The BibleSearchers Reflections

Reflections on the Time of the End

By Robert Mock MD

robertmock@biblesearchers.com

www.BibleSearchers.com

 

Gleanings on Global News at the Time of the End

July, 2004 Issue

 

Topics

The Pathway to a One World Order

Israel and the Middle East

America and the World of Terror

A World Peace for a World Religion

Knowledge shall be increased; Men shall run to and fro

 

The Pathway to a One World Order

America celebrated its 228^th birthday on July 4 with a realization that the days of innocence and protection by isolationism are over.  Under the mantle of great security, parades, bands, concerts and hot dogs brought millions together with pride of the history and traditions of this great nation. 

 

 Karina Borrego joins Fourth of July festivities in Harlingen, Texas.

 

In the days prior to America’s birthday, 2004, the rapidly changing pace of geo-politics around the world this month carried with it a surreal aura.  It was amazing to see the political transformation of this globe over the past four years since the Bush-Gore debates going into the 2000 presidential election. 

 

In a discussion with my mother-in-law, an ardent Clinton supporter, she queried me on why I would support George Bush for the presidency of the United States. My response was: “You won’t believe my answer, but George Bush will be the person who will bring the United States the quickest into the One World Order.  If I truly believe in the literal prophetic path of the time of the end, then I believe the Lord destined that we will enter a time of the One World Order.  It appears that George Bush will be the best candidate to link America into the globalist’s dream of one world governance.”  I’m not sure that I was very wrong. 

 

The war with Iraq was all done under the banner of ‘righteous indignation’ against the evil of committing terror to American citizens on American soul.  Yet it was conducted by the Bush State Department neo-conservatives (neo-cons) who are pro-Israel for the security of the Nation of Israel, but anti-Israel in the fact the God of Israel has chosen this land to be His. 

 

America since its day of Independence has been on a ‘trip’ of utopianism.  There is nothing that we believe more grandly than the divine destiny of America. Great Britain had her day of British Imperialism which rested in part on her vision of being British Ephraimites or British Israelites. The genealogical facts may probably be true, but the Lord of hosts said of Ephraim and the house of Israel not that He would make them masters over the whole world but that He would restore them to their own land. 

 

Ezekiel 37:16-17, 21-23 (parts) – “As for you, son of man, take a stick for yourself and write on it: ‘For Judah and for the children of children of Israel, his companions.’ Then take another stick, and write on it, ‘For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim and for all the house of Israel, his companions.’  Then join them one to another into one stick, and they shall become one in your hand....

 

Thus saith the Lord God; Surely I will take the children of Israel from among the nations, wherever they have gone, and will gather them from every side and bring them into their own land; and I will make them one nation in the Land, on the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be  king to them all; and they shall be no more two nations, nor shall they ever be divided into two kingdoms again...I will deliver them from all their dwelling places in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them.  Then they shall be My people, and I will be their God.”

 

The day will come when the Lord of hosts will honor His holy Name and the world will see that His word and His covenant are true, because He said that it would be true.  The Lord of hosts will reunite all the tribes of Israel and you may be one of those Israelites now lost in the nations of the world.  The Eternal One knows your genetic makeup and your ancestry even though at this time you do not know it.  The promise of the Lord is that He will deliver, redeem and restore.  The Lord of hosts has never promised that He will exile and abandon His people because of their behavior.  This is against His holy character.  The Lord seeks only to save and in spite of Israel’s wicked and evil behavior, the lost tribes of the house of Israel will be restored to honor the holy Name of the Eternal One of Israel and to redeem the Land that He calls His own.  

 

When the Lord of hosts commanded His chosen one to enter the land of Canaan, it was not His will that they would ever have to fight for their land.  It was the will of the Lord that He would drive out the inhabitants of the land ‘before them’.  Not one drop of Israelite blood would have been shed as they conquered and inhabited the land. All they had to do was have faith in their God. They would have walked into the land a restored people and a redeemed people.

 

Ezekiel 36:33-35 – “On the day that I cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will also enable you to dwell in the cities, and the ruins shall be rebuilt. The desolate land shall be tilled instead of lying waste in the sight of all who pass by.  And they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden; and the wasted, desolate, ruined cities are now fortified and inhabited.” 

 

The Lord of hosts speaking to the Israelites as they entered into the Promised Land told them;

Deuteronomy 9:3-5 – “Therefore understand today, that the Lord thy God is He who goes over before you as a consuming fire. He will destroy them and bring them down before you; so you shall drive them out and destroy them quickly, as the Lord has said to you. 

 

Do not think in your heart, after the Lord your God hast cast them out before you, saying ‘Because of my righteousness the Lord has brought me in to possess this land; but it is because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord is driving them out from before you.’  It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you go in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord thy God drives them out from before thee, and that He may fulfill the word which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”

 

What did the children of Israel do after watching the Lord of hosts destroy the walls of Jericho?  They went alone into their own battle with disastrous results at Ai. 

 

One of the Hebrew’s great concepts of political rulership is that the Lord of hosts selects the kings of all the nations of the earth.  The ‘crown’ of rulership is under the Sovereign hands of the Eternal One.  As such, rulers such as Bush and Clinton, including even Hitler were appointed by the Lord of hosts.  Consider the fact that there was only one moment in time that the declaration of the United Nations could have unanimously affirmed the right of the Jews to have their own homeland.  That was in 1948.  This was the one moment of time when in the drive of nationalism that every national entity was given their national home, everyone except the Jewish people.  Even the Jewish people did not have a national consensus that they wanted their own home.

 

The nationhood of Israel would never have happened outside of the reality of the horrors of the concentration camps of the Dachau, Treblinka and all the other ‘death camps’ by the Nazi Germans.  It never would have happened outside the desire of power, greed and control that then anti-Torah Jews, the secular Zionists wanted to create their own utopia in “God’s Holy Land”. 

 

In a world of individualism and nationalism, there is very little room for the spiritual laws of political governance under the authority of a theocratic government by Messiah. Yet, the prophets of old told us that the “Messiah will come and rule with the rod of iron.” 

 

Psalms 2:6-8 – “Yet I have set My King on My holy hill of Zion.”  I will declare the decree: The Lord has said to Me, You are My Son, Today I have begotten You.  Ask of Me, and I will give You the nations for Your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for Your possession.  You shall break them with a rod of iron; You shall dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel.’” (Rev. 2:27)

 

Revelation 2:25-29 – “But hold fast what you have till I come.  And he who overcomes, and keeps My works until the end, to him I will give power over the nations – ‘He shall rule them with a rod of iron; They shall be dashed to pieces like the potter’s vessels’  (Psalms 2:9) – as I also have received from My Father; and I will give him the morning star. ‘He, who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

 

For those who look for a Millennial kingdom must also consider that it also will be a One World Government.  For those who look for a ‘kingdom of God’ whether on earth or in an other dimensional sphere, must consider that they will be governed by a Supreme Being whose law will transcend and reign supreme.  In this kingdom, we will not govern it by democratic consensus.  Its inhabitants will be those who have chosen to be bond-servants for the Messiah, the Son of the Eternal One. Is it no wonder that the last grand experiment of mankind before the coming of the Moshiach will be universal rule by democratic vote? This rule will be accepted by the choice of the majority of the populations every nation in the world.  Well, almost every nation.  One of the nations that will refuse will be Israel. Well, maybe.  It does suggest that just prior to the coming of the Moshiach (Messiah); the “two witnesses” will be killed in Jerusalem, “the great city which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.”  (Revelation 11:8) Satan’s triumph appears to be complete with all the earth under his control, except for a “remnant”, the offspring of the “woman”.  (Revelation 12:17)   

 

The month of June, 2004, the march of the nations towards a global world government made a giant step forward.  This was assisted by one of America’s favorite former presidents of all times, Ronald Reagan.  It all began in the Vatican Library (June 4) where George Bush received a verbal whipping by the Pope John II for America’s failure in human rights in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.  In turn George Bush presented the pontiff with the presidential medal of freedom, America's highest civilian award, calling him "a devoted servant of God..."

 

On June 5, Bush was in route to the French love fest with our octagarian warriors who in June 6, 1944 landed on the shores of Normandy and began the rescue operation to save the French from the Nazi oppression.  Did President George Bush stop over for a brief rendezvous at Stresa, Italy while the Bilderbergers were celebrating their 50^th birthday?  This secret society is the one that plans the economic and business agendas for the business elite of the world? 

 

During this moment of time, the world was stunned by the demise of the affable president who dropped the ‘iron curtain’ and leveled the Berlin Wall to the ground. Was this a coincidence?  I do not think so.  Something powerful was happening.  For a moment in time, the leaders of the industrial nations of the world who have been so cranky towards each other, now needed a time to ponder the life of a man respected by all for his candor, his purposeful leadership, his belief in the God of Abraham and a moral vision of human society. 

 

There at Arromanches, France, leaders from fifteen countries of the world celebrated the 60^th anniversary (June 6) of the largest amphibian invasion in world history.  Also there, President Vladimir Putin and Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder represented the first time in history Russia and Germany at the Normandy ceremonies. Here also began in earnest the global political bargaining between the G8 leaders of the world: President George W. Bush (United States), Chirac (France), Schroeder (Germany), Vladimir Putin (Russia), Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (Italy), Prime Minister Tony Blair (Great Britain), and Prime Minister Paul Martin (Canada) who were soon to depart and join Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi (Japan) at Sea Island, Ga., for the G8 economic summit.

 

Yet this year we did not have a G8 meeting but rather a G9 or G10 global summit meet.  The European Union was represented as well as the newly elected President Ghazi Ajil Al-Yawer, newly elected president by the Iraqi Interim Government.  

 

The agenda of the G8 was planned at the Bilderberg meeting in Stresa, Italy.  The implementation of the agenda began in American on Sea Island, Georgia. Before it was over, the United Nations Security Council would have a unanimous vote that the United Nations would plant its flag in Iraq.  With American civil servants and military personnel deeply imbedded in the political and economic infrastructure of Iraq, it was time for the United Nations to come in and plant the globalist imprint of hegemony in the midst of the Middle East.

 

The political power movers feted and applauded the arrival of their new guest President Ghazi Ajil al-Yawer.  Sheik al-Yawer, the current president of the Governing Council is a Sunni Moslem of the Shammar tribe.  Independent and traditional as he wears the traditional Arab robe and head gear, this graduate of the Petroleum and Minerals University of Saudi Arabia and Georgetown University holds great respect not only of his tribe but the Shiite and the Kurdish council members. Many American diplomats were wary of al-Yawer initially as he was a critical voice against the American ‘occupation’.  He put direct blame on the inept policies of the American coalition for the breakdown on Iraqi law and order.  At the same time he is reputed to be a CIA operative.  Yet in America, he became the new talk show guest of honor while in America while he attended with all the world dignitaries the funeral of Ronald Reagan on Thursday, June 10, 2004.

 

Yes, this week opened with praise and remembrances of former President Reagan.  The atmosphere was radically changed by this event.  The world watched in rapture during the meticulously planned funeral of Ronald Reagan.  It was the greatest state funeral in Washington since Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt.  At the setting of the sun on Friday, as the day ushered in the Jewish Shabbat (June 12), this planet closed one of its most profound and fateful weeks in world history.  A new step in the globalist’s dream had been made.

 

Yet the momentum of globalism continued. Within two weeks, the EU-US Summit in Ireland followed immediately by the NATO Summit in Istanbul, Turkey, where the preemptive and secretive transfer of power of governance was exchanged by L. Paul Bremmer III representing the United States to President Ghazi Ajil al-Yawar the new president of Iraq two days early.  Immediately this was announced to the world at the NATO Summit by Bush and Blair.  Where does this leave us searching for clues on the time of the end?

 

Revelation 13:11 – “And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.  And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and caused the earth and them which dwell on it to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.” 

 

It began in the library of the Vatican and ended in the capital of the nation possibly destined to host the future king of the north. (Daniel 11)

 

Bush Meets With Pope at Vatican – June 4, 2004

ROME (Fox News) — President Bush got a sharp dose of Europe's opposition to his Iraq policy Friday, quietly in the halls of the Vatican from Pope John II and loudly in the streets of Rome from thousands of demonstrators. The ailing pontiff complained about recent "deplorable events," an apparent reference to the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. troops...

 

Seated next to the pope, Bush promised his nation would work for "human liberty and human dignity," without making any reference to Iraq. He presented the pontiff with the presidential medal of freedom, America's highest civilian award, calling him "a devoted servant of God..."

 

"Mr. President, your visit to Rome takes place at a moment of great concern for the continuing situation of grave unrest in the Middle East, both in Iraq and in the Holy Land," the pope said.  "In the past few weeks, other deplorable events have come to light which have troubled the civic and religious conscience of all."

 

Friday's was Bush's third meeting with the pope since he became president.  Bush has aggressively courted Roman Catholic voters — a bloc making up about a quarter of the electorate that split evenly between Bush and Democrat Al Gore in 2000.  Thanking Bush for the medal of freedom award, the pontiff said: "God bless America."  (Entire article)

 

White House Notebook: Bush uncharacteristically late for pope meeting – June 4, 2004

ROME (AP) - President Bush arrived 15 minutes late for his meeting with Pope John Paul II unusual for a president who makes no secret of his impatience when others keep him waiting.  It was a rare breach of protocol in Vatican City, too, and raised eyebrows in the papal delegation.  “The president is 15 minutes late,'' John Paul's secretary, Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, pointed out to Vatican reporters.  White House aides blamed Bush's tardiness Friday on a longer-than-expected preceding meeting with the Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.

 

(AP) President Bush and first lady Laura Bush meet with Pope John Paul II in his private library at the Vatican ...Full Image

 

During Bush's 36-hour visit to Italy and Vatican City, he was staying at the home of U.S. ambassador to Italy, Melvin Sembler. The manicured grounds feature stucco buildings with red-tiled roofs, small mazes of hedges interspersed with roses and gurgling fountains.  A security perimeter extended several blocks out from the residence, situated on a six-acre plot. The blare of Italian sirens drifted over the walls as faintly as if they were miles away. Noise from outside the compound was practically drowned out by the sounds of birds chirping and breeze rustling through pines... (Entire Article)

 

While George Bush was visiting with the pontiff in the Vatican Library, a secret international rendezvous of the international business and banking elite, the Bilderbergers were meeting in the grandeur of one of Italy’s finest grand palaces.  Like a dazzling jewel floating in the midst of north Italy’s beautiful Lake Maggiore, the Grand Hotel des Iles Borromees, the playground for the likes of Hemingway, Mussolini, Rothschild and Clark Gable, became the hotbed of international intrigue.  Sealed off by uniformed police, this Belle-Époque Hotel was built in the 1860s and carries it’s own standards of excellence for a 5 star palace-hotel: marble bathroom Jacuzzis, Murano lights and designer suites. There protected from all inquisitive eyes and ears, the most influential secret society in the world spent four days in solitude on June 3-6, 2004.  It focused on U.S. taxes and foreign subsidies and the role of the United Nations in the progressive violence in the ‘occupation’ of Iraq. The meeting according to outsiders was noted for its hostility towards the United States and Great Britain who have an appearance of bucking global imperialism.

 

The agendas also included finishing the formation of the European Union and begin the development of the second and third great global super-states:  the American Union and the Asian-Pacific Union.  These global economic super-states would be powered by the Euro, the Dollar and the new currency for Asia and the Pacific nations.  One of the current discussions was the imposition of a UN tax upon every person in the world that would occur as an oil tax at the wellhead and a levy that would be imposed on all international financial transactions. These costs would be passed on every consumer in the world. 

 

In spite of many European dignitaries’ opposition to the war in Iraq, the topic this year included the new role of the United Nations in Iraq.  Who will reap the wind-fall of the Iraqi oil and gas interest and whose heads will roll over the embarrassing expose of the UN’s “oil for peace” program?  The eternal agenda was also, how to continue to advance the super-state model for United Nations global government.  The unstated purpose of the Bilderbergers appears to be an open secret forum of the world’s elite to reach an informal consensus on political and economic policies.  The implementation of that consensus would begin by the formal governmental forums such as the G8. 

 

Chief on the agenda was the “Greater Middle East Initiative” that the United States was seeking to impose upon the European governments.  Here would be a global initiative by America and the EU that would directly affect all people from Morocco to Afghanistan.  Here we saw the building of the ‘left-right’ consensus in the Israel – Palestinian Road Map that was first presented to Joshka Fisher, German secretary, then Chancellor Schroeder and finally the cautious and reluctant French Chirac with Spanish Javier Solana using all his international support to push the accords along. 

 

Of the 126 invitees which included 33 from America, we note; the always regular Henry Kissinger plus Richard Perle, Richard Holbrooke, along with the heads of the Rothschild and Rockefeller dynasties, European royalty, select media barons, globalist politicians, opinion makers, world bankers, industrialists and financiers.  Special guests this year included: US senator John Edwards, Mrs. Bill Gates, former British Chancellor Kenneth Clarke, Queen Beatrix of The Netherlands and Jean-Claude Trichet, and the President of European Central Bank.

 

The Bilderberg not only being ultra-secret is the most influential of the secret private forums.  The most influential international secret organizations in the world today include: Trilateral Commission, the Pinay Circle, the Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA, the policy maker of British foreign policy) and the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR, the policy maker of the United States foreign policy).  The RIIA and the CFR both originated as an outgrowth of the Round Table in the 1920’s by the global domination advocates; Cecil Rhodes and Lord Alfred Milner.  Such is the bond between Britain and American foreign today. 

 

Yet secrecy in foreign relations, economics, and international trade organizations belies the basic foundation of democracy and is definitely not an element of a theocratic state which the king or judge serves as the ‘servant of the people’.  Yet the elements of power, greed and control are all encompassed in these secret chambers whether it is government, economic or religious institutions. 

 

Of the first two, the most prominent are the: the G-8, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the World Trade Organization (WTO), the World Economic Forum (WEF), the European Union Council of Ministers and the EU Commission.  When you include all the global trade, economic and super-state summits plus the Central Banks, cabinet meeting, policy and think tanks all meeting behind closed doors, the specter of individual freedom and involvement in the political, economic life of our country is very, very small.  Power and authority with the control of trade and monetary of the nations is being done in the hands of fewer and fewer people.  Is this the freedom of democracy?  Is this the result of the idiom, “all power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely”.  Is it any wonder that power, greed and control cannot be a part of the kingdom of God?

 

Bilderberg: The ultimate conspiracy theory – June 4, 2004

BBCOnline - The Bilderberg group, an elite coterie of Western thinkers and power-brokers, has been accused of fixing the fate of the world behind closed doors. As the organisation marks its 50th anniversary, rumours are more rife than ever.

Leiden in Holland, the inauspicious base of the Bilderberg group

 

Given its reputation as perhaps the most powerful organization in the world, the Bilderberg group doesn't go a bundle on its switchboard operations. Telephone inquiries are met with an impersonal female voice - the Dutch equivalent of the BT Callminder woman - reciting back the number and inviting callers to "leave a message after the tone"...

 

For four days some of the West's chief political movers, business leaders, bankers, industrialists and strategic thinkers will hunker down in a five-star hotel in northern Italy to talk about global issues. What sets Bilderberg apart from other high-powered get-togethers, such as the annual World Economic Forum (WEF), is its mystique. Not a word of what is said at Bilderberg meetings can be breathed outside. No reporters are invited in and while confidential minutes of meetings are taken, names are not noted...

 

In Yugoslavia, leading Serbs have blamed Bilderberg for triggering the war which led to the downfall of Slobodan Milosevic. The Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, the London nail-bomber David Copeland and Osama Bin Laden are all said to have bought into the theory that Bilderberg pulls the strings with which national governments dance. And while hardline right-wingers and libertarians accuse Bilderberg of being a liberal Zionist plot, leftists such as activist Tony Gosling are equally critical...

 

Formed in the spirit of post-war trans-Atlantic co-operation, the idea behind Bilderberg was that future wars could be prevented by bringing power-brokers together in an informal setting away from prying eyes. "Bilderberg is the most useful international group I ever attended. The confidentiality enabled people to speak honestly without fear of repercussions. In my experience the most useful meetings are those when one is free to speak openly and honestly. It's not unusual at all. Cabinet meetings in all countries are held behind closed doors and the minutes are not published."

 

That activists have seized on Bilderberg is no surprise to Alasdair Spark, an expert in conspiracy theories. "The idea that a shadowy clique is running the world is nothing new. For hundreds of years people have believed the world is governed by a cabal of Jews. "Shouldn't we expect that the rich and powerful organize things in their own interests? It's called capitalism." (Entire article online)

 

The American delegation among the 127 known attendees at the Stresa 2004 meeting were 33 members total.  Many of the American delegation are known as “neo-cons” or those politically influenced by the political policy of securing Israel’s security as central to all U.S. foreign policy.  Most noted was Richard Perle, former chairman of the Defense Policy Board (DPB) who resigned when he was exposed advising the directors of Goldman Sachs International on the profit potential in the Iraq war, former lobbyist for Israeli arms manufacturer, and former undersecretary of defense in the Reagan administration.  Perle was joined by Douglas Feith, undersecretary of defense foreign policy and Feith’s boss, Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Defense Secretary and William J. Luti, deputy undersecretary of defense in the Near and South Asian Affairs. 

 

According to Bilderberger investigators, other neo-conservatives included Max Boot, editor for The Wall Street Journal who is known for his articles promoting American imperialism in The Journal and The Weekly Standard, owned by the Rothschild family satellite enterprises published by Rupert Murdoch and edited by William Kristol.  Along with Kristol was Robert Kagon, contributing editor with The Weekly Standard who wrote in the New American Century, a ‘new Pearl Harbor” would be needed for the United States to carry the mantle as a global imperial state.  In the ‘neo-con’ block was also Marie Josee Kravis who represented the neo-con Hudson Institute along with Henry Kravis, American billionaire who served with Perle as director of the neo-con Hollinger Publishing, and affiliate along with The Jerusalem Post as part of the Rothschild global empire.  Partners and associates also included at this meet: Bruce Kovner, another of America’s richest globalist who financed The New York Sun and current chair of the American Enterprise Institute.

 

The fact the President George Bush was minutes away in Rome while the Bilderbergers were in session may not be just a coincidence.  As noted above, the breech of protocol in the late arrival of George Bush in meeting with Pope John Paul II may be a clue?  Behind all the formalities, did the president brief the pontiff on the Bilderberg meeting proceedings at Stresa that he had just attended?  Or did President Bush find time to drop by the Bilderbergs after his visit with the Pontiff or in route the next day to the 60^th Anniversary of the Normandy invasion in the town of Arromanches, France?  We may never know. 

 

Guess who's at super-secret Bilderberg meeting today - Italy hosts 50th-anniversary confab of mysterious society of world leaders – June 4, 2004
STRESA, Italy (WorldNetDaily) - The 50th anniversary conference of the elite Bilderberg group – which many believe conspires semi-annually to foster global government – is under way in Stresa, Italy.  The conference, which began yesterday and will run through Sunday, is being hosted at the Grand Hotel des Iles Borromees.

 

Since 1953, the Bilderberg group has convened government, business, academic and journalistic representatives from the U.S., Canada and Europe with the express purpose of exploring the future of the North Atlantic community. According to sources that have penetrated the high-security meetings in the past, the Bilderberg meetings emphasize a globalist agenda and promote the idea that the notion of national sovereignty is antiquated and regressive...

 

Here is the partial guest list of the current meeting obtained by WorldNetDaily... – (see list)

 

Some observers are even speculating that President Bush will make an appearance at this year's event, just as Bill Clinton did at the group's 2000 meeting. By coincidence, it just happens that Bush will be in Italy over the weekend … (Read article and list of attendees at the Bilderberg Meeting in Italy)

 

The 2005 Bilderberg and the G8 are both scheduled to be in England next year.  As usual the site of the secret summit has not been revealed. Yet the word is out that the number one location for the 2005 Bilderberg summit may be at the Waddesdon Manor in Great Britain.  This French Renaissance-style château was built for Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild between the years of 1874 to 1889.  Here he was able to display his extensive collection of art, furniture by the French royalty, Savonnerie carpets, Sèvres porcelain as well as important portraits by Gainsborough and Reynolds and works by Dutch and Flemish masters of the 17th century.

 

Rothschild’s Waddesdon Manor, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, UK 

 

Also at Waddesdon is one of the finest Victorian gardens in Britain that is world famous for its landscaping with specimen trees.  On the grounds is also a Rococo style aviary with exotic birds and in the wine cellars are thousands of bottles of vintage Rothschild wines.  This will be an exquisite place for future leaders of the coming global government to meet with possible attendance by the future Antichrist, the future world national leader himself. 

 

France Welcomes Back U.S. Veterans – June 4, 2004

PARIS (AP) - With armfuls of gifts, France on Friday welcomed back American veterans who helped free Europe from Nazi occupation when they landed on Normandy's beaches 60 years ago. 

 

D-Day Normandy Invasion World War II Panoramic Photo

 

One hundred former World War II fighters saluted and waved as they climbed off a chartered Air France plane that brought them from Washington, D.C., to receive France's highest honor at D-Day anniversary commemorations this weekend.  Several leaned on canes as they walked down a red carpet on the tarmac at Charles De Gaulle Airport outside Paris. Many wore military caps and medals on their chests, some toted video cameras and all placed hands over their hearts when a French military band played "The Star-Spangled Banner." They sang along, too, to "La Marseillaise," the French national anthem, whose words they had practiced on the flight...

 

French Veterans Minister Hamlaoui Mekachera promised the Americans they'd find a warm, grateful welcome here.  "For the French people of 2004, just like for the French people of 1944 ... you are true heroes," he said. "We are fully aware of what we owe you, we have not forgotten the immense sacrifices that you have made for the liberation of our country..."  (Read entire article)

 

Bush Honors D-Day Heroes in Normandy – June 5, 2004

COLLEVILLE-SUR-MER, France (Fox News) - Standing among the dead and before the dwindling number of living World War II veterans, President Bush on Sunday saluted U.S. soldiers who gave their lives on D-Day and proclaimed, "America would do it again for its friends." He promised the white-haired veterans who 60 years ago stormed the beaches of Normandy, turning the tide of the war: "You will be honored ever and always by the country you served and the nations you freed."

 

Keep Us Flying above All World War II War Poster

 

The emotional morning was made even more solemn following the death Saturday of former President Ronald Reagan -- a hero and ideological role model to the current White House occupant. French and American flags flew at half-staff in his memory.

Bush recalled Reagan's visit to Normandy 20 years ago. "He was a courageous leader himself and a gallant leader in the cause of freedom, and today we honor the memory of Ronald Reagan," he said.

 

Bush stood beside French President Jacques Chirac at the Normandy American Cemetery above Omaha Beach. They joined in a wreath-laying at a memorial, which was followed by a 21-gun salute that spewed smoke into the blue sky, a somber rendition of taps and a flyover by four fighter jets.  U.S-French relations have been strained recently over Iraq but neither president mentioned that, even indirectly. "America is our eternal ally, and that alliance and solidarity are all the stronger for having been forged in those terrible hours," Chirac said.  Bush said "our great alliance of freedom is strong, and it is still needed today."...

 

The massive Allied operation west of Paris was the largest amphibious invasion in history, drawing together more than 130,000 troops, 5,000 ships and 11,000 aircraft. At the cemetery, 9,386 American servicemen are buried. Another 14,000 were interred there when the war ended, but later were exhumed and buried at home as their families wished...  (Entire article)

 

France agrees to back Iraq resolution – June 8, 2004

France has declared that it will vote for a new United Nations resolution on Iraq, clearing the way for the handover of power to an Iraqi administration at the end of the month... French officials said they would back the draft text tabled by America and Britain after it was changed to include more detailed provisions on how much control Baghdad will have over coalition military operations...

 

John Negroponte, the US ambassador to the UN, talks to his French counterpart, Jean-Marc de La Sabliere

 

Diplomats expect the resolution to be passed by a 15-0 majority in the UN Security Council when a vote is held later today. John Negroponte, the American ambassador to the UN, described the text as an "excellent resolution". "Iraq is entering into a new political phase, one where it is reasserting its full sovereignty," he said...

 

Washington and London have been keen to seal the resolution before the start of the G8 summit of world leaders in the southern American state of Georgia.  The resolution gives the interim government the right to order coalition forces out of Iraq and says that the administration's mandate will expire in January 2006, although it is hoped that elections will be held next January.

The unanimous vote by the UN Security Council endorsing Sovereign interim government in Iraq – June 8, 2004

 

What happened?  For a brief moment of time the French government who stood opposed to the United States, suddenly, under the atmosphere of global unity and harmony, participated in the UN Security Council Resolution on June 8, 2004.  They affirmed the acceptance of “the sovereign Interim Government of Iraq that will assume governing responsibility and authority by 30 June 2004”....  They also affirmed “that the rule of law, national reconciliation, respect for human rights including the rights of women, fundamental freedoms, and democracy including free and fair elections” will be upheld.  The role and responsibility will now lay on the United Nations.  This august body of national leaders approved that a “multinational force shall have the authority to take all necessary measures to contribute to the maintenance of security and stability in Iraq.”  For students of the ‘time of the end’, watch Iraq.  This may be the model for every nation of the world.

 

In spite of all the cordiality of the G8 meeting, casual observers remarked on how sullen and out of step President Vladimir Putin appeared with the rest of the G8 leaders.  With the global observation that the Russians are moving politically, militarily and economically towards their political ancestors, the Persians, we find the following articles enlightening.  As we see with Russia, we find that under the banner of democracy, the models of governance can be quite fluid.  On the heels of the Putin’s State of the Nation speech, the G8 meeting while his ambassador was participating in the unanimous of the UN resolution on Iraq and the participation of a multi-national force within that country, we also find the Russian government solidifying its authoritarian political state.  This month Russia reaffirmed its commitments to completing Iran’s nuclear plant, backing the North Koreans in the six party nuclear talks and building a light water nuclear reactor in Pyongyang, while raiding the offices of Yukon, owned by imprisoned political rival, billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovdky and economic nemesis.  Where does Russia stand in the future super-states of the proposed future world government? 

 

Putin takes aim at outside forces – State of Nation speech shakes human rights groups – May 27, 2004

MOSCOW (IHT) - President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that foreign "political, economic and media pressure" was being used in an attempt to weaken Russia in a global competition. In a televised State of the Nation speech, Putin singled out private groups here that he said claimed to support the welfare of the people but were in fact serving other foreign and domestic masters for pay.  His words, which harked back to Soviet times, caught human rights advocates and other civic organizations off guard, and seemed to provide a rationale for future restrictions on their activities. "Far from everyone in the world wants to see an independent, strong and confident Russia," Putin said.

He was greeted with applause by the 800 deputies at a joint session of Parliament when he said: "The strengthening of our statehood has sometimes intentionally been interpreted as authoritarianism. I would like to state in this connection: There will be no review of fundamental principles of our policy."

For the most part, Putin's speech outlined general goals of prosperity and social well-being. "Our goals are absolutely clear," he said: "High living standards in the country, with life safe, comfortable and free, a mature democracy and a developed civil society and the strengthening of Russia's position in the world..."

Putin has made stability a watchword for his administration and this appears to involve a centralization of power and tightened control over independent organizations, including civic groups and the press. Rather than defending "the real interests of the people...(Read entire article)

Russia Pledges to Finish Iran Reactor  - May 19 2004

BERLIN (Moscow Times) - Russia will finish a nuclear reactor in Iran despite technical complications, unresolved commercial issues and strong objections from the United States, a senior official said Friday. Sergei Antipov, deputy head of the Federal Nuclear Power Agency, said strict UN controls will ensure no fuel can be diverted to build a nuclear bomb. The United States accuses Iran of trying to build such a bomb under the cover of what Tehran insists is a peaceful nuclear energy program based around the planned $800 million Russian-built reactor at Bushehr. Antipov said Moscow will supply fuel for the reactor only on the condition that spent fuel be returned, although he said the commercial terms for this have not yet been agreed with Iran. "Definitely, that is our demand. Otherwise we won't supply it," Antipov said in an interview during a visit to Germany. "The only question that's being discussed is price." He said the Iranians are arguing that Moscow should sell the fuel more cheaply if it is going to take it back at the end of the reactor cycle. "It's a commercial issue, not a defense or technical question," he said. (Finish article)

 

Russia poised to become oil King, with Saudi security risks, world has little choice – June 4, 2004
Insight/News - The terrorist attack in the Saudi Arabian city of Khobar over the weekend may have tremendous implications for international petroleum markets, Western security and Russia's standing in the world. With Saudi Arabia's security risk on the rise and fears that violence will increase there, the world has little choice but to turn to Russia as a source of secure – and reasonably priced – petroleum exports...

 

Russia is poised to assume leadership of crude-oil export markets, the implications of which also could significantly affect Russia's domestic political and economic order... For Putin the present is very secure – too secure for some, who view the Russian president as a growing autocrat. Putin has good reason to feel confident. Since 1999, Russia's petroleum production has increased 48 percent, primarily on the back of flows from new wells. Producing 9 million barrels of oil a day, Russia is the world's largest producer. Due to almost unprecedented global demand, the Kremlin's coffers receive an additional $1.5 billion per month, and a number of petroleum-market experts claim high prices last year made up about 3 percent of Russia's 7.3 percent gross domestic product growth. Experts also estimate that each dollar above the yearly average of $22 per barrel adds 0.25 percent to GDP.  (Peter Lavelle is an independent Moscow-based analyst and the author of an electronic newsletter on Russia, Untimely Thoughts.)  (Read entire informative article)

 

Russia backs N. Korea in nuke talks, A sign of Moscow colluding with communist regimes? – June 5, 2004
Geostrategy - Moscow is backing North Korea in the six-party nuclear talks and recently raised the issue of continuing construction of a light water nuclear reactor for Pyongyang.  Russia's role in raising the reactor issue, which the United States opposes, is a sign of collusion between Moscow and Pyongyang at the talks, U.S. officials said.

 

The U.S. told the North Koreans that the reactor construction, which was suspended in December, could be resumed if Pyongyang first agrees to a complete dismantlement of its nuclear programs and a return to international nuclear monitoring and inspections. Moscow last week called for providing North Korea with "security guarantees" and economic aid as a way to resolve the nuclear issue. "Giving proper security guarantees and extending economic and humanitarian assistance to North Korea would contribute decisively to ensuring stability in the peninsula and the security of countries situated there," said Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko. (Entire article)

 

The pursuit of economic security for the United States by taking control of the Middle East oil has been suspected to be the underlying motive for the invasion of Iraq.  The prophetic picture of Revelation suggests that the whole world will be drawn to the Middle East.  The politically correct global mantra is that solving this quest is to impel the Nation of Israel and the Palestinians to sign an Israeli – Palestinian ‘Peace for Land’ Accord.  This is the central strategy for stable global energy, and stable economic and political security around the world.  Is it not interesting that the international media portrays the stark image of this planet as running out of ‘liquid gold’.  The fact that without oil and gas, the engines of the world industrial economy will grind to a halt is probably false?  Yet understanding the origin of oil may show that petroleum resources may not be a dwindling source of energy but rather a renewable source of oil. 

 

Sustainable oil? – May 25, 2004
WorldNetDaily - About 80 miles off of the coast of Louisiana lies a mostly submerged mountain, the top of which is known as Eugene Island. The portion underwater is an eerie-looking, sloping tower jutting up from the depths of the Gulf of Mexico, with deep fissures and perpendicular faults which spontaneously spew natural gas. A significant reservoir of crude oil was discovered nearby in the late '60s, and by 1970, a platform named Eugene 330 was busily producing about 15,000  barrels a day of high-quality crude oil.

 

The Siljan Ring project in Sweden and the sight of “burning water” fuels the mystery of the origin of hydrocarbons

 

By the late '80s, the platform's production had slipped to less than 4,000 barrels per day, and was considered pumped out. Done. Suddenly, in 1990, production soared back to 15,000 barrels a day, and the reserves which had been estimated at 60 million barrels in the '70s, were recalculated at 400 million barrels. Interestingly, the measured geological age of the new oil was quantifiably different than the oil pumped in the '70s.

 

Analysis of seismic recordings revealed the presence of a "deep fault" at the base of the Eugene Island reservoir which was gushing up a river of oil from some deeper and previously unknown source. Similar results were seen at other Gulf of Mexico oil wells. Similar results were found in the Cook Inlet oil fields in Alaska. Similar results were found in oil fields in Uzbekistan. Similarly in the Middle East, where oil exploration and extraction have been underway for at least the last 20 years, known reserves have doubled. Currently there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 680 billion barrels of Middle East reserve oil...

 

He was quoted as stating that "competent physicists, chemists, chemical engineers and men knowledgeable of thermodynamics have known that natural petroleum does not evolve from biological materials since the last quarter of the 19th century..." If Dr. Gold and Dr. Kenney are correct, this "the end of the world as we know it" scenario simply won't happen. Think about it ... while not inexhaustible, deep Earth reserves of inorganic crude oil and commercially feasible extraction would provide the world with generations of low-cost fuel. Dr. Gold has been quoted saying that current worldwide reserves of crude oil could be off by a factor of over 100. (Read entire article)

 

Remember China? - While the war on terror rages, China's assent to great power status continues apace. – June 17, 2004
Weekly Standard - A recently released Pentagon report provides a stark reminder that America needs to keep an eye on developments in the Far East…. The first report on China, which was reluctantly released in June of 2000, stressed China's overwhelming focus on a potential conflict erupting across the Taiwan Strait. China reacted to the victory over Iraqi forces in the 1991 Persian Gulf War by stressing the modernization of its forces and the development--or purchase--of precision-guided munitions, including cruise missiles, laser-guided bombs, and short-range ballistic missiles... The Chinese also learned from Operation Allied Force in 1999, which stressed the need for a capability to strike targets at long range using air power and to leverage space for greater battlefield information and intelligence. Allied Force also offered lessons to the Chinese in the need to counter U.S. space systems, prompting increased development of anti-satellite weaponry and computer hacking attacks, previous reports state. And China recognized the importance of denial and deception; placing a greater emphasis on the ability to camouflage equipment, mask transmissions, and fortify complexes below ground.

 

THIS YEAR'S REPORT, which was released May 28, builds on previous ones.... According to the report, the Chinese military high command recognized the speed and shock of the American assault on Saddam's forces and its ability to maintain lines of supply and logistics within a non-linear battlefield. Gone was the idea that one nation need only long-range precision airpower to dominate another. The Chinese military also sees the global war on terrorism in a larger context, …not as steps toward a lasting security, but rather as further solidifying a U.S. global hegemony….China has increased defense spending over the last several years, more than 11 percent in 2004 to $25 billion--though the report admits the exact amount of Chinese defense expenditures remains a close-held state secret. Increased resources have gone toward the purchase of advanced Russian attack aircraft, accelerated space programs (including manned flight and intelligence satellites), and the deployment of ballistic and cruise missiles. Additionally, China has put an increased emphasis on coordinated command and control...

"PLA (People’s Liberation Army) theorists and planners believe that future campaigns will be conducted simultaneously on land, at sea, and in the air, space, and the electronic sphere," the report states. "As more advanced weapons, sensors, and platforms enter the inventory and training begins to reflect multi-service operations, further development of a joint operations capability may provide the PLA with significant enhancements to its overall military capabilities..."  The potential for superpower competition in East Asia has not diminished, as these yearly reports show, nor has America's need to keep abreast of the military progress of the communist nation in order to guard against any surprises…(Critical article on the understanding of future role of China in global military engagement)

 

Beijing's social contract is starting to fray – June 4, 2004

Even the most optimistic believers in the Chinese Communist party's prospects could not have foreseen its extraordinary run of good luck since the crackdown that took place in Tiananmen Square 15 years ago today...Economically, the party's drive for rapid growth has tripled China's gross domestic product. Internationally, the country is gaining respectability and influence. Domestically, the regime has kept a tight grip on power and prevented the emergence of any credible organized opposition groups...The acceleration of globalisation in the 1990s gave Beijing a huge boost as China became an attractive destination for foreign direct investment and gained competitive advantage as a low-cost manufacturer. From 1990 to 2003, more than $480bn in FDI flowed into China, accounting for 97 per cent of all FDI China has received since it opened up in 1979.

 

At home, Beijing's rulers determinedly pursued a so-called "neo- authoritarian" development strategy, which was centered on maintaining high rates of growth through embracing globalisation and economic reforms. Socially, the party allowed more personal freedoms... Politically, it mixed sticks with carrots, repressing dissidents who dared to challenge the party's authority while co-opting new social elites such as private entrepreneurs and professionals. The party has even withstood the shock of the information revolution. Predictions to the contrary notwithstanding, the government is now firmly in control of the internet-based flow of information within its borders.

 

However, Beijing's neo-authoritarian strategy, which has served the party so well since Tiananmen, is unsustainable. Its single-minded focus on high growth has produced massive financial and social problems...As a result, the implicit social contract between the party and the people - grudging acceptance of the party's rule in exchange for growing personal freedom and prosperity - is at risk of unravelling. Most important, that social contract rests on fragile political foundations...Yet China's neo-authoritarians ignore the self-destructive logic embedded in a regime that allows no constraints on its power... Eventually, the state that was supposed to nurture development degenerates into a predatory regime... Despite all its economic achievements since Tiananmen, China's progress towards a more open and democratic society has stalled. Contrary to its promises, the party has done little to strengthen the rule of law or expand democracy. Predictably, unconstrained power has spawned perhaps the most voracious official corruption in Chinese history as many members of the party, sensing the unsustainability of the current status quo, rush to cash in their investment in the regime.

 

This destructive dynamic threatens China's future and the party's own survival. The Communist party must rewrite its social contract with the Chinese people and start a process of political reform before its luck runs out. (Author Minxin Pei is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace) (entire article)

 

The month of summits continued through the end of June.  First in Ireland came the EU-US summit on the heels of the NATO summit in Istanbul, Turkey.  Pulling one-third of all the security forces in the island of Ireland to protect Bush and the visiting dignitaries, the unifying support between America and The EU was solidifying as they met in Dromoland Castle far away from the protesters in Shannon.

 

Dromoland Castle, Clare County, Ireland

 

After the Ireland Summit, George Bush went directly to Istanbul to the NATO Summit seeking commitments of NATO to train the Iraqi military.  The results may depict that NATO is truly in its waning years as a non-official military order run by a non-elected ‘Quintet” which is more like a paper tiger.

 

Bush asks EU leaders to support new Iraqi government at US-EU Summit – June 26, 2004

Newmarket-on-Fergus, Ireland (CNN) -- President Bush asked NATO and the European Union to put disagreements over the war behind them and help the U.S. rebuild Iraq, saying "the bitter differences are over."

President Bush and Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern at news conference outside Dromoland Castle

 

In Ireland for a EU-U.S. summit, Bush said people in Iraq are looking for freedom and reform. "We are listening to their voices," he said. During a joint news conference with Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern and EU Commission President Romano Prodi, Bush said he looks forward to an increased international effort in Iraq.  He also said he hopes NATO responds "in a positive way" to Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's request for help in training Iraqi security forces...

 

Bush vowed that the U.S. will "complete the mission" in Iraq before leaving and labeled terrorist mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi a problem "because he is willing to kill innocent people in order to shake our will and shake our confidence. He is willing to use death to stop the advance of freedom."  Bush said al-Zarqawi wants Allawi to lose his will and surrender but Allawi is "a man of courage and backbone" who believes in the "aspirations of the Iraqi people."

 

The leaders also released a joint statement on Iraq. In it they said they would work to help Iraq with its financial obligations.

"Debt reduction is critical if the Iraqi people are to have the opportunity to build a free and prosperous nation," the statement said. (Text of statement)  Bush left Ireland on Saturday afternoon and headed to Turkey where he will attend a NATO summit beginning Monday. (Entire article)

 

EU leaders adopt constitution – June 18, 2004

BRUSSELS (USA Today) — European Union leaders agreed Friday on the first constitution for the reunited continent, spelling out the voting system and nations' rights for the bloc's 25 members but keeping out any reference to God, officials said.

 

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder with EU President Romano Prodi

 

Leaders adopted the constitution about an hour after receiving the final translated text. They then toasted the historic charter with Champagne. "The message is that we can create a new era for Europe," Irish Foreign Minister Brian Cowan said. However, the selection of the new president for the EU's executive Commission was delayed because of continuing disagreement...

 

Despite last-minute lobbying from Pope John Paul II, a reference to Europe's Christian traditions did not make it into the text – something Spain, Poland and several other countries sought, several diplomats said. "At a moment when a new order is being born in old Europe, Spain cannot fail to bring forth among its many contributions the express manifestation of its Christian roots," John Paul said in a Vatican City meeting with Spain's ambassador.

 

France and others say this would violate the principle of separation of church and state. (Read entire article on the constitution for the first globalist’s super-state)

 

The day NATO came Unstuck – July 5, 2004
The Australian Times - Last week's NATO summit in Istanbul saw the end of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as a serious military alliance.  On the steep hills above the Bosporus Sea, 26 world leaders gathered, protected from huge anti-war demonstrations by tens of thousands of police.

 

The two-day summit was NATO's largest, with Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia having joined in March. Yet if NATO has grown by more than a third this year, its power has shrunk. In military might, it seems able to muster only a glorified police force, if that. For all the effort of the summit, it managed to squeeze out only a tiny band of soldiers to help quell the violence in Afghanistan. That was the only test NATO had to pass last week and it failed.

 

The moment NATO died was when George W. Bush and Tony Blair stepped up to the podium to announce the transfer of sovereignty in Iraq, 48 hours earlier than expected. It was a show-stopping stunt that grabbed the world's attention. But it entirely upstaged the summit. It was a showy, historic moment, but one in which NATO had played no part. It was a decision taken quickly and secretly by the US and the Iraqi Government – exactly the kind of feat that NATO cannot manage.

 

The two beaming leaders stood on a platform decorated with NATO insignia. But that was inappropriate: they represented the coalition of the willing, not NATO. Bush uttered the word NATO once, and Blair diligently uttered a few sentences about NATO, asserting that it would have an important role in training Iraqi security forces. But that miniature commitment, barely even a token, represents a failure, and a fracture of the alliance...

 

Despite Istanbul's failures, it would be wrong to write off the value of NATO entirely. Many of its members, particularly the newest ones, are delighted to be part of the club, and value the promise of protection if they are ever attacked. That is worth something. Yet NATO's fading reputation took a heavy hit last week.

A popular quip has been that, if nothing else, NATO could help guard the Olympics. That is no joke; it may be all that is left. Bronwen Maddox is foreign editor of The Times. (Read article)

 

Let Freedom Reign – The Legacy of President George W. Bush – June 28, 2004

President Bush received confirmation of Iraqi sovereignty, then wrote, .Let Freedom Reign!, during the opening session of the NATO Summit in Istanbul, Turkey, Monday, June 28, 2004.  (Read announcement speech by Bush and Blair)

 

The Phantom body which runs NATO - July 28, 1999

The Guardian (archives) - NATO officially ceased to exist on April 25, 1999 when the 50-year mandate expired while the military alliance was celebrating its birthday at the Washington summit. No new mandate has been publicly launched since then except for the fact that it dropped its previous stated policy of only carrying out military action in defense of its members.

This new aggressive policy was graphically illustrated by it's illegal and terroristic attacks on Yugoslavia which left thousands dead.

Not only does NATO not officially exist, but a secretive and unofficial five-power inner circle known as "the Quint" which decides its policy also has phantom-like qualities. "The Quint" took a leading role in setting NATO policy during the war against Yugoslavia and seems set to continue despite some resentment. The kitchen cabinet of Foreign Ministers of the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Italy formed a steering committee that dictated policy during the war in daily telephone conferences...

French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine lifted the lid on the group in a candid interview in the newspaper Liberation earlier this month.  "The real core of the conduct of the matter was the daily contact among the five Ministers. We discussed things openly. It wasn't a clash of national viewpoints; we created a real dynamic. It was a rare diplomatic and human experience which we are trying to perpetuate", Vedrine said. (Read the unofficial shadow power of NATO)

 

Early Iraq Handover Signals Serious Loss of Ground – June 28, 2004

DEBKAfile - The US-led coalition administration of Iraq came to an end at a hasty, secretive ceremony in the most heavily protected corner of Baghdad Monday, June 28, 48 hours ahead of the scheduled June 30 date. US administrator Paul Bremer handed the document to interim president Ghazi al-Yawar, who was flanked by prime minister Iyad Allawi and justice minister Dr. Malik Dohan Al-Hassan.

 

Not a single American or Middle East television station was allowed to broadcast the epic occasion live from coalition headquarters in the Green Zone. Only after the fact was it made known in Istanbul, as forty-four world leaders assembled for their annual NATO summit...

 

In this lengthy and serious article, DEBKAfile makes several observations:

 

• The precipitate handover looks less like a coolly reasoned move and more like a counsel of desperation, or even the loss of control by coalition leaders.

• Military and intelligence experts question the value of the powers handed over to the interim Iraqi government and its ability to establish stability and security when 80 percent of the new 260,000-strong Iraqi army are untrained or disloyal - many have been caught collaborating with Iraqi insurgents fighting US and coalition forces.
• European powers insist on training the troops outside Iraq. According to intelligence estimates, once tens of thousands of Iraqi security personnel reach Europe, most will go AWOL from their training facilities and claim the status of political refugees. The mass exodus will leave the newly empowered government in Baghdad worse off than before and even more dependent on American forces. Europe, for its part, will be landed with a new refugee problem.
• Attempts to train Iraqi forces in Jordan last year have proved unsuccessful. As soon as they crossed the border, they were penetrated by undercover agents sent in by Iraqi guerrilla forces and returned home implanted with subversive cells.
• Iraq’s interim foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari, in Istanbul for the NATO summit, explained the move in a nutshell. He said power was transferred ahead of time in view of “the deteriorating security situation.” In other words, the Americans and British passed a hot potato to Baghdad before the brew heated up still further.
• Iraq’s interim foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari, in Istanbul for the NATO summit, explained the move in a nutshell. He said power was transferred ahead of time in view of “the deteriorating security situation.” In other words, the Americans and British passed a hot potato to Baghdad before the brew heated up still further. 

 

US ex-administrator Bremer left the hornets’ nest of sovereign Iraq behind him when he made haste to depart Baghdad on Monday. (Read entire article)

 

Strange Bedfellows: 'Imperial America' Retreats From Iraq – July 4, 2004

New York Times - In the end, the American proconsul slipped out of Iraq with scarcely a word. L. Paul Bremer III pronounced the country a better place than the one once littered with Saddam Hussein's torture chambers, thanked the officials who had served with him on the now defunct Coalition Provisional Authority, bestowed power on the new Iraqi prime minister, Iyad Allawi, and was gone. It was a low-key exit reflecting problems that Mr. Bremer, and perhaps any American, could not resolve. Iraqis, in their vast majority, were pleased to be freed of their dictator and were mesmerized by his first appearance in court last week, but they have no wish to be ruled by the United States.

 

The Age of Empire is passed, and governments throughout the world were uncomfortable with what they saw as the brazen exercise of American authority over a country reduced to vassal status through force of arms. Mr. Bremer, a Christian ruling a Muslim country, could not fail to be a lightning rod to Islamic extremists in Iraq and beyond. Perhaps "proconsul," with its echoes of imperial Rome, is a harsh word for the former administrator of Iraq. I met Mr. Bremer last December in his office in Mr. Hussein's bizarre Republican Palace, built in the despot's favored Mesopotamian Fascist style. He was businesslike, determined and self-effacing. But the setting, an ornate monument to a tyrant, seemed to capture all the irreconcilable contradictions of his role.

 

Mr. Bremer's mission was to bring freedom and democracy to Iraq. Yet he proposed rule "of the people, by the people and for the people" from a palace inside a sprawling fortress known as the Green Zone, where he was severed from contact with the life of average Iraqis. (Finish provocative article)

 

U.S. control of Iraq betrays founding fathers – July 4, 2004

Baltimore Sun - Whatever the founding fathers had in mind as the definition of democracy when they approved the Declaration of Independence 228 years ago today, it cannot possibly have been the condition that has developed under American control in Iraq today. There, under the mantle of democracy-making, a bloody, tawdry, secretive, tragic and sometimes farcical condition exists. The events of the past week demonstrated as much.

 

Iraq was made sovereign. But not really. The handover of authority from the U.S.--led coalition took place ahead of schedule and in secrecy. The American viceroy, L. Paul Bremer III, left quietly, with no accolade of gratitude for his service to America or to Iraq. His replacement, as the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, John D. Negroponte, presented his credentials to an Iraqi government handpicked not by the Iraqi people, but by Negroponte's government....Someday there may be real democracy in Iraq. If that day comes, it may be because a legitimate Iraqi leadership was inspired by the nobility and eloquence of America's founding fathers, the common sense and decency and honesty of their motivations. Not much of that exists among their political descendants in Washington today. (Thoughtful)

 

U.S. May Cede Legal Custody Of Hussein, Ex-Leader Would Stay In American Hands – June 16, 2004

BAGHDAD (Washington Post) - The United States intends to transfer legal custody of former president Saddam Hussein to Iraq's interim government if asked by the country's new prime minister…but would continue to retain physical custody of Hussein until the Iraqi government has an appropriate detention facility to hold him….U.S. officials said Tuesday that the physical turnover of prisoners is likely to come much later than June 30 because of the shaky security situation caused by a relentless insurgency against the U.S. occupation. Speaking at the White House, President Bush said Hussein and other senior figures of his Baath Party government would be turned over to Iraqi custody only when "appropriate security" is in place...

 

For the Iraqi government, obtaining legal custody could provide an important symbolic boost to ballast its authority after June 30. But Iraqi leaders have indicated that assuming physical custody of Hussein could pose problems for them. Hussein, who inspired fear among Iraqis for a quarter of a century and ordered the execution of many, would be a prisoner like no other in Baghdad. He has long been the focus of hatred for millions of Iraqis who suffered under his rule. But his loyal followers, including many of those in the insurgency, also could seek ways to rescue him from captivity. The United States has held him in a secret location since his capture last December….

 

A special tribunal has been created in Baghdad to try Hussein and top officials of his government. The president of the tribunal, Salem Cahaba, has said that prosecutors will seek to charge Hussein and his lieutenants with genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in connection with his government's repression of ethnic Kurds and Shiite Muslims. Among the incidents likely to figure prominently in the charges are the use of poison gas against Kurdish villages in 1988 and the bloody suppression of a Shiite insurrection after the 1991 Persian Gulf War….(read entire article)

 

Saddam stands defiant before Iraqi court – July 1, 2004

China People’s Daily Online - Court hearings ended Thursday, July 1, for Saddam Hussein and 11 of his top lieutenants, reporters at the court said. Among those in court besides Saddam to hear charges against them were former Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz and Hassan Ali al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali" for his alleged role in using poison gas against Kurds and Iranians...

 

Saddam Hussein in Court

 

But although Saddam Hussein has been overthrown and captured, he had not lost his defiance.

"I am Saddam Hussein, president of Iraq," he told a hearing where he was read seven charges, according to pool reporters in the courtroom at Camp Victory, a sprawling US base that was previously a lavish hunting estate with a manufactured lake.

 

"This is all theatre," Saddam said. "The real criminal is (US President George W.) Bush..."

Pictures of Saddam Hussein at his court hearing, looking haggard and with a neatly trimmed beard that had mostly turned grey, were broadcast around the world yesterday shortly after the proceedings. Saddam was wearing a dark grey jacket over a white shirt, with no tie. It was the first footage shown of the ousted Iraqi leader since photographs and videotape taken after his capture in December....

 

Courtroom once his palace

In a makeshift courtroom in a Baghdad palace complex where he once indulged friends with hunting and fishing trips, Saddam Hussein arrived in handcuffs yesterday to face charges of crimes against humanity. The courtroom is close to the palace in the middle of an artificial lake stocked with fish on the southwest fringe of Baghdad. Members of Saddam's inner circle used to go hunting in the grounds, and soldiers say Saddam's playboy son Uday used one of the palace buildings for his assignations. The complex is now Camp Victory, a sprawling US military base where top US generals in Iraq have their headquarters. Nearby is Camp Cropper, a high-security detention facility where Saddam and his lieutenants are believed to be held...(Lengthy article)

 

Israel and the Middle East

 

The Testimony of the Indomitable Jew by the American Agnostic, Mark Twain - 1887

 

Mark Twain – “If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but ONE PERCENT of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of star dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly the Jew ought to be hardly heard of; but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contribution to the world's list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also way out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvelous fight in this world, in all ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and be excused for it. The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded away to dream-stuff and passed away. The Greek and the Roman followed and made a vast noise, and they are gone.  Other people have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in the twilight now or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no showing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?”  (Mark Twain, Concerning the Jews, Harper’s Magazine, September, 1887)

 

Former French Prime Minister Michel Rocard calls Israel's creation a "historic mistake” – June 21, 2004

Former French prime minister Michel Rocard said last week that the 1917 Balfour Declaration leading to the establishment of a sovereign Jewish state had been an "historic mistake."  Rocard, a member of the French Socialist Party who also serves in the European Parliament, told an audience at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Alexandria, Egypt, on June 16 that Israel was an "abnormal case in the world."

Referring to England's promise to create a national homeland for the Jews in Palestine, Rocard described the Israel state as a "unique and abnormal condition because it was created with a promise, and that millions of Jews gathered from all around the world, creating an entity that continues to pose a threat to its neighbors until today," the Palestinian International Press Center reported.

Rocard drew attention to the fact that Israel was historically created on a "racist basis," depending on armed conflict to set its borders. Rocard referred to the colonization of the Arab world, of which his country was involved in, as the main reason behind the current state of violence and conflict in the Middle East...

Rocard, who served as prime minister of France between 1988 and 1991, is a front-running candidate for the presidency of the European Parliament, EUobserver.com reported last week.

Rocard: Sharon creating anti-Israelism
In April 2002, an open letter from Rocard, published in the daily Le Figaro, accused Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of "producing worldwide anti-Israelism." (Entire article)

For an international leader whose political vision stands in stark opposition to the Lord of hosts who proclaimed through the prophets, “This land is Mine and this land is for My people”, former French Prime Minister Michael Rocard complained that the 1917 Balfour Declaration was a ‘historic mistake’.  Did the Eternal One make a “universal mistake?” 

Interesting Times: Bush and the Jews – June 3, 2004

Jerusalem Post - The atmosphere was electric. Some 4,500 delegates to the largest AIPAC conference ever were so excited they were giving ovations to announcements about President George W. Bush before he even walked into the room. And when he did speak, he could barely get to the applause lines, he was interrupted so many times by cheering and 21 standing ovations...

 

Yet the surreal aspect was the knowledge that, when it comes to the Jews, John Kerry does not have to worry. Bush will be lucky to poll 60% of the people in that room, who were by definition those who care deeply about Israel. Among American Jews generally, someone in the Bush White House told me his support was expected to go up from 19% four years ago to only 25% today.

 

Bush's rapturous reception shows that the anti-Semites are both right and wrong to tag Jews as being part of the "war party." Right because many Jews know that evil must be fought, whether because of the Holocaust, the current rise in anti-Semitism, or the continuing terrorist offensive against Israel. Wrong because even more American Jews will not only vote against Bush, but many of them share the visceral Bush-hatred that has developed among American liberals.

 

How can this schizophrenia be explained? That being liberal and Democratic has become integral to the American Jewish identity is hardly new. What is somewhat surprising, however, is that the post-9/11, post-intifada zeitgeist that fueled that AIPAC audience's embrace of Bush has not swept the Jewish community as a whole...The cheering AIPAC audience seemed to get it. Will the bulk of American Jewry get it now, or when it's too late? (Fascinating article on the Jew vs. Jew Syndrone)

 

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict will have a resolution.  At least that is what the prophets appear to indicate.  It is a social-political myth that all social groups must be lumped into neat little boxes and treated as though they are the same.  Give us all a break.  We are autonomous human beings and responsible each one of us to our Creator.  Yet, if we can label them, maybe we can control them.  That is the secret of the globalist.

 

President George W. Bush, a Texan, has the not-so-kind caricature of being labeled the “Cowboy President”.  To a ‘redneck’ in Texas, this title for the President would be an honor.  To a New Yorker, it would be a pejorative.  So also we put labels and pejoratives on the Palestinians and the Jews.  For some reason, labels and caricatures no longer seem to fit.  The world appears to be confused.

 

On the other hand, most Americans really do not care what goes on in the Middle East much less Israel.  As self-absorbed as we are, we would rather the terror and the discord would really go away so that we can get on with our selfish lives.

 

This text may be a little premature as we are not in the 6^th vial plague, but the concept to understand is the same.

 

Revelation 16:13-14 – “And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.  For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and to the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of the God Almighty.” 

 

As the angelic hosts of the powers of darkness are demoted lower and lower in the vast dimensions of the heavenly spheres, the unholy power of the demonic forces will oppress us greater and greater.  Politicians, the media anchors, the syndicated writers, the church leaders, the ‘voices of the people’, if they do not speak the truth with all the transparency that is involved, they will become more and more the spokesmen for the demonic forces. 

 

The Lord of hosts speaks again to Zechariah, “In that day, I will strike every horse with confusion and its rider with madness.”  (Zechariah 12:4) The confused political solutions to the ‘madness of the terrorist operative and our response to them, challenges the statesmanship of any seasoned politician. 

 

This is one of the mysteries of the Jewish people. Here was a land that for seventeen hundred years nobody wanted.  When you remove the Jewish presence from Israel, the land becomes a barren desolate desert.  The Romans drove the Jewish people out of Jerusalem in 70 CE and renamed their land after their bitterest nemesis, the Philistines, now the modern Palestinians. Palestine became a wasteland.  The Moslems under the descendants of Mohammed the Great took over the land but the land would not response to their touch.  All the Islamic faith could do would be to usurp the holy sites of the Jews and call them their own.  The Ottoman Turks stripped the land of the last remaining trees and the land became the curse of the world. Bring the Jews back to the land and the hills erupt with fruit, olives, vegetables and grain.  The forest sent their spires upward to the heavens. 

 

Does democracy have natural roots in the land of Israel?  The walls of the United States Supreme Court and the halls of Congress affirm that the principles of law and justice came from the Hebrew-Judaic traditions.  Principles of democracy are a natural to the Hebrews.  Did not the God of Israel ask them, “Choose you this day whom you will serve”  (Joshua 24:15) So today in the land of Israel there are about as many political parties as there are political opinions. 

 

Will democracy ever be accepted by the Palestinians?  Yes!  That beacon on Jerusalem that became the ‘light on the hill’ will someday draw their ‘enemies’ to it, some with  jealousy and with the purpose of destruction and some with admiration of those that carry with them the vestige of the wisdom of Solomon. 

 

Survey: Palestinians want democracy 'like Israel' – June 5, 2004

JERUSALEM (Jerusalem Post) - Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza strip view Israeli democracy as the preferred model for a regime that they would like to see applied in a future Palestinian state, according to a survey released at a conference in Jerusalem last week.

The Palestinians rank Israeli democracy even before Western democracies such as the US, France, Germany, and others, according to surveys conducted by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research.

 

The findings of the surveys were presented by the director of the center, Khalil Shikaki, during an international workshop for auditors of democracies held at the Israel Democracy Institute in Jerusalem. Shikaki said the surveys that his center has conducted since its foundation in 1996 consistently show that a majority of Palestinians views the structure of the democratic regime in Israel as a model that they would like to institute in a future Palestinian state.

Participating in the international workshop on auditing democracies were researchers and directors of research institutes who deal with democracy audits from the US, Russia, Ghana, Slovakia, Serbia, India, Thailand, Ukraine and Bulgaria. (Article)

 

Frustrated Palestinians Say Arafat Out Of Control- PA is a one-man show, run by Yasser Arafat – June, 2004

Jerusalem (CBN) - Recently, a growing number of Palestinian Arabs have spoken out against corruption, anarchy and lawlessness within the Palestinian Authority. While it is a less publicized phenomenon, some observers say it represents a significant development within Palestinian society. On March 2, gunmen assassinated Khalil Zaban, a special advisor to Yasser Arafat, in Gaza City. Press reports said his widow called her late husband a victim of anarchy. His daughter called her father's killers "gangs" and "a mafia." The killing is one of the latest examples of what it is like to live in Palestinian-controlled areas.

 

"Total anarchy, total chaos and lawlessness," remarked Khaled Abu Toameh, an Arab journalist. He told CBN News what he has seen and heard in Palestinian-controlled areas. "The Palestinian areas are sliding very rapidly to a state of chaos. There's no Palestinian authority. There's no Palestinian law, and many gangs are roaming the streets, killing people, innocent people. They are responsible for rape. There is armed robbery, political assassinations and you name it. It's total chaos..."

Toameh and other Palestinians say armed gangs, operating under the guise of ideology, have created a criminal reign of terror over the lives of many Palestinians. It's called by some, "the chaos of the weapons." One of the recent victims of this chaos is the mayor of Nablus, Ghassan Shaka'a...Toameh said, "For the first time, Palestinians are telling Yasser Arafat to put an end to the lawlessness and anarchy, and ‘don't tell us it's the occupation. The Israeli occupation has nothing to do with this. This is an internal problem and if you don't solve it, then we could have a civil war.’"

 

This situation is not new to Arafat. He spawned similar conditions in Jordan in the 1970's, Lebanon and South Lebanon in the 1980's and Israel in the 1990's and beyond. Arafat seems unwilling to crack down on these armed groups, many of whom are loyal to him. But in the midst of the chaos, Dan Diker, reporter for Israel's I.B.A. (Israel Broadcasting Authority) News says there are calls for democracy within Palestinian society.

Diker commented, "It's very clear that there are many, well-educated, peace-loving men and women who are not great friends of Israel, who will never be Zionists. However, they are committed to a concept of the rule of law and a democratic society, and they shun violence as a political card, and these people can be found on the local levels throughout Judea, Samaria and the West Bank."

He continued, "One doesn't hear those voices, because the Palestinian Authority is essentially run by a dictator, and that's Yasser Arafat..."

 

Diker remarked, "There is a real democratic infrastructure - both psychological infrastructure and physical infrastructure - for democracy in the Palestinian areas, and Palestinian society just needs the leadership. And Abu Mazen, meaning Mahmoud Abbas, was one of those reformers that definitely shunned violence as a political card, and there are more. There are others. But nothing is going to happen as long as Chairman Arafat is still running the show." (Very insightful article)

 

Egypt Intelligence Chief Omar Suleiman tells Arafat: Reform or be removed – June 1, 2004

Egyptian Intelligence Chief Omar Suleiman has reportedly warned Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat to relax his grip on the reins of Palestinian power or face the possibility that Egypt and the US will cease to block Prime Minister Ariel Sharon from carrying out his threat to "remove" the chairman.

 

According to a report Monday in the pan-Arab Al-Quds-al-Arabi, Suleiman handed Arafat three demands: First, to unite all the Palestinian security forces under one command authority, and into three components. These include the police, the Preventative Security Service (equivalent of Israel's General Security Service), and the Palestinian foreign security service (equivalent of Israel's Mossad).

Secondly, give PA Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei complete authority to conduct negotiations with Israel over Ariel Sharon's unilateral disengagement plan.

Thirdly, stand aside and accept a symbolic position and let others lead the Palestinian Authority. If these demands are not met, the Egyptian-American shield saving Arafat's life may be removed, Al-Quds-al-Arabi reported.

(Article in full)

In February, 2004, Biblesearchers Reflections brought an article on the mystery of the Amelekites and their genetic hatred towards the descendants of Isaac and Jacob.  Yaser Arafat and Saddam Hussain are classic examples of ‘Amalekites’.  They have only one burning passion; “destroy the Jewish people and drive them out to the sea.” 

 

The mystery of the Amelekite deepens when we recognize that with the refusal of King Saul to kill Agag and the last remaining tribes of the Amelekites, he also extended the royal privilege, according to the rabbinic sages, to share his concubines with the king.  The genetic hatred of Amalek moved into the Hebrew gene pool.  So today we find Jews who have as much hatred towards the spiritual identity of their people and the God of Israel as the Palestinians.

 

The day will come when the Lord of host will declare, “I will cut off the pride of the Philistine (Palestinian), and I will take away the blood from his mouth (venomous hatred towards Israel) and the abominations from his teeth (slaughter of women, children and the elderly). But he (the Palestinian) who remains shall become as an ‘aluf’ (a peaceful element in Jewish society even he shall be for our God (Zechariah 9:6-7 parts). 

 

The “pride of the Philistine” and the “abomination between his teeth” can be found in the tunnels at Gaza that instead of being used for humanitarian aid are used rather for weapons of war.  The Palestinians will someday take control of their destiny.  The “king shall perish from Gaza” (Zechariah 9:5) and the Palestinians “shall become like a “clan” or “governor in Jerusalem.”  (Zechariah 9:7) 

 

Palestinians Plot “North Korean Tunnels” to Erase Israel-Egyptian Peace Frontier – May 23, 2004

DEBKAfile - Israel’s Rafah Operation, now in its sixth day, differs substantially from the 2002 Jenin battle in its strategic and existential scope. This time it is not just about the Palestinians and Israel, or even short-term security. The IDF is fighting in Rafah against the Palestinian appetite for expansion, the drive to extend its claim on the Gaza Strip to include the Israel-Egyptian border zone abutting on Sinai.

Rafah Tunnel patterned after N. Korea military tunnels

 

This internationally recognized frontier was embodied in the peace treaty the two countries achieved after Egypt renounced war. Demolishing everything this accord stands for is the underlying objective of the Palestinian smuggling tunnel system and their constant harassment of Israeli border patrols securing the Philadelphi border route. Documents Israeli troops found at the outset of Operation Rainbow expose Palestinian determination to push Israel out of its positions on this international border and sabotage a key clause in the first peace accord Israel signed with an Arab nation...

According to one detailed document, which Israeli commanders suspect may have been left behind to instill fear and demoralize the troops, Palestinian policy-makers ask: why expend man hours and funds on small tunnels? Instead, think big and go for the invasion tunnels the North Koreans built in the seventies and eighties for the purpose of nullifying the defensive value of the heavily fortified frontier running through the demilitarized zone dividing the Koreas.

 

Our military experts recall that, while the South Koreans and Americans were building the most heavily fortified frontier on earth, the North Koreans were burrowing deep beneath these defenses – between 70 and 160 meters - to build at least four subterranean passageways large enough to carry an invading regiment with field artillery. Some experts calculated that, if 30,000 troops could traverse each tunnel in one hour, all four hidden conduits could channel a horde of 120,000 North Korean combatants over to the other side. A whole army would then spring out of the earth on the South Korean side as far south as the outskirts of Seoul. Pyongyang would catch US and South Korean forces unawares after staging minor surface clashes to divert them from the brunt of the North Korean war effort.

(Read article to see the threat of weapon tunnels)

 

Palestinians turn on tunnel men – June 6, 2004
RAFAH, Gaza Strip (Reuters) - Mustafa used to fear little but a periodic Israeli army raid as he dug arms smuggling tunnels into the Gaza Strip for the Palestinian revolt. Now he has to worry about the neighbors too...

Palestinian Bidoor Masri clutches a teddy bear as she stands with belongings in front of her family's destroyed house in the Brazil section of the Rafah refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip

 

But communal support for the smugglers has cooled as Israeli forces have razed more and more parts of Rafah said to be hiding tunnels. With 13,000 people now homeless, many of whom say they concealed nothing, residents are turning on the tunnel men. "Many people now oppose our work. I know of cases where people have noticed others digging a tunnel and they have assaulted them," said Mustafa, a veteran Rafah tunnel builder who declined to give his family name.

 

Residents have staged no public protests against the tunnel networks for fear of seeming disloyal to the uprising in Rafah, which is dominated by militant factions. But the tunnel issue has become the talk of the town, with many residents privately urging tunnel builders to cease, and threatening them and their families if they do not. The backlash has grown since a six-day Israeli siege of Rafah in May that killed 42 people, militants and civilians alike and displaced hundreds after a spate of demolitions.  Some tunnels have been blocked off by irate residents concerned their adjacent homes might be bulldozed or blown up during the next Israeli army sweep. Many in the sprawling cinder-block camp of 80,000 people fret that the spread of tunnels has given raiding Israelis leeway to flatten any housing in their way...

 

Tunnels are mostly dug by night, but by day too if inside a house. Builders once equipped only with short-handled hoes now have access to earth-moving machines. The tunnel men say only light arms can be slipped through shafts measuring some 60 cm (two feet) across and 80 cm (two and a half feet) high -- too small for heavy weaponry like Katyusha rockets which Israel says the militants are trying to import. The tunnels cost an average of $20,000 (11,000 pounds) and several months of secret, backbreaking, often dangerous work to complete -- two builders were killed recently when one caved in on them. Tunnelers sometimes stay up to 12 hours underground thanks to equipment ensuring a supply of clean air. "We may eat and drink tea and even smoke cigarettes," said Mustafa...Prices are soaring as a result. The cost of a Kalashnikov bullet has doubled recently to 30 shekels (3.50 pounds). (Entire article)

 

Israel creating 'remote control' border - Star Wars-like system will identify, kill terrorists – June 19, 2004

WorldNetDaily - The Israeli military is developing a "remote control" border with the Gaza Strip, including unmanned sensor patrol cars and computerized observation posts that would automatically spot and kill terrorists, an IDF official said. An army think tank has been working on a new border design to cut down on the number of troops deployed at the Gaza border after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's unilateral withdrawal plan takes effect next year, said the official yesterday.

 

The group, working with Israel's high-tech sector, has put together a computerized observation system that will identify "hostile elements" for the IDF, and upon human authorization, will fire deep into Gaza. The system itself will recommend the most appropriate weapon to use to hit a specific target. The technology was secretly built years ago by Israeli firms, and is now in the testing and approval stages. In addition, the army is testing unmanned patrol cars that can identify and defuse explosives by remote control. Currently, the IDF uses robots to defuse bombs tha1t already have been identified by other means. While Israel is developing these high-tech defense strategies, it also is putting to use a centuries-old tactic to defend its border.

 

As WND reported Thursday, the Jewish State is constructing an 80-foot-deep moat, possibly to be filled with water, between Egypt and Gaza as a way to block Palestinian terrorists from constructing arms smuggling tunnels. The moat would be deep enough to block terrorists from digging tunnels underneath it. The army has said it found and destroyed more than 80 tunnels in the past three years, and Israel has voiced fears the Palestinians are seeking to bring in longer-range mortars and Katyusha rockets that could be fired from open spaces at communities deeper inside Israel. (Entire Article)

 

Sharon vows to keep Jerusalem undivided – June 16, 2004

JERUSALEM (Jerusalem Post) - Whatever painful concessions Prime Minister Ariel Sharon may decide to make in the quest for peace, Jerusalem will not be one of them. Jerusalem will remain the undivided, eternal capital of the Jewish people, Sharon pledged on Wednesday evening at the dedication ceremony of the capital's Menachem Begin Heritage Center.

 

Coming at a divisive period in the annals of the Likud, Sharon's promise generated resounding applause from the huge audience of mostly hard-core Revisionists and Likud members from around the globe. They apparently ignored remarks last week by Industry, Trade, and Labor Minister Ehud Olmert, who said he envisions at least six outlying east Jerusalem Arab neighborhoods being transferred to full Palestinian control in the future….

 

The ceremony was very reminiscent of Begin himself – a mix of high drama with nostalgia. The drama was in the spectacular views and in the magnificence of the multi-arched building. The nostalgia was in the faces in the crowd, many of whom had accompanied Begin through various stages of his odyssey. Some had been his ministers, others had served on his staff, and there were some whose relationship with Begin went back to the days of the Irgun...

 

Recalling Begin's heartache when he had to uproot settlements in Sinai within the framework of the peace accord with Egypt, Sharon said that, even though it broke his heart, Begin saw it as his duty to make painful concessions for the sake of peace.

 

"This is one of the lessons I learned from Menachem Begin," he said. (Read all)

 

No Comparison Between Settlement Evacuations Then -- and Now, Some Say – June 17, 2004
Jerusalem (CybercastNewsService) - When Israeli citizen Yael Noyman settled in the Gush Katif settlement of Neve Dekalim 21 years ago, the Israeli government told her it was the most important place to live. She had just been evacuated from the Sinai settlement of Atzmona as a result of the Israeli-Egyptian peace accords mediated by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter at Camp David. Now Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is pledging to move Noyman for a second time, along with her husband, children and some 7,800 other people living in 22 Israeli communities in the Gaza Strip. The evacuation is part of Sharon's U.S.-backed unilateral "disengagement plan."

More than 1.2 million Palestinians live in crowded conditions in the Gaza Strip, but the Israelis there are quick to point out that the Israeli communities were built on uninhabited sand dunes -- and the businesses and agriculture they have developed now provide employment for the local Arab population. In a speech in Jerusalem on Wednesday, Sharon said that his disengagement plan follows in the footsteps of the late Prime Minister Menachem Begin, who signed the first-ever peace agreement with an Arab nation, Egypt, in 1979. That agreement led to the removal of some 5,000 residents of Israeli communities built in the Sinai Desert.  Several years before that, Israel built more than 20 settlements and two major towns - Ophira and Yamit - in a 30-mile stretch in the Sinai desert along the Israeli-Sinai border as a security buffer zone…

But Israelis removed from those Sinai settlements 20 years ago -- who now live in Gush Katif at the southern end of the Gaza Strip -- say there is no comparison between the Sinai evacuation back then and Sharon's disengagement plan now." It is impossible to compare the evacuation of Yamit and the evacuation of Gush Katif," said Noyman, 42, a mother of six. "All the area of the strip of Yamit [in the Sinai] was comparatively young - seven or eight years - before the agreement was signed," she said. Some residents of Gush Katif have been living there for more than 30 years; she added…"Today we know that we are giving up a big factory of life [vibrant community] really for nothing. [The Palestinians] are not promising us anything. It's not that they're promising us anything and they're not honest; they're not promising us anything in exchange!" she said.

But what really bothers Noyman, she said, is the non-democratic way that the process is taking place. Prior to the Sharon's Likud party referendum, in which a majority of Likud members voted against the disengagement plan, members of Gush Katif worked day and night to mobilize opposition to the plan, she said…The ministers whose opinions were unfavorable in Sharon's eyes were fired. Sharon ignored the results of the vote and actually he's doing what he wants to do," Noyman said. (Sharon skirted the results of the referendum and brought the plan to a cabinet vote, firing two cabinet ministers before the government vote on the plan in order to make sure it would pass.) (Read the human side of Israeli government versus Jewish people)

The control of the Nation of Israel by the Europeans and especially the British globalists is happening today. The fading glory of the British Empire ended in part when the new Jewish Irgun fighters drove the British out of Palestine in 1948. The British Mandate in Palestine effectively ended.  That humiliation to the old British ‘Lion’ by the young ‘lions’ of Judah has not been forgotten by the power brokers in Britain today.  The political movements by Great Britain today have their roots in trying to restore their former glory days in the 30s and 40s. 

 

Israeli Settlements Come under… MI6 Surveillance – June 13, 2004

DEBKAfile – The Israeli government is getting ready to offer down payments to voluntary evacuees from 21 Gaza settlements and four West Bank locations that Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon plans to remove by the end of 2005…Broad hints that the first comers will get the best deal have been thrown out already. The bargaining is clearly about to begin.

 

DEBKAfile’s Palestinian and Jordanian sources reveal that Jordan’s King Abdullah is offering non-returnable “mortgages” – cash on the nail – to high Palestinian officials willing to purchase and move to luxury villas in Amman….The Amman villas come with a proviso: purchasers must list their new addresses on their calling cards. Their dual residency is intended to provide Jordan with a foothold at Palestinian Authority headquarters in Ramallah and represent the king’s interests on the West Bank…

 

Both are anxious to stall momentum on the Mubarak-Blair-Sharon project, on which White House national security adviser Condoleezza Rice has been briefed, for Egypt to send 150 instructors to Jericho to set up a new training academy for intelligence and special operations officers. These instructors are to double as the nucleus of the projected Egyptian military intelligence presence which will work in harness with British Secret Service MI6 agents to supervise the reorganization (called “reforms” in the Middle East road map) and operation of Palestinian security and intelligence bodies…

 

In important respects it is an offshoot of President George W. Bush’s limited gains from the Europeans and the United Nations on Iraq; jocular encounters and amiable speeches have so far yielded no offers of troops or authority to fly NATO or UN flags over the US-led multinational force….

 

Britain, which already has troops in Iraq, was the only European power prepared to jump back into the Palestinian-Israel conflict, in its own inimitable fashion and for its own reasons. Tony Blair believes fervently that restoring Britain to Arab favors as a lead player in the Middle East is the key to Britain’s revival as a political and economic power... MI6, the operational arm of British expansion, historically opted for the Middle East camp opposed to Israel and cultivated a special relationship with Yasser Arafat going back decades.

 

Strictly speaking, Egyptian intelligence invented the Palestinian national leader and used his services between the 1960s and well into the 1990s. Even today, the Egyptian official assigned to keeping tabs on him is intelligence minister General Omar Suleiman…

 

The British have performed two key services for the Palestinian cause: A. They sponsored the concept of Palestinian statehood as a means of reducing the Jewish state to what London considered its natural dimensions, sitting behind Arafat’s shoulder and lobbying the international case for a Palestinian state year after year until it was taken up by President Bush.

Few Israelis are aware of the pivotal role parts of MI6 through the British Foreign Office played over the years in developing and shaping Palestinian diplomatic and PR strategy, helping to make the Palestinian cause far more resonant internationally than the Israeli case – even when Arafat openly espoused and practiced terrorism.

B. They instigated the first Palestinian uprising against Israel in 1987; it was not provoked by Arafat then still in Tunis or even the PLO leadership, but MI6 agents operating in the Rafah refugee camp of the southern Gaza Strip…But, despite these five obstacles, Blair’s chances of making progress towards his goal are a lot better now than they were in 1987.

For one thing, President Bush owes him a big favor for standing alongside the United States in Iraq. MI6 agents may therefore swarm over the West Bank under fairly lax control from Washington. For another, the British path is paradoxically eased by the Israeli prime minister’s office’s spin campaign around Sharon’s disengagement plan and the Israeli media’s readiness to buy uncorroborated reports presenting Egypt and European governments as eager to accept a role in the plan’s execution and lavishly fund its costs….

 

Last Thursday, June 10, Israelis were afforded a rare glimpse in the sky of Venus passing the sun; on the ground, they saw the MI6 in action. Israeli radio announced dryly that a group of British intelligence officers had visited Jenin and carried out surveillance of Israeli settlements…..That was not the end of the matter. DEBKAfile’s Washington sources report that shortly after the incident was discovered, the British premier handed the US president at the Georgia G-8 summit a secret intelligence report that was a clear signpost to where the Blair government is heading. The report claims the Palestinians have made a good start on cracking down on terrorists – except that they are severely hindered by… the IDF. Israel’s Shin Beit and its troops – and their unremitting efforts day and night, year after year, to keep Palestinian suicidal terrorists at bay – rate no mention in the MI6 report except as an obstacle to Palestinian good intentions. The London report, our sources learn, was handed to other leaders attending the summit. A copy was even addressed to Ariel Sharon and another to Yasser Arafat. This development raises some interesting questions about the game developing around the Israeli prime minister’s disengagement plan (Critical Report to understanding the role of Britain in the future of Israel)

 

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is the first Muslim prime minister since the modern secular Turkish republic was formed.  In this western oriented Middle Eastern nation, it is the hopes of the Turks to become the first Muslim country to join NATO in 2005.  The political posturing of Turkey will reflect the European vision of the Middle East.  Thence comes the increasing anti-Israel rhetoric of the PM Erdogan of the one Muslim country who use to firmly stand as an ally of Israel.   

 

Turkish PM: Israel treating Palestinians as they were treated – June 6, 2004

ISTANBUL (Haaretz) - In his first interview to a member of the Israeli media following growing tensions in bilateral relations sparked by Israel Defense Forces operations in Gaza, Erdogan says there is no way to describe such actions except as "state terrorism..."

Turkey and Israel are bound by strong and ongoing relations. In your view, has there been a recent change in attitude on the Turkish side, or by the Turkish government, with regard to Israel?

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan: 'Israel is not contributing to the peace process.'

First of all, regarding our relations with Israel, they must be understood on several different fronts. One is the relationship between the governments, and the other is between the peoples. And another way of looking at our relations would be through our political, economic, trade and social ties.

When we look at relations on the level of the peoples, we cannot even conceive of any problems. As far as the Turkish side is concerned, there are no problems here. It isn't even on our agenda. There might be different evaluations by some individuals or some marginal groups, but as far as the Turkish government is concerned, our view with regard to the people of Israel is very objective.

But at the level of the government, we are in favor of the peace process being regenerated, and the government of Israel has not contributed to our efforts to do so. Why am I saying this? I would have wished that a government, a cabinet, would not decide to carry out an assassination, because governments should never put aside the law...

The special relations between Israel and Turkey are unique in another sense - the close relations between the Jewish state and one of the greatest Islamic states are, and should be, a model for the way in which common ground can bridge over differences and diversities. Do you think that these relations will survive the actual crisis?

If the parties are sincere, yes. The relations are strong enough to overcome the difficulties. We should never forget this. Our forefathers, at their strongest time in history, opened up their hearts to the Jews who had been driven out of Spain at the time of the Inquisition and opened up their hearts and homes to the Jews. Jews were the victims at that time.

Today, the Palestinians are the victims, and unfortunately the people of Israel are treating the Palestinians as they were treated 500 years ago. Bombing people - civilians - from helicopters, killing people without any considerations - children, women, and the elderly - razing their buildings using bulldozers. When I explained all this to your minister of energy, his response was 'only a friend can be this sincere and talk this openly.'

You see both history and geography force us to speak out on this matter. When we get to the roots of our mutual history and when we analyze the geography, we have to be honest with each other and talk about our concerns. There was a terrorist attack in Turkey on the 15th of November.

I took all the relevant ministers with me, and we personally visited the chief rabbi of this country, just as I visited all the injured Jewish citizens of my country - one by one - in their hospital beds. Because I could not have discriminated against them. They are all my citizens, the Muslims and the Jews and everyone else. I am the prime minister of all of them, not only of the Muslims. I was the first prime minister who ever visited the chief rabbi in the history of Turkey.

How, in your view, can a country protect itself from terrorism?

It is not the problem of only one country. Terrorism is an international phenomenon. We have to establish a joint plan to fight terrorism. The intelligence agencies of various countries should be in real cooperation with each other. If a mutual platform to fight terrorism can be established, we can achieve some results.

But while doing so we must never forget one thing: We have to take on this challenge, fight this struggle, within the framework of human rights and the supremacy of the law. Saying `I am the strong one, so I can name anyone I want as a terrorist and anyone I want as a criminal and just kill them and go' - that mentality is wrong.

We have to be in solidarity if we want to serve global peace. We have to go hand in hand; humanity does not want to see anymore bloodshed or death. All those responsible [for the bloodshed] are losing their credibility with every passing day. You must have followed at least as much as I did what kind of reactions the pictures of the abuse in Abu Ghraib prison received...

I would like to send 'Shalom' to all the citizens of Israel, especially the ones who have emigrated from Turkey. (More)

 

The Diamond is called the ‘girls best friend’, yet it did not occur to me until this month that the fate of the diamond industry in entwined with the fate of Jerusalem.  There would be virtually no faceted diamonds without the Jewish gem cutters and the Jewish merchants who send them to the far reaches of the globe.  The Jewish engraver is known from the earliest of civilizations.  Born in the delta of Egypt, it was a Jewish gem cutter who engraved the letters in Hebrew on the gemstone on the high priest’s ephod at the site of Mount Sinai.  It was the Jewish mason who used the industrial diamond bit saws to cut the stone for the temple of Solomon.  

 

With the Euro-Arab Leagues’ threat to the Belgium merchants and gem plus the expose of the Nigerian – al-Qaeda underground diamond trade, the al-Qaeda terrorists are trying to corner the diamond markets in order to funnel their vast wealth from one country to another.  Taking possession of the Sierra Leon diamond mines only reminds us of the Black Nationalist’s threat for ‘White slaughter in South Africa’ and that it may be only a matter of time before they go for the mother lode of the world diamond industry, the heart of the DeBeer’s diamond dynasty.

 

In the future, when the young bride looks on her finger, she may not see the symbol of love and purity but the symbol of blood and hatred.  Today, many of the diamonds are now called ‘blood diamonds’. 

 

Belgian Antwerp Diamond Jewish Merchants Threatened By Euro-Arab League - April 9, 2004

Israel National News - Belgium's Jews, in particular Antwerp's Jewish diamond merchants, have been put on notice by the Arab European League (AEL).

"We want to warn Antwerp's Jewish community in its entirety to be on its guard. The community's support for Israel is no secret," Ahmed Azzuz, head of the AEL in Belgium told the Belgian newspaper La Libre Belgique. "The AEL calls on the Jewish community in Antwerp to cease its support of, and distance itself from, the state of Israel. If not, attacks in Antwerp are almost unpreventable," Azzuz had earlier told the Belgian Flemish magazine Knack, adding, "Every year, 200 Belgian-Israeli reservists leave for Israel to kill innocent civilians."

 

According to an Israel Channel 1 television report, the Jewish community is taking the threats seriously, and has already contacted elected Jewish officials, the local police and the nation's justice minister. A member of the Belgian diamond merchant's community interviewed on the program confirmed reports that members of the Jewish community are afraid and at present, refrain from being outdoors during the nighttime hours.

 

Peter Meeus reminded La Libre Belgique, "The quarter was already targeted in 1981, when terrorists attacked a Portuguese synagogue." The AEL's Azzuz insisted in the media that his statements were not threats. A spokeswoman for Antwerp police said rigorous security measures had already been introduced. (Article)

 

Former Nigerian President Taylor investigated for al-Qaida-Diamond Trade Network – June 1, 2004

Freetown, Sierra Leone (MSNBC) - Al-Qaida suspects in the deadly 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies took shelter in West Africa in the months before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, converting cash from terrorism into untraceable diamonds, according to findings of a U.N.-backed court obtained by The Associated Press.  The allegations came as part of the investigation by the Sierra Leone war crimes court of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, who is alleged have been a middleman between al-Qaida and West Africa’s multimillion-dollar diamond trade.  “We have in the process of investigating Charles Taylor ... clearly uncovered that he harbored al-Qaida operatives in Monrovia [the Liberian capital] as late as the summer of 2001,” said David Crane, the court’s lead prosecutor. “The central thread is blood diamonds...”

 

The illicit international trade in so-called blood diamonds draws on generally high-quality gems from Sierra Leone.  The trade, which helped fund many of West Africa’s wars of the 1990s, is increasingly under international scrutiny as a suspected means of finance for terrorism.

The United States estimates that $70 million to $100 million in diamonds are still smuggled out of Sierra Leone every year, despite the coming of peace and international accords to block illicit trafficking...

 

U.S. and U.N. authorities and international rights groups have long believed that Taylor was a top conduit for smuggled West Africa diamonds. Taylor is alleged to have used diamonds acquired in Sierra Leone to bankroll the 1989-96 insurgency that brought him to power in neighboring Liberia...Taylor fled Liberia in August, after the international indictments were entered, as armed opposition forces laid siege to his capital and the international community pressed for his departure. He now lives in exile in Nigeria, which offered him asylum. (Entire article)

 

Austrian minister promises to help Jews leave Iran – January 25, 2004

Jerusalem (Jerusalem Post) - After meeting with Likud MK Gila Gamliel and Agriculture Minister Yisrael Katz last week, Austrian Interior Minister Ernst Strasser promised to use his leverage in Iran to help the Jews of Iran make their way to Israel. Perhaps the only country permitted by the Iranian government to issue exit visas, Austria has until now assisted the immigration of both Christians and Jews from Iran to Austria...

 

According to Johannes Rauch, spokesperson for Strasser, the problem with applying the same philosophy of using Austria as a transit point between Iran and Israel...which could help the incoming population get to Israel. "If an Iranian Jew wants to go to Israel, we told them that we would help them," says Rauch, from his office in Austria. "We will help to get them here, but we can't build a base. Once they arrive here, they will become Israel's responsibility..."

 

Gamliel says there are currently 25,000 Jews in Iran. But, according to the Jewish Agency, whose spokesman refused to comment on the Jews of Iran given that they are a population in danger, the number of Jews in Iran is estimated to be about 15,000. (Entire article)

 

Time for Jews to leave France? - Nazi hunter says its best way to fight anti-Semitism- June 20, 2004

WorldNetDaily - How bad is anti-Semitism in France? A French Nazi hunter says it's so bad; the best way to keep up the fight is to leave the country. Six decades after the end of the Holocaust, the prominent French Nazi-hunter Serge Klarsfeld told the Jerusalem Post that French Jews should pack their bags and get out. "One of the lessons of the Holocaust is that even if you want to fight against a wave of anti-Semitism, the best [thing] is to leave if you can," Klarsfeld said during a visit to Israel. At the same time, Klarsfeld, who lives in Paris, said that he does not expect there be a great wave of Jewish emigration from France to either Israel or the U.S. because most French Jews are well off...

 

With 6 million Muslims and 600,000 Jews, France has both the largest Muslim and Jews populations in Europe.  Although the numbers fell last year, over 2,500 French Jews immigrated to Israel in 2002, double the number a year earlier and the most since 1967. Klarsfeld, 68, escaped deportation to the death camps by hiding in a closet; he spent the decades following the war in Paris as the leading Nazi hunter in France. (Complete article)

 

This Land is My Land – Bridges for Peace - 2004

Bridges for Peace - The opening line of the theme song to the movie Exodus says, "This land is mine, God gave this land to me." Of course, the movie is about the modern-day miracle of the return of the Jewish people to their ancient homeland in Israel, and they are the ones singing this song.

 

Yet today, there are many voices claiming the Land of Israel, and sadly, Israel's voice calling for the restoration of her ancient homeland is often unheard or shouted down in the halls of international agencies, the United Nations, governments, and the liberal media. It is as though four thousand years of unbroken history and attachment to this land do not qualify the Jewish people to a rightful return. In a day when the world is working to restore nations from the yoke of colonialism to their rightful ethnic, indigenous people, Israel, which has one of the most ancient claims, cannot get a fair hearing in most circles.

 

The Land of Israel really belongs to God, and He has chosen to whom it will belong. In Leviticus 25:23, He says, "The land is Mine and you are sojourners with Me."

 

Israel was formerly known as Canaan, and God by divine choice gave it to Abraham and his descendants as an everlasting possession in an everlasting covenant. It was ultimately renamed Israel and had its God-appointed capital in Jerusalem, the religious and administrative center of the nation. David conquered the city and bought the site (2 Sam. 24) where God's presence dwelt in the First and Second Temples, and Jerusalem will again be the center of the world in a Messianic day to come.

 

From Abraham to 1967

When God called Abram, He told him to go to a land He would show him (Gen 12:1). God took him to Canaan, the Promised Land, which has always been part of God's redemptive story, even unto this day. . (A most informative article for Bible believers on God’s choice of Israel as His chosen land)

 

America and the World of Terror

 

U.S. Dedicates Memorial to WWII Vets – May 29, 2004

WASHINGTON (AP) — America dedicated a memorial Saturday to the fast-thinning ranks of World War II veterans, a poignant last hurrah drawing together tens of thousands of old soldiers, sailors and heroes of the home front. Frail now, full of spunk then, they were thanked for service that "helped save the world."

 

The National Mall, where huge numbers usually gather in protest, instead offered a last-of-a-lifetime scene of commemoration as veterans assembled by the sweeping monument of granite and bronze that was more than a decade in the planning. "We have kept faith with our comrades from a distant youth," said former Sen. Bob Dole, a driving force for the memorial. An Army lieutenant in the war, Dole lost the use of his right arm when a shell hit him while he served in Italy. "What we dedicate today is not a memorial to war. Rather it is a tribute to the physical and moral courage that makes heroes out of farm and city boys, that inspires Americans of every generation to lay down their lives for people they'll never meet," Dole told a crowd estimated at 140,000 by police.

 

Many veterans gripped canes. Others sat in wheelchairs. The hardiest among them grabbed their wives and danced in the aisles when 1940s swing music wafted over the crowd. Young people came up to old people and said thanks. "I figured this would be the last time to wear a uniform," said William E. Ryan, 80, a retired colonel from Fairfax, Va., who fought in France and Germany with the Army's 3rd Infantry. He was in full-dress whites, a Purple Heart among his chest decorations.

 

President Honors Nation's War Dead

 

Covering seven landscaped acres, the World War II Memorial was built with a sense of urgency once Washington resolved to go ahead with it. Veterans are in their late 70s and in their 80s. Of the 16 million who served, only about 4 million are still alive and veterans from that war are dying at a rate of 1,056 a day.  "These were the modest sons of a peaceful country," said President Bush. "They gave the best years of their lives to the greatest mission their country ever accepted..."

 

The elder Bush, a Navy pilot shot down over the South Pacific in 1944, said the World War II generation was remarkable for the challenges it faced, but Americans today, as in any point of history, can rise to the same level of commitment. "These were average men and women who lived in extraordinary times," said Bush, who turns 80 on June 12. Singling out the D-Day invasion of June 6, 1944, he paid tribute to the millions of fighters who "helped save the world." (Read rest of article)

 

Al Qaeda targets US oil supplies, New tactic aimed at slowing US economy – June 1, 2004

JEDDAH, SAUDI ARABIA (Christian Science Monitor) – In two deadly attacks here in the past month, analysts see Al Qaeda-linked groups adopting new tactics and targets - encouraging self-organizing cells to hit soft targets in an effort to drive away Western oil workers, damage the Saudi petroleum industry, and slow the US economy.

 

Despite the weekend attack in Saudi Arabia's oil-rich eastern province in which 22 people were killed, oil operations continued uninterrupted Monday amid heightened security.

 

Oil prices hit 20-year highs of $41.85 per barrel in May but eased last week after Saudi Arabia pledged to increase production and urged OPEC to do the same... Oil industry analysts say the Khobar attack would not have the same effect. National Saudi oil company Saudi Aramco has been through 70 years of wars and demonstrations and unrest, says Hassan al-Husseini, an oil analyst and former senior planning consultant at Aramco. "Very few people, if any will quit. A few wild-eyed fundamentalists are not going to push this war-hardened workforce away." The company has not shut down its operations for even one day since the 1950s, Mr. Husseini says. Saudi Aramco employs some 54,000 people including 2,300 US and Canadian citizens and about 1,100 Europeans, the Saudi Aramco's chief executive, Abdullah Jumah, told Arab News. The expatriates are in top management and in the medical and highly specialized engineering and technical fields, says Husseini. But if they all left, oil production would not be affected he says...

.

Since last May, hundreds of militants have been arrested and dozens killed in suicide attacks and in shootouts with police. Increased security and checkpoints in all major cities and the relentless pursuit by police of some 30 trained Al Qaeda- linked fighters has netted huge weapons caches and hampered their movements. Police have found more than 10 booby-trapped cars set to explode, tens of thousands of dollars, and dozens of fake identification papers.

 

Some analysts say that going after "soft" targets, such as housing compounds rather than oil production facilities, is evidence of a terror group on the ropes. They also note that the militants are now relying on the Internet to gain and train new recruits...

 

They hit the enemy in an important economic facility which had a big effect on world oil prices which continues to this day. "Oil is the blood of the world economy and Al Qaeda want to strike at it through the Saudi facilities," says Abdullah Bjad al-Otaibi, a writer at al-Riyadh newspaper.

 

The attacks will likely lead to a terror and security premium on oil prices of between $5 to $10, says Ali Dakkak, a professor of petroleum economics at King Abdul-Aziz University. “Though OPEC's goal is currently about $25 per barrel, oil prices of $30 to $35 dollars are more realistic given the extra costs of security and fighting terrorism," Dr. Dakkak says.

The Qatari oil minister, Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiya, told reporters upon arrival in Beirut for Thursday's OPEC meeting that the oil price already reflects anxiety about production security in Iraq and Saudi Arabia. "I can say that the equivalent of $8 of a barrel price is the result of the factor of fear," Mr. al-Attiya said. "We at OPEC have done our best to remove this factor through our assurance that there won't be any supply crisis."  (Entire article)

 

European Greenhouse of Terrorism – June 20, 2004

Mariv International - Western security services should wake up. Today's dangerous terrorists are to be found in Europe rather than in Moslem countries. This is how terrorist organizations are infiltrating the West.

 

From whence comes the main danger to homeland security in North America and Western Europe?

With the exception of the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995, notes Al-Qaeda authority Rohan Gunaratna, all major terrorist attacks of the past decade in the West have been carried out by immigrants. A closer look finds that these were not just any immigrants: Of the 212 suspected and convicted terrorist perpetrators during 1993-2003, 86% were Muslim immigrants and the remainder mainly converts to Islam. "In Western countries jihad has grown mainly via Muslim immigration," concludes Robert S. Leiken, a specialist on immigration and national security issues, in a new monograph, Bearers of Global Jihad:

 

Violent acts against the West, he finds, "have been carried out largely through two methods of terrorist attack: the sleeper cell and the hit squad." Hit squads – foreign nationals who enter the country with a specific mission, such as the 9/11 hijackers — threaten from without. Sleeper cells consist of elements quietly embedded in immigrant communities..."they do not seem suspicious. They work. They have kids. They have fixed addresses. They pay the rent." Sleepers either run terrorism support networks of "Muslim charities, foundations, conferences, academic groups, NGOs and private corporations"...

 

That said, Muslim life in Western Europe and North America is strikingly different. The former has seen the emergence of a culturally alienated, socially marginalized, and economically unemployed Muslim second generation whose pathologies have led to "a surge of gang rapes, anti-Semitic attacks and anti-American violence. North American Muslims are not as alienated, marginalized, and economically stressed. Accordingly, Mr. Leiken finds, they show less inclination to anti-social behavior, including Islamist violence. Those of them supporting jihad usually fund terrorism rather than personally engage in it. Therefore, most jihad’s violence in North America is carried out by hit squads from abroad. (Serious article on how immigrants get into the target countries)

 

US Hostage Paul Johnson Killed by Al Qaeda Militants – June 18, 2004
Cybercast News Service (CNSNews) - American hostage Paul Johnson was beheaded Friday by the al Qaeda militants who kidnapped him in Saudi Arabia. The terrorist group posted pictures of Johnson's severed head on one of its websites. "As we promised the mujahedeen, we have beheaded the American hostage Paul Johnson after the deadline that the mujahedeen gave to the tyrannical Saudi government passed," according to a statement signed by the Organization of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula on the al Islam website. Johnson's captors had promised to execute him by Friday unless the Saudi government freed jailed militants…

A team of 20 FBI agents specializing in hostage rescue and negotiations had been working alongside the Saudis, according to a senior Saudi official in Washington. "More than 1,200 Saudi homes have been searched as of Thursday night. The searches continue," Reuters quoted the official as saying. More than 150,000 Saudi officers and security forces had been going door-to-door searching throughout Riyadh for Johnson over the past two days, he said.

Meanwhile, prominent Saudi cleric Sheikh Saleh bin Abdullah al-Humaid, in a sermon at Muslim Friday prayers in Mecca's Grand Mosque, reportedly denounced hostage-taking and murder as grave sins under Islam.  "Killing a soul without justification is one of the gravest sins under Islam, it is as bad as polytheism," the cleric said. "Whoever kills any person under our protection will not go to heaven. The blood of people under our protection is forbidden ... they are on par with Muslims," he added. (Article)

 

Whose Saudi Arabia? – June 10, 2004

Jerusalem Post - A country founded on the basis of Wahhabism can never be a moderate Islamic state. The population of Saudi Arabia is now under more-or-less continuous attack by terrorists, and its representatives, including its ambassador to the US, Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abd al-Aziz, have publicized their belief that all terrorists must be killed. The Saudi kingdom is treated paradoxically by Western, and even by Israeli opinion. On the one hand, many in Washington and Jerusalem continue to believe that the oil princes of the desert can serve as moderates in a Middle East peace process. At the same time, the internal reality of the country is viewed as ineffably mysterious, conservative and traditional, and its people as so indoctrinated by the bizarre cult of Wahhabism, the ultra-extremist state form of Islam, that they have become haters of freedom.

 

Which is the real Saudi Arabia? I believe Saudi Arabia, operating in the interests of its rulers' alliance with the West, may serve as a moderate Arab state. But the Saudi Arabia erected on the basis of Wahhabism can never be a moderate Islamic state. After publishing my book The Two Faces of Islam, and meeting and conversing with many Saudi dissidents, I have been confirmed in my belief that Saudi subjects do not despise freedom or modernity…..Saudi subjects have now lived under 75 years of Wahhabism. The origins of the regime may be traced to a marriage arrangement between the founder of the cult, Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, and the head of a clan, Muhammad Ibn Sa'ud, some 250 years ago. The contract was a simple one: the descendants of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab would handle religious affairs, and those of Ibn Sa'ud would govern in a new state based in the underpopulated and backward Arabian region of Nejd. That system found its most stable expression in the creation of Saudi Arabia as we know it, by King Abd al-Aziz Ibn Sa'ud in 1932, and remains in place.

 

BUT A crisis is underway in Saudi Arabia. What are its roots? .... That is that the oil wealth of Saudi Arabia has produced a growing middle class, which seeks entrepreneurial opportunities but finds its way forward blocked by the corruption and absurdity of the ruling elite, symbolized by the Sudairi princes - defense minister Prince Sultan and interior minister Prince Nayef chiefly - and their alliance with the Wahhabi hardliners. Sultan, Nayef and five of their brothers are known as the "Sudairi seven." Their mother, Hussah bint Ahmad Sudair, was a favorite among the many wives of Abd ul-Aziz Ibn Sa'ud.

 

The negative products of this alliance are obvious in such details as the Saudi ban on women driving, which is unique in the world….Even worse is the support of the regime for the world campaign to Wahhabize Islam, which produced al-Qaida, and has thus disrupted the Saudi arrangement with the United States and other Western powers.

 

The discontent of the Saudi middle class is aggravated by its access to the Internet and satellite TV, which reinforces its awareness that there is a way to live as Muslims without the dead weight of Wahhabism….In addition, there are large Muslim minorities in Saudi Arabia that have suffered unspeakable repression under the Wahhabis, chiefly the Shi'as of the Eastern Province and the southern border zone, who are subjected to extraordinary discrimination. The oil deposits are mainly in the eastern province and Shi'as are over-represented in the oil industry technical and management class. Shi'as may account for up to a quarter of the Saudi population.

 

THE WAHHABI monopoly on religious life, Wahhabi control of Mecca and Medina and Wahhabi supervision of the hajj pilgrimage also represent constant affronts to the non-Wahhabi Sunni population, who follow the earlier, more traditional and pluralistic traditions of Islamic jurisprudence - Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, Hanbali….They yearn for that time, when Islamic pluralism existed in place of Wahhabi domination. The Wahhabis have also rigorously suppressed Islamic spirituality or Sufism, which flourished under the Ottomans and has survived underground. Inside the kingdom, Sufism has begun to make a reappearance, as a form of youth protest. (Read entire seminal article: one of the best in understanding Islamic radicalism and future trends for globalism or spiritual ties with Orthodox Judaism)

 

Sadr's militia defeated by US – June 6, 2004
Baghdad (Agence France-Presse) - THE US military said today it had defeated the outlawed militia of flamboyant Shi'ite cleric Moqtada Sadr across central Iraq, and denied that there was any truce with the radical preacher.

"The Moqtada militia is militarily defeated. We have killed scores of them over the last few weeks, and that is in Najaf alone," Brigadier General Mark Hertling, one of the top US commanders in charge of Najaf. "Over the past several days, Moqtada's militia has lost much of their stomach for fighting," he said, also declaring victory in the central cities of Kut, Diwaniyah and Karbala, dogged by fighting over the past two months. "We have also destroyed their weapons stores and their offensive capability," he said. "What remains of them, which is a very small force, will take advantage of the governor's announcement to disperse if not disband. ...There is no truce between the coalition forces and the militia ... We have not conceded anything to Sadr. We have told him that when we encounter any armed forces, we will destroy them. We have done just that," Hertling said...

 

Calm returned to Najaf late yesterday after Zorfi announced that Iraqi police would patrol in sensitive areas around the shrines, which include some of the world's holiest sites in Shi'ite Islam, the US military said. "That was a brilliant move on his part, because it was one of the things the militia was asking for... (and) made it possible for the militia to lay down their arms and leave town," said Hertling. "The governor has taken his city back under control, in an unbelievably historic and courageous act. He has re-established his police force, and we are helping them train and we are helping him to arm them. (More)

 

Rebel Cleric Signals End to Shiite Insurgency in Iraq - June 17, 2004

NAJAF, Iraq (Reuters) - Radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr sent his fighters home on Wednesday in what may mark the end of a 10-week revolt against U.S.-led forces that once engulfed southern Iraq and Shi'ite Islam's holiest shrines….”Each of the individuals of the Mehdi Army, the loyalists who made sacrifices...should return to their governorates to do their duty,'' the statement said.

 

That call came a day after President Bush said the United States would not oppose a political role for Sadr -- only weeks after branding him an anti-democratic thug. Dan Senor, spokesman for the U.S.-led administration in Iraq, suggested Sadr caved in to U.S. military pressure and moderate Shi'ite clerics who brokered a truce between his militia and American forces.  “He is seeking to save face. Iraqi political leaders are working out agreements with him. He has expressed his support for the interim government, which was unheard of many weeks ago,'' ….

 

Apart from the huge casualty toll, Sadr was under pressure from moderate Shi'ite religious leaders opposed to his firebrand ways and appalled by fighting near holy shrines.  As the truce calmed the streets of Najaf and Karbala, Sadr played a new card, declaring conditional support for Iraq's interim government and announcing plans to form a political party that could fight elections due to be held by January.  “Sayyed Moqtada al-Sadr enters into political matters. But this does not mean he will enter elections,'' Sadr's spokesman Qais al-Khazali told Reuters on Wednesday.  “Our position is clear, Sadr's entry into politics will not be direct but we have ideas...There are no nominees or names suggested.''  (More)

 

Fallujah adopts Taliban theocracy, In wake of U.S. pullout, clerics impose radical regime – June 4, 2004
Geo-Strategy Direct - In the wake of the U.S. Marines pullout, the Sunni city of Fallujah has become a Taliban-style theocracy. In the city of 300,000, about 30 miles north of Baghdad, al Qaida-inspired clerics are the ruling authorities, backed by the guns of Saddam loyalists who have imposed their own version of Islamic law. The comparison to Afghanistan under the Taliban is not coincidental.

 

Many of the clerics who have taken over Fallujah either studied in Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia or were urged to adopt the Taliban example. As a result, women must cover their hair and faces. If they don't, they are beaten in the streets. Naturally, beauty parlors have been shut down.

Men have been ordered to grow beards and barbers have been warned not to shave customers. Indeed, the barbers have been given strict guidelines on what kinds of haircuts are permissible. Those selling or imbibing alcohol are now flirting with death. Already, several dealers have been flogged naked in the streets of Fallujah in full view of passersby. A man found drunk in Fallujah was also beaten to a pulp. People have been encouraged or ordered to participate in the beatings.

 

The United States has deployed the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps in Fallujah. But security officers have not intervened as Al-Qaida-inspired gunmen direct traffic, harass businessmen and look for victims on the streets. The Coalition Provisional Authority has a presence in Fallujah, but hasn't done anything either. Last month, Secretary of State Colin Powell said the United States would not object to an Iraqi theocracy. (Article)

 

Shiite Cleric al-Sadr calls on follower to resist – occupation is not ended – July 2, 2004

Baghdad (MSNBC) - Rebellious Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada Sadr warned Friday that the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq had not ended with the recent handover of limited political powers to an interim government and called on his followers to continue resisting the large presence of foreign troops in the country.

 

 "I want to draw your attention to the fact there was no transferring of authority," Jabir Khafaji, a top Sadr lieutenant, read from a letter during Friday prayers at a mosque in the southern city of Kufa where Sadr commonly preaches. "What has changed is the name only." Khafaji also demanded that the new Iraqi government defer to the Shiite religious leadership based in the neighboring holy city of Najaf. He asserted that the Mahdi Army, Sadr's black-clad militia recently decimated in two months of battle with U.S. forces, is "the army of Iraq."

 

"I ask the Iraqis to keep rejecting the occupation and call for independence," Khafaji said.  Sadr's comments, echoed by another of his top aides here in Baghdad, appeared to be a step away from the conciliatory calls for unity he made last week after coordinated insurgent attacks killed more than 100 Iraqis. His words could present an early test for Iraq's unelected government now seeking to shore up its legitimacy following Monday's handover of limited political authority after 15 months of occupation.

 

Since intensive fighting between U.S. forces and Sadr's militia in several southern cities ended in a cease-fire last month, Sadr has announced plans to form a political party and participate in national elections scheduled for January. More recently, Sadr condemned the foreign influence within Iraq's diffuse insurgency, noting that most of the victims of urban bombings have been ordinary Iraqis.  A move now by Sadr would strain Iraq's embryonic security forces and likely require intervention by some of the 138,000 U.S. soldiers who remain in the country as the chief guarantors of the interim government's stability. (Entire article)

 

Experts: Iran Ready to Take It to the Brink – June 29, 2004

Washington (Fox News) - With a dubious nuclear technology program, the capture of British sailors last week and reports of meddling in fledgling Iraqi affairs, Iran - a member of the now-notorious "axis of evil" - appears to be testing the waters to see how far it can push the West.  Some foreign policy analysts say Washington may find it difficult to fight back... The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq squandered much of the U.S. authority in the Middle East and may have damaged America's ability to get help from Muslim states to fend off threats from Iran, he said.  "We really destroyed our relationship with the Arab world, and we are now in a much weaker position with Iran," he said.

 

"Iran is drawing a line in the sand," said Alireza Jafarzadeh of Strategic Policy Consulting. Jafarzadeh, formerly linked to the Washington, D.C.- based National Council of Resistance of Iran, which has been called a terrorist organization by the State Department, has won much support on Capitol Hill for his work as a staunch watchdog of Iran’s nuclear weapons programs.

"Iran clearly wants all players in Iraq to know that the bigger and more populated and stronger neighbor is the big bully in the alley," he said...

 

Last week, experts warned the House International Relations Subcommittee on the Middle East and Central Asia that a nuclear bomb in the hands of Iran would spell imminent disaster for the United States.  "A nuclear-capable Iran, under their present leadership, could be an unparalleled earthquake, with shockwaves that could rock the foundations of U.S. vital interests in the region, at home and around the world," said Paul Leventhal, founder of the Nuclear Control Institute. Leventhal added that Iran's support of terrorist organizations could lead to the further proliferation of nuclear materials.

 

"In my opinion, the bulk of what we are seeing in terms of unrest in Iraq is being carried out both by Iranians, by those groups being supported by Iran’s money and by those organizations that are determined not to have Iraq be a stable nation," he said....

 

Most of those who spoke with FOXNews.com agreed that a pre-emptive strike like the one launched against Saddam Hussein, who had repeatedly ignored U.N. disarmament resolutions and subverted international inspectors, is not a viable option for Iran. Direct negotiations with the government or supporting internal opposition groups combined with a "carrot and stick" approach appear more feasible at this time...

 

"What would make [the mullahs] bolder and more persistent in pushing their objectives is to see indecisiveness and confusion in the international community," he said. "Tehran will only take you seriously when you are serious, when you show teeth." (Entire article)

 

A World Peace for a World Religion

 

Rev. Sun Myung Moon holds coronation at “king of Peace” at U.S. Capitol – June 14, 2004
WorldNetDaily - Dressed in a floor-length cape, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon was dubbed the king of peace at a coronation ceremony in the Dirksen Senate Office Building attended by several members of Congress. Moon is the founder of the Unification Church – currently known as The Family Federation for World Peace and Unification...

 

Rev. Sun Myung Moon

 

Several U.S. members of Congress – Democrats Sen. Mark Dayton of Minnesota, Rep. Danny K. Davis of Illinois, Rep. Sanford D. Bishop Jr. of Georgia; Republicans Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett of Maryland, Rep. Christopher B. Cannon of Utah, and Rep. Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania – received "Ambassadors for Peace" awards, Berkowitz wrote. There were reportedly 81 members of Congress total at the event.

 

"Decked-out in a campy floor-length cape, the Rev. Moon was presented with an ornate gold crown and a lifetime achievement award... "Introduced by a shofar-blowing rabbi, the reverend told the star-studded audience … that a 'new era' had come: 'Open your hearts and receive the secrets that heaven is disclosing in this age through me.'"

 

The religious leader, sounding like a self-proclaimed messiah, is quoted as saying: "In the context of heaven's providence, I am God's ambassador, sent to earth with His full authority. I am sent to accomplish His command to save the world's 6 billion people, restoring them to heaven with the original goodness in which they were created."  (Article)

 

 

Catastrophic Signs at the Time of the End

 

Dead Sea to disappear?, Experts appeal to world to save revered body of water – June 2, 2004
Experts at a water conference in Jordan yesterday warned the Dead Sea may disappear in 50 years if current conditions are maintained, prompting Jordanian and Israeli officials to appeal for international assistance to save the much-revered body of water. The sea – the saltiest water in the world and the lowest point on earth – has been dropping 3.3 feet per year for at least the past 20 years, mostly because of river diversion projects by Syria and Israel, according to experts...

 

"The Dead Sea is a unique international treasure, and it's the world's responsibility to take decisive action immediately to save this treasure," al-Nasser said. A solution proposed by Israel at the conference entails drawing water from the Red Sea through a canal to be built along the border between Israel and Jordan. The Red Sea is located at the end of the same valley that contains the Dead Sea. Altitude differences – the Red Sea is over 1,500 feet higher – would be used to flow water downward to raise the level of the Dead Sea.

 

Jordan has tentatively agreed to the plan, priced at more than $1 billion, and together with Israel will appeal to the World Bank and several countries for funding. Referred to in the Old Testament as the "Salt Sea," the Dead Sea makes for a unique natural setting. No life forms, except for bacteria, are able to live in its waters. Anyone can float without treading. Bathers from around the world visit resorts at the Dead Sea to cover their bodies with mineral-rich "black mud," which is shipped internationally by various cosmetics companies.

 

The Bible links King David, King Herod, John the Baptist and Jesus with the Dead Sea and its surroundings. The Prophets write the sea became salty during the infamous Sodom and Gomorrah story. And after the Egyptian conquest, Queen Cleopatra is said to have obtained exclusive rights to build cosmetic and pharmaceutical factories in the area.

 

Water, a precious commodity in any desert region, has also played an important role in Mideast politics. An Arab blockade and the bombing of pipelines in 1948 precipitated a major water crisis for the Jewish residents of Jerusalem during the months leading to Israel's War of Independence.

 

Yasser Arafat's bombing of water plants in the 1960s increased tensions between Israel and Syria. The Six Day War began after Egypt blockaded the Straits of Tiran, a major trading and shipping route for Israel. Water was even a sticking point at Clinton's Camp David peace summit in 2000, with both parties vying for control of major water routes. The subject continues to be a sore subject between Israel and Jordan, who share water management responsibilities. (More)

 

Knowledge shall be increased; Men shall run to and fro

 

Venus transit puts sky-watchers in heaven (June 8, 2004), Planet's last passage was in 1882 -  June 7, 2004

San Francisco Chronicle - Tonight and early Tuesday, West Coast time, the planet Venus will pass in front of the sun for the first time in more than a century…The last few hours of the Venus transit will be visible from the eastern United States, while the entire transit will unfold before the eyes of large parts of Asia, Africa and Europe….

 

Although it's a local no-show, this week's transit is still worth pondering because of its colorful ancestry. Just as the face of Helen of Troy "launched a thousand ships" in ancient mythology, the prospect of witnessing a Venus transit launched astronomers and hundreds of ships, trains and wagon trains to faraway lands in the 18th and 19th centuries. Venus transits are among the rarest astronomical events; the last one was 122 years ago. Because they're visible only from limited parts of the Earth's surface, they inspired the "big science" projects of past eras: scientific expeditions to exotic realms, such as Tahiti or the Indian Ocean. On these missions, astronomers bankrolled by the likes of King George III and Queen Victoria of Britain and the U.S. Congress set up telescopes and struggled to time Venus' passage over the solar disc with down-to-the-second precision…Capt. James Cook (then a lieutenant) ran one such expedition, which viewed a Venus transit from Tahiti in 1769. "To have seen even a part of a transit of Venus is an event to remember for a lifetime, and we felt more delight than can be easily expressed," English astronomer Sir Robert Ball wrote after the last Venus transit, in 1882, the year when Henry Wadsworth Longfellow died and Robert Ford shot Jesse James…

Innovations-Report

 

During the transit, Venus, the second planet from the sun, will appear to be roughly 1/32nd the diameter of the sun. It should resemble a perfectly circular, medium-size mole on a person's face. Only three major celestial bodies ever pass between Earth and the sun: -- The moon, which does so in the form of a solar eclipse visible from somewhere on Earth as often as a few times a year; -- Mercury, the planet closest to the sun, which transits the sun 13 or 14 times a century; -- Venus, transits of which come in pairs, less than a decade apart, once every 105 to 122 years.

 

The first transit of Venus that anyone knowingly witnessed was in 1639. It was a different world: In Italy, the elderly Galileo was still under house arrest for his heretical astronomical views. In England, where civil war was only a few years away, two Englishmen, William Horrocks and William Crabtree, were the sole known witnesses to the 1639 transit.

As Jeremiah Horrocks (1618-1641), the first observer of a Venus Transit, we can say "I then beheld a most agreeable spectacle, the object of my sanguine wishes, a spot of unusual magnitude and of perfectly circular shape". And we can appreciate the small poem he wrote after witnessing this marvelous event:

Oh! then farewell, thou beauteous queen!

Thy sway may soften natures yet untamed,

Whose breasts, bereft of the native fury,

Then shall learn the milder virtues.

We, with anxious mind, follow thy latest footsteps here,

And far as thought can carry us;

My labours now bedeck the monument for future times

Which thou at parting left us. Thy return

Posterity shall witness; years must roll away,

But then at length the splendid sight

Again shall greet our distant children's eyes.

Jeremiah Horrocks (1618-1641)

The Venus Transit 2004

 

One of the odder observers of a Venus transit was David P. Todd, a Massachusetts astronomer… In 1882, Todd traveled to Mount Hamilton, near San Jose, to snap 147 photos of the Venus transit. Lick Observatory, one of the first astronomical observatories located on a mountaintop, was still under construction at the site. A few years ago, Sheehan, the astronomy historian, and his colleague Anthony Misch, who works at Lick, discovered negatives of Todd's photos "still in good condition" in the observatory archive, Misch says in an article in the May issue of Sky & Telescope. They digitally assembled the images into a movie. Viewed at high speed, the movie shows Venus drifting across the solar face like a bird nonchalantly floating past a cloud. The movie can be viewed at NASA's official Web site for the Venus transit:

 

The Quick Time Animation of Todd’s 1882 Transit of Venus across the Sun

 

As Sheehan muses, "It's a pretty strange thing to see a movie from 1882!" -- a movie from an age when monarchs ruled Europe, Chester Arthur was U.S. president and Hollywood was still an unincorporated farming community near Los Angeles. (As for poor Todd, he died in a mental asylum in the 1930s.)

(Excellent scientific article)

 

The Next Venus Transit across the Sun will be June 6, 2012 (6-6-2006+6) – a very interesting year in apocalyptic literature.

 

Lab Creates Babies as Stem-Cell Donors – May 4, 2004

Chicago (APNews) - In a growing practice that troubles some ethicists, a Chicago laboratory helped create five healthy babies so that they could serve as stem-cell donors for their ailing brothers and sisters. The made-to-order infants, from different families, were screened and selected when they were still embryos to make sure they would be compatible donors. Their siblings suffered from leukemia or a rare and potentially lethal anemia.

 

“This is the first time embryo tissue-typing has been done for common disorders like leukemia that are not inherited, and the results suggest that many more children than previously thought could benefit from the technology, said Dr. Anver Kuliev, a Chicago doctor who participated in the research. The Chicago doctors said the healthy embryos that were not matches were frozen for potential future use. But some ethicists said such perfectly healthy embryos could end up being discarded. "This was a search-and-destroy mission," said Richard Doerflinger of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The chosen embryos "were allowed to be born so they could donate tissue to benefit someone else." Valparaiso University professor Gilbert Meilaender, a member of the President's Council on Bioethics, called the practice "morally troubling..."

 

The cases involved prenatal tests called pre-implantation HLA testing, pioneered at Chicago's Reproductive Genetics Institute. The tests are an offshoot of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, which has been done for more than 1,000 couples worldwide to weed out test-tube embryos with genetic diseases such as Down syndrome, or, more recently, for sex selection...(Read about case histories)

 

The new procedure, he noted, does not involve abortion and poses no known risks to the embryos. Furthermore, parents seeking donor babies typically are well-intentioned and love the donor children, Fost said. "Of all the reasons people have babies, this would seem to be a wonderful reason. Most reasons are either mindless sex or selfish reasons," he said.

 

Medieval sea chart was in line with current thinking – June 5, 2004
Telegraph.co UK - The 16th-century Carta Marina, complete with sea monsters, gives an accurate location for dangerous eddies. Roger Highfield reports. A satellite image of the north-east Atlantic has revealed that medieval cartographers knew much more about ocean currents than was thought.

 

The ornate Carta Marina, published in 1539, appears crude by today's standards, depicting sea monsters off the coast of Scotland, sinking galleons, sea snakes, and wolves urinating against trees.

 

But when oceanographers examined a large group of swirls and whorls drawn off the south-east of Iceland, complete with ships, a giant fish and red sea serpent, they found it corresponded with the Iceland-Faroes Front - where the Gulf Stream meets cold Arctic waters, causing huge swirling eddy currents that could sweep a ship off course.

 

The earliest known reference of its kind, which suggests generations of seafarers including the Vikings were aware of ocean eddies, is reported in the journal Oceanography by a team from the Plymouth Marine Laboratory and the University of Rhode Island. The cartographer, Olaus Magnus, an exiled Swedish priest living in Italy, covered the map with ink. But Prof Tom Rossby, from Rhode Island, believes that not every elaborate quill stroke was artistic license. "Their location, size and spacing seem too deliberate to be purely artistic expression. Nowhere else on the chart do these whorls appear in such a systematic fashion," he said. "They are the earliest known description of large scale eddies in the ocean - these are huge bodies of water, 100 kilometres in diameter, that turn slowly. It seems the lines were deliberately drawn to aid navigation. We know mariners were aware of these fronts but they would not have the tools to quantify them nor the means to express them," he said.

 

The discovery, from research part-funded by the Natural Environment Research Council, followed a discussion of the Iceland-Faroes Front at a workshop in Bergen, Norway. Shortly after the meeting Prof Rossby read Cod, the international bestseller by Mark Kurlansky, which contains an illustration of the Carta Marina. "When I turned the page and saw the map I said, 'holy s**t! These are identical to our satellite images'. I don't think I would ever have registered this had I not been in Bergen."

 

Dr Peter Miller from the Remote Sensing Group at Plymouth Marine Laboratory provided more accurate satellite information on water temperatures. "Things got exciting when I was able to provide Tom with an image of the eddy field. The data confirmed Tom's theory that the swirls on the map were not artistic license," he said. The satellite image shows how waters from the south, shown in orange and red, can be as much as five degrees warmer than the cold currents from the north, marked in purple. At the point they meet, these huge eddies form, revealed as a blue border. "Sailors would have been aware of these large rotations of water as they affected navigation," he said. "They would notice a change in colour of the water too. The cold currents to the north are generally greener than the Atlantic water to the south due to a greater abundance of plankton."  At the front, deep nutrient-rich waters move up to the surface supporting phytoplankton and grazing zooplankton. "This ready food supply brings pilot whales and other marine creatures to the front to feed," said Dr Miller.

 

The Carta Marina took 12 years to complete and contains an extraordinary amount of information. The list of towns, lakes and regions is far more comprehensive than any map before well into the 17th century.  It is one of the first maps to give Finland and parts of Russia roughly correct proportions and it is the first map to fully portray the Baltic Sea, the Finnish Gulf and the Gulf of Bothnia in the north.  Northern Scotland, the Hebrides, Orkneys, Faroes and Greenland are described in detail but so, oddly, is a non-existent island, Tile. This island may be related to the mythical northern community Thule. To the ancient Greeks, Thule was the northernmost habitable region of the world. Curiously, its location on the map puts it near St Kilda in the Hebrides.

 

The map reveals details of shipping routes at the time and warns sailors of drift ice in the north - illustrated by a stranded polar bear on a floe. Whales, sea lions, walruses, crabs and lobsters are also depicted. (Read entire article)

 

A probably more honest approach to the ancients is that there truly was a brilliant race of men, the descendants of Adam and then Noah, who lived on this earth.  The reality in these ancient Sea Maps, as noted in the article below, is that most of them were actually copies of even more ancient maps of unknown antiquity. 

 

There is the Oronteus Finaeus Map of 1513 that depict the Antarctica with mountains, rivers, streams and lakes that are today hundreds and thousands of feet under ice.  Also there exists the Piris Re’is Map of 1515 and the Mercator Map of 1538 that show the continent of Antarctica about 15 degrees to a more northern latitude than the present continent and contingent or touching the tip of South America.

 

DNA robot takes its first steps – May 4, 2004

News Scientist - A microscopic biped with legs just 10 nanometres long and fashioned from fragments of DNA has taken its first steps. The nanowalker is being hailed as a major breakthrough by nanotechnologists. The biped's inventors, chemists Nadrian Seeman and William Sherman of New York University, say that while many scientists have been trying to build nanoscale devices capable of bipedal motion, theirs is the first to succeed.

 

"It's an advance on everything that has gone before," says Bernard Yurke of Bell Labs in New Jersey, part of the team that made one of the best-known molecular machines to date: a pair of "tweezers" also constructed from DNA strands (New Scientist print edition, 12 August 2000).  

 

 

Like similar molecular-scale efforts, the tweezers' arms merely open and close: they can not move around. But for nanoscale manufacturing to become a realistic prospect, mobile microscopic robots will be needed to assemble other nanomachines and move useful molecules and atoms around.  The New York team's biped can "walk" because its DNA-based legs are able to detach themselves from a DNA-based track, move along a bit, then reattach themselves.

One small step for Bipeds: One giant nano-sized step for DNA

 

Why DNA?.. (Fascinating article)  

 

Return to July, 2004 BibleSearcher Reflections

 

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