A very appropriate message for today from brother Hal:
Thursday, December 31, 2015
Tightened Security Worldwide for New Year's Eve, Mississippi Flooding Devastation, U.S. Caught Spying In Israel, Russian Strikes Near Israeli Border
Memories of the atrocity in Paris are fresh, along with fears of what a comparably armed and motivated terrorist squad could do to a huge throng of revelers at the New Year’s Eve celebration in a major city. Intelligence agencies in the U.S. and Europe are reportedly nervous about a terrorist threat of some kind.
Following is a list of major New Year’s Eve cancellations and restrictions:
Brussels: Belgian authorities decided to cancel the annual New Year’s Eve fireworks display in Brussels, following a string of counterterrorist raids across the country.
Paris: The city of Paris also decided to ban fireworks, replacing them with a mere 10-minute light show projected onto the Arc de Triomphe. Citizens are reportedly choosing to stay home on New Year’s Eve in unprecedented numbers. Parisian hoteliers and restaurant owners reported a stunning 50 percent drop in bookings for the holiday night.
Moscow: Red Square will be closed on New Year’s Eve, a decision preposterously presented by the Kremlin as accommodating a television crew. The Moscow Times suggested that revelers repair to one of the city’s 21 parks, noting that ice-skating rinks will remain open until 3 A.M.
Vienna: Following what Austrian authorities described as a warning from a friendly, but unnamed, national intelligence service, security went on high alert for a possible terrorist attack between Christmas and New Year’s Day.
Berlin: Berlin’s “party mile” between the Brandenburg Gate and Victory Column has been cordoned off since Christmas, to prepare heightened security for New Year’s Eve. According to Deutsche Welle, “backpacks, bags, suitcases, folding chairs, glass bottles, fireworks, megaphones and laser pointers are all prohibited.”
London: Increased security in the U.K. definitely is related to the warning from Austria, which was reportedly delivered by the nameless “friendly intelligence service” to several European capitals. The UK Telegraph reported on Wednesday night that Scotland Yard has canceled all New Year leave for armed officers, for the first time ever.
New York, Los Angeles, Washington D.C.: An “uncorroborated” terrorist threat against these American cities prompted the increased deployment of FBI agents and, in New York City, six thousand police officers covering Times Square for the New Year’s Eve party. New York City police commissioner Bill Bratton described the precautions as general in nature and said he was aware of no credible, specific threat at this time.
Las Vegas: The Strip draws well over 300,000 people for New Year’s Eve festivities, and they are being encouraged to leave bags, backpacks, strollers, and similar containers at home this year. At least a thousand uniformed officers, plus an undisclosed number of undercover police, will provide security. Police teams have been receiving active-shooter training at the out-of-commission Riviera casino.
Almost entirely submerged, dozens of towns and villages across Missouri and Illinois lay abandoned after another day of historic flooding.
These shocking photographs show how floodwater has swamped settlements and forced widespread evacuations in a crisis that had claimed more than 20 lives - and officials warn there are more deaths to come.
Among those dead were five foreign soldiers - four from north Africa and one from Malaysia - training at a military base in Missouri. The car they were travelling in was swept off a rural highway on Saturday night by rampaging water.
Up to 17million people and thousands of homes in Illinois and Missouri are under threat from the floods, with swollen rivers and streams pushed to virtually unheard of heights.
Inmates were transferred out of Illinois state prison as it was threatened by flooding, Missouri's governor activated the National Guard to help divert traffic from submerged roads, and torrential rain caused sewage to flow unfiltered into waterways.
Forecasters warned that the devastation could rival that seen in the area in 1993, when severe flooding left 50 dead and caused $15billion in damage in what officials said was one of the 'most damaging natural disasters to ever hit the United States'.
If you found out that one of your “friends” was secretly peeking in your windows at you and your family throughout the day, would that person continue to be your friend? Of course not. But that is exactly what Barack Obama has been doing to Israel. According to the Wall Street Journal, during Obama’s first term the decision was made to monitor the communications of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders. This represents an astounding betrayal of our closest ally in the Middle East, but the scandal doesn’t end there. In the process of monitoring Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders, the NSA also collected private conversations that they had with members of the U.S. Congress. So that means that Obama and the NSA were spying on Congress, which is a very serious violation of the law.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. Two years ago, Obama promised that he was going to quit spying on the leaders of other nations that we are allied with.
But just like most of Obama’s other promises, this one proved to be hollow as well. The following comes from the Wall Street Journal…
President Barack Obama announced two years ago he would curtail eavesdropping on friendly heads of state after the world learned the reach of long-secret U.S. surveillance programs.
But behind the scenes, the White House decided to keep certain allies under close watch, current and former U.S. officials said. Topping the list was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
So when did all of this spying on Israeli officials originally start happening?
Apparently, the surveillance of Netanyahu began “late in Obama’s first term in office”…
The NSA began keeping tabs on the Israeli Prime Minister late in Obama’s first term in office. The surveillance was driven by fears that Israel was planning an attack on Iran.
The agency carried on with its spying operations, and discovered that Netanyahu had leaked details of the Iran negotiations – which could have jeopardized the deal – and had coordinated talks with American Jewish groups. He also asked undecided U.S.lawmakers what it would take to win their vote.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the NSA has “spent decades” building up the infrastructure to spy on other global leaders. Over the past couple of years spying on some allied leaders has stopped, but apparently that was never even a consideration when it came to Israel…
The NSA had, in some cases, spent decades placing electronic implants in networks around the world to collect phone calls, text messages and emails. Removing them or turning them off in the wake of the Snowden revelations would make it difficult, if not impossible, to re-establish access in the future, U.S. intelligence officials warned the White House.
This is yet again another scandal which could bring down the Obama presidency. Of course the Republicans have never shown any willingness to stand up to Obama, but if they ever somehow did find enough courage to do so, they would certainly have all the ammunition that they would need. Because in the process of monitoring Israeli leaders, the NSA was also spying on the private conversations of members of Congress…
The National Security Agency’s targeting of Israeli leaders and officials also swept up the contents of some of their private conversations with U.S. lawmakers and American-Jewish groups. That raised fears—an “Oh-s— moment,” one senior U.S. official said—that the executive branch would be accused of spying on Congress.
Many prominent voices are already using the phrase “abuse of power” in connection with this scandal. Just consider the words of former U.S. Representative Pete Hoekstra…
Former Michigan Rep. Pete Hoekstra, who chaired the House intelligence panel from 2004 to 2007, called for a probe late Tuesday, remarking that the Obama administration had exhibited an “unprecedented abuse of power” if the allegations are true.
“WSJ report that [National Security Agency] spied on Congress and Israel communications very disturbing. Actually outrageous,” he tweeted. “Maybe unprecedented abuse of power.”
“NSA and Obama officials need to be investigated and prosecuted if any truth to WSJ reports,” he continued. “NSA loses all credibility. Scary.”
And Politico is reporting that the House Intelligence Committee is already looking into these allegations…
“The House Intelligence Committee is looking into allegations in the Wall Street Journal regarding possible Intelligence Community (IC) collection of communications between Israeli government officials and members of Congress,” Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) said in a statement. “The Committee has requested additional information from the IC to determine which, if any, of these allegations are true, and whether the IC followed all applicable laws, rules, and procedures.”
Regardless of what happens in Congress (which probably won’t be much), the big story is what this will do to our already damaged relationship with Israel.
By systematically conducting surveillance on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders, the Obama administration has shattered what little trust remained between the two governments.
Israel’s military and political leaders became intensely anxious Tuesday, Dec. 29, when they saw how concentrated Russian air strikes were swiftly dislodging anti-Assad rebels from southern Syria and beginning to open the door for the Syrian and Hizballah armies to come dangerously close to the Israeli border.
DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources report that Russian air strikes in other parts of the country have tapered off. Instead, heavy Russian bombardments are giving the combined Syrian-Hizballah force its first chance to recover Sheikh Maskin, the southern town housing the Syrian Army’s 82ndBrigade which has been passing from hand to hand for months. If the rebels lose that fierce battle, the way will be clear for the combined pro-Assad force to advance on the two key southern towns, Deraa and Quneitra on the Golan.
The rebel groups assaulted by the Russian air force Tuesday included moderate, pro-Western, pro-Israeli militias, such as the Southern Front and the First Column. Both suffered heavy casualties.
IDF unease as a result of Russia’s aerial intervention in the fighting in southern Syria is rising in proportion to the current military tensions with Hizballah. If the Lebanese Shiite terrorists manage to get the late Samir Quntar’s anti-Israel terror Front for the Liberation of Golan up and running, the Israeli air force would be severely hampered in launching its own strikes against this enemy by the dozens of Russian bombers using the same patch of sky without pause.
On the face of it, Moscow and Jerusalem make a show of their smooth air force collaboration in Syrian air space. But this picture is wide of the situation: The Russian air force omitted to notify Israel ahead of its massive bombardment close to its border Tuesday.
IDF unease as a result of Russia’s aerial intervention in the fighting in southern Syria is rising in proportion to the current military tensions with Hizballah. If the Lebanese Shiite terrorists manage to get the late Samir Quntar’s anti-Israel terror Front for the Liberation of Golan up and running, the Israeli air force would be severely hampered in launching its own strikes against this enemy by the dozens of Russian bombers using the same patch of sky without pause.
On the face of it, Moscow and Jerusalem make a show of their smooth air force collaboration in Syrian air space. But this picture is wide of the situation: The Russian air force omitted to notify Israel ahead of its massive bombardment close to its border Tuesday.
Some Israeli official circles suspect that Moscow is deliberately bringing Israel under pressure to accept a deal for southern Syria. One of President Vladimir Putin’s main objects from the outset of Russian’s military buildup in Syria was to eradicate the rebels in the South and the threat they posed to the Assad regime in Damascus.
More than once, Putin suggested to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu that they work out a Russian-Israeli deal for that part of Syria. The Israeli leader was unresponsive, mainly because Israel is bound by prior understandings to coordination with the US, Jordan and moderate Syrian rebel groups. A deal with Moscow would counter those understandings.
However, The concentrated air strikes in the border region is intended by the Kremlin, according to some views, not just to push the rebels out, but to twist Israel’s arm for settling the issue with Moscow.
Also see:
'Global Warming' And Global Governance
Take Mark Steyn telling Fox News that “[ISIS leader] al-Baghdadi will be sawing
’ head off, and he’ll be saying as his neck is being sliced, ‘If only we’d had an emissions trading scheme.'”
Worse than that, though, these claims are fraudulent. They represent a deliberate conspiracy by our political class (and their amen corner in the media) to mislead us about the relative urgency and risks of the threats facing us in the coming years.
To anyone with even half an eye on world events, it’s perfectly obvious that there are many more desperate problems – fundamentalist Islam, say – than the imaginary problem of man-made global warming. So why do our political class persist in pretending to us, in defiance of all the evidence, that “climate change” represents the only global issue serious enough to justify the convening of a conference like the recent one in Paris attended by 40,000 delegates and the leaders of over 150 nation states?
The answer to this is too complicated for one sentence – for the full story read this book – but the consequences can be summed up in two words: global governance.
This was always the masterplan of the sinister Marxist billionaire who invented the global warming scare – Maurice Strong. (You can read more about him here and here). Environmentalism, he understood early on, was the perfect excuse to override the democratic process: after all, when the future of the world is at stake, it only makes sense to ignore the little people and concentrate power in the hands of enlightened technocrats like Maurice Strong and his eco-fascistic control freak pals….
Here’s how he once put it:
The concept of national sovereignty has been an immutable, indeed sacred, principle of international relations. It is a principle which will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the new imperatives of global environmental co-operation. It is simply not feasible for sovereignty to be exercised unilaterally by individual nation states, however powerful. The global community must be assured of global environmental security.
There’s the plan: One World Government in the name of “global environmental security”. And it’s happening across the world right now. Never mind the facts that COP21 was a bit of a flop and that the Pope’s encyclical on the environment was widely ridiculed. The great global governance caravan is trundling on regardless: it’s now a business, remember, worth $1.5 trillion a year. There are an awful lot of snouts stuck in that trough and they’re not about to leave it any time soon.
Yet it’s something that is almost never mentioned in the mainstream media. How many times have you read or heard, anywhere in the MSM, about Agenda 21? It has been the guiding force behind most environmental policy across the world since it was born at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit (established by Maurice Strong) which in turn spawned all the big eco conferences we’ve had since, such as the recent COP21 in Paris. But no one ever talks about it. It just sounds like too much of a crazy right-wing conspiracy theory.
And that, I’m afraid, is also part of The Plan. Anyone who dares question the “consensus” on global warming – see Media Matters above – is dismissed as a fruitcake: journalists are marginalised, scientists lose tenure or funding, politicians are denied preferment, businesses lose contracts. Speaking out against climate change is the modern equivalent of being Galileo before the Inquisition…
So that’s going to be one of my jobs in 2016 – telling it like it is,
I consider it both a pleasure and privilege.
The Associated Press struggles mightily to avoid admitting that the Paris “climate conference” was a very expensive dystopian fantasy, in which world leaders soaked their taxpayers and also spewed vast amounts of carbon into the atmosphere with their luxury jets, just to hold the world’s largest “Mad Max” live-action role-playing game:
If governments are serious about the global warming targets they adopted in Paris, scientists say they have two options: eliminating fossil fuels immediately or finding ways to undo their damage to the climate system in the future.
The first is politically impossible — the world is still hooked on using oil, coal and natural gas — which leaves the option of a major cleanup of the atmosphere later this century.
Yet the landmark Paris Agreement, adopted by 195 countries on Dec. 12, makes no reference to that, which has left some observers wondering whether politicians understand the implications of the goals they signed up for.
It’s great to be a left-wing movement with 100 percent support from the mainstream media, isn’t it?
Climate alarmists set goals that would require the immediate halt of all human industry as we know it, and the AP thinks it’s just “politically impossible” because the stupid, greedy, selfish proles of the word are still “hooked on using oil, coal, and natural gas.” The alarmists admit their true agenda would involve the primitivization of the industrialized world—but we’re the problem, because we’re too short-sighted to go along with it.
These political hacks wasted vast amounts of money to hold a meeting that established literally impossible goals to solve a “problem” no one can prove is happening, but the press refuses to smother them with the ridicule they richly deserve.
The taxpaying citizens of every nation involved in the Paris conference should be absolutely livid about this extravagant waste of their resources—at least, those fortunate enough to live in nations where it’s still legal to express anger at the government and its weird climate-change state religion.
Those taxpaying citizens should also compare the impossible goals of Paris to the extravagant tribute that will be extracted from them by the Church of Global Warming and understand that all the sacrifices they’re expected to make, all the costs they’ll be forced to shoulder, are insignificant compared to what climate alarmists really think their crackpot computer models are telling them. The Little People are being bullied, cajoled, and often compelled to reduce their quality of life for what amounts to symbolic efforts against global warming.
Actual scientists have little use for symbolic effort, but climate change is about politics, not science.
Of course the politicians of Paris and their pet pseudo-scientists know their citizens would react with derision and horror if their actual goals were made public. Because this is a political process, those zero- and negative-emission targets are viewed as an opening bid, a cudgel of fear that can be used to beat skeptics into silence. The politicians will take whatever they can actually get and then demand more, time and again, because no matter what we give the Church of Global Warming, it will always be able to say we have not given enough to stave off the apocalypse.
Such a game plan is irrational to actual scientists, who see little point in demanding 1 percent of what is actually needed today and another 1 percent next year, ad infinitum. But it makes perfect sense to politicians! In fact, it’s just about the perfect model of creeping statism: A demand that can always be portrayed as breathlessly urgent, demanding immediate thoughtless compliance, but can never be completely fulfilled.
What they truly want would do a lot more than merely “conflict” with priorities such as “eradicating hunger.” It would end human industry as we know it, given the current state of technology. Cars and airplanes would become impossible luxuries, reserved for the very rich and powerful, as would reliable electric power. The mass production of many items would be halted. Advanced economies would collapse into chaos. Feeding our own populations would become very expensive without carbon-emitting industrial agriculture, nevermind “eradicating hunger.”
Our media does us an enormous disservice by helping these climate lunatics pretend to be reasonable people with difficult demands. They want the end of the world as we know it, to prevent the end of the world as they imagine it. In fact, the AP concedes their goal is “so ambitious — some would say far-fetched, that there’s been very little research devoted to it. In Paris, politicians asked scientists to start studying how it can be done.”
We should resolutely insist that climate alarmists be completely honest with the public about how much their expensive boondoggles would actually do to alleviate the Armageddon they are predicting. And, if the public makes a rational decision that the cost of such measures far outweighs their insignificant benefits, their judgment should be respected.
Of course, climate alarmists have no intention of giving the public a chance to exercise such judgment.
Wednesday, December 30, 2015
Anne Graham Lotz: Message For World Leaders, Financial Armageddon Approaches, ISIS Secret Plot: 2016 Final Battle, 'Peaceful Islam' Issues 'Ruling' On Sex Slavery
Anne Graham Lotz, the daughter of reknowned Christian evangelist Billy Graham, has a message for world leaders: If you forsake Him, He will forsake you.
Lotz has appeared previously on TRUNEWS with Rick Wiles, and on that appearance, she issued a controversial ‘Mayday’ warning about impending disaster coming to America. She was maligned in the mainstream media for her outspoken comments.
The history of Israel includes some riveting similarities to our world today. One brief vignette that caught my attention recently is from 2 Chronicles 14-15. After the glorious, golden years of King Solomon, his son, Rehoboam, succeeded him. While Solomon was wise, Rehoboam was arrogant, foolish, and in short order had led the southern kingdom away from faith in God. A warning through God’s Word came to him plainly, “Thus says the Lord, ‘You have forsaken Me, so I also have forsaken you…’” And God did. While He spared Rehoboam’s life, He allowed Jerusalem to be ransacked, and all the amassed wealth of Solomon to be looted by the Egyptians.
When Rehoboam’s grandson, Asa, rose to power, he “did what was right and good in the sight of the Lord his God.” When a million-man army came against him from the south, he cried out to God, declaring, “Lord, there is no one besides Thee to help in the battle between the powerful and those who have no strength; so help us, O Lord our God, for we trust in Thee…” God honored his trust by giving him victory.
God then sent a message to Asa instructing him on how to secure lasting peace and victory over his enemies. And it’s this message that I would like to deliver to the leaders of the free world…
to President Netanyahu and the leaders of modern-day Israel; to Barack Obama and the leaders of the United States of America; to François Hollande, and the leaders of France; to David Cameron and the leaders of Great Britain; to Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, Carly Fiorina, Hillary Clinton, and any other candidate running for President of the United States.
This is the message: “… the Lord is with you when you are with Him. And if you seek Him, He will let you find Him; but if you forsake Him, He will forsake you. For many days you have been without the true God and without God’s Word. But in your distress if you turn to the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God and Father of Jesus Christ, and if you seek Him, He lets you find Him. Today there is no peace to him who goes out or to him who comes in, for many disturbances have afflicted all the inhabitants of the lands. Nation is being crushed by nation, and city by city, for God is troubling you with every kind of distress. But you, be strong and do not lose courage, for there is reward for your work.”
When this message was originally delivered, King Asa took courage and led his nation in genuine repentance of sin. Then the entire nation “…entered into the covenant to seek the Lord God of their fathers with all their heart and soul…so the Lord gave them rest on every side.”
Seek the Lord now while He may be found. He will give you wisdom, peace, and deliverance from your enemies.
Whether a delegate to Davos’ Economic Forum, a commentator to the Washington Post, or a groundbreaking speaker on platforms throughout the world, Anne’s aim is clear – to bring revival to the hearts of God’s people. And her message is consistent – calling people into a personal relationship with God through His Word.
Did you know that there are 5 “too big to fail” banks in the United States that each have exposure to derivatives contracts that is in excess of 30 trilliondollars? Overall, the biggest U.S. banks collectively have more than 247 trilliondollars of exposure to derivatives contracts. That is an amount of money that is more than 13 times the size of the U.S. national debt, and it is a ticking time bomb that could set off financial Armageddon at any moment. Globally, the notional value of all outstanding derivatives contracts is a staggering 552.9 trillion dollars according to the Bank for International Settlements. The bankers assure us that these financial instruments are far less risky than they sound, and that they have spread the risk around enough so that there is no way they could bring the entire system down. But that is the thing about risk – you can try to spread it around as many ways as you can, but you can never eliminate it. And when this derivatives bubble finally implodes, there won’t be enough money on the entire planet to fix it.
A lot of readers may be tempted to quit reading right now, because “derivatives” is a term that sounds quite complicated. And yes, the details of these arrangements can be immensely complicated, but the concept is quite simple. Here is a good definition of “derivatives” that comes from Investopedia…
A derivative is a security with a price that is dependent upon or derived from one or more underlying assets. The derivative itself is a contract between two or more parties based upon the asset or assets. Its value is determined by fluctuations in the underlying asset. The most common underlying assets include stocks, bonds, commodities, currencies, interest ratesand market indexes.
I like to refer to the derivatives marketplace as a form of “legalized gambling”. Those that are engaged in derivatives trading are simply betting that something either will or will not happen in the future. Derivatives played a critical role in the financial crisis of 2008, and I am fully convinced that they will take on a starring role in this new financial crisis.
And I am certainly not the only one that is concerned about the potentially destructive nature of these financial instruments. In a letter that he once wrote to shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett referred to derivatives as “financial weapons of mass destruction”…
The derivatives genie is now well out of the bottle, and these instruments will almost certainly multiply in variety and number until some event makes their toxicity clear. Central banks and governments have so far found no effective way to control, or even monitor, the risks posed by these contracts. In my view, derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction, carrying dangers that, while now latent, are potentially lethal.
As the “real economy” crumbles, major hedge funds continue to drop like flies, and we head into a new recession, there seems to very little alarm among the general population about what is happening.
A new financial crisis has already begun, and it is going to intensify as we head into 2016.
And as this new crisis unfolds, one word that you are going to want to listen for is “derivatives”, because they are going to play a major role in the “financial Armageddon” that is rapidly approaching.
Swiss army chief André Blattmann warned, in a Swiss newspaper article on Sunday, the risks of social unrest in Europe are soaring. Recalling the experience of 1939/1945, Blattman fears the increasing aggression in public discourse is an explosively hazardous situation, and advises the Swiss people to arm themselves and warns that the basis for Swiss prosperity is "being called into question."
As Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten reports, speaking on the record for the first time since the November Paris terror attacks, Blattmann told the paper that despite a rise in security incidents over the past two years Switzerland’s means of defence were being reduced.
The situation is growing increasingly risky, Blattman begins.
"The threat of terror is rising, hybrid wars are being fought around the globe; the economic outlook is gloomy and the resulting migration flows of displaced persons and refugees have assumed unforeseen dimensions."
"Social unrest can not be ruled out", the vocabulary in public discourse will "dangerously aggressive."
"The mixture is increasingly unappetizing" Blattmann sees the basis of Swiss prosperity, "has long been once again called into question."
He recalls the situation around the two world wars in the last century and advises Switzerland, to arm themselves.
The Swiss Armed Forces had held many years ago maneuver, in which the starting point was focused on social unrest in Europe.
ISIS is planning to massacre thousands of civilians in public places around the world in 2016 as it desperately seeks to draw the west into a titanic "final battle".
The sick terror group will activate hundreds of sleeper cells in "dozens of countries" in an unprecedented bid to destabilise western governments and spark a huge military retaliation in the Middle East.
The shock claim, from one of the world's leading authorities on the death cult, comes amid fears of a New Year's Eve terror plot in London and other major world cities.
Islamic State has carried out more than 50 attacks in 18 countries that have killed 1,100 people and injured 1,700 since it declared its caliphate in 2014.
And next year will see a huge increase in both the number and scale of major terror attacks, according to Dr Theodore Karasik, a Gulf-based analyst of regional geo-political affairs who has extensively studied ISIS's behaviour.
He warned: "ISIS’s media operation is taunting its enemy to come to fight their Final Battle.
"But first, it wants to show its global reach with zeal...from cells, to lone wolves, to bedroom jihadists – to target landmarks and crowds in dozens of countries across the world."
"The level of ISIS’s destructiveness, to force confrontations across the world, indicates that 2016 is likely to be more chaotic than 2015.
"The threat is real, and the requirement for international, regional, and local cooperation is truly necessary and will be tested again and again in perhaps unexpected places."
As I was preparing to discuss my 12/28/15 Breitbart essay, “Islam and the Global Epidemic of Muslim Jew-Hatred,” on Breitbart News Daily (discussion, 12/29/15 here), a Reuters storyabout an ISIS “fatwa” (i.e., Islamic “religious” edict) regarding female sex slaves appeared online.
Our Breitbart News Daily discussion riveted upon the continued failure of all current Presidential candidates to address living Islamic doctrine and history with requisite informed candor. That frank conversation provides an ideal segue to the just-released ISIS sex slavery fatwa, and its own doctrinal rootedness within canonical Islam.
The fatwa in question is part of cache of documents captured during a May, 2015 raid on a leading ISIS official in Syria.
The ruling first elucidates a straightforward rationale for jihad enslavement, entirely consistent with the classical Islamic jurisprudence of jihad war.
One of the graces which Allah has bestowed upon the State of Caliphate is the conquest of large surface areas of the country and one of the inevitable consequences of the jihad of establishment is that women and children will become captives of Muslims.
A Muslim “owner” (8 mentions), non-Muslim female “captive” (13 mentions) master-slave relationship is made unabashedly clear in the fatwa. Notwithstanding the fatwa’s hollow invocation to “show compassion towards her,” i.e. the female sex slave and serial rape victim – such as refraining from anal intercourse, or intercourse during menstruation – testimonies of freed Yazidi and Christian ISIS sex slaves reveal the horrific reality of such captivity.
Muhammad, using the Koranic “revelation” as justification, insisted that he was entitled to not only his own wives, but those captured in battle (and cousins as well), per Allah’s allowance in Koran 33:50 (4 additional translations here)
O Prophet (Muhammad)! Verily, We have made lawful to you your wives, to whom you have paid their Mahr (bridal money given by the husband to his wife at the time of marriage), and those (captives or slaves) whom your right hand possesses – whom Allah has given to you, and the daughters of your ‘Amm (paternal uncles) and the daughters of your ‘Ammah (paternal aunts) and the daughters of your Khal (maternal uncles) and the daughters of your Khalah (maternal aunts) who migrated (from Makkah) with you, and a believing woman if she offers herself to the Prophet, and the Prophet wishes to marry her; a privilege for you only, not for the (rest of) the believers. Indeed We know what We have enjoined upon them about their wives and those (captives or slaves) whom their right hands possess, – in order that there should be no difficulty on you. And Allah is Ever Oft Forgiving, Most Merciful.
The “privilege” of having sexual intercourse with captured slave women is extended to all Muslim men in Koran 4:24 “those (captives and slaves) whom your right hands possess. Thus has Allah ordained for you.”
Muhammad and his minions, for example, attacked and devastated the prosperous Jewish tribe Banu-Mustaliq in a surprise raid (during 626 A.D.; see the hadith Sahih Al-Bukhari 2541). The Banu al-Mustaliq males were slaughtered and the “booty” taken by the Muslims included the victims’ women, and children, who were enslaved. Juwayriya, the most alluring captive, and daughter of the Banu al-Mustaliq leader, was taken as a “bride” for Muhammad himself. Sanctioned by Islam’s prophet, a mass rape by “coitus interruptus” of the captured women ensued, which was characterized in a canonical hadith, as follows:
ISIS’s practice of jihad sex slavery fits squarely within a normative doctrinal and historical Islamic context, patterned after the behaviors of Muhammad, and the nascent Muslim community. Those who aspire to our political leadership must be compelled to shed their cultural relativist blinders and consider Islam as the conquering, totalitarian political ideology with religious trappings it has remained for almost 14 centuries.
President Barack Obama announced two years ago he would curtail eavesdropping on friendly heads of state after the world learned the reach of long-secret U.S. surveillance programs.
But behind the scenes, the White House decided to keep certain allies under close watch, current and former U.S. officials said. Topping the list was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The U.S., pursuing a nuclear arms agreement with Iran at the time, captured communications between Mr. Netanyahu and his aides that inflamed mistrust between the two countries and planted a political minefield at home when Mr. Netanyahu later took his campaign against the deal to Capitol Hill.
The National Security Agency’s targeting of Israeli leaders and officials also swept up the contents of some of their private conversations with U.S. lawmakers and American-Jewish groups. That raised fears—an “Oh-s— moment,” one senior U.S. official said—that the executive branch would be accused of spying on Congress.
White House officials believed the intercepted information could be valuable to counter Mr. Netanyahu’s campaign. They also recognized that asking for it was politically risky. So, wary of a paper trail stemming from a request, the White House let the NSA decide what to share and what to withhold, officials said. “We didn’t say, ‘Do it,’ ” a senior U.S. official said. “We didn’t say, ‘Don’t do it.’ ”
Stepped-up NSA eavesdropping revealed to the White House how Mr. Netanyahu and his advisers had leaked details of the U.S.-Iran negotiations—learned through Israeli spying operations—to undermine the talks; coordinated talking points with Jewish-American groups against the deal; and asked undecided lawmakers what it would take to win their votes, according to current and former officials familiar with the intercepts.
The Misinformation Mess ... As Americans approach Election Year 2016, the crisis of misinformation is growing more and more dangerous. On issues from foreign policy to the economy, almost none of the candidates in the race appears to be addressing the real world, writes Robert Parry. – ConsortiumNews
Is it really possible to expect that the American people (as propagandized and misinformed as they are) could effect significant change through the electoral process, which is itself deeply compromised by vast sums of dark money from American oligarchs, while other super-rich Americans own the major media companies?
As part of all this reassessment, there needs to be a coming-clean with the American people regarding what U.S. intelligence knows about a variety of key events, including but not limited to the Aug. 21, 2013 sarin attack outside Damascus, Syria; the Feb. 20, 2014 sniper attack in Kiev, Ukraine, which set the stage for the coup; and the July 17, 2014 shoot-down of the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine.
The fact that such events have been exploited for propaganda reasons – to blame U.S. "adversaries" – while the detailed knowledge of the U.S. intelligence agencies is hidden from the American people has deprived the public of an ability to make rational assessments about the larger policies. U.S. positions are driven by false or faulty perceptions, not reality.
It is, of course, possible that given current narrative difficulties, elites intend to induce maximum chaos. If you destroy one social narrative without letting another take its place, you can certainly make it more difficult for people to emerge from the morass of misinformation. They begin to mistrust everything.
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