Tuesday, January 29, 2008

State of the Union: Politics as Usual

This is just an observation from the State of the Union address by President Bush last night. It really doesn't have much to do with his address as much as it has to do with the dynamics going on in the fight for who will be the Democratic candidate for President.

Who could help noticing how forlorn Hilary Clinton looked in the several audience shots that focused on her. I felt a little sorry for her because it looked like it was taking everything within her just to sit there with an emotionless expression....except the giveaway sadness in her eyes.

Who could blame her if she was feeling down? Ted Kennedy delivered a power punch to Hilary's bid for the Democratic nomination yesterday.

Even the conservative pundits were jazzed about how awe inspiring the 3-Kennedy stamp of approval on Barack Obama had been earlier in the day. The return of "Camelot." (Oy veh. Pure fairytale.)

Now Obama sat listening thoughtfully to the State of the Union address with Senator Kennedy at his side, the senior senator's message loudly stating: 'I am protecting Obama now! Watch out, junior, a real power broker is in the house.'

Politics as usual. That's what is really scary to me. We let some of them stay there so long that they have far too much personal power. Senator Kennedy was teaching Bill Clinton a lesson: 'You can't ignore me because I still have the power to squash your dreams.' I don't think it was about what is best for the nation, but was a personal power trip by Kennedy.

I have no doubt that the Clintons will fight back. They still have their friends. Senator Biden seemed to console Hilary sitting to her side.

Still, it is a little sickening to me to see the manipulation of the public in such an important matter as the presidency all for the sake of some old politician's sense of personal power. If Bill Clinton had heeded Ted Kennedy's warning to lower the rhetoric, then we probably would not have seen three Kennedys come out yesterday to throw their backing behind Obama. Bill played his own game, however, and Teddy decided to show him he still had some major weight to throw around.

I don't want Hilary as our next president. I don't want Obama in that seat either. Neither one of them have the guts or the vision to chart the course of our nation through the shark infested waters of the international war on terrorism. But I hate seeing what politics as usual is capable of like we were seeing yesterday.

If the American people would like to see real change take place, then in the next three years they would throw the bums out who are locking up all movement in Congress because they've been there too long and amassed the political power base to keep anything from happening! We might be amazed at how much would get done with a clean sweep of deadbeats from the congressional halls. (Deadbeats being those incapable of compromise for the good of the nation.)

The biggest problem in the United States government today is the deadlock going on politically. We are like those people who were trapped in the burning nightclub a few years ago sardined in so tightly that even though they were right in the doorway, they couldn't emerge from the burning building to save themselves. That is a hell of a place to put ourselves.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

DoD Fires Top Terrorism Expert

What is Going on in the State Department and the Intelligence Agencies?!?

Here is more evidence of what we knew already—there are forces within the U.S. State Department and Intelligence Agencies who are committed to the ostrich approach to the war on terror that is against us. We are as the Germans were, poised in willful ignorance before the Nazi dam broke and they lost their ability to resist.

Last week the top Islamic Terrorism expert in the Defense Department was informed that his contract would not be renewed after submitting a report on court evidence that emerged in the Hamas/Holy Land Foundation case last year, that a Department of Defense outreach to the Muslim community was actually bringing in several groups to the DoD program that are front organizations in the pro-Jihad Muslim Brotherhood.

The Defense Department Muslim outreach program is headed by Hasham Islam, a close aide to Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon R. England.

The dismissal of the Islamic terrorism expert will effectively “halt the career of one of the U.S. government's most important figures in analyzing the nature of extremism and ultimately preparing to wage ideological war against it.”

Officials said Stephen Coughlin was let go because he became “too hot” within the Pentagon. On January 4, the Washington Times reported that Major Coughlin was being fired for his work and was "accused directly by Mr. Islam of being a Christian zealot or extremist 'with a pen,' according to defense officials." The report noted that after a meeting with Hasham Islam, Coughlin was being pressured "to take a softer line on Islam and Islamic law elements that promote extremism".

After the ambush of President Bush by several hostile bureaucrats within the national intelligence agencies emerged last month in the NIE report saying Iran was probably not still pursing nuclear bomb-making, and the CIA leak while President Bush was in Israel last week disclosing a 30-year old top secret assessment of Israel’s nuclear capabilities, there can be little doubt that domestic saboteurs of the U.S. administration’s war on terror are actively undermining our ability to protect ourselves from stealth tactics of radical Islam within the United States.

Other nations have awakened to the threat and changed course, including France and Germany. If Christians will not awaken to the threat before them and begin to listen to the leaders who are telling them the hard truth of the ongoing nature of this warfare we must engage in and not try to pretend is not in full swing, then we will find ourselves swamped by the floodtides of an internal enemy that overtook the German people sixty something years ago.

Wake up American Christians, a great stumbling is at the door and its desire is for you.

Read Stephen C. Coughlin’s July 2007 thesis “To Our Great Detriment”: Ignoring What Extremists Say About Jihad submitted to the faculty of the National Defense Intelligence College in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Science of Strategic Intelligence.

In comments made at the National Defense University on 1 December 2005, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Peter Pace explained to his audience the importance of “understand[ing] the nature of the enemy” if we hope to defeat jihadi extremists. Comparing our situation today, with that faced by an earlier generation who had to deal with the reality of the Nazi threat, General Pace suggested a simple solution to complying with his injunction: “read what our enemies have said. Remember Hitler…. He said in writing exactly what his plan was that we collectively ignored to our great detriment (emphasis added).” Just as we ignored Hitler’s articulation of his strategic doctrine in Mein Kampf, so too are we on the verge of suffering a similar fate today, if we fail to seriously assess the extremist threat based on jihadi strategic doctrine.

Introductory Quotes from Coughlin's paper:

The Chairman’s Charge

However absorbed a commander may be in the elaboration of his own thoughts, it is sometimes necessary to take the enemy into consideration.

Sir Winston Churchill, as quoted in FM 34-130,
Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield
.

And I know there is an international jihadist movement that desires to do us harm and they have territorial ambitions. The reason I know that is that's what they've told us. And part of their territorial ambition is to have safe haven in Iraq. That's what they've said. That's what the enemy has clearly said. And it seems like to me that the Commander-in-Chief ought to listen to what the enemy says.

President George W. Bush
Rose Garden Press Conference
June 14, 2006

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Bush visits Israel Holocaust Museum

For everyone who has heard bad things about Bush toward Israel, please read this touching article from an Israeli report on his visit to the Holocaust Museum yesterday.

Bush visits Yad Vashem museum

While touring the museum Bush asked why the U.S. had chosen to refrain from bombing Auschwitz to stop the mass murdering of Jews and Sec of State Rice explained to him they made their decision based on not wanting to be seen in the war just to be helping the Jews. Which Bush answered, "We should have bombed it."

A top Israeli Holocaust scholar says it is the first time an American president has made this acknowledgment.

Bush was seen misty eyed several times during the tour of the overwhelming evidence of the demonic hatred of the Jews experienced last century in Germany.

This is a friend of Israel who has not been given his due for stands taken with God for the Chosen People. At least in Israel, many--even a majority--recognize this leader as the friend of Israel that he truly is. God bless President Bush, and God bless the United States of America who has been safe harbor for Jews from throughout the Diaspora (exile).

At the end of the re-election of George W. Bush to serve a second term, the Holy Spirit spoke in our local Israel Prayer meeting that it was not too early to begin to pray for the person who would enter the White House next to lead our nation, and to be the most powerful leader in all the nations of the world. We were to pray for someone who could take the stand that President Bush has begun for the United States and carry it forward in the will of God--continuing to be a true friend and ally to Israel, and not to shrink back from the battle that is hard against us in Islamic terrorism.

Please continue to pray that God will make His choice of man to lead the United States into the future, to safeguard our freedoms and stand as beacon of justice to the oppressed of the world. There is nothing impossible with God. He can take our current divisions and melt our hearts behind His chosen vessel to lead this nation in His purposes. Pray that those who call on the name of the Lord would hearken to His leading in this important national election.

Monday, January 7, 2008

United we prevail, divided we shoot ourselves

As I have been watching and reflecting on the primary coverage on television, I have been reminded of the first time I voted in a presidential election. I voted for Jimmy Carter because he was an underdog who came out of nowhere, had an infectious smile and frankly because I knew absolutely nothing about what was going on in the world!


I voted strictly on the basis that I was old enough to vote and for the first time since I was old enough a presidential candidate captured my imagination.

Sound familiar? This seems to be what is happening with the groundswell of youth support for Barack Obama and I think it is worth praying into.

Why? Because I can remember how disappointing the reality of the Carter presidency was as Iran held American citizens hostage in our embassy and the humiliating retreat we made from those American rescue helicopters downed on the desert floor.

In my view, President Carter did the best work of his life with Habitat for Humanity, but if he had stayed silent on foreign affairs since leaving office we would be much better off for his silence.

If the youth rise up in a naive vote in this presidential cycle, we could see the repeat of a humiliating presidential term for the United States of America in terms of foreign affairs. This is a most dangerous time for the idealistic and naive to be the deciding vote in our elections.

While there is a groundswell of youthful idealism, on the other side of the coin we are seeing divisions among those who have been around the block enough times to know what is really going on in the world.

That is why it is pretty disturbing to see some Christian leaders coming out with vows not to vote for any candidate who is not “actively pro-life,” or like Congressman Tom Tancredo who has vowed not to vote for or support any candidate in his own party that does not tackle illegal immigration in a way that he approves of. If he doesn't get his way on this issue, then he will not support the candidate of his party. If we get much more of this we are in even more trouble than I first thought!

If we want to shoot ourselves in the foot, we will continue making vows like this.

Primaries Election Watch

1-5-08

As we have come up to this election -getting wrapped up in it long before we normally do -one thing that we all have been able to see is that there have been lots of candidates but few stand out favorites. It may be that the Iowa caucus saw the emergence of a standout favorite in the Democratic party, but within the Republican party it looks like from state to state we will see different winners and no clear national favorite.

As a nation we may be more divided in our priorities than we ever have been. I was surprised to hear on a news report last night that Iowa was a strongly anti-Iraq war state. If this is how the heartland views the Iraq war, I can't imagine how widespread the pacifism stretches, which may be exactly where the momentum behind Senator Obama stems from.

Di-vision. Have you ever noticed how the word "division" breaks down? "di" means two, so essentially what we have in this word is "vision" -which is from God- that is split in two, or di-vision.

In Psalm 133:1 the psalmist sings, "Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity." He ends the chorus in verse 3 by declaring that that when "brethren" are "dwelling together in unity," "there the Lord commanded the blessing."

Unity of vision is very important for the blessing to rest upon us as the believing Remnant in the United States of America. Will we be able to find unity and rally around a candidate who truly represents the LORD's vision for His people in the United States, or will try to go forward in our broken 'denominationalism' in this election? We should take notice about the unity that is gathering around a candidate who does not represent a minimum of our values and remember what can built and accomplished with unity even for forces that are in opposition to the values of God.

As someone who has followed Israeli politics for many years, I have be a witness to how divisiveness has just about rendered the Israeli political process completely impotent. In that system dozens of political parties represent so many divisions of interests that there is almost nothing that can be accomplished any more in such a fractured state. There are few places where unity ever emerges in the Israeli population. Only when when Israel is suddenly thrust into war does unity emerge among the citizens. At that point the Jews stop fighting each other and realize that truly, 'united they stand and divided the fall.'

As we approach these elections, this would be a good thing for us to remember as the people of God seeking to elect God's choice of leader for our nation.

A couple of days ago I attended a prophetic conference in the north Texas area where one of the most anointed voices within the Israeli believing Messianic Remnant spoke. I was so encouraged by something Asher Intrater related to the crowd gathered in the NTU coliseum as an aside to the main point of his message. I was encourage by the response even more than what he related!

Asher told this stadium crowd of several thousand – that he went to his son who is a commander in the Israeli army of 150 men and serves on the dangerous border with Lebanon.

Asher asked his son Y, ‘What does the Israeli army think about the U.S. presence in Iraq?”


And Y answered, ‘The strongest danger for Israel and our army is on our northern border with the Hezballah terror group in Lebanon. Next door Syria is funneling weapons to Hezballah and on the other side of Iraq, Iran is funneling funds to Hezballah. The Israeli army is very glad that there is a U.S. presence in Iraq that acts as a wall of protection for Israel.”

The crowd went absolutely nuts- exploding into cheers and applause! This statement created the strongest, most joyous response of the entire message. My own heart leapt to see the overwhelming rejoicing and welcome that statement brought from the crowd.

Frankly I was shocked at the response because we have been hearing mostly just the the nay-sayers who oppose the war in Iraq and only find fault with the U.S. having entered into the dangerous nation in the League of Terroristic States. I frankly did not even know there were that many believers left who understood the importance of the U.S. having gone in to and remaining in Iraq.

Our God-directed president engaged that battle in the war on terrorism in order to take down Saddam and his brutal heirs; to cut off a strategic player in state sponsored terrorism; and to keep troops on the ground long enough to stabilize Iraq--a nation that had been ruled with the iron fist of ruthless brutality for decades. That is not an 'in one day, out the next' job. For Iraq to function in a stable, more democratic fashion, our commitment has to be for the long haul.

The anti-war ("nothing is worth fighting for") crowd has been given the most coverage in the news media. How a story is told over and over again, whether true or whether highly prejudicial, can establish falsehoods as facts. People will believe a lie if it is repeated often enough, and the lie that we have no good reason for being having gone into Iraq and for still being there has certainly been the daily drumbeat of the mainstream news media. Except that God exposes reality to His people, those who are blinded by deception will continue groping in the dark believing things that are not.

This is why I have had the sense that during this process of choosing our presidential candidates, the LORD will allow reality to burst in on the consciousness of American voters. It is because I believe He wants to ultimately have mercy upon us.

In a small way, the terrorist attack that took the life of Pakistani Benazir Bhutto was a warning alarm. It caught our momentary attention but apparently was not enough of an alarm to Christian voters. We have yet to fully realize our imperative to place into office a leader who has understanding of the times in terms of the threat of radical Islamic terrorism.

Recently someone emailed me objecting to an e-column I wrote about not making the abortion issue the litmus test of our choice of candidate. The person objected saying that we were experiencing terrorism because of abortions in the U.S. That is just a patent misunderstanding of the anti-christ underpinnings of the global phenomenon of radical Islam on in our day! (To the Jew first, but also to the nations!)

The ruthless world-domination goals of the radical Islamist movement is a far more ominous spirit of mass murder than that which is attached to abortion. We better lift up our heads and see the true nature behind this battle ...as well as what type of unity as God's people that will bring us protection against all the murderous spirits roaming about devouring human life in the name of Mohammad.

Several days ago there was an Islamic "honor" killing in my Dallas-Fort Worth area, where an Islamic taxi driver killed his 17 and 18 year old daughters. If we don't want to live in a world where this becomes a routine occurrence, we better awaken to the fact that we must resist radical Islam both spiritually in proclaiming the gospel and physically in war.

Today the spiritual reality and the earthly reality are intersecting as one before our eyes as never before, and it is a great mistake to continue to think in terms of two completely separate realities. This war is a spiritual war - make no mistake.

I have said all that to say this: The active, aggressive war on radical Islamic terrorism that President Bush initiated as a long term battle for the survival of the United States and our allies, was not a mistake. Christians must not be deceived into thinking that this is not our battle because the fighting is not taking place on our shores.

We will either install a president into office that is going to fight terrorism from a gut level understanding that it is an antichrist spirit seeking world domination, or we are going to elect someone who is passive and unware that we are like the proverbial frog in the kettle slowly heating up to a rolling boil.

I believe in God's mercy. I believe that in the horrific events of 9/11, God in His mercy awakened a sleeping America to a threat we had be ignoring. As a nation, we had been saying that it was Israel's battle, not ours, and we were dead wrong. In God's mercy, President Bush arose to that occasion at the 9/11 wake up call and he ordered our troops to engage in the long term battle that is surely arrayed against us.

If most in our nation now think the danger has passed, how foolish are we? If we think it is no longer important to have the Most Powerful Leader in the World to be a man that understands and has the will to fight Islamic terrorism, then we are moving toward a nation in decline not into spiritual ascension. I believe God in His mercy will allow events to awaken us if we continue in drowsy spiritual mode towards this battle.

We must not be divided as believers for our nation to stand. We must find a presidential candidate that we can all back in unity, who addresses all the critical issues important to us as believers.

Let us pray for unity among the believers and for God to clearly show all those with ears to hear and eyes to see, who He has anointed to lead the United States of America into the future with His mercies and blessing.

I hope it is not the case the #1 issue in Iowa is that everyone plays nice in their commercials over all the real issues we have to deal with! No one is fond of negative ads and political mud-slinging but there are some real issues that we have to get real with. Iowa is well known for wanting everyone to play nice, but with stakes this high, we don't need to be caught up in our reputation, we need to get to the bottom of who is the best qualified person to lead our country.

Iraq is not the #1 issue, it is only a part of the #1 issue which is what will our leader do about the war with Islamic terrorism that is in full swing globally? Do we really want another Jimmy Carter in the White House at an hour like this? A wonderful smile is great for popularity contests, but I want someone who is clear eyed about our world and with the strength, will and courage to what he has to do to protect our nation and freedom.

If that just sounds corny, I think some people need to start reading their newspapers again. I say this because I hear Christians say all the time how they don't read the newspaper or watch the news anymore because it is only "bad news." H-e-l-l-o! Welcome to real world where lots of bad is afoot that needs to be countered with godly wisdom and strength.

We are not of the world, but we are in the world, and we need to do more in our world than just go from spiritual meeting to spiritual meeting. Sandwiched in there needs to be that military term Jesus used in the parable that addressed men's hopes about when the kingdom of God would appear: "Occupy until I come."

That word "occupy" is pragmateuomai, where we get the word pragmatic. It means "to carry on." We must be pragmatic about the problems we face in our world today and not merely try to wish them away as I hear so many expressing out there in Iowa and New Hampshire with the "We want change" mantra. Of course, we want change, but let's face it wishing the warfare would go away never has caused it to go away. We have to be more pragmatic about living in the real world and "carry on" with the business of resisting evil - after submitting to God. Only then will the devils flee.

Election Watch: Judicial Appointments

1-2-08 Judicial Appointments a critical factor in this Presidential cycle

Last week an appeals judge in the 7th District courts overturned an award against the Hamas fundraisers, the Holy Land Foundation, and others that had been won by the parents of a 17 year old American boy who was murdered in a suicide bombing in Israel.

The judges who are appointed by the next president of the United States, and those he will bring into office riding on his political coattails is of the utmost importance. This is true in terrorism cases and in abortion cases.

If the candidate for president is likely to make liberal appointments to the bench, this is exactly where we stand to lose the most. In my opinion, it is the judicial system of this country that is heart of most of the ethical battles we are waging and will be waging in the near future. We must elect officials who will turn the tide of judicial decisions.