Greetings from Tyler,
The cease-fire in Ukraine, painstakingly negotiated by Germany, France and Russia was the ruse everyone feared it might be. The Russian “separatists” fought like crazy right up to the cease-fire deadline, and then ignored the agreement going on to capture the railway hub of Debaltserve, and claiming to have killed some 3,000 Ukrainian troops. It goes without saying that eastern European nations recognize the proximity of this, and given the low-key reactions of the EU, NATO and the U.S., must be wondering what the future holds. Just yesterday Britain reportedly scrambled fighter jets to intercept a Russian bomber breaching territorial boundaries. With the Russian economy in shambles due to the collapse of the price of oil, Putin may be putting on an international show of force for the sake of the home crowd. Let’s hope that’s the extent of it.
It sure is nice to know that the U.S. is taking the lead against the expansion of the brutal, but non-Islamic Islamic State. The White House Summit on Violent Extremism just concluded with lectures against blaming Islam or Muslims for the medieval methods being carried out against Christians, Jews and even moderate Muslims within their conquered territories. We’re told it just wouldn’t be right to give the terrorists the “credibility” of the Islamic label. Meanwhile, they keep reminding us that “right wing Christians” pose a more immediate threat here in the United States. The Department of State is taking the rhetoric to even greater depths.
As Colonel Ralph Peters (retired) said this week, these State Department spokes-gals look and sound like a Saturday Night Live parody with statements like, “We simply can’t kill our way out of this war.” No, we need to find them gainful employment! Seriously? At this point, it’s pure slapstick. But apologists for the current administration are continually trotted out to do stand-up comedy with a straight face, to explain the U.S. response to mass decapitations and burnings alive by the score. It’s mostly media hype for ratings, when everybody knows that the most urgent threat is man-made global warming, err… climate change.
But we don’t know the half of it. There are no reporters roving around in ISIS-held territory. The only atrocities brought to our attention are the choreographed productions put out by the terrorists themselves for propaganda purposes. We don’t see what happens when they raid villages and towns, kidnapping, raping and murdering at will. But we have learned that they’re harvesting the internal organs of the murdered victims, undoubtedly selling them on the black market.
Upon beheading 21 Egyptian Christians on the Mediterranean shores of Libya, ISIS proclaimed that Rome is their target. The truth is that everyone who doesn’t submit and cooperate with their Caliphate is a target. But they, along with the rest of the world, assume that Rome is the seat of Christianity and are anxious to take revenge for the crusades that forced them back into the Middle Eastern desert a thousand years ago. They seem to think a lot like somebody else we hear from way too often.
But Italy is frightened. Twenty seven hundred refugees have just landed on Italy’s shores, having fled ISIS in Libya. Who’s to say there are no “sleepers” among the refugees? And if these people could make the trip across the Mediterranean in rickety, overcrowded boats, why couldn’t ISIS send teams of suicidal terrorists? What if ISIS gets airplanes?
While the U.S. plays diplomatic checkers (as opposed to chess) throughout the Middle East, it will be understandable when Europe, perhaps with the Roman pope in tow, realizes that the threat requires a more direct response than a Summit on Violent Extremism. In order for that to happen, Europe will have to undergo some dramatic changes from the current pacifist crew in charge. Those changes are in the works, demonstrated by recent parliamentary elections in a host of European nations as well as opinion polls showing that the European Union is already falling out of favor all over the continent. Not only that, but the euro and the European Central Bank are already in survival mode over Greek debt defaults, with numerous other debtors across the south of Europe facing looming crises.
Who knows exactly how all this plays out? Will it be the Sunni caliphate that fulfills King of the South prophecies, the Shiite empire controlled by Iran, or is there a third possibility. With so many Middle Eastern and north African countries have fallen into utter chaos over the past three years, all are ripe for the taking of whichever power ultimately prevails. As somebody famous once said, predictions are terribly difficult, especially about the future!
You might wonder whether the climate prophets wish they hadn’t stuck with the “Coming Ice Age” alarmism of the 1970’s. If so they might have made believers of a lot more of us with brutal, deadly cold winters like this year and last. It would be so nice to see Al Gore out leading a street protest against “deniers” of climate change right about now in any city or town north of say, Florida. Bet they wouldn’t be in short sleeves. It may be some time before the scientific community will be able to statistically average the late Winter of 2015 out of existence. Maybe in a generation or two, no one will remember.
Niagara Falls is almost completely frozen over, which is about the third time this has happened in just over a hundred years. The last time was in the early 50’s, and the time before that was in the 1890’s. You know, that era when there was so much industrial activity with mankind in a suicidal race to emit mass quantities of that deadly pollutant, carbon dioxide. Sorry for the sarcasm. We certainly take no joy in the misery and hardships being suffered by at least a third of the country right now. But we might be forgiven for wondering whether God is sending the northeast (that bastion of intellectual superiority) a message about “man-made global warming” they can deny only through frostbitten lips and chattering teeth.
The mainstream media obviously can’t avoid reporting the current record cold gripping so much of the nation, with cars buried, travel largely curtailed and mountains of snow piled up everywhere. But it is highly unlikely that those outlets will seek out statistics for the injuries and deaths that are resulting. That would go against the godless religion they’ve been so carefully crafting to try to regulate us into submission. If the pope really intends to to lecture us about “climate change” when he visits this year, it’s a good thing he’s not coming ’till Fall. Maybe the Great Lakes will have thawed by then! Bundle up, stay safe, and have a wonderful Sabbath.
Mark Armstrong