Murderers and Martyrs

Let me begin by saying that to murder is a sin. To murder someone in the name of God is still a sin. Any virtue that was to be gained by an act of murder thus corrupts that very virtue and any blood shed against the innocent in the name of God is thus rejected by God. Consequently, a murderer cannot be a martyr. Virtue cannot be realized by acting in sin. Furthermore, we know God rejects murder because Christ the Lord will reward all martyrs a Crown of Righteousness when they are resurrected in the future. No murderer will receive this crown - only the murdered. And even more precise - only they that are murdered in Christ's name shall receive this crown.

There is nothing romantic about being martyred. It simply is a cheap shot to silence the Ambassador in Christ and to prevent him from completing his mission in recruiting for Christ. God himself recognizes the dangers of witnessing in his name especially in lands that are hostile and violent to his Church. Even Christ said to us that if they abused him then they will abuse us. If they murdered him will they not murder us as well?

Islam cannot stop Jesus Christ and they certainly cannot stop his royal family - the Church. Though they recognize Christ as "a prophet" they do not recognize his divinity and thus have demoted him in essence from the Son of God who sits at the right hand of God the Father to someone who merely preaches about God. Islam is a religion of murder. It is a religion the mob could be proud of - killing, theft, racketeering, rape, slavery - all of the vices of the old sin nature enshrined in religious edict and enforced by blind obedience.

In the end, it is the murdered that will be resurrected to life again. The murderer however, will suffer the second death. For a moment in time, it appears they get away with murder, however, in the fullness of time the right hand of God will catch up with them and they who have rejected the God-Man will be judged by him and will be incarcerated in the Lake of Fire. This is where they will suffer their second death.

Islam will be destroyed by the brightness of Christ' return. Anyone who opposes the Church by murdering the citizens of Heaven will answer for it before the Son of God. Woe to the enemies of Christ.

Romans 6

What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? ² By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? ³ Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴ We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

⁵ For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. ⁶ For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with,^[a] that we should no longer be slaves to sin— ⁷ because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.
⁸ Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. ⁹ For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. ¹⁰ The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
¹¹ In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. ¹² Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. ¹³ Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. ¹⁴ For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.

¹⁵ What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means! ¹⁶ Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? ¹⁷ But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. ¹⁸ You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
¹⁹ I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness. ²⁰ When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. ²¹ What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! ²² But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. ²³ For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in^[b] Christ Jesus our Lord.

Ukraine Is Lost?

Last May, I wrote about the apparent loss of Ukraine to Russia that the West apparently deemed unworthy of defending. I lamented that Ukraine would have to fight for their independence alone and without the divine support of the United States in spite of the fact that we sat on their doorstep through the auspices of NATO in Western Europe. Belatedly, support seems to be forthcoming as reported in the New York Times recently under the headline, U.S. Considers Supplying Arms To Ukraine Forces.

Amazingly, a situation report was drawn up by a conglomeration of foreign policy think tanks such as the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, the Atlantic Council, the Brookings Institution and the Center For A New American Security that illustrated the need for increased military spending, both lethal and non-lethal, by the United States as well as the EU in support of Ukrainian sovereignty in the face of a growing Russian involvement in the battle over the future of Ukraine.

Last December, President Obama signed into law the Ukraine Freedom Support Act of 2014 (HR 5859), outlining additional aid for Ukraine and additional sanctions against Russia for violating an earlier ceasefire agreement arranged in Minsk on September 5th of 2014. The situation report by the Chicago Council and company goes further however, requesting drones, anti-drone tech and light armor anti-tank missiles for the Ukrainian armed forces. According to the report, most of the Ukrainian casualties (up to 70%) have been by drone-directed artillery support the Russians have given directly to the "separatists" that are loyal to Moscow. On top of this, Moscow just last week has authorized heavy weapons such as T72 and T80 tanks, a substantial force multiplier, to be used by Russian backed separatists against Ukrainian forces. The report also recommended a substantial increase of funds from the already authorized $350 million dollars in aid to be raised to a billion dollars per annum for the next several years in support of Kiev.

The question remains: is this enough to stop the Russians? Russia has the power to squash Ukraine if it wants. Does it have the political will to weather the political ramifications of such a dastardly deed? Really, that is the only thing keeping the Russians from an all out invasion of Ukraine at this point. However, if American military forces are landed in Ukraine, regardless of size, then by this action alone would prevent an immediate conventional military invasion by Russia of Ukraine. Separatists actions, however, is another thing entirely. That being said, a United States military landing in Ukraine may not even be conceivable due to past political obligations that prevents Western troops from being deployed inside Ukraine. Known as the Budapest Memorandum, this was an assurance, as opposed to a treaty, between Russia, the United States and Great Britain to respect the territorial integrity of Ukraine if Kiev signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. They held a substantial number of nuclear warheads left over from the Cold War on their lands though operationally the Russians still controlled them. Ukraine did in fact sign this treaty in 1994.

So, now here we are in 2015 and Ukraine wants to join the West and Russia is supporting so called separatists to meld Ukraine back into the Russian political sphere. We stand on the abyss of a full scale conventional war that Europe has not seen since World War II. Who will blink? Who will back down? This is a delicate time that could result in desperate measures by both sides if one side goes too far. Perhaps the downing of the Malaysian airliner in Eastern Ukraine by Russian back separatists last year is an bloody omen of things to come? It certainly shows us how things can quickly escalate beyond anyone's control if this wound is left to fester for too long.

Back To Baghdad

I wish to show at length the reason why I believe that Saddam Hussein of Iraq, not Osama Bin Ladin of Al Qaida, was the real perpetrator of 9/11 and how at the end of the Cold War we entered a new political paradigm that Saddam felt he could challenge with either brute conventional forces or by unconventional but equally brutal state-sponsored terrorism. Saddam Hussein of Iraq was renowned for his arrogance and could never bow down to another person or power without having the last word, a typical Twentieth Century dictator. The following speeches will show that Iraq, Saddam Hussein and the United States under various Presidents had been waging a prolonged campaign against each other since the end of the Cold War and which ultimately led to the downfall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Some dictators during this time period such as Milosevic in Serbia and Noriega in Panama were brought down with relative ease and have been forgotten in time, however, Iraq has been a focal point of US interest since the fall of the Berlin Wall and continues to be of interest to this day. Clearly, the complete focus on this country should lead one to conclude that indeed it was Saddam Hussein that struck the Twin Towers in New York as an act of revenge in 1993 and 2001 after losing Kuwait to US military forces in 1991. I suspect that even the F. Murray building in Oklahoma which was destroyed by a car bomb in 1995 was also related to Saddam Hussein. Too many connections exist between Islamic terrorists and Saddam Hussein's' Iraq that we should objectively come to the rational conclusion that he was the paymaster of Al Qaida and all around perpetrator of international Islamic terrorism in the United States between 1990 and 2001.

Why then the secrecy by the US Government regarding this revelation? I believe the secrecy allows the United States Government more latitude from having to take a position to remain committed to waging war against less than faithful allies such as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. There are just too many terrorist organizations and states that support them for the US to "crusade" against. The destruction of Iraq and Saddam Hussein sent a clear message to all the terror supporting states in the Middle East such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Iran - attack the United States in this fashion and face the possibility of permanent regime change. Clearly, Gaddafi in Libya and Assad in Syria got the message and duly gave up their aspirations with Gaddafi giving up his WMD program and Assad retreating from Lebanon militarily.  However, it remains to be seen if our response will endure the test of time. Our occupation of Afghanistan satisfied our desire to destroy a global Islamic terrorist network. Our occupation of Iraq satisfied our desire to destroy a state-sponsoring terrorist nation. Killing these two birds with one stone hopefully is all that is needed. These twin objectives thus played itself out before and after 9/11 and became a national priority that may last as long as the Cold War itself lasting from 1947 - 1990, a 40-year war both hot and cold. 

Will the Islamic regimes of the Middle East and Southwest Asia accept the ramifications of the Global War On Terror or are they in the midst of a grave mistake by rearming and planning for the next 9/11 on American soil? Only time will tell.

GH Bush 9/11/90 - The infamous New World Order speech, chock full of references to Saddam Hussein.

GH Bush 1/16/91 - Operation Desert Storm.

Bill Clinton 6/26/93 - Little known speech regarding Saddam's attempt on GH Bush's life and Clinton's response to it.

Bill Clinton 9/03/96 - Saddam Hussein attacks Kurdish city of Irbil and President Clinton's response. No-fly zone extended from Kuwait to Southern Baghdad.

Bill Clinton 1/21/98 - Interview with Jim Leher regarding Iraq's WMD production and possible US response.

Bill Clinton 1/27/98 - State Of The Union speech regarding Saddam Hussein's WMD program.

Bill Clinton 2/17/98 - Defiance of Saddam Hussein and clear evidence of WMD program.

Bill Clinton 11/15/98 - Iraq Liberation Act.

Bill Clinton 12/16/98 - US attack on Iraq with 290 cruise missiles for defying UN Security Council.

Richard Butler 8/03/99 - Chief Weapons Inspector for UNSCOM discusses Saddam Hussein's WMD addiction.

GW Bush 9/20/01 - War On Terror speech nine days after 9/11. War against nations supporting terrorism.

GW Bush 1/29/02 - Axis of Evil speech. North Korea, Iran and Iraq singled out.

GW Bush 10/10/02 - President Bush's remarks on House of Representatives' approval of Iraq Resolution for use of force in Iraq.

Hillary Clinton 10/15/02 - Senator Hillary Clinton regarding the use of force in Iraq.

GW Bush 3/17/03 - Ultimatum for Saddam Hussein to step down.

GW Bush 3/19/03 - Operation Iraqi Freedom.

GW Bush 12/14/03 - Saddam Hussein captured.

Saddam Hussein 11/05/06 - Saddam sentenced to death by Iraqi court and his last comments.

BH Obama 8/31/10 - End of combat operations in Iraq. Smaller contingent of US troops to remain in Iraq.

Ukraine Is Lost

President Obama and his administration has decided to let Ukraine go under the Russian flag without firing a single shot. The official US response to Ukraine is "don't fire even if you see the whites of the Russian eyes!" All attempts to remain sovereign by force has been met in Washington with apparent disdain. No American planes will be landing in Kiev. Nor will American or Western arms be shipped to Ukraine in defense of Kiev in the face of the most obvious provocation since 1938 when Germany marched into the Rhineland and the West did nothing.

For Russia, their troops are not in the open but masked and hooded figures that move in the night and day to seize property and lands unopposed. They are unopposed because Washington and Brussels have counseled a passive response and even a saccharine surrender in Kiev so as not to anger the Russian Bear. Like a dog that barks behind the fence, the West only appears tough and has decided that whatever actions are taken in Kiev will be one that does not involve combat of any sort against a clear and present Russian invasion of an independent state in Europe. We should not be surprised by these developments as the soft and leftwing leadership in the West has clearly backed down against a greater foe in the North. To the victor go the spoils.

Ukraine's only hope is to go it alone and with its own initiative, seize the moment and attack the Russians using it's own infantry. Will this invite calamity in a conventional counterattack by the Russians with actual troops, tanks and planes? Perhaps. It no doubt will be a long and bloody brawl. But then Moscow's complete and utter disregard for living in a Christian dominion abiding by Christian rules and etiquette will now be laid bare as the farce it always was.  In the past twenty years, Russia has allowed the Eastern Orthodox Church to rise once more but not as a way to win converts to Christ but as a mechanism and tool for the Russian state to exploit the weakness of Russian arms which was the Russian spirit to fight and to win.

Under Communism, it was well known in all military circles around the world, that Russia was the military weakling, despite its numbers, because communists destroyed all initiative and creative know-how so critical in a modern military system. The officers were mere subjects of the commissar who worked directly with the Communist Party to ensure discipline and love of "the leader" and his party. The communist purge of the army during the 1930's by Stalin showed the way for other soviet and soviet-like states around the world how to ensure communist loyalty in their armed forces. The communist armies of the world were reduced to mere tin soldiers with no hope of freedom to respond in a combat environment so critical to success. Unfortunately, World War II was the Soviets greatest triumph in that it gave the Red Army an ersatz invincibility that only recently has been recognized as completely unwarranted. However, after World War II, the Middle East Wars between Russia's client states in the form of Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq against the Western supported Israel between 1948 and 1982 exposed this rather large Achilles' heal of the Soviet system of governance. Then, the Russians invaded Afghanistan in support of another client state in 1979 which continued to further erode this image of the mighty Red Army even more.

Glasnost under Gorbachev in 1989 was the Russian attempt to change that calculus. We are seeing today the fruits of their recalibration with Russian infantry covering as "separatists" in Eastern Ukraine and taking everything they desire unopposed amid the chaos of indecision that has now gripped the pro-western Ukrainian state. However, it's not really Kiev's fault. They want to be part of the West and they want Western military support. It's unfortunate that Barack Obama is at the helm in the White House, we could only imagine what the response would be if Reagan were in charge. Of course, I doubt the Russians would have sent in their troops to sow discord if he were still around. Nevertheless, the Russian "invasion" of Ukraine by masked marauders is paying off huge for the Red Army. They have seized the initiative and have shown results that Moscow can be proud of.

It all comes down to who moves first. And the Russians, under their new "model army" with the support of the nascent Eastern Orthodox Church which only recently was just a mere shell of its former self under the Communists, can now claim success in Europe. The fusion of religious orthodoxy and military might is a lethal combination. Interesting, that the West is breaking down it's Christian backbone in it's military with a revived paganism which will directly affect military operations against the Russians or their client states including other areas of the world. Obama is the Pagan leader of the West and will not defend Ukraine against a more rapacious and newly inspired Eastern Orthodox Russian army that wants to liberate the old Slavic Rus capital from greedy pagan Westerns, as they see it.

Unfortunately, the Russians may be more right than we care to admit. Sic Transit Gloria Mundi.

Double Eagle

With last Sunday's Crimea vote to return to Russia that was engineered recently by Vladimir Putin, the West has been completely upstaged and surprised by the rapidity of the Russian state to seize the moment. The West led by a weakened and docile United States, has flailed impotently while Moscow has moved its chess pieces expertly on the board by invoking its rightful place over a vital and strategic port city on the Black Sea that was once an important Ukrainian asset. Now, in one fell swoop, Crimea is now in the hands of the Russians. The Ukrainians, after overthrowing their Russian savant, the ex-Ukrainian Premier Victor Yanukovych, by marching and occupying the main square in Kiev, now are starring down the abyss of war as Mother Russia masses her troops on their northern and eastern doorstep. The world now awaits the next moves between East and West as the battle lines are drawn over the bread basket of Europe.

 To be fair, the Russians already occupied much of the Crimean Peninsula before last Sunday, however, they simply took the title deed from Ukraine, given to the Ukrainians by a drunk Nikita Khrushchev back in '56, and with it now back in the hands of the Russians, have declared to the entire world by a hastily arranged plebiscite, that they and only they are now the true rulers of this piece of naval real estate so vital to Russian national security and interest. The question now looms before us: what else do they want? Is the rest of Ukraine now up for grabs and can anyone do anything about it? Will Ukraine also find out, much like Georgia did several years ago, that when push (or should I say putsch) comes to shove, the West will do nothing and allow weaker states to be bullied into submission by their overbearing Russian overlords?

The Baltic states including Poland have recently announced the arrival of some American military assets in the form of F-15 and F-16 Fighter wings to their countries to remind Moscow that they are firmly rooted in the West and must not be tampered with by a hungry Russian state bent on subverting their relations with the United States and Western Europe. In many ways, Poland can now say to President Obama - we told you so! Under President Bush and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld back in 2006, Poland and the Czech Republic were given assurances of American protection by incorporating those nations directly in a missile defense shield stationed on their home soils. But then the Democrat administration of Obama came along two years later and dismantled this defense posture stating that a Russian "re-set" was the order of the day and missile defense was more of a testicular reminder of a bygone era. The Russians couldn't have agreed more. Now, Poland smiles to itself as Obama looks like a kid caught urinating in the bushes as the Russians clamor for additional parcels of Ukrainian soil with Moldova and Belarus in its cross-hairs. Funny how history keeps repeating itself.

The only way out of this debacle is for hard American military assets, say an F-15 fighter wing, to be transferred directly to Ukraine, before any outbreak of hostilities by the Russians seals the Ukrainians to a fate they least desire. If the Russians should attack first or make a sudden military venture into Ukrainian territory outside of Crimea then I'm afraid the West has lost Ukraine. The United States will not fight the Russians and they will not fight us. Which is imperative that someone, preferably us, make the first move and do it quickly. Events are very fluid even as I write this post and anything can happen. I suppose, we could support the Ukrainians with direct military aid and let them fight for their independence while we cover for them at the United Nations and in other political and economic institutions. However, war is the least desirable outcome and has far reaching consequences that very few can predict.

Oh, by the way, this August will be the 100th anniversary of World War One. And it started because the Russians mobilized their army and didn't back down.

The King Of The South

One of the advantages I have as an Ambassador In Christ is access to information deep in time that we call the future. And really the advantage I have is that I believe what the Bible has to say about that future. Most people don't believe or have a hard time accepting what the Bible says about the future. Thus, they tend to ignore or reject what the Bible clearly and plainly says will happen in the fullness of time. It does take time to properly sift the information from the pages of scripture as well as a certain spiritual maturity to properly gauge the timing of the events recorded in the Bible, both old and new testaments, and fit it like a puzzle piece within the proper context of history, past, present and future.

As you know or may not know, I believe we are nearing the end of the Church Age: a period of time that followed the Resurrection of Christ in 30AD (approx) to the present in 2013AD. The Church Age was unknown to the Jewish prophets of the Old Testament and thus events outlined in the Old Testament have no bearing in our present time until the close of the Church Age which is yet unknown and is currently ongoing. However, we see today many outlines and forms in the shadows that will ultimately show themselves in the full light of day tomorrow. One of those forms is the political/military entity known as the King of the South.

All prophecies in the Old Testament relate to Israel and her future King. With the return of the state of Israel in 1947-48 onto the world stage the Old Testament prophecies concerning Israel have the potential of becoming activated. In the book of Daniel, the nation of Israel is surrounded by four antagonists which it must contend with until the return of her glorious King and his army which in turn will establish Israel as the preeminent nation of the nations of the world. The four antagonists are divided like the four directions of the compass: North, South, East and West with Israel at the center. The antagonists are geographically located thusly from the center of political gravity which is located in Israel.

The King of the South is the great kingdom of Egypt. At least "great" from its glorious past. But it is to the future we seek to understand the makeup of this antagonist which will arise to challenge the nation of Israel which by the way will be the last "king of the south" to do so forever! I say this because Egypt has gone through many transformations politically and religiously speaking since the Book of Daniel was written however as time draws to a close on the Church Age I believe we can discern the ultimate political makeup of this King and kingdom as prophesied in the Old Testament.

I've written in the past that Egypt along with Saudi Arabia are the twin cultures/political entities that makeup the core of the Sunni Moslem world. The Sunni world rises and falls with them and I believe that a new Moslem Caliphate will arise centered on the Sunni Moslem religion which in turn will expel Iran and any Shiite influenced country such as Syria from its political and military orbit. I believe the Sunni Moslem world centered in Egypt politically and Saudi Arabia religiously is the King of the South of the Old Testament.

With the advent of the so called Arab Spring, we see a consolidation of the Sunni Moslem world currently taking place much to the chagrin of those in the West that want to see a more unified global political order with the West as the cockpit of this politico-commercial paradigm. A Moslem Caliphate will challenge this paradigm.

From Foreign Affairs we see the consolidation occurring internally within Egypt itself:

Addressing graduates of military academies is a standard responsibility for high-ranking military officers all over the world. But last week, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the commander of Egypt’s armed forces, which recently deposed the country’s first freely elected president, went far beyond the conventions of the genre in a speech to graduates of Egypt’s Navy and Air Defense academies. Sisi’s true audience was the wider Egyptian public, and he presented himself less as a general in the armed forces than as a populist strongman. He urged Egyptians to take to the streets to show their support for the provisional government that he had installed after launching a coup to remove from power President Mohamed Morsi, a longtime leader of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood. “I’ve never asked you for anything,” Sisi declared, before requesting a “mandate” to confront the Muslim Brotherhood, whose supporters have launched protests and sit-ins to denounce the new military-backed regime.

Sisi’s speech was only the latest suggestion that he will not be content to simply serve as the leader of Egypt’s military. Although he has vowed to lead Egypt through a democratic transition, there are plenty of indications that he is less than enthusiastic about democracy and that he intends to hold on to political power himself. But that’s not to say that he envisions a return to the secular authoritarianism of Egypt’s recent past. Given the details of Sisi’s biography and the content of his only published work, a thesis he wrote in 2006 while studying at the U.S. Army War College in Pennsylvania, it seems possible that he might have something altogether different in mind: a hybrid regime that would combine Islamism with militarism. To judge from the ideas about governance that he put forward in his thesis, Sisi might see himself less as a custodian of Egypt’s democratic future than as an Egyptian version of Muhammed Zia ul-Haq, the Pakistani general who seized power in 1977 and set about to “Islamicize” state and society in Pakistan.

I believe what we are seeing here and in other parts of the globe specifically in Russia is the marriage once again of religion with the state. For awhile during the 20th Century, religion had run its course and secular atheistic government was the order of the day with all its attendant tragedies that was the Communist International order. The conservative estimate of the losses suffered internally by these types of governments was at least 100 million souls murdered during this time period. The Ottoman Empire after World War One was disassembled by Ataturk and the Caliphate abolished. In order to maintain the regime brutality was the order of the day mainly directed against Moslems. However, time has shown that from a state perspective, the dismantling may have been disadvantageous as far as victory on the battlefield is concerned. The article expands further:

But even though he overthrew a government dominated by Islamists, there is reason to suspect that Sisi’s true goal might not be the establishment of a more inclusive, secular democracy but, rather, a military-led resurrection and reformation of the Islamist project that the Brotherhood so abysmally mishandled. Indeed, after Morsi became president, he tapped Sisi to become defense minster precisely because there was plenty of evidence that the general was sympathetic to Islamism. He is reputed to be a particularly devout Muslim who frequently inserts Koranic verses into informal conversations, and his wife wears the conservative dress favored by more orthodox Muslims. Those concerned about Sisi’s views on women’s rights were alarmed by his defense of the military’s use of “virginity tests” for female demonstrators detained during the uprising against Mubarak. Human-rights activists argued that the “tests” were amounted to sexual assaults; Sisi countered that they were intended “to protect the girls from rape.”

Morsi likely also found much to admire in the thesis that Sisi produced at the U.S. Army War College, which, despite its innocuous title (“Democracy in the Middle East”), reads like a tract produced by the Muslim Brotherhood. In his opening paragraph, Sisi emphasizes the centrality of religion to the politics of the region, arguing that “for democracy to be successful in the Middle East,” it must show “respect to the religious nature of the culture” and seek “public support from religious leaders [who] can help build strong support for the establishment of democratic systems.” Egyptians and other Arabs will view democracy positively, he wrote, only if it “sustains the religious base versus devaluing religion and creating instability.” Secularism, according to Sisi, “is unlikely to be favorably received by the vast majority of Middle Easterners, who are devout followers of the Islamic faith.” He condemns governments that “tend toward secular rule,” because they “disenfranchise large segments of the population who believe religion should not be excluded from government,” and because “they often send religious leaders to prison.”

But Sisi’s thesis goes beyond simply rejecting the idea of a secular state; it embraces a more radical view of the proper place of religion in an Islamic democracy. He writes: “Democracy cannot be understood in the Middle East without an understanding of the concept of El Kalafa,” or the caliphate, which Sisi defines as the 70-year period when Muslims were led by Muhammad and his immediate successors. Re-establishing this kind of leadership “is widely recognized as the goal for any new form of government” in the Middle East, he asserts. The central political mechanisms in such a system, he believes, are al-bi'ah (fealty to a ruler) and shura (a ruler’s consultation with his subjects). Apologists for Islamic rule sometimes suggest that these concepts are inherently democratic, but in reality they fall far short of the democratic mark.

And when we say "democratic mark" then we are talking about a "Western" oriented democratic mark, of course. Again, this return to religion and its marriage to the state is also being sown in Russia under Vladimir Putin. In Moscow, the marriage of the Eastern Orthodox Church to the State has been ongoing for 20 years now. So between China and Europe we see a massive continental divide from Moscow to Cairo that is dividing the world with Israel at the center with regimes that are unified with the local religion and governments in the West and East that are moving away from such an arrangement. An exception may be made in the West but for a short time only per the Book of Revelation. The article concludes:

If Sisi’s thesis truly reflects his thinking -- and there is no reason to believe otherwise -- it suggests not only that he might want to stay at the helm of the new Egyptian state but that his vision of how to steer Egyptian society differs markedly from those of the secular-nationalist military rulers who led Egypt for decades: Gamal Abdel al-Nasser, Anwar al-Sadat, and Mubarak. The ideas in Sisi’s thesis hew closer to those of Zia ul-Haq, who overthrew Pakistan’s democratically elected government in 1977 and soon began a campaign of “Islamicization” that included the introduction of some elements of sharia into Pakistani law, along with a state-subsidized boom in religious education. It is worth noting that Sisi has gone out of his way to court the Salafist al-Nour Party, by ensuring that the constitutional declaration issued on July 13 preserved the controversial article stating “the principles of sharia law derived from established Sunni canons” will be Egypt's “main source of legislation.” He also tried to undercut support for the leaders of the Brotherhood by appealing directly to their followers, referring to them as “good Egyptians” and “our brothers.” These moves may have been intended to inoculate him against the charge that the coup was anti-Islamist -- a critical point, since Islamism still enjoys broad support in many parts of Egyptian society. But it may also reflect a genuine belief in and commitment to Islamism.

If Sisi continues to seek legitimacy for military rule by associating it with Islamism, it could prove to be a disaster for Egypt. At the very least, it would set back the democratic cause immeasurably. It would also reinforce the military’s octopus-like hold on the economy, which is already one of the major obstacles to the country's economic development. And it would also pose new dilemmas for the military itself: somehow it would need to reconcile serving the strategic objectives of Islam and those of its American patrons. It’s not clear whether that circle could be squared. And the experiment would likely come at the expense of the Egyptian people.

The question that is left to us to ask is why? Why is Egypt pursuing this course as well as Russia. What long term agenda are they pursuing and will the West be forced into a confrontational position with the King of the South? I suspect, we may know sooner than expected.

Read A Little, Learn A Little

Here are a couple of articles I thought were relevant to our ongoing view of how the world is turning. Some are couple of months old but still worth the read. I'm still continually amazed how world events are unfolding in our time in relation to Biblical Eschatology. To me, prophecy is the proof that there is a God. I certainly understand why a society throughly entrenched in a materialist mentality would not believe in the Divine Creator but then the Bible does state that he is invisible with only the Christ being the visible part of the God-head. Whatever your views, the next couple of articles should serve to enrich and explore the coming wave of reality upon our beliefs.



The Coming Fourth Reich -

Proxcimitron- The Miracle of Technology

Potemkin Nation - Seeing Is Not Believing

Pax Americana - USA is #1

Power of the forehead - More Here Than Meets The Eye

Attack of the Drones - Cue The Imperial March

That Military Industrial Complex - By The Numbers

Kings of the East