountain and upon every high hill, there will be streams and watercourses, on the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall" (Is.30:25)
The "streams and watercouses" stand for the living water that pours out from the breast of Christ as it issues from the churches which dot the hills and mountains of the United States. The plug has been pulled, but the preaching continues. Isaiah has confirmed this:
"...and so it will be on earth, among the peoples, as at the beating of the olive trees, as at the gleaning of the grapes when the grape harvest is over. They lift up their voices, singing for joy; they acclaim the majesty of God from the sea. Therefore in the islands they give glory to the Lord, in the islands of the sea, to the name of the Lord, the God of Israel. From remotest earth we hear songs, 'Honor to the upright one'. But 'Enough, enough!' I say. 'Woe to the traitors who betray, to the traitors who treacherously betray!' Terror, the pit, the snare for you, inhabitants of the earth..." (Is.24:10-17).
This shows the invisible border that separates the people of God from the rest of Babylon. It is a border of faith.
SONGS OF DELIVERANCE AND JOY
"God has brought low those who lived high up in the steep citadel; he brings it down, brings it down to the ground, flings it down in the dust: the feet of the lowly, the footseps of the poor trample on it." (Is.26:5-6).
"For you have made the town a heap of stones, the fortified city a ruin. The citadel of the proud is a city no longer, it will never be rebuilt." (Is.25:2).
"From that day on a mighty people gives you glory, the city of the nations without pity holds you in awe; for you are a refuge for the poor, a refuge for the needy in distress, a shelter from the storm, a shade from the heat..." (Is.25:3-5).
Isaiah reveals that on the day God heals His people and seals Babylon's condemnation -- on the day He stands up and says "Enough!" -- on that day, too, there will be voices across the sea and in the islands praising the name of the Lord.
We are witnesses to the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy. That praise and prayer could be heard by the whole world as it rose up from the people in a spontaneous chorus of voices that towered far above the smoke rising out of New York. Isaiah's words came true before our eyes. Not only that, we were a part of it!
It was an outpouring of faith that sounded both on earth and in heaven, simultaneously:
"After this I seemed to hear the great sound of a huge crowd in heaven, singing, 'Alleluia! Victory and glory and power to our God!" (Rv.19:1-2).
"Then moonlight will be as bright as sunlight and sunlight itself be seven times brighter -- like the light of seven days in one -- on the day God dresses the wound of his people and heals the bruises his blows have left." (Is.30:24).
In heaven there will be jubilation and celebration:
"Now heaven, celebrate her downfall, and all you saints, apostles and prophets: God has given judgment for you against her. Then a powerful angel picked up a boulder like a great millstone, and as he hurled it into the sea, he said, 'That is how the great city of babylon is going to be hurled down, never to be seen again'." (Rev.18:20-21).
THE RISE OF THE EAST
"The people of Israel are to serve the king of Babylon until the king of Persia comes to power." (2 Chron.36:21).
Daniel's interpretation of the writing on Babylon's wall shows that the kingdom which God has sent to destroy Babylon forever will consist of an eastern world divided between the Medes and the Persians. The troubles of the end will arrive in concert with the Medes. As the power of the east grows, its minions will rise to become the scourge of the pagan world. The final end will come at the hand of Persia, who will burn it in a single hour.
"Sharpen the arrows, fill the quivers! God has roused the spirit of the king of the Medes, because he has a plan against Babylon to destroy it; this is the vengeance of God, the revenge for his Temple." (Jer.51:11).
The involvement of the east in the catastrophic events of September 11th has been well documented. The prophecy has proved accurate.
"Though you were rich and glorious surrounded by the seas...the east wind has shattered you, surrounded by the seas." (Ez.27:25-26).
"Take up your positions around Babylon...Shout against her on every side! She surrenders, her towers fall, her walls are torn down since this is the vengeance of the Lord..." (Jer.50:15).
Throughout the scriptures Babylon is characterized as a land of pagans, while the east is not, so why the difference?
The difference is 'religion'. The king of the east, the Bible says, will align himself with the people of a "foreign god" -- a god of 'warfare' not known to their ancestors, and worshipped by an eastern people whose prowess in battle will be such that they are able to overcome even the mightiest fortresses. (Dn.11:38-39).
Today we can see how large and important that contingent actually is. Yet, most theologians (muslim or Christian) do not regard Bin Laden as religious or his forces as holy warriors even though they claim that relationship. But the fact is, with their strange god, they have launched a 'jihad', or holy war against the western world.
In that attack, they brought to ruin the economic towers of the mightiest fortress in the the entire world. So the prophecy of Daniel is already true.
In their attack on pagan Babylon, they think they are doing a holy duty for God.
In keeping with Daniel's prophecy, two major eastern forces will come, each in its own time, against the western world. The first will be the Medes. Empowering the rise of this east wind will be a "kingdom of the north" (Ez.39:2). It will arise from nations that seem to be associated with the Black Sea.
Bible prophecy pinpoints the perimeter of the eastern invasion, the Euphrates river. Across that river the hordes of the east will come. It will overrun the western outposts there, and advance all the way into Jerusalem, and from there across Europe and even cross the Atlantic to confront America on its own shores. These forces will be beaten back.
A second eastern nation will replace them. This will be the prince of Persia. He is the one destined to burn Babylon to the ground in a single hour. The greatest horrors this earth has ever know will occur in this hour. And then the end will come. The fires of heaven will rain down and the beast will die, his soldiers all disappear. Christ will return.
The land of the Medes is the ancient homeland of the dreaded Parthians who defeated an entire Roman army just before the time of Christ. This defeat put a fear into Roman hearts that did not go away.
Some years later, when one of the most malignant rulers in the world (the Roman emperor Nero) died, an unsettling prophecy began to circulate throughout his empire that predicted he would rise again from the dead, but in the east, where he would head an immense Parthian army that would carry him back in triumph to rule Rome again in the last days.
When the world finds this "Nero" in the gloom of the coming darkness, the Prince of Persia, then will come the 'Parthian shot', the dying moment, the last gasp of Satan, as God lights the fires of eternity and throws the faithless into them, extinguishing wickedness forever.
WHAT CAN THE VIRTUOUS DO?
"Without fear, I await the day of anguish which is dawning on the people now attacking us." (Habakkuk 3:16).
A ruinous time is coming to Babylon because of sin; that time has already started. Despite the perilous circumstances that lie ahead, those who follow Christ and continue to place their lives in His footsteps, will be saved. His gate has not yet been shut. The path He described in great detail is still open. And it still leads to life.
"There is no need to worry; but if there is anything you need, pray for it, asking God for it with prayer and thanksgiving, and that peace of God, which is so much greater than we can understand, will guard your hearts and your thoughts, in Christ Jesus." (Phil.4:6-7).
But great care must be exercised by His people from now on. Far more diligence and faith are going to be needed to stay God's course. Faith must be stronger than ever so that Christians do not succumb to the power of delusion that soon will be descending on the world.
God has promised to rescue many of His people from the worst of the tribulation. Certain Protestants have termed this "the Rapture." It will not be for everyone. Daniel shows that Christians will be practicing their faith and teaching others throughout the violence. But the promise remains:
"Because you have kept my commandment to endure trials, I will keep you safe in the time of trial that is going to come for the whole world, to test the people of the world." (Rev.3:10)
Whether we are chosen to go or stay for awhile, Paul said that we must never give in, but bear our troubles joyfully, thanking the Father who has made it possible for us to join the saints, and with them inherit the light.
"He has taken us out of the power of darkness and created a place for us in the kingdom of the Son that he loves, and in him, we gain our freedom, the forgiveness of our sins." (Col.1:13-14).
For the world there will be no light. A blinding veil is coming a darkness of deceit. It is bearing down on the faithless and will confuse and blind all who have refused to listen to Jesus or take heed in His Word. It will lead the whole world astray. With the Great Revolt already in progress, it has already begun. With the handwriting on Babylon's wall behind us, we have entered the days when darkness must increase.
In Christ we have a stong city. It will not collapse as do those that surround us in this world. The Holy Spirit is a wall and rampart around us that makes all the lightning and thunderbolts of the enemy powerless in our presence. That will not change.
Though we appear to die on earth, we will live forever in Christ. The sound of His Voice will transform us from out of this disaster into the peaceful brilliance of the everlasting city in heaven that God has built for us.
"For we know that when the tent that we live in on earth is folded up, there is a house built by God for us, an everlasting home not made by human hands, in the heavens." (2 cor.5:1).
We must hold onto that knowledge. As long as we do, God's peace will never leave us.
"Not long ago, you were foreigners and enemies, in the way tht you used to think and the evil things that you did; but now he has reconciled you, by his death and in that mortal body. Now you are able to appear before him holy, pure and blameless -- as long as you persevere and stand firm on the solid base of the faith, never letting yourselves drift away from the hope promised by the Good News, which you have heard, which has been preached to the whole human race..." (Col.1:21-23).
"Do not give up if trials come; and keep on praying." (Rom.12:12).
There was a long period of tribulation in the early days of the Church, but Christians were able to stand firm in those days. The Church did not fail; it grew. Despite the circumstances, they were able to hold tightly to the promise that was made. As long as Christ is preached, salvation will continue to flow into the world.
It is the world that is changing, not Christ. His offer still holds. Do not harden your heart. Now, more than ever before, we need to hold fast to the call and live by it.
"Indeed, everything that was written long ago in the scriptures was meant to teach us something about hope from the examples scripture gives of how people who did not give up were helped by God." (Rom.15:4).
"You can trust God not to let you be tried beyond your strength, and with any trial he will give you a way out of it and the strength to bear it." (1 Cor.10:13).
Those words were written by Paul during the first tribulation and they hold just as true today.
"Love", he said, "is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes...be happy at all times; pray constantly; and for all things give thanks to God, because this is what God expects you to do in Christ Jesus." (1 Cor.13:7; 1 Thes.5:18).
The images of the Wrath are unsettling. They have been given to mankind by the Holy Spirit to jolt the world out of its complacency, so that the pagans would know that a day of retribution is coming for those who refuse to leave wickedness. Those who trust in God will be saved. Jesus suffered on the cross for our sins, so it is not surprising that we have been called to suffer with Him. He has left an example to follow the way He took.
"He was bearing our faults in his body on the cross, so that we might die to our faults and live for holiness..." (1 Peter 2:24).
"If any one of you must suffer for being a Christian, then he is not to be ashamed of it; he should thank God that he has been called one...so even those whom God allows to suffer must trust themselves to the constancy of the Creator and go on doing good." (1 Peter 4:16-19).
"No one can hurt you if you are determined to do only what is right; if you do have to suffer for being good, You should count it a blessing because you will receive a great reward from God. Do not be afraid of their terror. Simply reverence the Lord Christ in your hearts...because He protects everyone who knows His name." (1 Peter 3:13-16; Ps.91:14).
He has commanded His angels to protect everyone who trusts in Him. See Psalm 91.
The Apostle Peter wrote,
"My dear people, you must not think it unaccountable that you should be tested by fire. Thre is nothing extraordinary in what has happened to you. If you can have some share in the suffereings of Christ, be glad, because you will enjoy a much greater gladness when his glory is revealed. It is a blessing for you when they insult you for bearing the name of Christ, because it means that you have the Spirit of glory, the Spirit of God resting on you." (1 Peter 4:12-15).
Scripture is clear. The reward of faith is a joy and gladness beyond imagining. The judgment of Babylon has brought us to the threshold of the marriage feast of the Lamb. This is not the time to stop gathering the oil for our lamps.
This world is passing away because God is replacing it with something far better -- a new heaven and a new earth (Rv.21:1).
Whatever happens to this body will not matter. God has prepared a new body to house our soul. It is an imperishable body without disease or age. Nothing can ever harm it because it is made in the same substance as the New City of Jerusalem in heaven, the throne of the Lord. There, we will live in His presence forever.
"Never give in then, my dear brothers, never admit defeat; keep on working at the Lord's work always, knowing that, in the Lord, you cannot be laboring in vain." (1 Cor.15:58).
"Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose hope is the Lord. He is like a tree beside the waters that thrusts its root to the stream: it fears not the heat when it comes; its leaves stay green; in the year of drought it shows no distress, but still bears fruit." (Jer.17:5-8).
"The Day the Pope Is Killed"
THE LAST DAYS OF BABYLON
PART 6
THE WRATH
___________
"Then they will hand you over to be tortured and put to death; and you will be hated by all the nations on account of my name." Is.13:4-5
CHAPTER 25
An Anointed One Cut Off
"Rebellion is at its work already, but in secret, and the one who is holding it back has first to be removed before the Rebel can appear openly."
2 Thes.2:5-7
_____________
The reign of Christ will end abruptly and the last war be ushered in by assassination.
"And after the sixty-two weeks an anointed one will be cut off..." (Dn.9:26).
First and foremost, the word 'anointed one' here revolves around Jesus Christ. This passage in the Book of Daniel tells us that at the end of the '62 weeks' the Messiah will be 'cut off' from the people. It predicts that the millenium of Christ's rule on earth will come to an end suddenly.
The prophets have written that this end will come at 'noon', at the pinnacle of preaching on earth: "That day I will make the sun go down at noon, and darken the earth in broad daylight...I will make it a day of mourning like the mourning for an only son. As long as it lasts it will be like a day of bitterness." (Amos 8:9-10, Ez.32:7-8).
Paul has shown us that there is more to this prophecy than the removal of Jesus alone. Coupled with this 'cutting off', Daniel has indicated that all these events revolve around the desolation of the 'perpetual sacrifice' (Dn.8:11); And the 'one', Paul said, who holds the rebellion at bay. (2 Thes.2:76).
The word 'anointed one' not only refers to the Lord, but to His ministers as well. Daniel has written 'an anointed one', not 'the anointed one'. In this case, the prophecy points to a minister of Christ -- and not just to any minister, but to one of the highest figures in the faith.
Just as the Jewish religion had a high priest, the Christian religion also has a personage who the world recognizes as its leading spokesman.
This recognition is not a faith issue. There are many who rightfully argue that Christianity has only One true leader -- Jesus. Yet the title remains and so does the office. Centuries of bitter assaults against this figure and the erosion of time have not changed this fact, they have only strengthened the reality.
The reason is simple: this particular bishop is the highest officiating caretaker on earth of the communion sacrifice. The perpetuation of the sacrifice (the 'perpetual sacrifice', in Daniel's chronology) is the whole reason for this pastor's ministry.
Communion is the peace offering that God has made with the world (by treaty in the blood of the cross) giving it (for a limited time) amnesty from annihilation so that all people on earth who choose to do so are able to repent of their sins and return to God through the path of Christ.
As long as the the offering is able to continue, the rebellion is held in check, , and the wrath is blocked.
Every church on earth exists for a purpose, just as every Christian on earth has been given a specific job to do for God.
The 'one' who has been assigned the task of holding back the catastrophic wrath from crashing against the world is the anointed prince of the Last Supper -- the overseer of the peace offering. The church he heads has devoted itself to the perpetuation of that offering.
Daniel made the significance of all of this known when he revealed that the beast will attack the sacrifice after 'cutting off' the high priest who is its guardian. (Dan.9:26-27). In making this prophecy, the Holy Spirit had Daniel structure it as an echo to two historical events which duplicated its conditions and therefore emphasized the future implications involved.
And once it reoccurs as predicted -- then, on the heels of the final fury -- the full blackness of Satan's night will unfurl across the earth and the light of Christ's peace offer to the world will be no more. (Is.24:1-6). This is the catastrophe.
"...the city and the sanctuary will be destroyed by a prince who will come." (Dn.9:26).
Paul said that when the Revolt had reached a certain point -- a point which seems almost certain now to have already passed -- Satan would come up out of the Abyss and deceive the world one final time.
"When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive all the nations in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, and mobilize them for war." (Rv.20:7-8).
That militant 'mobilization' has become the very signature of the twentieth century. Never before in the history of man has there been a time of such intense and widespread combat on earth; genocide and mass murder.
Although warfare is not new to the planet, the last 80 years have witnessed a period of combat and human carnage unlike any ever seen before -- an endless march of armies carrying wars from one end of the earth to the other.
Twice in that time, the entire planet has been embroiled in the fighting en masse. Using monstrous weapons against soldier and civilian alike; and coalescing with the restoration of Judah and Jerusalem, these armies have responded to the proclamation of God issued through the lips of the prophet Joel:
"Proclaim this among the nations. 'Prepare for war!' Let the nations rouse themselves, let them march to the Valley of Jehoshaphat, for I am going to sit in judgment there on all the nations round." (Joel 4:9-12).
It is because of sin that Satan has been released: "Put the sickle in...come and tread: the winepress is full, the vats are overflowing, so great is their wickedness!" (Joel 4:13).
According to Paul, the return of the dragon will lock the world in its rebellion, and the assassination of the priest holding back the worst of the fury will make inevitable the final countdown to the Judgment. (2 Thes.2:5-7 ).
"The harvest will be over, gathering will not come again." (Is.32:10). With the anointed prince removed, and the peace offering desecrated, the vintage will be consumed by the Wrath.
"The word of God was addressed to me as follows, 'Son of man, say, 'The Lord God says this to the land of Israel: Finished! The end is coming for the four quarters of the land. Now all is over for you; I mean to unleash my anger on you, and judge you as your conduct deserves and force you to answer for all your filthy practices. I mean to show you no pity. I will not spare you..." (Ez.7:1-4).
By chaining Satan in the Abyss, God allowed the rule of Christ to occur. Without that incarceration there would have been no millenium -- no rule of the Christian Church on earth. (Rv.20:3).
Satan's power of deception is just too great for many to overcome. Had God not locked him personally away, the last 2000 years would have been disasterous for the Church and millions of Christians could easily have been lost in the chaos.
His reappearance on the earth in our time is a direct result of the world's rejection of Christ's rule. Satan has been allowed by God to return to our world because of the apostasy of the Revolt -- the secularization of the planet.
The world's conversion to Christ is the power that put him in chains, and the world's abandonment of Christ in our time is the power of his release.
"The reason why God is sending a power to delude them and make them believe what is untrue is to condemn all who refused to believe in the truth and chose wickedness instead." (2 Thes.11-12).
Freed from his long incarceration in the Abyss, he is back sowing the seeds of his chaotic deception wherever we look. His new emergence on earth is why everything has suddenly gone so berserk around the globe.
Brash and violent, godless, intoxicated with riches and trampling over the poor, the malevolent spirit of Satan has manifested itself into the soul of the earth and its people. From the streets of Los Angeles to the battlefields of Bosnia and Palestine, violence has erupted like a volcano in spate.
All this is a response to Satan's power for evil.
It is happening just as the Bible promised it would, and yet it is all going quite unnoticed.
As if in a hypnotic trance, the world, in its march away from Christ, sees nothing of the disaster that now dogs its heels.
The tycoons of business and industry are still busy building their monuments, thinking that everything is as it was during the peaceful days of the reign of Christ, unmindful that everything has suddenly changed for them.
Satan has returned to the helm of the planet filled with an unsatiable thirst for war.
Jesus warned that when an evil spirit has been driven out of man and then is allowed to return, it will always bring in seven others more wicked than itself so that the last state of the man will be much worse than the first.
If this applies to each of us individually, it applies even more to the world. The collapse of world faith -- the rejection of the Church by the world -- will bring more evil to this planet than it has ever seen before.
The days that are coming will be incredibly wicked and unremittingly violent. Seven times worse than the pagan world of the past.
The Revolt that ends the millenium will be certain proof that the reign of Jesus in the world could not have occurred had Satan been actively present on earth during its term. Locking him away, Michael removed the most powerful obstacle that stood between us and our reconciliation with God. (Rev.20:1-3).
His return has brought that obstacle back. But before the worst can happen, Satan's partner in crime, his 'son of perdition' must appear. Paul revealed that in order for Satan to accomplish the unholiest part of his charade, he must first bring forth his Lawless Prince, the man Paul calls the Rebel, the Lost One, who is also known in scripture as 'the beast':
"When the Rebel comes, Satan will set to work; there will be all kinds of miracles and a deceptive show of signs and portents, and everything evil that can deceive those who are bound for destruction because they would not grasp the love of the truth which could have saved them." (2 Thes.2:9-10).
A similar kind of deception swept over the Jews when they rejected Christ. They were made blind because they repudiated God when he came to them. The times ahead will see that blindness reversed.
It is the people of Babylon who will go blind -- and the deception in our time will be much worse than that which afflicted the Jews.
A dominion and power that has the capacity to vent his emotions into men, Satan's anger has already engulfed the planet, plunging it into a level of violence that has driven love far away and made men's hearts grow increasingly cold. (Matt.24:12).
Recent hostilities launched against the poor and needy are indications that some of Christ's most frightening words are coming true even as we watch.
The fact that Satan is so powerful in his capacity to manifest delusions on earth and the fact that the Christian world has not had to deal with him directly since the beginning of Christ's reign shows the terrible impact that his appearance will ultimately have on mankind.
In fact, the nations are all polarizing at this very moment against the Son of God. Not content merely to change 'Christ' to a 'common era', they are secretly plotting a fate far more malignant. And at some point in the process Satan will be allowed to remove the last entity on earth which blocks his return to power.
In a strange parallel to the game of chess, the Beast will take out a strategic bishop and, in so doing, checkmate the world and himself with it.
It is not because he is popular or powerful that this slaying is so strategic. It is because of his office. The bishop in question oversees the power which drives the entire millenium: the perpetual sacrifice.
And that is the key to the end of the world, said Daniel -- the 'abomination of desolation' that the Rebel will place on the perpetual sacrifice. (Dn.8:11-12; 11:31).
By removing the Bishop who guards this sacrifice, the way will be opened for the disastrous abomination to be installed.
The words 'cut off' imply an act of lethal violence. When we explore the historic circumstances behind Daniel's words, we discover just such a murder.
When Antiochus IV Epiphanes (the great desolater of the Jewish temple during the Greek occupation of Jerusalem) was rising to power, his forces assassinated Onias, the immensely popular high priest of Jerusalem. (2 Macc.4:34-38).
It is around this event and its surrounding circumstances that Daniel constructed his last-day prophecies.
The assassination of a modern high priest will duplicate the biblical circumstances which led up to the appearance of Antiochus. The murder of Onias, the Jewish high priest, allowed Antiochus to subject the Jewish sacrifice to abomination, giving historic circumstance to all the visions.
Daniel's model (Dn.9:26) projects the assassination of Onias into the prophecy, and for this reason it foreshadows a like catastrophe against the world's foremost Christian bishop at the end of time.
Paul confirmed this when he told the people of Thessalonia that the Great Rebel who was destined to enthrone himself in God's sanctuary at the end of time, could not appear until this Christian leader had first been 'taken out of the way'. (2 Thes.2:5-7).
Since it is this shepherd that God has assigned the duty for holding back the wrath from the earth, none of the final events described by Daniel can happen until this terrible act of violence takes place and the Bishop who guards the Eucharist is removed from his station.
Paul's words show us that once this assassination does occur, Satan's appointed beast will appear openly on earth. The hidden purpose behind the Rebel's violence will become clear to everyone once he takes over the sanctuary and turns it into his own palace.
The significance of Rome to these prophecies has already been noted. The Bible shows us that the beast will arise in the eastern hemisphere and he will be obsessed with, not just conquering Jerusalem, but Rome as well. He will succeed with the latter, but the world will end before he can take the city of God.
The early Christians had one word which stood for both the appearance of the Rebel and 'the Second Coming' of Christ. That word was 'Parousia'.
The polar circumstances inherent in this single definition points to the close relationship between these two appearances -- one counterfeit, the other real -- and it may also refer to their chronology as well.
That is because there is a certain day set aside in the Christian calendar for the appearance in the world of a divine Being. That day is January 6th, Epiphany -- the word itself meaning 'appearance' or 'manifestation'.
In the western church epiphany represents the day Jesus Christ was made manifest to the Gentiles as the Son of God -- i.e, the day of the three wisemen.
In the eastern church Epiphany represents the day of Christ's birth (the eastern church does not recognize the western Christmas). It also represents the date of Jesus' baptism by John at the river Jordan (thought by eastern Christians to have occured 30 years to the day after His birth).
In its ultimate fulfillment, however, the word and the date point to the Parousia -- the word with the double meaning.
Whether the Rebel, as the impersonation of divinity, or Jesus, returning as the true Son of God will make their appearance in the view of the world on this specific date cannot be said for certain, but scripture is clear that the whole Christmas season has deep symbolic ties to the gravest events of the last days.
Because the calendar governing Christ's return has been divinely altered, it is not possible to link His Second Coming with this date, (or any other date, for that matter), but the Rebel's appearance seems to be another matter.
Since Epiphany follows by only 12 -22 days the event of the abomination of the sacrifice (see below), the 'son of perdition' will likely make himself manifest to the world very near to this date (January 6), if not coincident with it.
Following the bishop's murder the identity of the beast will be clear to everyone who understands the prophecy. The assassination itself will permit the Rebel to openly manifest himself before the world, and his coronation will confirm it in terms which are absolute.
For this reason, in the aftermath of this devastating martyrdom, the final events of the End will cascade upon each other, one after another, each precipitated by the other in rapid succession.
The persecution of the Jews by Antiochus lasted a little over 3 years -- in fact, the Jewish sanctuary itself lay desolate almost 3 years to the day. The prophecies of Daniel indicate that the persecutions of the Rebel will follow a similar pattern. (Dn.12:11).
The desolating sacrifice was instituted on the 15th day of Chislev (1 Macc.2:54), a lunar Hebrew month which correlates with the Christian solar month of December. The temple was purified three years later on the 25th day of Chislev (1 Macc.4:52), an event commemorated by Hannukah.
Ten days in December separate these two events, the same number of days that often separate Hannukah from Christmas. The coincidence in the two dates and their season (winter/December) are so striking that there can be little doubt that they, too, are portents of the future.
The Rebel's assassination of the prince of the Christian covenant will be quickly followed by the rout of the sanctuary and the iniquity on the Eucharistic sacrifice. That is the moment when Jesus said that everyone in Judea should run for their lives by escaping to the mountains. (Mt.24:15-16).
The assassination of the Christian bishop will signal the imminent desecration of the sacrifice.
God has decreed that for as long as that Bishop remains in place overseeing the perpetuation of the Last Supper, the rebellion will be kept at bay.
But with his removal, the whole Church will collapse -- Catholic, Protestant, Greek -- all of it. "That day -- it is the Lord God who speaks -- the peg driven into a firm place will give way. It will be torn out and will fall. And the whole load hanging on it will be shattered, for God has spoken." (Is.22:25).
With the Bishop's death the signal will be clear -- the 'abomination of desolation' is at hand -- the Rebel is on his way to the sanctuary.
Tearing down the communion sacrifice and placing iniquity in its place, the beast will make inevitable the world's end. (Is.24:5-6).
Daniel used the disastrous abomination in the sanctuary as the measuring point for his 1290 days of Christian persecution, and the 1335 days. The latter illustrating a 45-day period of world darkness and disaster beginning with the Rebel's death, his army's annihilation by God, and Michael's journey to Jerusalem. (Dn.12:11-12).
For this reason, we must see the assassination of the 'anointed one' and the desecration of the sacrifice he ruled, as the 'Pearl Harbor' of the second war of the Apocalypse -- the definitive signal that the final war against Christ (Rv.20:7-9) has been officially launched by the people of the world. (Dn.12:11).
PART 6
THE WRATH
___________
"Then they will hand you over to be tortured and put to death; and you will be hated by all the nations on account of my name." Is.13:4-5
CHAPTER 25
An Anointed One Cut Off
"Rebellion is at its work already, but in secret, and the one who is holding it back has first to be removed before the Rebel can appear openly."
2 Thes.2:5-7
_____________
The reign of Christ will end abruptly and the last war be ushered in by assassination.
"And after the sixty-two weeks an anointed one will be cut off..." (Dn.9:26).
First and foremost, the word 'anointed one' here revolves around Jesus Christ. This passage in the Book of Daniel tells us that at the end of the '62 weeks' the Messiah will be 'cut off' from the people. It predicts that the millenium of Christ's rule on earth will come to an end suddenly.
The prophets have written that this end will come at 'noon', at the pinnacle of preaching on earth: "That day I will make the sun go down at noon, and darken the earth in broad daylight...I will make it a day of mourning like the mourning for an only son. As long as it lasts it will be like a day of bitterness." (Amos 8:9-10, Ez.32:7-8).
Paul has shown us that there is more to this prophecy than the removal of Jesus alone. Coupled with this 'cutting off', Daniel has indicated that all these events revolve around the desolation of the 'perpetual sacrifice' (Dn.8:11); And the 'one', Paul said, who holds the rebellion at bay. (2 Thes.2:76).
The word 'anointed one' not only refers to the Lord, but to His ministers as well. Daniel has written 'an anointed one', not 'the anointed one'. In this case, the prophecy points to a minister of Christ -- and not just to any minister, but to one of the highest figures in the faith.
Just as the Jewish religion had a high priest, the Christian religion also has a personage who the world recognizes as its leading spokesman.
This recognition is not a faith issue. There are many who rightfully argue that Christianity has only One true leader -- Jesus. Yet the title remains and so does the office. Centuries of bitter assaults against this figure and the erosion of time have not changed this fact, they have only strengthened the reality.
The reason is simple: this particular bishop is the highest officiating caretaker on earth of the communion sacrifice. The perpetuation of the sacrifice (the 'perpetual sacrifice', in Daniel's chronology) is the whole reason for this pastor's ministry.
Communion is the peace offering that God has made with the world (by treaty in the blood of the cross) giving it (for a limited time) amnesty from annihilation so that all people on earth who choose to do so are able to repent of their sins and return to God through the path of Christ.
As long as the the offering is able to continue, the rebellion is held in check, , and the wrath is blocked.
Every church on earth exists for a purpose, just as every Christian on earth has been given a specific job to do for God.
The 'one' who has been assigned the task of holding back the catastrophic wrath from crashing against the world is the anointed prince of the Last Supper -- the overseer of the peace offering. The church he heads has devoted itself to the perpetuation of that offering.
Daniel made the significance of all of this known when he revealed that the beast will attack the sacrifice after 'cutting off' the high priest who is its guardian. (Dan.9:26-27). In making this prophecy, the Holy Spirit had Daniel structure it as an echo to two historical events which duplicated its conditions and therefore emphasized the future implications involved.
And once it reoccurs as predicted -- then, on the heels of the final fury -- the full blackness of Satan's night will unfurl across the earth and the light of Christ's peace offer to the world will be no more. (Is.24:1-6). This is the catastrophe.
"...the city and the sanctuary will be destroyed by a prince who will come." (Dn.9:26).
Paul said that when the Revolt had reached a certain point -- a point which seems almost certain now to have already passed -- Satan would come up out of the Abyss and deceive the world one final time.
"When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive all the nations in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, and mobilize them for war." (Rv.20:7-8).
That militant 'mobilization' has become the very signature of the twentieth century. Never before in the history of man has there been a time of such intense and widespread combat on earth; genocide and mass murder.
Although warfare is not new to the planet, the last 80 years have witnessed a period of combat and human carnage unlike any ever seen before -- an endless march of armies carrying wars from one end of the earth to the other.
Twice in that time, the entire planet has been embroiled in the fighting en masse. Using monstrous weapons against soldier and civilian alike; and coalescing with the restoration of Judah and Jerusalem, these armies have responded to the proclamation of God issued through the lips of the prophet Joel:
"Proclaim this among the nations. 'Prepare for war!' Let the nations rouse themselves, let them march to the Valley of Jehoshaphat, for I am going to sit in judgment there on all the nations round." (Joel 4:9-12).
It is because of sin that Satan has been released: "Put the sickle in...come and tread: the winepress is full, the vats are overflowing, so great is their wickedness!" (Joel 4:13).
According to Paul, the return of the dragon will lock the world in its rebellion, and the assassination of the priest holding back the worst of the fury will make inevitable the final countdown to the Judgment. (2 Thes.2:5-7 ).
"The harvest will be over, gathering will not come again." (Is.32:10). With the anointed prince removed, and the peace offering desecrated, the vintage will be consumed by the Wrath.
"The word of God was addressed to me as follows, 'Son of man, say, 'The Lord God says this to the land of Israel: Finished! The end is coming for the four quarters of the land. Now all is over for you; I mean to unleash my anger on you, and judge you as your conduct deserves and force you to answer for all your filthy practices. I mean to show you no pity. I will not spare you..." (Ez.7:1-4).
By chaining Satan in the Abyss, God allowed the rule of Christ to occur. Without that incarceration there would have been no millenium -- no rule of the Christian Church on earth. (Rv.20:3).
Satan's power of deception is just too great for many to overcome. Had God not locked him personally away, the last 2000 years would have been disasterous for the Church and millions of Christians could easily have been lost in the chaos.
His reappearance on the earth in our time is a direct result of the world's rejection of Christ's rule. Satan has been allowed by God to return to our world because of the apostasy of the Revolt -- the secularization of the planet.
The world's conversion to Christ is the power that put him in chains, and the world's abandonment of Christ in our time is the power of his release.
"The reason why God is sending a power to delude them and make them believe what is untrue is to condemn all who refused to believe in the truth and chose wickedness instead." (2 Thes.11-12).
Freed from his long incarceration in the Abyss, he is back sowing the seeds of his chaotic deception wherever we look. His new emergence on earth is why everything has suddenly gone so berserk around the globe.
Brash and violent, godless, intoxicated with riches and trampling over the poor, the malevolent spirit of Satan has manifested itself into the soul of the earth and its people. From the streets of Los Angeles to the battlefields of Bosnia and Palestine, violence has erupted like a volcano in spate.
All this is a response to Satan's power for evil.
It is happening just as the Bible promised it would, and yet it is all going quite unnoticed.
As if in a hypnotic trance, the world, in its march away from Christ, sees nothing of the disaster that now dogs its heels.
The tycoons of business and industry are still busy building their monuments, thinking that everything is as it was during the peaceful days of the reign of Christ, unmindful that everything has suddenly changed for them.
Satan has returned to the helm of the planet filled with an unsatiable thirst for war.
Jesus warned that when an evil spirit has been driven out of man and then is allowed to return, it will always bring in seven others more wicked than itself so that the last state of the man will be much worse than the first.
If this applies to each of us individually, it applies even more to the world. The collapse of world faith -- the rejection of the Church by the world -- will bring more evil to this planet than it has ever seen before.
The days that are coming will be incredibly wicked and unremittingly violent. Seven times worse than the pagan world of the past.
The Revolt that ends the millenium will be certain proof that the reign of Jesus in the world could not have occurred had Satan been actively present on earth during its term. Locking him away, Michael removed the most powerful obstacle that stood between us and our reconciliation with God. (Rev.20:1-3).
His return has brought that obstacle back. But before the worst can happen, Satan's partner in crime, his 'son of perdition' must appear. Paul revealed that in order for Satan to accomplish the unholiest part of his charade, he must first bring forth his Lawless Prince, the man Paul calls the Rebel, the Lost One, who is also known in scripture as 'the beast':
"When the Rebel comes, Satan will set to work; there will be all kinds of miracles and a deceptive show of signs and portents, and everything evil that can deceive those who are bound for destruction because they would not grasp the love of the truth which could have saved them." (2 Thes.2:9-10).
A similar kind of deception swept over the Jews when they rejected Christ. They were made blind because they repudiated God when he came to them. The times ahead will see that blindness reversed.
It is the people of Babylon who will go blind -- and the deception in our time will be much worse than that which afflicted the Jews.
A dominion and power that has the capacity to vent his emotions into men, Satan's anger has already engulfed the planet, plunging it into a level of violence that has driven love far away and made men's hearts grow increasingly cold. (Matt.24:12).
Recent hostilities launched against the poor and needy are indications that some of Christ's most frightening words are coming true even as we watch.
The fact that Satan is so powerful in his capacity to manifest delusions on earth and the fact that the Christian world has not had to deal with him directly since the beginning of Christ's reign shows the terrible impact that his appearance will ultimately have on mankind.
In fact, the nations are all polarizing at this very moment against the Son of God. Not content merely to change 'Christ' to a 'common era', they are secretly plotting a fate far more malignant. And at some point in the process Satan will be allowed to remove the last entity on earth which blocks his return to power.
In a strange parallel to the game of chess, the Beast will take out a strategic bishop and, in so doing, checkmate the world and himself with it.
It is not because he is popular or powerful that this slaying is so strategic. It is because of his office. The bishop in question oversees the power which drives the entire millenium: the perpetual sacrifice.
And that is the key to the end of the world, said Daniel -- the 'abomination of desolation' that the Rebel will place on the perpetual sacrifice. (Dn.8:11-12; 11:31).
By removing the Bishop who guards this sacrifice, the way will be opened for the disastrous abomination to be installed.
The words 'cut off' imply an act of lethal violence. When we explore the historic circumstances behind Daniel's words, we discover just such a murder.
When Antiochus IV Epiphanes (the great desolater of the Jewish temple during the Greek occupation of Jerusalem) was rising to power, his forces assassinated Onias, the immensely popular high priest of Jerusalem. (2 Macc.4:34-38).
It is around this event and its surrounding circumstances that Daniel constructed his last-day prophecies.
The assassination of a modern high priest will duplicate the biblical circumstances which led up to the appearance of Antiochus. The murder of Onias, the Jewish high priest, allowed Antiochus to subject the Jewish sacrifice to abomination, giving historic circumstance to all the visions.
Daniel's model (Dn.9:26) projects the assassination of Onias into the prophecy, and for this reason it foreshadows a like catastrophe against the world's foremost Christian bishop at the end of time.
Paul confirmed this when he told the people of Thessalonia that the Great Rebel who was destined to enthrone himself in God's sanctuary at the end of time, could not appear until this Christian leader had first been 'taken out of the way'. (2 Thes.2:5-7).
Since it is this shepherd that God has assigned the duty for holding back the wrath from the earth, none of the final events described by Daniel can happen until this terrible act of violence takes place and the Bishop who guards the Eucharist is removed from his station.
Paul's words show us that once this assassination does occur, Satan's appointed beast will appear openly on earth. The hidden purpose behind the Rebel's violence will become clear to everyone once he takes over the sanctuary and turns it into his own palace.
The significance of Rome to these prophecies has already been noted. The Bible shows us that the beast will arise in the eastern hemisphere and he will be obsessed with, not just conquering Jerusalem, but Rome as well. He will succeed with the latter, but the world will end before he can take the city of God.
The early Christians had one word which stood for both the appearance of the Rebel and 'the Second Coming' of Christ. That word was 'Parousia'.
The polar circumstances inherent in this single definition points to the close relationship between these two appearances -- one counterfeit, the other real -- and it may also refer to their chronology as well.
That is because there is a certain day set aside in the Christian calendar for the appearance in the world of a divine Being. That day is January 6th, Epiphany -- the word itself meaning 'appearance' or 'manifestation'.
In the western church epiphany represents the day Jesus Christ was made manifest to the Gentiles as the Son of God -- i.e, the day of the three wisemen.
In the eastern church Epiphany represents the day of Christ's birth (the eastern church does not recognize the western Christmas). It also represents the date of Jesus' baptism by John at the river Jordan (thought by eastern Christians to have occured 30 years to the day after His birth).
In its ultimate fulfillment, however, the word and the date point to the Parousia -- the word with the double meaning.
Whether the Rebel, as the impersonation of divinity, or Jesus, returning as the true Son of God will make their appearance in the view of the world on this specific date cannot be said for certain, but scripture is clear that the whole Christmas season has deep symbolic ties to the gravest events of the last days.
Because the calendar governing Christ's return has been divinely altered, it is not possible to link His Second Coming with this date, (or any other date, for that matter), but the Rebel's appearance seems to be another matter.
Since Epiphany follows by only 12 -22 days the event of the abomination of the sacrifice (see below), the 'son of perdition' will likely make himself manifest to the world very near to this date (January 6), if not coincident with it.
Following the bishop's murder the identity of the beast will be clear to everyone who understands the prophecy. The assassination itself will permit the Rebel to openly manifest himself before the world, and his coronation will confirm it in terms which are absolute.
For this reason, in the aftermath of this devastating martyrdom, the final events of the End will cascade upon each other, one after another, each precipitated by the other in rapid succession.
The persecution of the Jews by Antiochus lasted a little over 3 years -- in fact, the Jewish sanctuary itself lay desolate almost 3 years to the day. The prophecies of Daniel indicate that the persecutions of the Rebel will follow a similar pattern. (Dn.12:11).
The desolating sacrifice was instituted on the 15th day of Chislev (1 Macc.2:54), a lunar Hebrew month which correlates with the Christian solar month of December. The temple was purified three years later on the 25th day of Chislev (1 Macc.4:52), an event commemorated by Hannukah.
Ten days in December separate these two events, the same number of days that often separate Hannukah from Christmas. The coincidence in the two dates and their season (winter/December) are so striking that there can be little doubt that they, too, are portents of the future.
The Rebel's assassination of the prince of the Christian covenant will be quickly followed by the rout of the sanctuary and the iniquity on the Eucharistic sacrifice. That is the moment when Jesus said that everyone in Judea should run for their lives by escaping to the mountains. (Mt.24:15-16).
The assassination of the Christian bishop will signal the imminent desecration of the sacrifice.
God has decreed that for as long as that Bishop remains in place overseeing the perpetuation of the Last Supper, the rebellion will be kept at bay.
But with his removal, the whole Church will collapse -- Catholic, Protestant, Greek -- all of it. "That day -- it is the Lord God who speaks -- the peg driven into a firm place will give way. It will be torn out and will fall. And the whole load hanging on it will be shattered, for God has spoken." (Is.22:25).
With the Bishop's death the signal will be clear -- the 'abomination of desolation' is at hand -- the Rebel is on his way to the sanctuary.
Tearing down the communion sacrifice and placing iniquity in its place, the beast will make inevitable the world's end. (Is.24:5-6).
Daniel used the disastrous abomination in the sanctuary as the measuring point for his 1290 days of Christian persecution, and the 1335 days. The latter illustrating a 45-day period of world darkness and disaster beginning with the Rebel's death, his army's annihilation by God, and Michael's journey to Jerusalem. (Dn.12:11-12).
For this reason, we must see the assassination of the 'anointed one' and the desecration of the sacrifice he ruled, as the 'Pearl Harbor' of the second war of the Apocalypse -- the definitive signal that the final war against Christ (Rv.20:7-9) has been officially launched by the people of the world. (Dn.12:11).
Special Reports : A Closer Look At “An Invitation To Islam”
By Randy Taylor, Independent Analyst
rtaylor@homelandsecurityus.com
Editor’s Note: As the news that al Jazeera aired an al Qaeda video message today – one that was certainly not aired in its entirety, according to analyst Randy Taylor, his excellent and thorough assessment of the last video message as presented below has become even more relevant - and extremely accurate.
7 September 2006: The release of the latest as Sahab video on September 2nd, 2006, featuring al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al Zawahiri and the lily white jihad convert Adam Yehiye Gadahn, (a/k/a Adam Pearlman and Azzam the American), titled “Invitation to Islam” has been shrouded in some controversy.
Among the more controversial aspects of this video is that the film was not initially released through the al Jazeera Network, which historically, has been the normal media outlet for al Qaeda video messages. Also of concern and academic debate among analysts is the meaning and intention of this film, particularly as it applies to the United States and the people and countries of the Western world.
In consideration of that analysis, there is intelligent speculation that the video message is a prelude to an upcoming attack, and the film was issued in accordance with Sharia law, an Islamic concept that in this case, applies to the fulfillment of the religious and moral requirement that infidels (all non-Muslims) are to be invited to Islam before they are to be attacked and slain. Upon initial review, this appears to be a very plausible and even the most likely purpose of the film. That explanation, however, fails to address a key issue that many analysts are appearing to overlook: this specific video message was not broadcast through the normal channels.
In analyzing the latest video, I would like to address the method in which this video was disseminated. Although it is likely that this film was indeed intended for the US and the Western world, it is my professional analysis that there could be other intended recipients of this eerie message. After careful analysis, those intended recipients are the countries of Syria and Iran, along with the Ayatollah in Iran and the particularly, the Iranian Supreme Council. Consider this: could it be that the video itself was released without the consent of the ultimate Islamic authority, i.e. the Iranian theocracy and its tethered affiliates, which would address and perhaps even explain its method of initial broadcast? Taking the analysis a step further, could it be that in addition to it being released without their consent, that the video was also directed to those very Islamic countries and affiliates? Let me explain.
As a seasoned researcher of al Qaeda messaging, communiqués, chat rooms, forums, various intelligence sources and documents I have noticed a growing sense of dissention within the ranks of those individuals and factions comprising al Qaeda. There seems to be a concern in the al Qaeda structure over the growing division between the Shi’ite and Sunni sects within the Islamic following. The division is quite obvious in the Iraqi theatre and is spilling over into other regions. It is becoming increasingly obvious within the hard-core Islamic jihad sites on the internet. For example, Shi’ite computer hackers are taking down Sunni sites and Sunni hackers are taking down Shi’ite websites. There is an obvious expansion of the resentment of how Iran, Syria and Hezbollah have conducted themselves, especially in recent months. This notable division and rivalry is unacceptable to the thinkers and planners of al Qaeda as they need the Islamic cult to be whole and unified to wage war with the West on all fronts. This divisiveness would be certainly objectionable and extremely unacceptable to Osama bin Laden, if he is alive, and most unacceptable to Ayman al Zawahiri. As military commanders, both men must realize the importance of unity in Islam to wage an effective social and military campaign against non-Muslim countries as they dreamed, and set their dreams into operational plans.
The leaders of the al Qaeda movement know that the one sure way to unite Islam, and to dispel and disintegrate any division within their religion, is to attack the West and precipitate a major conflict, and perhaps the final conflict based on their system of beliefs. Remember, in the analysis of Islamic messages, one must not be confined to Western thought. In such an example, this conflict is their perceived destiny, one that they can initiate with - or without - Iran’s help.
The apparent stumbling blocks for al Qaeda currently appear to be the regimes of Iran and Syria. It is beyond dispute that Iran has long been the seat of Islam, the chief designer, implementer and financier of Islamic terrorism worldwide. They have had a plan stemming back to at least the 1970s to elevate Islam to world domination and destroy the West, primarily the United States, the UK and the rest of the non-Muslim world. It appears, however, that the current problem in the eyes of these al Qaeda leaders is that Iran is stalling, sending mixed messages and isn’t communicating very well with their own foot soldiers, cell members and their drafted operational arm, namely al Qaeda.
I recently observed how the militant chatter was very elated eventually when Hezbollah provoked a military response from Israel, causing a regional conflict that was at the cusp of a full-blown war. I also observed a serious decline in support for Hezbollah, Syria and Iran as the cease fire went into effect, causing at least a temporary cease fire between Hezbollah and Israel. It was indeed strange to observe the lukewarm support at best for Hezbollah by al Qaeda at the initial start of the conflict. Based on my analysis of the “chatter” and conversational postings among al Qaeda members, it seemed as if they felt that through their actions, Hezbollah was interfering or deviating from some sort of Islamic Master Plan by provoking Israel into entering Lebanon.
About midway into the conflict, there was a discernible shift that seemed to corral some support for Hezbollah, albeit slowly. Then, with the manifestation of the rather abrupt cease fire, support for Hezbollah again began to wane as though Hezbollah had failed, and they should have continued to wage war. Support for Hezbollah was at its apex when it appeared that the region would erupt into a full scale war, with the support of Syria and Iran acting on Hezbollah’s behalf. During the various peaks and valleys of the regional conflict, the communications read like a roller coaster as well.
To advance my observations, I sorted through numerous archived videos, messages and films to locate an al Qaeda release that lacked an al Jazeera script rolling across the bottom of the message. Sorting through gigabytes of data, the only video I located where a recognized al Qaeda leader officially released a video through a recognized media outlet other than al Jazeera was the CNN interview with Osama bin Laden.
Based on my findings, would it not be a reasonable analysis to suggest that all of the terrorist video and audio messages determined to be authentic since Osama bin laden escaped from the Tora Bora region, and distributed through al Jazeera, were done so only with Iran’s blessing? By comparing the methods of distribution (al Jazeera versus all others), could the disparity suggest that all al Qaeda messages channeled through al Jazeera were done so at the behest of, or with the blessing of Iran, while all others lacked such approval? With perhaps one exception – that being the second to last video from Ayman al Zawhiri, the remaining were vetted through al Jazeera. Otherwise and based on a careful analysis of al Qaeda’s broadcast history, their latest release could be considered outside of the normal method of broadcast.
It has been my constant professional opinion that Osama bin Laden was a rogue Islamic terrorist operator in charge of al Qaeda prior to the US troops cornering him at Tora Bora. By this I mean that in general, he was operating outside of any Iranian sanctioned operations. Following the attacks on America, Iran became concerned with his growth and ability because his aggressive nature and tactics fell just outside of the Iranian Islamic Grand Design, at least from a “timetable standpoint” for waging war and bringing about the destruction of the non-Islamic world. Once Osama bin Laden was pinned down in Tora Bora and his death or capture appeared to be most imminent, Iran reached out to him and offered him sanctuary, safety and an assured role in their well thought out plans for the destruction of Israel, the United States and the entire Western World. Following this thought process, it is likely then that Osama bin Laden accepted Iran’s offer in trade for his escape, safety and virtual protection within the borders of Iran. After all, he was the icon of al Qaeda and Islamic fundamentalism.
I use the phrase “timetable standpoint” as Iran is a country with minimal capability as a conventional military threat unless they have nuclear capability, something that would obviously change their threat level a great deal. Based on my research of all available intelligence material, I am convinced that Iran is working 24 hours a day underground, not to develop a nuclear weapon, as they most likely alreadyhave the basic nuclear weapons, but instead to build many more nuclear weapons and long range missiles capable of reaching the cities of the “Great Satan”, the United States. It is likely that they currently have the capability to hit Israel right now with nuclear weapons. Unless they can cripple the United States, however, it will be a very short war. Iran cannot chance their last hurrah being short in duration or capability. It would mean going back to square one and starting over somewhere else, just as they did when they took over Iran in 1979.
Al Qaeda, however, has no official country or borders, location or base of operation anymore that can be bombed or destroyed like hose in Afghanistan. Their specialties currently include their ability to blend into various areas and coordinate their highly successful hit and run terrorist tactics worldwide, especially through the use of the Internet. As a military presence and a strong Islamic ideology, it is my analysis that al Qaeda is disappointed with Iran’s overall handling of the entire Islamic world’s confrontation with the west and as such, may have sent this video out without Iran’s explicit blessing and approval. As dissension and disagreement among the ranks of killers is quite dangerous for its leadership, the outcome between the al Qaeda and Iranian methods of operation is largely unpredictable.
One might question al Qaeda’s boldness, releasing their latest video to perhaps set the stage for possible attacks against the United States and the West on their own. That boldness is reduced, however, by the lack of action consequential to the release of the video. Accordingly, I do not see it as driving a permanent wedge between Iran and al Qaeda in the long term.
There would be no set timetable from video time to attack time that is within our knowledge, so as a practical matter, it is not much different than previous threats except by it’s method of media delivery. It isn’t the first time we have been threatened nor will it be the last, as documented by Osama bin Laden’s message prior to the last Presidential elections. In contrast, however, that message was delivered through the normal channels of using al Jazeera.
It is also of particular interest that we have not seen any visual sign of Osama bin Laden for a significant period of time and as such, we really have no assurance that he is even alive at this time. It is entirely possible that Ayman al Zawahiri is currently in charge of al Qaeda. Even if he is not, there has been division, disagreement and outright independence displayed in al Qaeda’s secondary and lower tier leadership. Such an event is not new, and is illustrated in the examples of Osama bin Laden’s mentor Abdullah Azzam, who Osama had killed after the Afghan-Russian war because of their operational differences. Another, more recent example is that of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who started killing Muslims in Iraq as readily and regularly as he would kill US and Iraqi government forces. Such tactics were placed on the records as being against the wishes of Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Based on such examples, the possibility of any known or even unknown al Qaeda operative becoming unpredictably aggressive, stepping out of ranks or doing something without the official “approval” of the primary Islamic theocracy would not be outside the realm of possibility.
Furthermore, resentment could grow as a result of the difference of living conditions between al Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden, especially is the disparity between the two is significant. Based on accepted industry analysis, Al Zawahiri is more operationally connected and active than bin Laden, and therefore would logically receive more feedback from the foot soldiers of al Qada than does the more shielded bin Laden.
Based on his level of exposure, Ayman al Zawahiri is much more exposed and accordingly, more likely to be killed than Osama bin Laden. Al Zawahiri could feel that his time is limited and as such, might be seeking to initiate and perpetuate what he perceives as his personal destiny. Osama bin Laden, however, could well be dead, in which case all of his personal deals may have died with him.
The above, of course, is pure speculation on my part as a veteran analysis and merely a rather unique theory given that I have not seen it elsewhere in print. To my knowledge, no one else has really presented anything that addresses and answers some key questions about the release of the video, “An Invitation to Islam”.
With the broadcast of this video, there is the stark reality that Iran and al Qaeda are synonymous in all of this and we have simply been officially warned. Somehow, I think that although we have indeed been officially warned by al Qaeda, the warning is also a simultaneous message to Iran and Syria is that al Qaeda is growing tired of waiting and is anxious to attack the United States and Western non-Islamic countries. Al Qaeda is fully capable of executing terrorist attacks with or without Iran’s help. Financing and logistics are not an issue as they is plenty of financing of al Qaeda behind the scenes, much more than we will ever know about.
Regardless of the media delivery method or lack of, the potential hidden messages and the outright messages the film delivers, there are some things that can be regarded as analytical certainties.
Based on careful analysis, it is my evaluation that there were two distinct Western audiences in addition to the Islamic audience for which the video was intended. The adults among us should recognize that Ayman al Zawahiri meant this film as a serious warning, intended for mature audiences of all mankind. I most certainly caught his tone and understood his seriousness and the warnings as he delivered them quite plainly. The majority of the film, however, that which involved the less mature Adam Yehiye Gadahn appeared to focus on a much younger, more impressionable, immature or even a liberal audience, or the type of people who would not only listen, but could be influenced by him.
Although the overwhelming majority of our younger generation will never see the film in its entirety, those who do may very well heed his words. Gadahn almost has that young, rebel, anti-establishment appeal that draws the disenchanted ones to his type of thinking. This was also designed for an appeal to the young potential jihadist types in Muslim lands, as they intentionally included Arabic subtitles throughout his disrespectful dialogue.
At its most basic core and simply accepting the film simply as presented, it is very possible that the film is indicative of a serious threat to the US and other Western countries, or it could also be another well-planned distraction on the part of Iran, a country famous for distractions, especially when threatened by UN sanctions.
In summary, it does not matter who initiates the terrorist actions as they are all Islamic terrorists and will join with each other, setting aside their differences, to kill the infidels among us. All of these terrorist factions and terrorist states have the same end goal in mind. The end, of course, justifies the means.
Be well. Stay vigilant.
09.07.06
rtaylor@homelandsecurityus.com
Editor’s Note: As the news that al Jazeera aired an al Qaeda video message today – one that was certainly not aired in its entirety, according to analyst Randy Taylor, his excellent and thorough assessment of the last video message as presented below has become even more relevant - and extremely accurate.
7 September 2006: The release of the latest as Sahab video on September 2nd, 2006, featuring al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al Zawahiri and the lily white jihad convert Adam Yehiye Gadahn, (a/k/a Adam Pearlman and Azzam the American), titled “Invitation to Islam” has been shrouded in some controversy.
Among the more controversial aspects of this video is that the film was not initially released through the al Jazeera Network, which historically, has been the normal media outlet for al Qaeda video messages. Also of concern and academic debate among analysts is the meaning and intention of this film, particularly as it applies to the United States and the people and countries of the Western world.
In consideration of that analysis, there is intelligent speculation that the video message is a prelude to an upcoming attack, and the film was issued in accordance with Sharia law, an Islamic concept that in this case, applies to the fulfillment of the religious and moral requirement that infidels (all non-Muslims) are to be invited to Islam before they are to be attacked and slain. Upon initial review, this appears to be a very plausible and even the most likely purpose of the film. That explanation, however, fails to address a key issue that many analysts are appearing to overlook: this specific video message was not broadcast through the normal channels.
In analyzing the latest video, I would like to address the method in which this video was disseminated. Although it is likely that this film was indeed intended for the US and the Western world, it is my professional analysis that there could be other intended recipients of this eerie message. After careful analysis, those intended recipients are the countries of Syria and Iran, along with the Ayatollah in Iran and the particularly, the Iranian Supreme Council. Consider this: could it be that the video itself was released without the consent of the ultimate Islamic authority, i.e. the Iranian theocracy and its tethered affiliates, which would address and perhaps even explain its method of initial broadcast? Taking the analysis a step further, could it be that in addition to it being released without their consent, that the video was also directed to those very Islamic countries and affiliates? Let me explain.
As a seasoned researcher of al Qaeda messaging, communiqués, chat rooms, forums, various intelligence sources and documents I have noticed a growing sense of dissention within the ranks of those individuals and factions comprising al Qaeda. There seems to be a concern in the al Qaeda structure over the growing division between the Shi’ite and Sunni sects within the Islamic following. The division is quite obvious in the Iraqi theatre and is spilling over into other regions. It is becoming increasingly obvious within the hard-core Islamic jihad sites on the internet. For example, Shi’ite computer hackers are taking down Sunni sites and Sunni hackers are taking down Shi’ite websites. There is an obvious expansion of the resentment of how Iran, Syria and Hezbollah have conducted themselves, especially in recent months. This notable division and rivalry is unacceptable to the thinkers and planners of al Qaeda as they need the Islamic cult to be whole and unified to wage war with the West on all fronts. This divisiveness would be certainly objectionable and extremely unacceptable to Osama bin Laden, if he is alive, and most unacceptable to Ayman al Zawahiri. As military commanders, both men must realize the importance of unity in Islam to wage an effective social and military campaign against non-Muslim countries as they dreamed, and set their dreams into operational plans.
The leaders of the al Qaeda movement know that the one sure way to unite Islam, and to dispel and disintegrate any division within their religion, is to attack the West and precipitate a major conflict, and perhaps the final conflict based on their system of beliefs. Remember, in the analysis of Islamic messages, one must not be confined to Western thought. In such an example, this conflict is their perceived destiny, one that they can initiate with - or without - Iran’s help.
The apparent stumbling blocks for al Qaeda currently appear to be the regimes of Iran and Syria. It is beyond dispute that Iran has long been the seat of Islam, the chief designer, implementer and financier of Islamic terrorism worldwide. They have had a plan stemming back to at least the 1970s to elevate Islam to world domination and destroy the West, primarily the United States, the UK and the rest of the non-Muslim world. It appears, however, that the current problem in the eyes of these al Qaeda leaders is that Iran is stalling, sending mixed messages and isn’t communicating very well with their own foot soldiers, cell members and their drafted operational arm, namely al Qaeda.
I recently observed how the militant chatter was very elated eventually when Hezbollah provoked a military response from Israel, causing a regional conflict that was at the cusp of a full-blown war. I also observed a serious decline in support for Hezbollah, Syria and Iran as the cease fire went into effect, causing at least a temporary cease fire between Hezbollah and Israel. It was indeed strange to observe the lukewarm support at best for Hezbollah by al Qaeda at the initial start of the conflict. Based on my analysis of the “chatter” and conversational postings among al Qaeda members, it seemed as if they felt that through their actions, Hezbollah was interfering or deviating from some sort of Islamic Master Plan by provoking Israel into entering Lebanon.
About midway into the conflict, there was a discernible shift that seemed to corral some support for Hezbollah, albeit slowly. Then, with the manifestation of the rather abrupt cease fire, support for Hezbollah again began to wane as though Hezbollah had failed, and they should have continued to wage war. Support for Hezbollah was at its apex when it appeared that the region would erupt into a full scale war, with the support of Syria and Iran acting on Hezbollah’s behalf. During the various peaks and valleys of the regional conflict, the communications read like a roller coaster as well.
To advance my observations, I sorted through numerous archived videos, messages and films to locate an al Qaeda release that lacked an al Jazeera script rolling across the bottom of the message. Sorting through gigabytes of data, the only video I located where a recognized al Qaeda leader officially released a video through a recognized media outlet other than al Jazeera was the CNN interview with Osama bin Laden.
Based on my findings, would it not be a reasonable analysis to suggest that all of the terrorist video and audio messages determined to be authentic since Osama bin laden escaped from the Tora Bora region, and distributed through al Jazeera, were done so only with Iran’s blessing? By comparing the methods of distribution (al Jazeera versus all others), could the disparity suggest that all al Qaeda messages channeled through al Jazeera were done so at the behest of, or with the blessing of Iran, while all others lacked such approval? With perhaps one exception – that being the second to last video from Ayman al Zawhiri, the remaining were vetted through al Jazeera. Otherwise and based on a careful analysis of al Qaeda’s broadcast history, their latest release could be considered outside of the normal method of broadcast.
It has been my constant professional opinion that Osama bin Laden was a rogue Islamic terrorist operator in charge of al Qaeda prior to the US troops cornering him at Tora Bora. By this I mean that in general, he was operating outside of any Iranian sanctioned operations. Following the attacks on America, Iran became concerned with his growth and ability because his aggressive nature and tactics fell just outside of the Iranian Islamic Grand Design, at least from a “timetable standpoint” for waging war and bringing about the destruction of the non-Islamic world. Once Osama bin Laden was pinned down in Tora Bora and his death or capture appeared to be most imminent, Iran reached out to him and offered him sanctuary, safety and an assured role in their well thought out plans for the destruction of Israel, the United States and the entire Western World. Following this thought process, it is likely then that Osama bin Laden accepted Iran’s offer in trade for his escape, safety and virtual protection within the borders of Iran. After all, he was the icon of al Qaeda and Islamic fundamentalism.
I use the phrase “timetable standpoint” as Iran is a country with minimal capability as a conventional military threat unless they have nuclear capability, something that would obviously change their threat level a great deal. Based on my research of all available intelligence material, I am convinced that Iran is working 24 hours a day underground, not to develop a nuclear weapon, as they most likely alreadyhave the basic nuclear weapons, but instead to build many more nuclear weapons and long range missiles capable of reaching the cities of the “Great Satan”, the United States. It is likely that they currently have the capability to hit Israel right now with nuclear weapons. Unless they can cripple the United States, however, it will be a very short war. Iran cannot chance their last hurrah being short in duration or capability. It would mean going back to square one and starting over somewhere else, just as they did when they took over Iran in 1979.
Al Qaeda, however, has no official country or borders, location or base of operation anymore that can be bombed or destroyed like hose in Afghanistan. Their specialties currently include their ability to blend into various areas and coordinate their highly successful hit and run terrorist tactics worldwide, especially through the use of the Internet. As a military presence and a strong Islamic ideology, it is my analysis that al Qaeda is disappointed with Iran’s overall handling of the entire Islamic world’s confrontation with the west and as such, may have sent this video out without Iran’s explicit blessing and approval. As dissension and disagreement among the ranks of killers is quite dangerous for its leadership, the outcome between the al Qaeda and Iranian methods of operation is largely unpredictable.
One might question al Qaeda’s boldness, releasing their latest video to perhaps set the stage for possible attacks against the United States and the West on their own. That boldness is reduced, however, by the lack of action consequential to the release of the video. Accordingly, I do not see it as driving a permanent wedge between Iran and al Qaeda in the long term.
There would be no set timetable from video time to attack time that is within our knowledge, so as a practical matter, it is not much different than previous threats except by it’s method of media delivery. It isn’t the first time we have been threatened nor will it be the last, as documented by Osama bin Laden’s message prior to the last Presidential elections. In contrast, however, that message was delivered through the normal channels of using al Jazeera.
It is also of particular interest that we have not seen any visual sign of Osama bin Laden for a significant period of time and as such, we really have no assurance that he is even alive at this time. It is entirely possible that Ayman al Zawahiri is currently in charge of al Qaeda. Even if he is not, there has been division, disagreement and outright independence displayed in al Qaeda’s secondary and lower tier leadership. Such an event is not new, and is illustrated in the examples of Osama bin Laden’s mentor Abdullah Azzam, who Osama had killed after the Afghan-Russian war because of their operational differences. Another, more recent example is that of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who started killing Muslims in Iraq as readily and regularly as he would kill US and Iraqi government forces. Such tactics were placed on the records as being against the wishes of Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Based on such examples, the possibility of any known or even unknown al Qaeda operative becoming unpredictably aggressive, stepping out of ranks or doing something without the official “approval” of the primary Islamic theocracy would not be outside the realm of possibility.
Furthermore, resentment could grow as a result of the difference of living conditions between al Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden, especially is the disparity between the two is significant. Based on accepted industry analysis, Al Zawahiri is more operationally connected and active than bin Laden, and therefore would logically receive more feedback from the foot soldiers of al Qada than does the more shielded bin Laden.
Based on his level of exposure, Ayman al Zawahiri is much more exposed and accordingly, more likely to be killed than Osama bin Laden. Al Zawahiri could feel that his time is limited and as such, might be seeking to initiate and perpetuate what he perceives as his personal destiny. Osama bin Laden, however, could well be dead, in which case all of his personal deals may have died with him.
The above, of course, is pure speculation on my part as a veteran analysis and merely a rather unique theory given that I have not seen it elsewhere in print. To my knowledge, no one else has really presented anything that addresses and answers some key questions about the release of the video, “An Invitation to Islam”.
With the broadcast of this video, there is the stark reality that Iran and al Qaeda are synonymous in all of this and we have simply been officially warned. Somehow, I think that although we have indeed been officially warned by al Qaeda, the warning is also a simultaneous message to Iran and Syria is that al Qaeda is growing tired of waiting and is anxious to attack the United States and Western non-Islamic countries. Al Qaeda is fully capable of executing terrorist attacks with or without Iran’s help. Financing and logistics are not an issue as they is plenty of financing of al Qaeda behind the scenes, much more than we will ever know about.
Regardless of the media delivery method or lack of, the potential hidden messages and the outright messages the film delivers, there are some things that can be regarded as analytical certainties.
Based on careful analysis, it is my evaluation that there were two distinct Western audiences in addition to the Islamic audience for which the video was intended. The adults among us should recognize that Ayman al Zawahiri meant this film as a serious warning, intended for mature audiences of all mankind. I most certainly caught his tone and understood his seriousness and the warnings as he delivered them quite plainly. The majority of the film, however, that which involved the less mature Adam Yehiye Gadahn appeared to focus on a much younger, more impressionable, immature or even a liberal audience, or the type of people who would not only listen, but could be influenced by him.
Although the overwhelming majority of our younger generation will never see the film in its entirety, those who do may very well heed his words. Gadahn almost has that young, rebel, anti-establishment appeal that draws the disenchanted ones to his type of thinking. This was also designed for an appeal to the young potential jihadist types in Muslim lands, as they intentionally included Arabic subtitles throughout his disrespectful dialogue.
At its most basic core and simply accepting the film simply as presented, it is very possible that the film is indicative of a serious threat to the US and other Western countries, or it could also be another well-planned distraction on the part of Iran, a country famous for distractions, especially when threatened by UN sanctions.
In summary, it does not matter who initiates the terrorist actions as they are all Islamic terrorists and will join with each other, setting aside their differences, to kill the infidels among us. All of these terrorist factions and terrorist states have the same end goal in mind. The end, of course, justifies the means.
Be well. Stay vigilant.
09.07.06
World War IV: Phase II
Sean Osborne
Associate Director, Senior Analyst, Military Affairs
sosborne@homelandsecurityus.com
This is a sequel and companion to my article entitled “World War IV” which was web published by the Northeast Intelligence Network on July 22, 2006. This date, as it happens, was just one month prior to the events I suspect will very shortly transpire. Background to both reports can be found at the end of this article and was originally web published by the Northeast Intelligence Network on January 31, 2006.
There is no mistaking the fact that Israel has lost the Phase I engagement of this war, which also unmistakably is a multi-phased war, long-planned in advance by the strategic chess masters in Iran. Phase I was initiated with the proxy abduction of Israeli soldiers by HAMAS and Hezbollah. These abductions were specifically planned to precipitate a major Israeli military offensive. The Iranian War Operations Plan worked flawlessly. Result: a two-front war for Israel with defeat in Lebanon to the north and a self-imposed stalemate in Gaza to the south. If you are an existential enemy of Israel, what’s not to like? How can you possibly be disheartened? In fact, these results embolden Israel’s enemies to move in for the kill as they deem it will be -- the destruction of the State of Israel and the “liberation” of Jerusalem.
In my opinion this result is due to the ‘perfect storm’ consisting in its many parts of the political ineptitude of Israeli PM Ehud Olmert and the military ineptitude of Gen. Dan Halutz which were compounded and multiplied by the unwarranted interference of the US State Department, the office Xavier Solana of the European Union as well as the United Nations in the legitimate Israeli rights of self-defense and self-preservation in the face of unprecedented existential threats to the State of Israel made manifest by Iran, Syria, Lebanon and Islamofascist proxies.
With Israel having the current leadership and allies such as these, what have Israel’s enemies to fear?
The ‘on-the-ground’ fact is that Israeli military preparations for the Lebanon operation were abysmal from any perspective chosen to assess in any after-action report. Many of the IDF soldiers are lucky to have survived, and they are justifiably outraged at the result and the dishonorable retreat forced upon them after such hard fought battlefield gains were achieved. The invading IDF had no actionable intelligence of what they were going into; Hezbollah was a trained professional military force and not the ragtag Islamic mercenaries as was apparently briefed to the Israel commanders. It is my current understanding that IDF officers and non-commissioned officers alike disobeyed suicidal orders from clueless leadership in Israel. All of Israel is lucky the body count was as actually low as it was, particularly the tank corps. Hindsight being 20/20, most IDF units were ordered to engage Hezbollah and Iranian IRGC troops without the benefit of the "7 P's"
Proper Planning and Preparation Prevent Piss Poor Performance
It is also my opinion that these same IDF veterans’s will ensure Prime Minster Ehud Olmert's removal, and perhaps the retirement of Lt.Gen. Dan Halutz. Binyamin Netanyahu and Shaul Mofaz are my choices to ride to Israel’s rescue at this point. Phase II of the Iranian war plan looms large and imminent and time’s a wastin’.
Phase II
I suspect that Phase II of this war will be vastly different, in both scope and end result. The Iranians and Syrians are as cocky as ever, even though the Israel Defense Forces did exact a very high toll from the Hezbollah/IRGC regular formations. However, Iran and Syria are convinced that Israel is easy pickings based upon the combat performance to date. They believe their strategic combat depth will outlast Israel's.
They are in for a very rude and abrupt re-awakening into to real world realities.
The Deputy Commander of the regular Iranian armed forces, Brigadier General Mohammed Reza Ashtiani, announced on16 August 2006, that large-scale Iranian war games would commence on 19 August 2006 and continue for an indefinite period of time. These military maneuvers are well underway, and I believe are the initiation of the Iranian Phase II battleplan.
The code name for the Iranian exercise is “The Blow of Zolfaghar.” “Zolfaghar” is the name given to the sword belonging to Imam Ali ibn Abu Talib during initial Islamic conquests at the Battles of Badr, Uhud and many other wars of Islamic conquest. Imam Ali is the man the Shi'a most highly revere as the first true Islamic Caliph after Muhammed.
The “Blow of Zolfaghar” operations were launched just two days prior to when Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadi-Nejad has stated the West would receive Iran's response to issues over its nuclear weapons program, and a not-so-veiled threat of a "light show" over Jerusalem, Israel. The date also coincides with the completely mythical "night flight" of Muhammed from Mecca to Jerusalem, then to Heaven and Hell and back to Mecca.
It has occurred to me that what the delusional sock-puppet Mahmud Ahmadi-Nejad and his Ayatollah’s intend for August 21/22 is a strike which will ignite the entire Muslim world into uncontrollable rage against Israel. Reference the Hojjatieh’s self-defined mission in this regard at the link below this article. The strike I believe which is possible, if not probable, and intended specifically to achieve these goals would consist of Iranian agents or proxy activity executed to either significantly damage or destroy the Dome of the Rock on Jerusalem's Temple Mount – and then play Israel as the perpetrator.
World main stream media has been all too willing from the onset of this war to paint Israel as the aggressor, guilty of disproportionate response. There is no doubt that Israel is the nation that main stream world media as well as many people in this world most love to hate. Main stream media will not miss yet another opportunity to be Ahmadi-Nejad’s own personal sock-puppets; they’ve done a fine and dandy job of this up to this point.
I suspect this strike may occur within 72 hours from now. The purpose would be to precipitate an Israeli retaliatory strike on Iran and Syria proper and re-ignite the war in Lebanon and in Gaza, thus creating a three or four front existential war for Israel.
Associate Director, Senior Analyst, Military Affairs
sosborne@homelandsecurityus.com
This is a sequel and companion to my article entitled “World War IV” which was web published by the Northeast Intelligence Network on July 22, 2006. This date, as it happens, was just one month prior to the events I suspect will very shortly transpire. Background to both reports can be found at the end of this article and was originally web published by the Northeast Intelligence Network on January 31, 2006.
There is no mistaking the fact that Israel has lost the Phase I engagement of this war, which also unmistakably is a multi-phased war, long-planned in advance by the strategic chess masters in Iran. Phase I was initiated with the proxy abduction of Israeli soldiers by HAMAS and Hezbollah. These abductions were specifically planned to precipitate a major Israeli military offensive. The Iranian War Operations Plan worked flawlessly. Result: a two-front war for Israel with defeat in Lebanon to the north and a self-imposed stalemate in Gaza to the south. If you are an existential enemy of Israel, what’s not to like? How can you possibly be disheartened? In fact, these results embolden Israel’s enemies to move in for the kill as they deem it will be -- the destruction of the State of Israel and the “liberation” of Jerusalem.
In my opinion this result is due to the ‘perfect storm’ consisting in its many parts of the political ineptitude of Israeli PM Ehud Olmert and the military ineptitude of Gen. Dan Halutz which were compounded and multiplied by the unwarranted interference of the US State Department, the office Xavier Solana of the European Union as well as the United Nations in the legitimate Israeli rights of self-defense and self-preservation in the face of unprecedented existential threats to the State of Israel made manifest by Iran, Syria, Lebanon and Islamofascist proxies.
With Israel having the current leadership and allies such as these, what have Israel’s enemies to fear?
The ‘on-the-ground’ fact is that Israeli military preparations for the Lebanon operation were abysmal from any perspective chosen to assess in any after-action report. Many of the IDF soldiers are lucky to have survived, and they are justifiably outraged at the result and the dishonorable retreat forced upon them after such hard fought battlefield gains were achieved. The invading IDF had no actionable intelligence of what they were going into; Hezbollah was a trained professional military force and not the ragtag Islamic mercenaries as was apparently briefed to the Israel commanders. It is my current understanding that IDF officers and non-commissioned officers alike disobeyed suicidal orders from clueless leadership in Israel. All of Israel is lucky the body count was as actually low as it was, particularly the tank corps. Hindsight being 20/20, most IDF units were ordered to engage Hezbollah and Iranian IRGC troops without the benefit of the "7 P's"
Proper Planning and Preparation Prevent Piss Poor Performance
It is also my opinion that these same IDF veterans’s will ensure Prime Minster Ehud Olmert's removal, and perhaps the retirement of Lt.Gen. Dan Halutz. Binyamin Netanyahu and Shaul Mofaz are my choices to ride to Israel’s rescue at this point. Phase II of the Iranian war plan looms large and imminent and time’s a wastin’.
Phase II
I suspect that Phase II of this war will be vastly different, in both scope and end result. The Iranians and Syrians are as cocky as ever, even though the Israel Defense Forces did exact a very high toll from the Hezbollah/IRGC regular formations. However, Iran and Syria are convinced that Israel is easy pickings based upon the combat performance to date. They believe their strategic combat depth will outlast Israel's.
They are in for a very rude and abrupt re-awakening into to real world realities.
The Deputy Commander of the regular Iranian armed forces, Brigadier General Mohammed Reza Ashtiani, announced on16 August 2006, that large-scale Iranian war games would commence on 19 August 2006 and continue for an indefinite period of time. These military maneuvers are well underway, and I believe are the initiation of the Iranian Phase II battleplan.
The code name for the Iranian exercise is “The Blow of Zolfaghar.” “Zolfaghar” is the name given to the sword belonging to Imam Ali ibn Abu Talib during initial Islamic conquests at the Battles of Badr, Uhud and many other wars of Islamic conquest. Imam Ali is the man the Shi'a most highly revere as the first true Islamic Caliph after Muhammed.
The “Blow of Zolfaghar” operations were launched just two days prior to when Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadi-Nejad has stated the West would receive Iran's response to issues over its nuclear weapons program, and a not-so-veiled threat of a "light show" over Jerusalem, Israel. The date also coincides with the completely mythical "night flight" of Muhammed from Mecca to Jerusalem, then to Heaven and Hell and back to Mecca.
It has occurred to me that what the delusional sock-puppet Mahmud Ahmadi-Nejad and his Ayatollah’s intend for August 21/22 is a strike which will ignite the entire Muslim world into uncontrollable rage against Israel. Reference the Hojjatieh’s self-defined mission in this regard at the link below this article. The strike I believe which is possible, if not probable, and intended specifically to achieve these goals would consist of Iranian agents or proxy activity executed to either significantly damage or destroy the Dome of the Rock on Jerusalem's Temple Mount – and then play Israel as the perpetrator.
World main stream media has been all too willing from the onset of this war to paint Israel as the aggressor, guilty of disproportionate response. There is no doubt that Israel is the nation that main stream world media as well as many people in this world most love to hate. Main stream media will not miss yet another opportunity to be Ahmadi-Nejad’s own personal sock-puppets; they’ve done a fine and dandy job of this up to this point.
I suspect this strike may occur within 72 hours from now. The purpose would be to precipitate an Israeli retaliatory strike on Iran and Syria proper and re-ignite the war in Lebanon and in Gaza, thus creating a three or four front existential war for Israel.
Doomsday 101: Present Day Analysis
As eyes focus on Iran as they prepare for large-scale military exercises, their apolyptic vision for world domination and UN Security Council pressure over their nuclear ambitions, the following article by guest columnist John Livingston has never been more important to read. --Doug Hagmann
By John Livingston
johnlivingston@homelandsecurityus.com
19 August 2006: Everyone of us likes to think we are knowledgeable about something. It could be a sports team, hobby, fashion, money and markets, whatever. What about religion, specifically, the end of the world? Is this a topic just for whacko-s? Boring? Irrelevant? Religious beliefs have caused more death and destruction in the world than any other single factor in the history of mankind. End of the world beliefs have certainly resulted in the most irrational actions. People have sold everything they owned, spent money that they did not have, and quit their well-paying jobs, gone to live in caves, drank cyanide laced Kool-aide, and waited for some eartly invasion …all because of what they believed about the end of the world. Of course they have all been wrong so far. One day someone will probably be right. Or someone might simply make it happen.
You consider yourself a mentally stable person, not prone to decisions like those described above, believing such foolishness to be reserved for cult members or the insane. God exists, but you are a “sane religious person”. Or perhaps you might not be religious at all, and think that it is not important to know what anybody else believes. Think again. It is more vital now, than at any time in history, to be armed with this knowledge. Never before have there been so many, who have held such strong beliefs, that felt that they had an active part in the end times, who also possessed nuclear weapons. In that light, the won-lost record of your favorite sports team, or what the stock market is doing, seems trivial.
What do people believe? Christians have the books of Daniel, the Revelation, and scattered prophecies throughout the Old and New Testament that speak about the end of the world. Jews stick to the Old Testament. Islam likewise contains an end-time scenario and a reason for the world to end. It is much like Christianity’s, except it contains a few twists. Following is a short version of the Islamic apocalypse and why it matters that you understand it.
All Islamic beliefs are derived from two sources, the Qu’ran and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad. Christianity and Islam both teach that the end will conclude with a Judgment Day that is preceded by many signs to strengthen the faithful and give the rebellious one last chance to repent. Muslims believe they are in the last days, because one of the signs is that they would be numerous on the earth, but that the world would be enjoying their wealth “like a man at a banquet”. Regardless of the current rise of Islam, centuries of wars have engrained in them that theirs is a repressed religion.
During the Last Days, mainstream Islam teaches that a great Muslim leader will arise called the Mahdi. (pronounced MAH-dee) A direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, this man is the Islamic messiah. His mission is to:
1) Unite all the Islamic faithful,
2) Wage a victorious war against the enemies of Islam, which will result in,
3) the “liberation of the Middle East” bringing peace and prosperity.
4) This will allow all Muslims to retire to the Holy Land.
Both Shia and Sunni Muslims believe he is on the earth today, but differ in the details. The President of Iran believes that he is on a divine mission to hasten the Mahdi’s appearing by perhaps beginning that war. One can look at the news today and consider the implications of what could happen if someone in his or any other position of power holds these beliefs. A non-Muslim would be unsafe anywhere in the Middle East, or the world for that matter, even a Christian Arab. In reality, a peace treaty with Israel or any non-Muslim state would be meaningless. Nothing short of fulfillment of the Mahdi’s mission is acceptable. In this case, religion is going to supersede politics. Christians believe that Israel will be invaded by an alliance of nations in the last days as prophesied by Ezekiel in chapters 38 and 39. Muslims are waiting for the great war waged by the Mahdi to liberate the Middle East. The same event in the eyes of a Christian could look quite different to a Muslim. An American Christian could see an unjust invasion, while a Muslim sees a fulfillment of end-time prophecy.
Many believe that Islam does not believe in Jesus, but this is not so. Muslims believe He was a prophet of God who was arrested, but did not die, and that the onlookers at the cross “were made to believe” it was Jesus who died. Muslims believe He was instead, taken to Heaven and is awaiting His role in last day events. More on Jesus in a moment.
After the Mahdi is victorious, he establishes Islamic rule in the Holy Land. This is when Islam believes the Anti-Christ will appear. He is called the Dajjal. Claiming to be God and appearing to have miraculous powers, he will wage war against all expressions of religion, and most of the people of the earth will follow him. The Dajjal will use his significant military might to begin to conquer the middle east which was previously united under the Mahdi. His reign lasts only 40 days, but is abruptly put to an end by the coming of…Jesus! That’s it? No.
Jesus will then speak to the world and convert everyone, especially Jews and Christians, to Islam, announcing it as the one true religion. He will then become the spiritual leader of a multi-national government, and live forty more years, have children, and die a natural death. That is the end, right? Not yet.
There is still the biblical invasion described in Ezekiel of Gog and Magog, except in Islam it is an invasion of the entire Middle East and happens after all these events. Jesus is still alive at this point, and prays for the deliverance of the land of Palestine. His prayer is heard, deliverance comes, and many of the world’s “unconverted”, will convert to Islam. Before this is fully completed however, Jesus dies.
Then comes the final Day of Judgment, when a great, mysterious creature appears out of the earth to warn the people that this is the end. A lot of terrible things happen at this point, the good are swept away and protected from the cataclysms, and everyone stands before God in Judgment to receive their eternal rewards.
A casual student of eschatology (religious study of the end of the world) will recognize many similarities between Christian and Islamic end-time scenarios. There is a critical difference however. Christian’s believe God loves everyone in the world, and desires to be reconciled to them through His Son. If you reject Him, He still reaches out to you. Muslims believe that one can only be “right with God” through Islam, (a way of living, not a person), and to challenge it, makes you worthy of being killed. Christianity is focused on a Person, and an individual’s relation to Him. The “Christian” Crusades, which are part of the Muslim-European problem still today, taught us that you can’t kill in the name of God and force someone to serve Him. Yet that is the threat we all are seeing unfold before our eyes. It would benefit all of us to educate ourselves, and to seriously consider the mindset of those with the enriched uranium.
By John Livingston
johnlivingston@homelandsecurityus.com
19 August 2006: Everyone of us likes to think we are knowledgeable about something. It could be a sports team, hobby, fashion, money and markets, whatever. What about religion, specifically, the end of the world? Is this a topic just for whacko-s? Boring? Irrelevant? Religious beliefs have caused more death and destruction in the world than any other single factor in the history of mankind. End of the world beliefs have certainly resulted in the most irrational actions. People have sold everything they owned, spent money that they did not have, and quit their well-paying jobs, gone to live in caves, drank cyanide laced Kool-aide, and waited for some eartly invasion …all because of what they believed about the end of the world. Of course they have all been wrong so far. One day someone will probably be right. Or someone might simply make it happen.
You consider yourself a mentally stable person, not prone to decisions like those described above, believing such foolishness to be reserved for cult members or the insane. God exists, but you are a “sane religious person”. Or perhaps you might not be religious at all, and think that it is not important to know what anybody else believes. Think again. It is more vital now, than at any time in history, to be armed with this knowledge. Never before have there been so many, who have held such strong beliefs, that felt that they had an active part in the end times, who also possessed nuclear weapons. In that light, the won-lost record of your favorite sports team, or what the stock market is doing, seems trivial.
What do people believe? Christians have the books of Daniel, the Revelation, and scattered prophecies throughout the Old and New Testament that speak about the end of the world. Jews stick to the Old Testament. Islam likewise contains an end-time scenario and a reason for the world to end. It is much like Christianity’s, except it contains a few twists. Following is a short version of the Islamic apocalypse and why it matters that you understand it.
All Islamic beliefs are derived from two sources, the Qu’ran and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad. Christianity and Islam both teach that the end will conclude with a Judgment Day that is preceded by many signs to strengthen the faithful and give the rebellious one last chance to repent. Muslims believe they are in the last days, because one of the signs is that they would be numerous on the earth, but that the world would be enjoying their wealth “like a man at a banquet”. Regardless of the current rise of Islam, centuries of wars have engrained in them that theirs is a repressed religion.
During the Last Days, mainstream Islam teaches that a great Muslim leader will arise called the Mahdi. (pronounced MAH-dee) A direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, this man is the Islamic messiah. His mission is to:
1) Unite all the Islamic faithful,
2) Wage a victorious war against the enemies of Islam, which will result in,
3) the “liberation of the Middle East” bringing peace and prosperity.
4) This will allow all Muslims to retire to the Holy Land.
Both Shia and Sunni Muslims believe he is on the earth today, but differ in the details. The President of Iran believes that he is on a divine mission to hasten the Mahdi’s appearing by perhaps beginning that war. One can look at the news today and consider the implications of what could happen if someone in his or any other position of power holds these beliefs. A non-Muslim would be unsafe anywhere in the Middle East, or the world for that matter, even a Christian Arab. In reality, a peace treaty with Israel or any non-Muslim state would be meaningless. Nothing short of fulfillment of the Mahdi’s mission is acceptable. In this case, religion is going to supersede politics. Christians believe that Israel will be invaded by an alliance of nations in the last days as prophesied by Ezekiel in chapters 38 and 39. Muslims are waiting for the great war waged by the Mahdi to liberate the Middle East. The same event in the eyes of a Christian could look quite different to a Muslim. An American Christian could see an unjust invasion, while a Muslim sees a fulfillment of end-time prophecy.
Many believe that Islam does not believe in Jesus, but this is not so. Muslims believe He was a prophet of God who was arrested, but did not die, and that the onlookers at the cross “were made to believe” it was Jesus who died. Muslims believe He was instead, taken to Heaven and is awaiting His role in last day events. More on Jesus in a moment.
After the Mahdi is victorious, he establishes Islamic rule in the Holy Land. This is when Islam believes the Anti-Christ will appear. He is called the Dajjal. Claiming to be God and appearing to have miraculous powers, he will wage war against all expressions of religion, and most of the people of the earth will follow him. The Dajjal will use his significant military might to begin to conquer the middle east which was previously united under the Mahdi. His reign lasts only 40 days, but is abruptly put to an end by the coming of…Jesus! That’s it? No.
Jesus will then speak to the world and convert everyone, especially Jews and Christians, to Islam, announcing it as the one true religion. He will then become the spiritual leader of a multi-national government, and live forty more years, have children, and die a natural death. That is the end, right? Not yet.
There is still the biblical invasion described in Ezekiel of Gog and Magog, except in Islam it is an invasion of the entire Middle East and happens after all these events. Jesus is still alive at this point, and prays for the deliverance of the land of Palestine. His prayer is heard, deliverance comes, and many of the world’s “unconverted”, will convert to Islam. Before this is fully completed however, Jesus dies.
Then comes the final Day of Judgment, when a great, mysterious creature appears out of the earth to warn the people that this is the end. A lot of terrible things happen at this point, the good are swept away and protected from the cataclysms, and everyone stands before God in Judgment to receive their eternal rewards.
A casual student of eschatology (religious study of the end of the world) will recognize many similarities between Christian and Islamic end-time scenarios. There is a critical difference however. Christian’s believe God loves everyone in the world, and desires to be reconciled to them through His Son. If you reject Him, He still reaches out to you. Muslims believe that one can only be “right with God” through Islam, (a way of living, not a person), and to challenge it, makes you worthy of being killed. Christianity is focused on a Person, and an individual’s relation to Him. The “Christian” Crusades, which are part of the Muslim-European problem still today, taught us that you can’t kill in the name of God and force someone to serve Him. Yet that is the threat we all are seeing unfold before our eyes. It would benefit all of us to educate ourselves, and to seriously consider the mindset of those with the enriched uranium.
A passage from the Ayatollah Khomeini
A passage from the Ayatollah Khomeini, quoted in an 11th-grade Iranian schoolbook, is revealing.
"I am decisively announcing to the whole world that if the world-devourers [i.e., the infidel powers] wish to stand against our religion, we will stand against their whole world and will not cease until the annihilation of all them. Either we all become free, or we will go to the greater freedom which is martyrdom. Either we shake one another's hands in joy at the victory of Islam in the world, or all of us will turn to eternal life and martyrdom. In both cases, victory and success are ours."
"I am decisively announcing to the whole world that if the world-devourers [i.e., the infidel powers] wish to stand against our religion, we will stand against their whole world and will not cease until the annihilation of all them. Either we all become free, or we will go to the greater freedom which is martyrdom. Either we shake one another's hands in joy at the victory of Islam in the world, or all of us will turn to eternal life and martyrdom. In both cases, victory and success are ours."
The Enemy Is Not Islam. It Is Nihilism
The Weekly Standard
The Enemy Is Not Islam. It Is Nihilism
Why everything is at stake.
by Charles Krauthammer
EUROPE'S GREAT RELIGIOUS WARS ended in 1648. Three and a half centuries is a long time, too long for us in the West to truly believe that people still slaughter others to vindicate the faith.
Thus in the face of radical Islamic terrorism that murders 6,000 innocents in a day, we find it almost impossible to accept at face value the reason offered by the murderers. Yet Osama bin Laden could not be clearer. Jihad has been declared against the infidel, whose power and influence thwart the triumph of Islam, and whose success and example--indeed, whose very existence--are an affront to the true faith. As a leader of Hamas declared at a rally three days after the World Trade Center attack, "the only solution is for Bush to convert to Islam."
To Americans, who are taught religious tolerance from the cradle, who visit each other's churches for interdenominational succor and solidarity, this seems simply bizarre. On September 25, bin Laden issues a warning to his people that Bush is coming "under the banner of the cross." Two weeks later, in his pre-taped post-attack video, he scorns Bush as "head of the infidels."
Can he be serious? This idea is so alien that our learned commentators, Western and secular, have gone rummaging through their ideological attics to find more familiar terms to explain why we were so savagely attacked: poverty and destitution in the Islamic world; grievances against the West, America, Israel; the "wretched of the earth"--Frantz Fanon's 1960s apotheosis of anti-colonialism--rising against their oppressors.
Reading conventional notions of class struggle and anti-colonialism into bin Laden, the Taliban, and radical Islam is not just solipsistic. It is nonsense. If poverty and destitution, colonialism and capitalism are animating radical Islam, explain this: In March, the Taliban went to the Afghan desert where stood great monuments of human culture, two massive Buddhas carved out of a cliff. At first, Taliban soldiers tried artillery. The 1,500-year-old masterpieces proved too hardy. The Taliban had to resort to dynamite. They blew the statues to bits, then slaughtered 100 cows in atonement--for having taken so long to finish the job.
Buddhism is hardly a representative of the West. It is hardly a cause of poverty and destitution. It is hardly a symbol of colonialism. No. The statues represented two things: an alternative faith and a great work of civilization. To the Taliban, the presence of both was intolerable.
The distinguished Indian writer and now Nobel Prize winner V.S. Naipaul, who has chronicled the Islamic world in two books ("Among the Believers" and "Beyond Belief"), recently warned (in a public talk in Melbourne before the World Trade Center attack), "We are within reach of great nihilistic forces that have undone civilization." In places like Afghanistan, "religion has been turned by some into a kind of nihilism, where people wish to destroy themselves and destroy their past and their culture . . . to be pure. They are enraged about the world and they wish to pull it down." This kind of fury and fanaticism is unappeasable. It knows no social, economic, or political solution. "You cannot converge with this [position] because it holds that your life is worthless and your beliefs are criminal and should be extirpated."
This insight offers a needed window on the new enemy. It turns out that the enemy does have recognizable analogues in the Western experience. He is, as President Bush averred in his address to the nation, heir to the malignant ideologies of the 20th century. In its nihilism, its will to power, its celebration of blood and death, its craving for the cleansing purity that comes only from eradicating life and culture, radical Islam is heir, above all, to Nazism. The destruction of the World Trade Center was meant not only to wreak terror. Like the smashing of the Bamiyan Buddhas, it was meant to obliterate greatness and beauty, elegance and grace. These artifacts represented civilization embodied in stone or steel. They had to be destroyed.
This worship of death and destruction is a nihilism of a ferocity unlike any since the Nazis burned books, then art, then whole peoples. Goebbels would have marvelled at the recruitment tape for al Qaeda, a two-hour orgy of blood and death: image after image of brutalized Muslims shown in various poses of victimization, followed by glorious images of desecration of the infidel--mutilated American soldiers in Somalia, the destruction of the USS Cole, mangled bodies at the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Throughout, the soundtrack endlessly repeats the refrain "with blood, with blood, with blood." Bin Laden appears on the tape to counsel that "the love of this world is wrong. You should love the other world...die in the right cause and go to the other world." In his October 9 taped message, al Qaeda spokesman Sulaiman abu Ghaith gloried in the "thousands of young people who look forward to death, like the Americans look forward to living."
Once again, the world is faced with a transcendent conflict between those who love life and those who love death both for themselves and their enemies. Which is why we tremble. Upon witnessing the first atomic bomb explode at the Trinity site at Alamogordo, J. Robert Oppenheimer recited a verse from the Hindu scripture "Bhagavad Gita": "Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds." We tremble because for the first time in history, nihilism will soon be armed with the ultimate weapons of annihilation. For the first time in history, the nihilist will have the means to match his ends. Which is why the war declared upon us on September 11 is the most urgent not only of our lives, but in the life of civilization itself.
Charles Krauthammer is a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard.
October 22, 2001 - Volume 7, Number 6
The Enemy Is Not Islam. It Is Nihilism
Why everything is at stake.
by Charles Krauthammer
EUROPE'S GREAT RELIGIOUS WARS ended in 1648. Three and a half centuries is a long time, too long for us in the West to truly believe that people still slaughter others to vindicate the faith.
Thus in the face of radical Islamic terrorism that murders 6,000 innocents in a day, we find it almost impossible to accept at face value the reason offered by the murderers. Yet Osama bin Laden could not be clearer. Jihad has been declared against the infidel, whose power and influence thwart the triumph of Islam, and whose success and example--indeed, whose very existence--are an affront to the true faith. As a leader of Hamas declared at a rally three days after the World Trade Center attack, "the only solution is for Bush to convert to Islam."
To Americans, who are taught religious tolerance from the cradle, who visit each other's churches for interdenominational succor and solidarity, this seems simply bizarre. On September 25, bin Laden issues a warning to his people that Bush is coming "under the banner of the cross." Two weeks later, in his pre-taped post-attack video, he scorns Bush as "head of the infidels."
Can he be serious? This idea is so alien that our learned commentators, Western and secular, have gone rummaging through their ideological attics to find more familiar terms to explain why we were so savagely attacked: poverty and destitution in the Islamic world; grievances against the West, America, Israel; the "wretched of the earth"--Frantz Fanon's 1960s apotheosis of anti-colonialism--rising against their oppressors.
Reading conventional notions of class struggle and anti-colonialism into bin Laden, the Taliban, and radical Islam is not just solipsistic. It is nonsense. If poverty and destitution, colonialism and capitalism are animating radical Islam, explain this: In March, the Taliban went to the Afghan desert where stood great monuments of human culture, two massive Buddhas carved out of a cliff. At first, Taliban soldiers tried artillery. The 1,500-year-old masterpieces proved too hardy. The Taliban had to resort to dynamite. They blew the statues to bits, then slaughtered 100 cows in atonement--for having taken so long to finish the job.
Buddhism is hardly a representative of the West. It is hardly a cause of poverty and destitution. It is hardly a symbol of colonialism. No. The statues represented two things: an alternative faith and a great work of civilization. To the Taliban, the presence of both was intolerable.
The distinguished Indian writer and now Nobel Prize winner V.S. Naipaul, who has chronicled the Islamic world in two books ("Among the Believers" and "Beyond Belief"), recently warned (in a public talk in Melbourne before the World Trade Center attack), "We are within reach of great nihilistic forces that have undone civilization." In places like Afghanistan, "religion has been turned by some into a kind of nihilism, where people wish to destroy themselves and destroy their past and their culture . . . to be pure. They are enraged about the world and they wish to pull it down." This kind of fury and fanaticism is unappeasable. It knows no social, economic, or political solution. "You cannot converge with this [position] because it holds that your life is worthless and your beliefs are criminal and should be extirpated."
This insight offers a needed window on the new enemy. It turns out that the enemy does have recognizable analogues in the Western experience. He is, as President Bush averred in his address to the nation, heir to the malignant ideologies of the 20th century. In its nihilism, its will to power, its celebration of blood and death, its craving for the cleansing purity that comes only from eradicating life and culture, radical Islam is heir, above all, to Nazism. The destruction of the World Trade Center was meant not only to wreak terror. Like the smashing of the Bamiyan Buddhas, it was meant to obliterate greatness and beauty, elegance and grace. These artifacts represented civilization embodied in stone or steel. They had to be destroyed.
This worship of death and destruction is a nihilism of a ferocity unlike any since the Nazis burned books, then art, then whole peoples. Goebbels would have marvelled at the recruitment tape for al Qaeda, a two-hour orgy of blood and death: image after image of brutalized Muslims shown in various poses of victimization, followed by glorious images of desecration of the infidel--mutilated American soldiers in Somalia, the destruction of the USS Cole, mangled bodies at the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Throughout, the soundtrack endlessly repeats the refrain "with blood, with blood, with blood." Bin Laden appears on the tape to counsel that "the love of this world is wrong. You should love the other world...die in the right cause and go to the other world." In his October 9 taped message, al Qaeda spokesman Sulaiman abu Ghaith gloried in the "thousands of young people who look forward to death, like the Americans look forward to living."
Once again, the world is faced with a transcendent conflict between those who love life and those who love death both for themselves and their enemies. Which is why we tremble. Upon witnessing the first atomic bomb explode at the Trinity site at Alamogordo, J. Robert Oppenheimer recited a verse from the Hindu scripture "Bhagavad Gita": "Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds." We tremble because for the first time in history, nihilism will soon be armed with the ultimate weapons of annihilation. For the first time in history, the nihilist will have the means to match his ends. Which is why the war declared upon us on September 11 is the most urgent not only of our lives, but in the life of civilization itself.
Charles Krauthammer is a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard.
October 22, 2001 - Volume 7, Number 6
Bracing for the Apocalypse
By Charles Krauthammer
Thursday, February 13, 2003
WASHINGTON--The domestic terror alert jumps to 9/11 levels. Heathrow Airport is ringed by tanks. Duct tape and plastic sheeting disappear from Washington store shelves. Osama resurfaces. North Korea reopens its plutonium processing plant and threatens pre-emptive attack. The Second Gulf War is about to begin. This is not the Apocalypse. But it is excellent preparation for it. You don't get to a place like this overnight. It takes at least, oh, a decade. We are now paying the wages of the 1990s, our holiday from history. During that decade, every major challenge to America was deferred. The chief aim of the Clinton administration was to make sure that nothing terrible happened on its watch. Accordingly, every can was kicked down the road: --Iraq: Saddam continued defying the world and building his arsenal, even as the United States acquiesced to the progressive weakening of U.N. sanctions and then to the expulsion of all weapons inspectors. --North Korea: When it threatened to go nuclear in 1993, Clinton managed to put off the reckoning with an agreement to freeze Pyongyang's program. The agreement--surprise!--was a fraud. All the time, the North Koreans were clandestinely enriching uranium. They are now in full nuclear breakout. --Terrorism: The first World Trade Center attack occurred in 1993, followed by the blowing up of two embassies in Africa and the attack on the USS Cole. Treating terrorism as a problem of law enforcement, Clinton dispatched the FBI--and the odd cruise missile to ostentatiously kick up some desert sand. Osama was offered up by Sudan in 1996. We turned him away for lack of legal justification. That is how one acts on holiday: Mortal enemies are dealt with not as combatants, but as defendants. Clinton flattered himself as looking beyond such mundane problems to a grander transnational vision (global warming, migration and the like), while dispatching American military might to quell ``teacup wars'' in places like Bosnia. On June 19, 2000, the Clinton administration solved the rogue-state problem by abolishing the term and replacing it with ``states of concern.'' Unconcerned, the rogues prospered, arming and girding themselves for big wars. Which are now upon us. On Sept. 11, the cozy illusions and stupid pretensions died. We now recognize the central problem of the 21st century: the conjunction of terrorism, rogue states and weapons of mass destruction. True, weapons of mass destruction are not new. What is new is that the knowledge required to make them is no longer esoteric. Anyone with a reasonable education in modern physics, chemistry or biology can brew them. Doomsday has been democratized. There is no avoiding the danger any longer. Last year, President Bush's axis-of-evil speech was met with eye-rolling disdain by the sophisticates. One year later, the warning has been vindicated in all its parts. Even the United Nations says Iraq must be disarmed. The International Atomic Energy Agency has just (politely) declared North Korea a nuclear outlaw. Iran has announced plans to mine uranium and reprocess spent nuclear fuel; we have recently discovered two secret Iranian nuclear complexes. We are in a race against time. Once such hostile states establish arsenals, we become self-deterred and they become invulnerable. North Korea may already have crossed that threshold. There is a real question whether we can win the race. Year One of the new era, 2002, passed rather peaceably. Year Two will not: 2003 could be as cataclysmic as 1914 or 1939. Carl Sagan invented a famous formula for calculating the probability of intelligent life in the universe. Estimate the number of planets in the universe and calculate the tiny fraction that might support life and that have had enough evolution to produce intelligence. He prudently added one other factor, however: the odds of extinction. The existence of intelligent life depends not just on creation, but on continuity. What is the probability that a civilization will not destroy itself once its very intelligence grants it the means of self-destruction? This planet has been around for 4 billion years, intelligent life for perhaps 200,000, weapons of mass destruction for less than 100. A hundred--in the eye of the universe, less than a blink. And yet we already find ourselves on the brink. What are the odds that our species will manage to contain this awful knowledge without self-destruction--not for a billion years or a million or even a thousand, but just through the lifetime of our children? Those are the stakes today. Before our eyes, in a flash, politics has gone cosmic. The question before us is very large and very simple: Can--and will--the civilized part of humanity disarm the barbarians who would use the ultimate knowledge for the ultimate destruction? Within months, we will have a good idea whether the answer is yes or no.
Thursday, February 13, 2003
WASHINGTON--The domestic terror alert jumps to 9/11 levels. Heathrow Airport is ringed by tanks. Duct tape and plastic sheeting disappear from Washington store shelves. Osama resurfaces. North Korea reopens its plutonium processing plant and threatens pre-emptive attack. The Second Gulf War is about to begin. This is not the Apocalypse. But it is excellent preparation for it. You don't get to a place like this overnight. It takes at least, oh, a decade. We are now paying the wages of the 1990s, our holiday from history. During that decade, every major challenge to America was deferred. The chief aim of the Clinton administration was to make sure that nothing terrible happened on its watch. Accordingly, every can was kicked down the road: --Iraq: Saddam continued defying the world and building his arsenal, even as the United States acquiesced to the progressive weakening of U.N. sanctions and then to the expulsion of all weapons inspectors. --North Korea: When it threatened to go nuclear in 1993, Clinton managed to put off the reckoning with an agreement to freeze Pyongyang's program. The agreement--surprise!--was a fraud. All the time, the North Koreans were clandestinely enriching uranium. They are now in full nuclear breakout. --Terrorism: The first World Trade Center attack occurred in 1993, followed by the blowing up of two embassies in Africa and the attack on the USS Cole. Treating terrorism as a problem of law enforcement, Clinton dispatched the FBI--and the odd cruise missile to ostentatiously kick up some desert sand. Osama was offered up by Sudan in 1996. We turned him away for lack of legal justification. That is how one acts on holiday: Mortal enemies are dealt with not as combatants, but as defendants. Clinton flattered himself as looking beyond such mundane problems to a grander transnational vision (global warming, migration and the like), while dispatching American military might to quell ``teacup wars'' in places like Bosnia. On June 19, 2000, the Clinton administration solved the rogue-state problem by abolishing the term and replacing it with ``states of concern.'' Unconcerned, the rogues prospered, arming and girding themselves for big wars. Which are now upon us. On Sept. 11, the cozy illusions and stupid pretensions died. We now recognize the central problem of the 21st century: the conjunction of terrorism, rogue states and weapons of mass destruction. True, weapons of mass destruction are not new. What is new is that the knowledge required to make them is no longer esoteric. Anyone with a reasonable education in modern physics, chemistry or biology can brew them. Doomsday has been democratized. There is no avoiding the danger any longer. Last year, President Bush's axis-of-evil speech was met with eye-rolling disdain by the sophisticates. One year later, the warning has been vindicated in all its parts. Even the United Nations says Iraq must be disarmed. The International Atomic Energy Agency has just (politely) declared North Korea a nuclear outlaw. Iran has announced plans to mine uranium and reprocess spent nuclear fuel; we have recently discovered two secret Iranian nuclear complexes. We are in a race against time. Once such hostile states establish arsenals, we become self-deterred and they become invulnerable. North Korea may already have crossed that threshold. There is a real question whether we can win the race. Year One of the new era, 2002, passed rather peaceably. Year Two will not: 2003 could be as cataclysmic as 1914 or 1939. Carl Sagan invented a famous formula for calculating the probability of intelligent life in the universe. Estimate the number of planets in the universe and calculate the tiny fraction that might support life and that have had enough evolution to produce intelligence. He prudently added one other factor, however: the odds of extinction. The existence of intelligent life depends not just on creation, but on continuity. What is the probability that a civilization will not destroy itself once its very intelligence grants it the means of self-destruction? This planet has been around for 4 billion years, intelligent life for perhaps 200,000, weapons of mass destruction for less than 100. A hundred--in the eye of the universe, less than a blink. And yet we already find ourselves on the brink. What are the odds that our species will manage to contain this awful knowledge without self-destruction--not for a billion years or a million or even a thousand, but just through the lifetime of our children? Those are the stakes today. Before our eyes, in a flash, politics has gone cosmic. The question before us is very large and very simple: Can--and will--the civilized part of humanity disarm the barbarians who would use the ultimate knowledge for the ultimate destruction? Within months, we will have a good idea whether the answer is yes or no.
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