WEEK OF JUNE 28 THROUGH JULY 2
Faith and Freedom in America 
July 2….(FOJ) Alexander Zolshenitzyn once remarked
that to destroy a people or nation, all you have to do is to sever them from
their roots! America’s roots were established squarely on the Holy Bible and
the Natural Law of the Creator, as evidenced in our Declaration of Independence.
Those roots have served America well for a long time. But the Roots of America’s
Greatness have been systematically and slowly eroded by anti-Christian social
political secularists for years. The only reason that America was ever
considered good in this world was because of its esteem for God and his Word,
the Holy Bible. Our founding Fathers considered the principles of Christianity
to be so fundamental to the bonding of the new Republic in 1776 that they
considered Bible teaching in the nations schools to be absolutely essential to
the perpetuity of the foundations of American Christian society. They said that
our Republican form of government rested so much on the teachings of the Bible
that it would be difficult for the Republic to stand if the faith in these
teachings would ever cease to be universally taught in our country. Well, we
sure are discovering that reality today aren’t we? Iran Ready to Take It to the Brink July 2….(Fox News) Bolstered by a revitalized relationship with Russia, Iran is flexing its muscles and probing the will of American and coalition forces, both diplomatically and militarily, so much so that a US General reportedly ordered the British to attack Iranian positions in Iraq, but diplomacy prevailed. Nevertheless, Iran is sending al Qaeda terrorists across its boarder with Iraq and moving forward with plans to build a nuclear plant. With a dubious nuclear technology program, the capture of British sailors recently 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 costs of the Iraqi war are higher than just the soldiers who are dying and the money we are spending," said Joseph Cirincione, director of the non-proliferation project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, rightly or wrongly has squandered much of the US authority in the Middle East and may have damaged America's ability to get much help from Muslim states to fend off threats from Iran, he said. Our relationship with the Arab world is strained, and so we are now in a much more cumbersome position with Iran," he said. "Iran is drawing a line in the sand." "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. The National Council of Resistance of Iran has claimed hundreds of nuclear experts are working directly for Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and that Iran seeks to have a nuclear bomb within two years. Last week, FOX News showed satellite images of two locations in Iran that are suspected of being sites for Iran's continued efforts to produce nuclear weapons. On Monday, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency and his weapons inspectors toured one of those facilities. The tour came after Iran was rebuked by the IAEA two weeks ago for noncompliance with weapons inspectors. However IAEA chief Mohamed El Baradei told Reuters that he was pleased with Iran's cooperation. The tour also followed an announcement by the Iranian Foreign Ministry on Sunday that it would resume construction on centrifuges, a move critical to building a nuclear bomb. The U.S. responded by suggesting that the United Nations may want to seek sanctions on Iran. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice told "FOX News Sunday" that the United States has been working with the IAEA and European nations to make certain the Iranians know "they only have two choices, to cooperate or face isolation." 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 shock-waves that could rock the foundations of US 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. Reports indicate that Iranians are helping insurgents in Iraq fight US forces and are terrorizing Iraqis aiding the new interim government. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, who testified at the hearing said, Iran is important and is the key to everything." Even with the aggressive moves by the regime in Tehran, analysts vary on how to respond. Most agree that a pre-emptive strike like the one launched against Saddam Hussein, who had repeatedly ignored UN disarmament resolutions and subverted international inspectors, is not a viable option for Iran. "A lot of it depends on keeping the pressure on, that means having a united front with the Europeans and the other nations in the region. It means having a comprehensive strategy offering Iran positive incentives as well as disincentives." Richard Murphy, a senior fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations, said the Iranians are acting "paranoid" and "jumpy" because they perceive American and other Western interests encroaching on the region. He suggested that it would behoove the United States to ensure any action taken against Iran’s nuclear program has an international face. FOJ Note: Focus on Jerusalem is preparing a new article entitled, “Iran in Bible Prophecy,” based upon the prophecies of Ezekiel. Saddam Says 'Real Criminal is Bush' July 1….(Fox News) A defiant Saddam Hussein rejected charges of war crimes and genocide against him in a court appearance today, telling a judge "this is all theater, and that the real criminal is Bush." Saddam's hands were cuffed when he was brought to the court but the shackles were removed for the 30-minute arraignment at Camp Victory, a former Saddam palace on the outskirts of Baghdad. "I am Saddam Hussein, the president of Iraq." In his first public appearance since he was captured seven months ago, Saddam refused to sign a list of charges against him unless a lawyer was present, and he questioned the court's jurisdiction, according to one reporter. Saddam defended the invasion of Kuwait, saying it was "for the Iraqi people" and called the Kuwaitis "dogs." Saddam told the court that the US and multinational troops in Iraq were not "coalition troops but invasion troops." Saddam insisted on the judge referring to him as the "president of the Republic of Iraq" because "this would be respecting the will of the people," according to Al-Jazeera. The judge read the charges against the Butcher of Baghdad and 11 of his top lieutenants. The seven broad charges against Saddam are the killing of religious figures in 1974; gassing of Kurds in Halabja in 1988; killing the Kurdish Barzani clan in 1983; killing members of political parties in the last 30 years; the 1986-88 "Anfal" campaign of displacing Kurds; the suppression of the 1991 uprisings by Kurds and Shiites; and the 1990 invasion of Kuwait. "I cannot believe you, an Iraqi, are charging me with this when you know Kuwait is part of Iraq," Saddam told the judge, later adding, "I did all of these things as President, so don't strip me of that title." He's the bully he's always been, it sounds like he's been getting defensive advice from George Soros and Michael Moore," former U.S. attorney Joe DiGenova told Fox News after the court proceedings were over. US and Iraqi officials hope the trial will lay bare the atrocities of his regime and help push the country toward normalcy after years of tyranny. "This is the first time a brutal leader is going to be tried and that by Iraqi standards is extremely important," Mideast terrorism expert Walid Phares told FOX News. "The Iraqis are going to be watching for a long time, and it is going to be a shock treatment to the massacres that occurred in Iraq."
Grateful Iraqis thank America for Sacrifice June 30….(World Net Daily) Following the formal hand-over of sovereignty to Baghdad, 15 Iraqi and Iraqi-American groups have issued an open letter to the American people, thanking them for the sacrifices they endured to liberate their country. The letter will be delivered to President Bush at the White House today and published in a full page ad in USA Today. "Just as we mourn for the victims of Saddam's regime, we also grieve for the Americans and Iraqis who were killed or injured during the liberation or by terrorists determined to hold us back," the letter reads. "We will honor those who have sacrificed for our freedom by building a new Iraq that lives in peace with the nations of the world, without fear of war, torture chambers or terrorism." The groups express the Iraqi people's hopes as they transition to democracy and calls for continued cooperation and friendship between the two nations. It concludes: "As Iraqis assume full sovereignty over our nation, we extend our hands in friendship and gratitude to the American people. "The sacrifices your sons and daughters made for our liberation will never be forgotten. Without those brave young men and women, this day might never have come." The letter was organized by the Iraq-America Friendship Alliance, or IAFA, a new coalition of Iraqi and American organizations and individuals "committed to fostering goodwill between the two nations, supporting Iraq's reconstruction and movement toward democracy and telling the untold story from Iraq." The IAFA is a project of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a non-partisan think tank focused on defeating terrorism and spreading democracy in partnership with Iraqi and American organizations "This is an important time for Iraqis and Americans alike," said Janan Dakak, IAFA's director. "While there will be many difficulties ahead, Iraqis are determined to build a peaceful and democratic nation that joins the free world." The IAFA plans to bring Iraqis to the United States to tell the story of Iraq's movement towards democracy and provide stories and images of the country's reconstruction. FOJ Note: It is gratifying to hear some words of thankfulness coming from Iraq. America has lost a lot of precious lives liberating Iraq from Saddam Hussein and opposing the terrorists thugs that still are fighting in Iraq. Personally, I don’t think Saddam should have been allowed to remain in power 13 years ago. Life is precious, and it is sad to see so many lives extinguished via horrible world geo-political intrigue, but then again freedom is precious too. The constant political battles between freedom and totalitarianism can be perplexing, as it has been over the Iraq war, but it is satisfying to know that the Lord is coming one of these days, and that he will put down all despots and judge all evil doers, and establish righteousness in the world. The Vine and the Vinyard June 28….(FOJ) Jesus is quoted in John chapter 15 as saying that he as the Vine. (John 15:1 I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.) Have you ever wondered what he meant by such a strange statement? Did you know that the Lord also compared Israel to a Vinyard? Focus on Jerusalem will post a brand new article later this week on the prophetic implications used in Jesus parable of the Vine. WEEK OF JUNE 20 THROUGH JUNE 27
Saudi Clerics Preach Death to Jews, Christians June 25….(World Net Daily) While Riyadh insists to the
world that Saudi clerics condemn terrorism, Saudi statements broadcast on Saudi
national television convey the opposite message. Those statements call for
the killing of Jews and Christians and the ultimate takeover of the United
States by Islam. Since the March 24 bombings in the Saudi capital, the
kingdom's diplomats have been preaching tolerance, says the Middle East Media
Research Institute, or MEMRI. For example, Saudi Ambassador to the United
States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, said in a June 15 statement that "senior
religious scholars in Saudi Arabia have continually and unequivocally condemned
terrorism. In our war against terrorism, these condemnations are a powerful
weapon." Also, Nail Al-Jubeir, director of the Saudi information office, said on
May 6: "Our religious establishment has taught moderation to our people. The
religious establishment has demonstrated that it is the body most competent and
effective at de-legitimizing Al Qa'ida's cultist ideology." But that contention
is flatly refuted by numerous examples from Saudi television provided by MEMRI.
June 25….(World Net Daily) Assyrian Christians recently liberated from Saddam Hussein's regime are suffering a string of deadly attacks church leaders believe are religiously motivated. Christians and churches have received letters in Arabic threatening that if they don't follow Islamic practice and support "the resistance," they will face the consequences: "torture, and burning or exploding the house with the family in it," says Elizabeth Kendal, researcher for the World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty Commission, in a report published by the Assist News Service. Mandaean Christians, who follow the teachings of John the Baptist, have been receiving the same threats and suffering the same violence, Kendal says. The unchecked Islamic aggression is forcing the Christians to flee, she states, citing some examples. Facing next Wednesday's deadline for transfer of power, a temporary constitution that reads Islam is the "Official Religion of the State," and the failure to receive even one position on the Executive Council and only one ministry post, the Christians of Iraq are voting with their feet, says Joseph. Kendal says the Assyrian Christians greatly fear that the history of abandonment and massacre of their minority group is about to repeat itself. Historians regard the Assyrians as the indigenous people of Iraq. In biblical times, their homeland was centered around the Nineveh plains in Upper Mesopotamia, now northern Iraq, where they were visited by the prophet Jonah. The Assyrian Church of the East was founded in AD 33. Some 600 years later Arab invaders put the Assyrians under Muslim domination. Invasions over the centuries nearly eliminated them. The Assyrians fought for the Allies in World War I and were promised autonomy in their homeland upon victory. But they were abandoned to the mercy of the Ottoman Turks when the British mandate was lifted in 1932, resulting in the massacre of two-thirds of the population. In Saddam Hussein's secular state, the Assyrian remnant suffered severely under his discriminatory ethnic policy of Arabization.
Church-State Separation has gone too far June 25….(Baptist Press) More than three-fourths of
Protestant clergy believe the separation of church and state in the United
States has gone too far, according to research released by LifeWay Christian
Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention. Ellison Research, a full-service
marketing research firm in Phoenix which conducted the research for the
July/August issue of LifeWay’s Facts & Trends magazine, reported that 78 percent
of Protestant clergy say "the separation of church and state in the U.S. has
gone too far, or in ways that it was never intended to go" best reflects their
personal position. Just 8 percent of pastors agree with the statement "the
separation of church and state in the U.S. has not gone far enough; that more is
needed," Ellison reported, while 13 percent believe "the current separation of
church and state in the U.S. is right about where it should be." Among the
larger denominational groups in the study, Southern Baptist ministers are
particularly likely to view the separation of church and state as having gone
too far, by a 93 percent majority. Pentecostal and charismatic pastors also
are united in this belief (92%), while Methodist ministers (70%) and Lutheran
pastors (66%) also generally share this position. The study gave clergy an
opportunity to weigh in on a number of specific church-state issues.
Ninety-five percent of all clergy believe the words "under God" should continue
to be included in the Pledge of Allegiance. On one of the most controversial
issues in recent years, the displaying the Ten Commandments in a courthouse, 86
percent of Protestant ministers say such displays should be allowed. Virtually
all clergy from the more conservative National Association of Evangelicals
concur (95 percent), but the issue is more divisive within the NCC, where 65
percent believe such displays should be allowed and 35 percent say they should
not be.
Iraq and The Media June 25….(FOJ) There is so much disinformation in the media about Iraq, it makes you wonder what in the world is going on. Could it be that the Globalist minded internationalists in the media actually want the terrorists to prevail in order to undermine America’s predominance in world affairs in favor of Global Governing institutions that are more in line with their Democratic-Socialistic agenda? Perhaps they all aspire to a world government, as many of the socialist politicians and media celebrity darlings keep referring the unbridled unilateral actions of the US. Perhaps they even hope to accomplish their Global government goal in part by creating sympathy for the very fanatics who share their goal of destroying America. It is obvious they seem to have no problem cooperating with the stated agenda of Islamic clerics who issue fatwas against Christians and Jews because in fact they are all striving to eradicate the Christen roots of our country. Alan Keyes: 'American Republic is Dying' June 24….(World Net Daily) Former presidential candidate Alan Keyes is issuing a scathing attack on the nation's judges, saying their recent decisions could soon lead to the demise of the United States as we know it. "Our republic is dying before our eyes in this generation," Keyes told a South Dakota audience of 1,200 this week, according to the Rapid City Journal. "It's no doubt we could be living in the last days of the American republic." Among the legal rulings the consitutional expert blasted was the rejection by the US Supreme Court to hear the Pledge of Allegiance case by a California atheist who filed his objection to the "under God" phrase on behalf of his daughter. "The Pledge decision was no decision at all," he said, according to the Journal, noting that by ruling Michael Newdow had no standing to sue on his daughter's behalf, the court was in effect "spitting on God's authority over the family." Regarding the Massachusetts ruling favoring same-sex marriages, Keyes called it a "final assault on the fundamental institution of our lives." He suggested the commonwealth could no longer consider itself a republic form of government if state judges dictate to the legislature what laws should be. Keyes stressed it's the people, not the courts, who are the final arbiters on the law. As far as recourse, Keyes said the public can remove judges through impeachment for the high crime of "stealing your right to include God. Our founders didn't provide for judicial supremacy. That's not what they had in mind." Except for the prospect of impeachment, Keyes offered little hope for the "sorry state of things" caused by a "wicked spirit loose in our world and in America."
Wolfowitz: Next 6 Months are Critical June 24….(MSNBC) The US Central Command in Iraq has asked the Army to prepare for the possibility that an additional 25,000 troops may be needed in Iraq if the security situation there continues to deteriorate after the transfer of sovereignty on June 30. Paul Wolfowitz, in an interview withMSNBC, wouldn’t confirm but did say that “CENTCOM has plans to deal with whatever may confront us.” “We all understand that the next six months are crucial,” he says. “The next step [after the transfer of power] is the elections, as part of U.N. resolution 1546.” We know the enemy, which is al-Qaida, and the killers of Saddam’s regime, made an alliance with each other. Their agenda right now is to create as much chaos as they can. The way to stop efforts like this is mainly with American and Iraqi forces. The main subject in my meeting with Iraqi leaders is to accelerate the plan to build an Iraqi army and the Iraqi national guard. The long term goal has been to get Iraqis to the front lines. Iraq should be part of the campaign against terror. Iraq is central to the war on terror. The President laid that out correctly within a few weeks after 9/11. He said that our enemy wasn’t just al Qaida, but states that supported them. The President went to the UN early on and laid out a whole agenda on the concerns and issues we had with Iraq. There were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, they did lend support for terror, and terror against their own people. WMD became the focus. The UN resolutions were the last and final chance Iraq to come clean. To be clear, the resolution wasn’t for us to prove that there were stockpiles, but that he had to come clean and be transparent. He was lying about what he had, and he was defying instruction to come clean. Even David Kay, who is advertised to believe that there are no WMD, will say that Saddam was in violation of this resolution. No one doubts that he had the capacity to build them. It’s what the Clinton administration, Bush administration, the American intelligence community, all taught us. Everyone believed that his programs were more than what they seemed to be. And you have to remember, there was time to move and hide stuff. There are many connections between Saddam and Al Qaida. In 1992, 1993, Saddam and al Qaida made an agreement not to attack each other and support each other. You do not consort with Bin Laden and al Qaida if not for this purpose. Pool of Siloam Found June 23….(Arutz) A pool that served as a main water reservoir for Jerusalem residents 2,000 years ago has been uncovered, the Antiquities Authority announced. The Pool of Siloam was uncovered last week by chance at the southern end of the City of David - in what today is Silwan, while the city was carrying out infrastructure work for a new sewage pipe. Archeologist Eli Shukrun said that two millennia ago, Jewish residents would use the pool to gather water for their homes, as a meeting place, and also possibly as a mikva [ritual cleansing pool]. After lying untouched for 2,000 years, archeologists first uncovered one step, and then several more leading down to the pool, whose water came from the nearby Gihon spring. "This find is of major importance to the archeological world," Antiquities Authority director Shuka Dorfman said at a short ceremony at the site, where excavations are ongoing. "This is our history and it is important that we know and remember that Jews lived here, and that this is our inheritance," Education Minister Limor Livnat said. (A New Testament reference to the pool of Siloam can be found in John 9:10-12 Therefore they said to him, How were your eyes opened?" He answered and said, A Man called Yeshua made clay and anointed my eyes and said to me, 'Go to the pool of Siloam and wash.' So I went and washed, and I received sight.)
Europe’s Anti-Semitism Undermine’s US June 23….(Jerusalem Post) Standing before the EU
parliament in Brussels on May 16 2001, French EU parliamentarian Paul Marie
Couteax made a stunning statement. After condemning Israel's actions to defend
itself against Palestinian terrorism as the "theocratic excesses of this
religious state," Couteax declared that Europe should supply the Arab world
with nuclear weapons. In his words, "I have no hesitation in saying that we must
consider giving the Arab side a large enough force, including a large enough
nuclear force, to persuade Israel that it cannot simply do whatever it wants.
That is the policy my country [France] pursued in the 1970s when it gave Iraq a
nuclear force."
Quartet Uses Egypt to Resuscitate Road Map June 23…. Egypt has issued the Palestinian Authority with
a two-month ultimatum within which the Palestinians must make good on security
reforms. During a difficult meeting in which tones were raised, Egyptian
Intelligence chief Omar Suleiman expressed disappointment that PA Chairman
Yasser Arafat has not yet prepared a plan to reduce the number of Palestinian
Authority security forces from 12 to 3. According to reports, Suleiman at one
point shouted at Arafat, telling him "to get things moving".
Egypt, in coordination with the Quartet, is promoting its
Middle East initiative this week, starting with a visit Wednesday by Egyptian
intelligence chief Omar Suleiman to Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Ramallah according
to Egypt’s official news agency MENA. Later this week, representatives of the
Quartet, the US, Russia, the European Union, and the UN are expected to meet in
Cairo to discuss resuscitating the Road Map peace plan. Under the Egyptian plan,
the Palestinian Authority would consolidate and restructure its security forces
with Egypt retraining and overseeing the PA’s security forces. The plan also
calls for dismantling the armed terrorist factions in Gaza. Egypt is expected to
step up efforts to stop the illegal smuggling of weapons and munitions into Gaza
along the Philadelphi corridor, the narrow strip of land controlled by Israel
separating Gaza and Egypt. In addition, the transfer of power from President
Yasser Arafat, to Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei, would be mandated by the Egyptian
plan. Although the Quartet usually meets in Europe or the US, the meeting is
being held in Cairo. A senior official quoted by the Jerusalem Post said, “The
purpose of having the meeting in Cairo is to lend support to the Egyptians to
continue with their efforts to implement their security plan, and to show the
rest of the Arab world that the Quartet supports this initiative.” Egyptian
Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher told reporters on Monday, "Egypt insists that the
withdrawal should be in full, and a first step in putting in action the road map
peace plan, and the return to the negotiating table to reach our goal of the
establishment of the Palestinian State." The Quartet is also expected to discuss
how to revitalize the economy in Gaza.
US Threatens to Abandon Saudis and Their Oil June 23….(World Tribune) The United States has sent a tough message to Saudi Arabia that did not rule out abandoning the kingdom's oil sector. US officials said the Bush administration has warned that Americans would not stay in Saudi Arabia unless the kingdom takes significant steps to protect them. The officials said the warning came in wake of the Al Qaida beheading of Lockheed Martin engineer Paul Johnson on June 18. Fewer than 30,000 Americans live in Saudi Arabia, with many of them working in the defense and oil sectors. More than 5,000 Americans were said to have left the kingdom over the last year and many more were said to planning to leave for the summer. "It could have an effect [on the Saudi oil industry]," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. "Saudi authorities, as commendable as their overall effort is, have not yet been able to stop the terrorists to the point that everybody doesn't have to worry anymore." US officials said despite its assurances, the Saudi government has not carried out a comprehensive upgrade in efforts to protect US nationals in the kingdom. They said many Saudi-owned companies have failed to take significant steps to protect their facilities and Americans from Al Qaida attacks. On June 20, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. Richard Lugar issued the most specific warning to Riyad. Lugar, a Republican close to Secretary of State Colin Powell, said that unless Saudi Arabia provides better protection to Americans "they're in deep trouble with regard to the oil business." FBI and State Department counter-terrorism experts have been in Saudi Arabia helping authorities track Al Qaida insurgents. The US team was said to have been instrumental in the operation that tracked and killed Al Qaida chief Abdul Aziz Al Muqrin and three of his aides on June 18.
Muslim Warriors are Murdering Around the World June 23….(FOJ) The recent Muslim beheadings in Iraq and Saudi Arabia underscore the fact that Islam is a religion that glorifies killing. At the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, eleven Israeli athletes were massacred. In 1979, the US Embassy in Tehran was taken over, ransacked and 52 American hostages held for more than a year. In 1983, the US Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon were blown up by Hezbollah, killing 241 US soldiers. In 1988, Pan Am flight 103 was bombed, killing 270 people over Scotland. In 1993, there was the first bombing of the World Trade Center by Muslims, and of course again in September 2001, it was reduced to rubble, killing more than 3,000 Americans. In 1998, the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by Muslims, resulting in more than 200 dead and 4,000 injured. The list could go on and on and on. We could mention the millions systematically slaughtered through Islamic Holy wars in nations throughout Africa . Doesn’t one have to wonder why 90% of all ongoing world conflicts involve Muslims? For some reason they can't get along with anybody anywhere. Indonesia, the Philippines, the Sudan, Kenya, Somalia, Liberia, Israel, the US, Spain, Russia, Britain, Turkey, Iraq, Pakistan, Morocco, Afghanistan, and Chechnya, and all around the entire globe.
Saudi’s Fighting US in Iraq June 23….(Washington Times) Dozens of Saudi Jihadis are
reported to have been killed in Fallujah in recent months, and many Saudi
families have visited the Iraqi city to pay their respects to their "martyred"
sons. Now the tactics employed by the Fallujah insurgents are turning up in the
attacks on Westerners in Saudi Arabia. Recent copycat incidents include the
dragging of Westerners' bodies from the back of cars, the use of assassinations
to sabotage the vital oil sector and kidnapping. "The two situations are now
feeding directly off each other," said Hussein Shobokshi, a Jidda-based Saudi
businessman and political commentator. "The worse things get in Iraq, the more
support and legitimacy the terrorists in Saudi Arabia are getting." An
announcement Monday by al Qaeda that Saleh al-Awfi will be their new chief in
Saudi Arabia signals that the campaign of terror is unlikely to be brought to a
swift end by Friday's killing of Abdulaziz al-Moqrin and three other members of
his al Qaeda cell. "He was the third al Qaeda leader to be killed in Saudi
Arabia, and the violence is still with us," said Ali Al-Ahmed of the Saudi
Institute, a Washington-based think tank. "And al-Awfi is more dangerous than
al-Moqrin because he comes from the security ranks and has been responsible for
training, recruitment and logistics. He has also spent much more time inside the
kingdom." Al-Awfi, who was born near Medina, fought in Chechnya and
Afghanistan, where he met al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden shortly before the
September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States. After the Taliban regime
fell in Afghanistan, he fled the country with a group of Saudis.
Beheaded South Korean was Devout Christian June 23….(Sydney Herald) On Monday, Kim Sun-il stood gesticulating as he shouted desperately at the camera, "I don't want to die". Then the Arabic interpreter and devout Christian who dreamed of missionary work in the Arab world knelt silently and impassively before his Muslim militant captors beheaded him. The scenes from video tapes aired on Arabic television station Al Jazeera were broadcast repeatedly on South Korean television, sending a chill through many people who already had reservations about the government's plan to send troops to Iraq. The militants had demanded South Korea withdraw some 670 military medics and engineers already in Iraq and drop plans to send 3,000 more troops to help rebuild the country. South Korea rejected the demand, and reiterated after news of Kim's death that the deployment would go ahead. The seventh of his father's eight children, Kim had been working in Iraq as an interpreter for the past year. As a Christian, he mixed that work with evangelizing, media reports say. Kim was to have been ordained as a Christian minister and dreamed of being a missionary in the Arab world, media reports say. He entered Iraq on June 15, 2003, said the South Korean Foreign Ministry, one of a handful of South Koreans doing business in a highly dangerous environment. Almost all now plan to leave the country within days. A Thanks to FOJ Readers June 22….The Focus on Jerusalem Prophecy Ministry web-site recently passed over the 300,000 visitor plateau. I would like to thank all of the regular reviewers of FOJ for their devotion and interest in the ministry of Focus on Jerusalem. FOJ strives to uphold a scriptural accounting of God’s prophetic word, both in current event reviews, and in the exposes on the prophetic word. The FOJ web-site went on-line in the fall of 2000 and currently averages about 9,500 visits per month. The highest FOJ monthly rating was 12,000 visits per month, and that was reached just after 9-11. My sincerest and deepest thanks to all of you…(Darrell)…..and, “Keep Focusing on Jerusalem”!
Fundamentalist Islam is the Problem June 22….(Frontpage) Perhaps the greatest blasphemers in any religion are those who appoint themselves as God’s executioners. But when an entire civilization embraces such butchers, both the civilization and the religion are in trouble. The ritual slaughter of Paul Johnson Jr. in Saudi Arabia wasn’t simply the act of a cluster of terrorists, but a reflection of the failure of the entire Arab world. Religions are what men make of them. In the Arab heart-lands of Islam, Muslims are making a gory mess of their faith. It’s time to end the politically correct baby-talk insisting that Islam isn’t the problem. In the decaying Arab world, Islam is the problem, because of the way bitter old men interpret and deform its more humane precepts while embracing its cruelest injunctions. The decapitation of yet another American civilian can’t be dismissed as an aberration from “true” Islam. The tradition of beheading unarmed prisoners dates to the earliest decades of the Muslim faith. The butchering of Paul Johnson, Daniel Pearl, and Nick Berg and others isn’t a new phenomenon, it’s revivalism, “that old-time religion” returning for a re-match with secular devils. The Saudis, especially, have sown the wind and now are reaping the whirlwind. I personally have seen their attempts to “purify” Islam and provoke anti-Western rage, from Africa to Southeast Asia, from Central Asia to the Arab homelands. No matter how many terrorists the Saudis kill on their own soil hereafter, they will remain guilty, in great part for every murder committed by Muslim extremists. They created the monsters who now have run amok. But the problem is far greater than the where the House of Saud stands on terror. We face a phenomenon new to history: A once-great is failing before our eyes. Whether or not one subscribes to the idea of a “clash of civilizations,” we are incontestably witnessing the crash of an entire civilization, that of Middle Eastern Islam. After centuries of self-destructive behavior, Arab civilization is unable to compete in a single field of human endeavor relevant to progress. Instead, Arab societies are racing backward into superstition, bigotry and a narcotic culture of blame. They have grown so impotent in every other regard, unable even to translate great wealth into minor power, that Arabs rich and poor, educated and illiterate, are enraptured by their rare “triumphs” over the West, from 9/11 to the barbaric murder of Westerners doing the work that Arabs themselves are too slothful or incompetent to do. As with the worst demagogues in every religion, the apostles of terror cite religious texts selectively. But if such practices are limited to fringe elements in other world religions in our time, the perversion of faith pervades today’s Islamic mainstream. One can’t say that, of course. Arab Muslims are allowed to spew anti-Western, anti-Christian, anti-Jewish, anti-Hindu, anti-everybody-else hate speech. That’s just their culture, you see. But it’s taboo for a Westerner to suggest that the roots of terror may go a bit deeper than a black sheep or two in a few Middle-Eastern families.
Clinton Ignored Misgivings about Arafat FOJ Note: Before long-time regular readers of FOJ read the following article, allow me to insert a little advertisement concerning Clinton’s Oslo dealings with Yasser Arafat, “ I told you so”!!! June 22….(JNEWSWIRE) Former US president Bill Clinton Sunday laid the blame for the failed Oslo “peace” process squarely on the shoulders of PLO chief Yasser Arafat. In a weekend interview published ahead of the release of his autobiography, Clinton told Britain’s The Guardian he holds Arafat solely responsible for the collapse of Middle East peace efforts. But subsequent to the 2000 Camp David summit, where Clinton says Arafat appeared out of touch with reality, the by-then lame-duck president attempted to assuage the “confused” terror chief by offering him even more of Israel’s biblical homeland at Taba in December of that year. US President George W. Bush has staked his Middle East policy on the same failed formula of buying the Arabs’ acceptance of Israel by ignoring biblical mandate and uprooting Jews from their God-given lands. (and accepting Palestinian Statehood with a terrorist leader) In his new book, My Life, Clinton reportedly speaks at length about his endeavor to broker a final peace agreement between Israel and the “Palestinians” by portioning off the Jews’ biblical homeland to their Muslim enemies. But Arafat, described as “confused, and possibly no longer at the top of his game,” was incapable of making the final transformation from terror boss to legitimate statesman, the former commander-in-chief said. According to a New York Times review of his book, Clinton reflects that Arafat was “not fully in command of the facts” during their three-way summit with then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak at Camp David in June 2000. Clinton told the Guardian that as he was preparing to leave the White House, Arafat phoned to tell him he was a “great man.” "'Mr. Chairman,' I replied, 'I am not a great man. I am a failure, and you have made me one,’” Clinton said. The Jerusalem Post reported that this past January, Vice President Dick Cheney recounted how on Bush’s inauguration day in 2001, Clinton "talked repeatedly all day long about his disappointment in Yasser Arafat, how Arafat had, in effect, torpedoed the peace process." After signing what has come to be known as the Oslo Accord in 1993, Arafat told Jordanian reporters that the perceived “peace” with Israel was merely the first step in his plan to eliminate the Jewish state in phases. Despite his own misgivings, Clinton reacted to the failure at Camp David by offering Arafat even more of Israel’s land at Taba, Egypt in December 2000. And this after the PLO chief had already launched his “Al Aqsa Intifada.” Even today, Clinton believes Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon have no choice but to negotiate with the unrepentant mass murderer. "Unless they just want to wait for him to become incapacitated or pass away or unless they seriously believe they can find a better negotiating partner in Hamas ... then they need to keep working to make a deal," he was quoted as saying. Bush’s own Middle East policy, centered on the Quartet’s Road Map peace plan, follows the same failed formula of buying Arab acceptance of Israel by dividing the holy land. And while Bush has attempted to sideline Arafat, he has forbidden Israel to remove him, allowing the aging terror boss to continue to dramatically affect events in the region.
President Bush Blocks US Embassy Move to Jerusalem June 22….(Arutz) US President Bush has, once again, like Predident Clinton before him suspended the relocation of the American embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Israel's capital, Jerusalem. Asserting that US national security will be harmed if he implements the US law requiring the move, Bush signed yet another six-month security waiver. Congress overwhelmingly approved the Jerusalem Embassy Relocation Act in 1995, mandating that the Embassy be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem by May 1999 and that the US recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Former US President Bill Clinton, who promised in both of his presidential campaigns to move the embassy, signed successive six-month security waivers, thus passing on the "hot potato" to his successor. During the 2000 election campaign Bush pledged that if he was elected, he would "begin the process" of moving the embassy to Jerusalem on his "first day in office." He has not done so, however, he wrote this week to the Secretary of State, "My Administration remains committed to beginning the process of moving our embassy to Jerusalem." After the failed Camp David talks in July 2000, Clinton suggested in an interview with Israeli television that he was considering moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem. "I have always wanted to do it. I've always thought it was the right thing to do. But I didn't want to do anything to undermine the peace process. But it's something that I have taken under review now because of the recent events," Clinton told the Israeli public. In reaction, Hizbullah terror chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah threatened the US that he would "turn your embassy into rubble and return your diplomats in coffins if you locate your embassy in Jerusalem." The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has sharply criticized the continued failure to implement the Embassy Relocation Act. "The failure to recognize Jerusalem is a violation of US law and a blatant surrender to Arab terrorist threats," ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said. "At a time when America is engaged in a life-or-death struggle with terrorists worldwide, it is especially important to implement US law on Jerusalem and thereby send a message to terrorists everywhere that America will not capitulate to their blackmail. FOJ Note: These embassy proclamations and their subsequent veto by both US Presidents Clinton and Bush shows that each of those Presidents knew that the security of the US was threatened by terrorists as long ago as 1993. It also belies our continued reluctance to relocate our embassy and reflects the fact that we are do not feel safe from the threats of Middle Eastern terrorists and that the war on terror is a long way from being won! Ironic is it not that the city of Jerusalem should be so much trouble? Experts say 'Dirty Bomb' Attack in U.S. Likely June 21….(USA Today) Terrorists are "all but certain" to set off a radiological weapon in the United States, since it will take authorities too many years to track and secure the radioactive materials of such "dirty bombs," a team of nuclear researchers has concluded. The U.S. and other key governments took an important step on controls this month, agreeing at the G-8 summit to tighten, by the end of 2005, restraints on international trade in highly radioactive materials. But thousands, possibly tens of thousands, of high-risk radioactive sources are already in use worldwide, with few accurate registries for tracing them, the scientists say. They cite Iraq, where an undetermined number of such sources have gone missing in the postwar chaos. The findings are being published in a 300-page book, "The Four Faces of Nuclear Terrorism," the result of a two-year study by the authoritative Center for Nonproliferation Studies, or CNS, of California's Monterey Institute of International Studies.
Where Does Saudi Arabia Stand? 
June 21….(FOJ) Saudi security forces appeared to act last Friday night, June 18, hours after the decapitated body of the American engineer Paul Johnson was found in Riyadh, they killed his purported murderer, Abdulaziz al-Muqrin in a shoot-out in the capital. Not surprisingly, Al Qaeda quickly denied the death of its most prominent Al Qaeda Saudi gang leader. In a statement released over their affiliated Web sites, they accused the Saudis of lying, and trying to appease the US. After performing beheading atrocity, the Saudi Al Qaeda force published three horrendous photographs, one showing a terrorist holding up the severed head of his victim, the second displaying the knife he used and the third showing the head placed on the back of the dead man. Saudi Arabia continues to preach the radical theology of Wahabism, and in fact has taught its people to hate anything to with Israel or the West. One must wonder where the Saudi Royal House will stand if they find the fire they kindled turns out to be too hot to handle.
French Officials Abhor Israel June 21….(JNEWSWIRE) European parliamentarian and former French Prime Minister Michel Rocard said last week that the 1917 Balfour Declaration had been an “historic mistake,” and that Israel is a racist state that “continues to pose a threat to its neighbors until today.” During a lecture in Alexandria, Egypt on June 16, Rocard referred to Israel as a state based on racism that “continues to pose a threat to its neighbors until today. Rocard is a front-running candidate for the Presidency of the European Parliament. Rocard’s jab at Israel echoed traditional French enmity towards the Jewish State, which also resulted this week in newly appointed Foreign Minister Michael Barnier meeting with mass Jew killer Yasser Arafat, while spurning a state visit to Jerusalem. Speaking to an audience at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina last month, Rocard described Israel as a "unique and abnormal entity that continues to pose a threat to its neighbors until today,” the “Palestinian” International Press Center reported. He said the 1917 Balfour Declaration, which led to Israel’s eventual rebirth in 1948, was an “historic mistake.” Rocard referred to Israel as a state based on racism that depended on armed conflict to set its borders. He ignored the fact that every major war Israel had been involved in had been initiated by the surrounding Arab nations. Modern French hostility towards the Jewish State was unmasked in December 2001, when former-French ambassador to England, Daniel Bernard, referred to Israel as “that shitty little country.” Bernard told a fellow party guest in London that he could not understand “why should we be in danger of world war three because of these people [the Israeli Jews]?”
Israel’s Reward for Leaving Gaza; More Terror June 21….(JNEWSWIRE) The Hamas terrorist organization of Gaza has again made it clear that it intends to continue murdering Israeli’s through terrorist attacks, even if the Gaza Strip is ethnically cleansed of all its Jews by the government of Ariel Sharon through the current withdrawal plan. Sami Abu Zohri, a senior spokesman for the Hamas terror group, told reporters that even if Israel left Gaza, the Palestinian Arabs would continue to perpetrate violence in “ever corner” of the land. Over the past two weeks, Hamas has made abundantly clear it does not intend to halt its efforts to murder Israeli Jews, despite Jerusalem’s major unilateral concession. Israel’s security experts fear that an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza would result in the area being transformed into a giant Hamas-controlled terror base, similar to what southern Lebanon became under the boot of Yasser Arafat’s PLO in the 1970’s. Mr. Sharon believes that by leaving and sealing off Gaza, Israel would be able to better contain the terror emanating from there. Meanwhile, “Palestinian” Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia yesterday demonstrated the PA’s continued disdain for its signed “peace” agreements with Israel when he announced the Al Aqsa Brigades terrorist group would not be disbanded, but rather integrated into the ruling PLO Fatah party. The IMRA news agency explained Sunday that Qureia’s position on the Brigades coincides with the “Egyptian plan that the various armed terrorist groups operating in the Gaza Strip retain their weapons while Israel promises not to take action against themrom elimination at the hands of the IDF. Many of those gunmen are wanted for murdering Israelis.
Damascus and Teheran Causing Insurgency in Iraq June 21….(FOJ) The radical Lebanese Shiite terrorist organization Hezbollah has been moving fighters to Iraq in recent months to battle American troops, according to numerous reports from Ha Aretz and the Middle East Research News Investigating Service. The report attributes the information to US intelligence sources who say the transfer of fighters has been carried out through Syria, following an Iranian initiative. The transit through Syrian territory is permitted by Damascus along its porous border with Iraq. The Hezbollah fighters in Iraq are part of a broader force of pro-Iranian militants operating in Iraq to destabilize the country and undermine US-led coalition forces and the new Iraqi government. Iran is eager to see the Hezbollah fighters establish operations in Iraq before a new regime is officially installed in Baghdad June 30. In its interim report, the congressional bipartisan commission of inquiry into the events of 9-11 states that the cooperation between the Hezbollah and Al-Qaida is extensive. US officials also say that Syria has not responded to American demands to seal its border with Iraq against the transit of "foreign fighters." According to U.S. sources, neither a letter to President Bashar Assad from Secretary of State Colin Powell nor the subsequent American decision to impose sanctions on Syria have had the desired effect on Damascus. WEEK OF JUNE 14 THROUGH JUNE 20
Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda Links FOJ Note: It seems that most of the media and many leaders in the government are wearing blinders about Iraq’s connections to Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, and in fact many terrorist attacks on the US, including the 9-11 attack. It makes you wonder what to believe, and if anybody knows the truth. Nonetheless, the World Net Daily News organization has compiled an extensive report on Iraq and Al Qaeda that is hard to ignore, especially in light of the UN and the mainstream media’s campaign to blame President Bush for what it calls an illegal war in Iraq. June 18….(World Net Daily excerpt) In concluding there was "no credible evidence" of cooperation between Iraq and al-Qaida before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on America, the 9-11 Commission charged with investigating events leading to 9-11 overlooked more than 10 years of connections and cooperation between Saddam Hussein's regime and Osama bin Laden's network, World Net Daily has found. While acknowledging that bin Laden made overtures to Hussein in the mid-1990s while he was in Sudan and again after he went to Afghanistan in 1996, they "do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship," the commission's staff said in a report released yesterday. The report also seems to rely heavily on the word of two of bin Laden's most senior associates who "have adamantly denied that any ties existed between al-Qaida and Iraq'' during interrogations. President Bush, who minimized the bin Laden-Iraq connection as a pretext for the invasion of Iraq, quickly responded to the report by affirming that "numerous contacts" between Iraq and al-Qaida did indeed justify the U.S.-led war on Hussein's regime. "There was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al-Qaida,'' Bush told reporters after meeting with his Cabinet at the White House. "This administration never said that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated between Saddam and al-Qaida. Vice President Cheney pointed to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who is still somewhere in Iraq today and is an al-Qaida associate who took refuge in Baghdad, found sanctuary and safe harbor there before we ever launched into Iraq. He also noted the link provided by Abdul Rahman Yasin, who mixed the chemicals used in the World Trade Center bombing in 1993. He fled to Iraq "and we found since we got into Baghdad, documents showing that he was put on the payroll and given housing by Saddam Hussein after the '93 attack; in other words, provided safe harbor and sanctuary. There's clearly been a relationship," said Cheney. In the Zarqawi case, Cheney added: "Here's a man who's Jordanian by birth. He's described as an al-Qaida associate. He ran training camps in Afghanistan back before we went to war in Afghanistan. After we went in and hit his training camp, he fled to Baghdad, and found safe harbor and sanctuary in Baghdad in May of 2002. He arrived with about two dozen other supporters of his, members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which was Ayman al-Zawahiri's organization. Remember now, He's the number two man to bin Laden, which was merged with al-Qaida interchangeably. Egyptian Islamic Jihad and al-Qaida kind of merged operations at that point. He was allowed to operate out of Baghdad. He ran the poisons factory in northern Iraq out of Baghdad. There clearly was a relationship there that stretched back over that period of time to at least May of '02, a year before we launched into Iraq. He's probably killed more Iraqis than any other man in Iraq today. He is probably the leading terrorist still operating in Iraq today." "The notion that there is no relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida just simply is not true," Cheney asserted. Last year the London Guardian reported the deadly poison ricin discovered at a makeshift lab in a north London apartment was linked to a group of Algerian extremists with ties to al-Qaida and Iraq. The Associated Press reported a senior US official traveling in Europe said men arrested in the alleged ricin plot were linked to Ansar al-Islam, a terrorist group in northern Iraq with ties to al-Qaida and possibly to Saddam Hussein's regime. The official spoke on condition of anonymity. Four men were arrested in the apartment raid Jan. 5 and charged with attempting to develop a chemical weapon. Ansar al-Islam is led by an Iraqi Kurd named Nejmeddin Faraj Ahmad (also known as Mullah Krekar) who trained with bin Laden in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Senior al-Qaida leaders fled Afghanistan for Iraq and received safe harbor before Hussein was overthrown by US forces last year, according to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld Perhaps even more interesting is the contention of terrorism expert Laurie Mylroie, author of "The War Against America." She says senior al-Qaida operative Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, captured in Pakistan, is not the man he claims to be. He was actually an Saddam-Iraqi intelligence agent, a fact that would serve as smoking-gun evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the terror of Sept. 11. Mylroie, an adjunct fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, explains that Mohammed was captured in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, March 1, 2003, and has been providing interrogators with critical information about al-Qaida operations and ongoing attack plots, according to U.S. officials. As the operational leader of the al-Qaida terrorist network, Mohammed is said to be the mastermind of the Sept. 11 terror attacks and is thought to have planned the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings and the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000. Mylroie maintains Mohammed is a Pakistani Baluch, along with Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The two collaborated with a third Baluch in 1995, Abdul Hakam Murad, in an unsuccessful plot to bomb 12 U.S. airplanes. The plot, called "Project Bojinka," involved ramming a fuel-laden airliner into the Pentagon. Baluchs are Sunni Muslims who live in the desert regions of eastern Iran and western Pakistan – Baluchistan – and have longstanding ties to Iraqi intelligence. Wafiq Samarrai, former chief of Iraqi military intelligence who defected to the West in 1994, explains that Iraqi intelligence worked with the Baluch during the Iran-Iraq war. Following the Sept. 11 attacks, Saddam Hussein actually stepped up his support of al-Qaida terrorists. In October 2002, Hussein welcomed dozens of al-Qaida operatives to Iraq, where they were provided with new identities linking them with prominent Iraqi families. Among the senior al-Qaida operatives in Iraq are Othman Suleiman Daoud, an Afghan national. Daoud was believed based in the Sunni Triangle, north of Baghdad, the focus of the insurgency against the US military. Another al-Qaida leader in Iraq is Faraj Shaabi, a Libyan national. The sources said Shaabi spent most of the last decade in Sudan until he was ordered by bin Laden to transfer to Iraq. Meanwhile, last year, a 16-page top secret government memo to the Senate Intelligence Committee revealed bin Laden and Hussein had an operational relationship from the early 1990s to 2003 that involved training in explosives and weapons of mass destruction, as well as financial and logistical support, and may have included the bombing of the USS Cole and the Sept. 11 attacks. Osama Bin Laden sent ''emissaries to Jordan in 1990 to meet with Iraqi government officials at Saddam Hussein’s request.'' At some unspecified point in 1991, according to a CIA analysis, ''Iraq sought Sudan's assistance to establish links to al-Qaida.'' The primary go-between throughout these early stages was Sudanese strongman Hassan al-Turabi, a leader of the al-Qaida-affiliated National Islamic Front. A defector reported that ''al-Turabi was instrumental in arranging the Iraqi-al-Qaida relationship." The defector said Iraq sought al-Qaida influence through its connections with Afghanistan, to facilitate the transshipment of proscribed weapons and equipment to Iraq. In return, Iraq provided al-Qaida with training and instructors. Another man, Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, who's described as the terror lord's ''best friend,' was involved in planning the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. The CIA believes ''fragmentary evidence points to possible Iraqi involvement'' in the bombing of the USS Cole in Oct. 2000, according to the memo. The report also contains information about meetings between the ringleader of the Sept. 11 attacks Mohamed Atta and former Iraqi intelligence chief Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al Ani. The memo says the men met several times in the Czech Republic city of Prague and Iraq authorized the transfer of funds to Atta. More evidence of the connection was found when Iraq was liberated. Documents found last year in the bombed-out headquarters of the Mukhabarat, Iraq's secret police, show Hussein brought a bin Laden aide to Baghdad in early 1998 from Osama's former base in Sudan to arrange closer ties, and to seek a meeting with the terror kingpin in person. Al-Qaida was based in Sudan until 1996, when its leadership moved to Afghanistan after the Sudanese government bowed to pressure from the US to expel bin Laden's terror network, and occasion which President Clinton passed on in apprehending Bin Laden. The paper trail indicates the meeting, which was based on a common hatred of America and Saudi Arabia, apparently went so well it was extended by a week and ended with arrangements being discussed for bin Laden to visit Baghdad. Also last year, documents seized by Spanish investigators and turned over to US authorities show an alleged terrorist accused of helping the Sept. 11 conspirators was invited to a party by the Iraqi ambassador to Spain under his al-Qaida pseudonym. Just last month, the Wall Street Journal reported that recently translated documents captured by U.S. forces in Iraq provide new evidence of a direct link between Hussein's regime and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Rosters of officers in Saddam's Fedayeen list Lt. Col. Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, who was present at a January 2000 al-Qaida "summit" in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, at which the 9-11 attacks were planned, the paper reported. The Fedayeen was the elite paramilitary group run by Saddam's son Uday, which was deployed to do much of the regime's dirty work. Reported accounts of the al-Qaida planning summit said Shakir had a job at the Kuala Lumpur airport he obtained through an Iraqi intelligence agent at the Iraqi embassy. Among the al-Qaida operatives in attendance were the two who flew American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon – Khalid al Midhar and Nawaz al Hamzi – and Ramzi bin al Shibh, the operational planner of the 9-11 attacks. Also in attendance was Tawfiz al Atash, a high-ranking Osama bin Laden lieutenant and mastermind of the USS Cole bombing. The information supports other journalists who have uncovered a connection between Iraq and al-Qaida, including Jayna Davis, author of The third Terrorist; the Middle Eastern Connection to the Oklahoma City bombing. In her book, Davis suggests the Sept. 11 attacks possibly could have been prevented if evidence of an Iraqi and al-Qaida link to the OKC bombing had been pursued. Davis writes that in November 1997, Hussain Hashem Al-Hussaini, a former Iraqi Republican Guardsman whom multiple eyewitnesses have identified as McVeigh's elusive accomplice. At the time, Al-Hussaini was employed at Boston Logan International Airport, where two of the four 9-11 suicide hijackings originated. She also reveals court records that suggest one of bombers Timothy McVeigh's and Terry Nichols's accused Middle Eastern handlers had foreknowledge of the 9-11 plot. In addition, Davis discusses information she first uncovered eight years ago, that Nichols learned the macabre genius of terrorist bomb making under the training of Philippines-based al-Qaida explosives expert Ramzi Yousef, the convicted mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing The London Telegraph reported last December the discovery of a secret memo to Saddam Hussein that gives details of a visit by Mohamed Atta to Baghdad just weeks before the 9-11 attacks. Information obtained by Iraq's new coalition goverment indicate that Mohammed Atta was trained in Baghdad by Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal. "We are uncovering evidence all the time of Saddam's involvement with al-Qaida," said Dr Ayad Allawi, Iraq's new President. "But this is the most compelling piece of evidence that we have found so far," he said. "It shows that not only did Saddam have contacts with al-Qaida, he had contact with those responsible for the September 11 attacks." DEBKA Report on the 911 Commission Findings June 17….(DEBKA) The US independent commission’s interim account of the September 11 terror attacks in the United States is full of holes and inconsistencies, according to American and Israeli intelligence experts close to the war against al Qaeda. One of its least plausible claims is that Osama bin Laden had pressed to launch the strikes in the summer of 2000, shortly after Israel’s soon-to-be prime minister Ariel Sharon made a highly controversial visit to a disputed holy site in Jerusalem. Later, he pressured the hijackers to strike in May 2001 and in June and July when Sharon would be visiting the White House. Each time, he was told the commandos were not ready, the report said. We see here the outcome of a cynical attempt to link Sharon, Israel and the Jews to the September 11 atrocities. Sharon is suddenly being blamed not only for the Palestinian uprising - which was planned years before he visited Temple Mount - but is also being dragged into focus in relation to al Qaeda’s attacks on America. The obvious point here is if the Israeli motivation was so important in the chain of events leading up to September 11, why did bin Laden decide to attack America and not Israel? DEBKAfile’s experts on terrorism point to some more weak points and misses in the independent panel’s interim report.
The interim conclusions reached by the 9/11 Commission make sense only if it is presumed that the panel was set up to whitewash certain American and Saudi political and intelligence bodies and pin the entire blame for Al Qaeda’s attacks in America on the Bush Administration, incidentally dragging in the US President’s ally, the Israeli Prime Minister, both of whom the powers in Europe want to get rid of.
Bush Disputes al-Qaida-Saddam Conclusion 
June 17….(My Way) President Bush disputed the Sept. 11 commission's findings today that there was no "collaborative relationship" between Saddam Hussein and the al-Qaida terrorist network responsible for the attacks. "There was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida," Bush insisted following a meeting with his Cabinet at the White House. "This administration never said that the 9-11 attacks were orchestrated between Saddam and al-Qaida," he said. "We did say there were numerous contacts between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida, for example, Iraqi intelligence agents met with (Osama) bin Laden, the head of al-Qaida in the Sudan." The independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks said Wednesday that no evidence exists that al-Qaida had strong ties to Saddam Hussein, a central justification the Bush administration had for toppling the former Iraqi regime. Bush said Saddam was a threat because he had not only ties to al-Qaida, but to other terrorist networks as well. "He was a threat because he provided safe haven for a terrorist like al-Zarqawi who is still killing innocents inside Iraq," he said, referring to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who is considered the most dangerous foreign fighter in Iraq and one of the world's top terrorists. America’s Military Might June 17….(FOJ) America today is considered to be the lone superpower in the world. The years of the Cold War witnessed the US and the Soviet Union competing as the world’s two top superpowers. But what most people fail to realize is that prior to December 7th 1941, the United States was regarded to be only the eleventh strongest nation in the world in terms of its military capability. That statistic is startling when one stops to consider the tremendous task that was set before our nation during WWII. The armies of Germany, Japan, France, Great Britain, Spain, Italy, Poland, Turkey, Russia and China were all rated well ahead of the US armed forces in the 1930’s. It is nothing short of amazing how God has overseen the welfare of America during the 20th century, and by overseeing the welfare of America, he has also providentially returned his people of Israel back into the Promised Land under the great umbrella of protection that is the US superpower. America today has become hated by the entire world simply because it has stood as the shining city on a hill that former President Reagen alluded to. But America’s military superpower status is not the key to winning the war on terror and surviving the onslaught of the Axis of Evil. America needs to turn to the same source of help that enabled it to survive and defeat the Axis world superpowers in the 1940’s. Germany, Italy, Japan) (Psalms 18:2-3 The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower. I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from mine enemies.) (Psalms 108:13 Through God we shall do valiantly: for he it is that shall tread down our enemies.)
911 Panel on Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda June 17….(New York Post) To hear much of the news reporting yesterday, you'd think a national 9/11 Commission report had blown a giant hole in the Bush administration's rationale for toppling Saddam Hussein. To hear much of the news reporting yesterday, you'd think a national 9/11 Commission report had blown a giant hole in the Bush administration's rationale for toppling Saddam Hussein. The commission did no such thing. But that didn't stop congressional Democrats, led by presumptive presidential nominee John Kerry, from renewing their charges that the administration "misled America" about Saddam Hussein's ties to Osama bin Laden. Again, that's not what the report says. And even if it did, a Saddam-Osama alliance is not why America opened a front in Iraq as part of the War on Terror. The staff report, re leased as part of yes terday's final public hearings, says there was no evident connection between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 attacks. In fact, the Bush administration has never said there was. The report also says the commission has "no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States." Again, the administration never said there was. But the report does say that bin Laden actively sought to work with Saddam, through contacts arranged by the Sudanese government. Indeed, it says, "a senior Iraqi intelligence office reportedly made three visits to Sudan, finally meeting bin Laden in 1994." Further, it says, "contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda also occurred after bin Laden returned to Afghanistan." The report claims that those contacts "do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship." But that's far from a flat-out "no ties exist." And, again, the administration has alleged only that Saddam and al Qaeda maintained contacts that were more than casual or inconsequential, none of which is denied in the commission report. In fact, as Stephen Hayes writes in The Weekly Standard, the conventional wisdom in Washington long before George W. Bush took office was that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were partners in terrorism. Two Clinton-administration stalwarts, Attorney General Janet Reno and U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White, brought an indictment against bin Laden and a deputy, Mohammed Atef, in 1998, charging that Saddam and Osama "reached an understanding, that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the government of Iraq." Yes, those allegations were eventually dropped from the indictment. These likely means they couldn't have been proven in a court of law under federal rules of evidence, not necessarily that they were baseless to begin with. (This underscores the dangers of treating global terrorism in the age of suitcase nukes as a legal, not a military, matter, as candidate Kerry proposes.) Meanwhile, back in 1999, ABC News reported that Saddam had offered bin Laden asylum, citing their "long relationship" and a December 1998 meeting in Afghanistan between Osama and Iraqi intelligence chief Faruq Hijazi. That same year, the Congressional Research Service reported that if Saddam Hussein "decides to use terrorists to attack the continental United States, he would likely turn to bin Laden's al Qaeda," which was then recruiting "Iraqi chemical weapons experts." Did everyone mislead America? If, in fact, the nation was misled, the misleading began long before George W. Bush entered the White House. But what if substantive Osama-Saddam ties were for real? Just because the Kean commission hasn't yet found any evidence does not mean it doesn't exist. As recently as Monday, Vice President Dick Cheney said that Saddam "had long-established ties with al Qaeda," a statement his spokesman reiterated again yesterday. Further details can be found in Richard Miniter's vastly illuminating column on the opposite page. In other words, the Kean commission, whose blatantly partisan Bush-bashing has been manifest from the get-go, is hardly the final word on the subject. But the commission report does offer a clear rejoinder to those like Sen. Bob Graham, a possible Kerry vice presidential pick, who charge that the war in Iraq somehow constituted a distraction from the War on Terror. Many seem to have forgotten that the first U.S. military action after 9/11 was to invade Afghanistan and destroy its Taliban government, targeting bin Laden strongholds, and capturing many of his top aides in the process. As a result, the report says, "al Qaeda's funding has decreased significantly. The arrests or deaths of several important financial facilitators have decreased the amount of money al Qaeda has raised and increased the costs and difficulty or raising and moving that money." Moreover, though the organization re mains dangerous, it today has "a greatly weakened central organization." Still, President Bush realized, as John Kerry, the Democrats and the Kean Commission clearly do not, that the war on terrorism is not just about seeking revenge against the perpetrators of 9/11. It's about neutralizing radical Islam's fundamental challenge to Western civilization, fighting to win a war that was imposed on the West by evil men in the service of a depraved ideology. The path to victory is not clear, but the alternative is one, two, many 9/11's, each more horrific than its predecessor.
Al-Qaida Planned to Attack White House 
June 17….(Ha Aretz) Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden began formulating a plan to carry out major terror attacks in the US around the time of Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount in September 2000 that marked the beginning of the current Intifada, the US panel investigating the World Trade Center attack said Wednesday. Bin Laden wanted to draw a connection between Al-Qaida terrorism in the United States and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He believed his terror attacks in the U.S. would be seen as a punishment for the American administration's pro-Israel policy. Bin Laden wanted to advance the date of the attacks that were eventually carried out on September 11, 2001, and proposed that Al-Qaida strike in the US during a visit by Prime Minister Sharon to the Bush White House. His plans to carry out the attacks were delayed for operational reasons and it was not until September 11 that the final go-ahead was given. The panel's report said Bin Laden "argued that the attacks against the United States needed to be carried out immediately to support the insurgency in the Israeli-occupied territories and to protest the presence of U.S. military forces in Saudi Arabia." Iran is Recruiting Suicide Bombers! June 16….(FOJ) The world has suddenly become more dangerous than ever before. Iran has reportedly established what could be the first training center for Islamic suicide attackers. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps has established a center to train suicide attackers throughout the world, and their primary targets are Israel and the United States! This announcement should sound alarms in Washington! President Bush tagged Iran as a member of the Axis of Evil, and as long as fundamentalist Islam pervades the Middle East and finds havens in nations such as Iran and Syria, evil will systematically work like a cancer to eat the flesh of rationalism. The new Iranian suicide center is called the World Islamic Martyrs and Fighters Staff Headquarters. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard's intelligence service set up the training center in support of Islamic insurgency groups linked to Tehran. The groups will include Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command. After 60 years of the threat of nuclear war, we have become a bit blasé when nations such as Iran and Pakistan acquire nuclear weapons. But if Iran gets the bomb, as is apparently the case, it will be a very, very different world in which to live. As shocking as the actions of individual suicide bombers are to Western sensibilities, imagine what could happen if Iran were to acquire nuclear weapons. As Iran gets the bomb, do we seriously believe that the concept of deterrence will effectively preclude its use? Afterall, they have already said that the total annihilation of Israel is their goal, and that nuclear retaliation is not an issue. So what is to prevent the logic of the homicide/suicide bomber from functioning at the nation-state level? Iran is actually elevating suicide bombings to an art form as the radical Muslim community has done in Palestine. Anyone who doubts Iranian efforts to acquire nuclear weapons need only ask one basic question: Why is this nation with among the world’s largest oil reserves seeking to develop nuclear power if not for a bomb? It cannot be a need to replace oil. Iran is drowning in enough oil to last it for decades if not centuries. Iran has just made the human bomb more deadly and horrific than the atomic bomb!
Threat of Islamic Extremism Is Like a 'Cancer' June 16….(AP) The Army's top soldier on Tuesday likened the global war on terrorism to fighting cancer and said that although it may go "in remission" it will not disappear. "Past wars have been like having pneumonia. It may leave a bunch of scars on your lungs, but you get cured of it," Gen. Peter Schoomaker told reporters. "This (war) is a little bit like having cancer. You may get it in remission, but it's never going to go away in our lifetime." The threat from Islamic extremism is particularly worrisome for its potential of an attack involving weapons of mass destruction, he said. "I can't remember a time that, honestly, was more dangerous than what we're in today because of the nature of this threat," Schoomaker said in a wide-ranging interview with a group of reporters. Asa Hutchinson, undersecretary of homeland security for border and transportation security, said Tuesday that while the threat is real, it's very difficult to predict when terrorists will strike. "Whereas we expect action very quick in American society, it's nothing for them to wait eight years between the first World Trade Center attack and the second one."
America is Promoting Islam in Iraq June 16….(World Net Daily) President Bush says he wants to free Iraq, to liberate it from the oppression of totalitarianism, to create a new model for liberty in the Middle East. But Christians are fleeing while they can because the new constitution makes Iraq an officially Islamic republic. When the significant Christian community in Iraq failed to get even one seat on the executive council of the provisional government, the exodus began. Christians also took as a cue the fact that they got only one ministry post in the new government, the Ministry of Emigration. Was that a hint? Apparently Christians in Iraq think so. The churches are filled with Iraqis filling out baptismal forms required for the leaving the country. One deacon told Insight: On a recent night, the church had to spend more time on filling out baptismal forms needed for leaving the country than they did on the service. We have been flooded with parishioners desperate to leave the country, and as they cannot get an exit permit without a baptismal certificate from the church. According to figures from the Saddam Hussein regime, there are about 2.5 million Assyrian Christians in Iraq, representing about 10 percent of the total population of the country. There would be many more had the Assyrians not been systematically slaughtered in the last days of the Ottoman Empire. It is estimated that two-thirds of the population was wiped out in the early part of the 20th century. The Assyrians are not eager to see that kind of persecution again under Islamic rule. "We thought the Americans were going to bring us freedom and democracy," one Christian told Insight. "Instead, they are promoting Islam. We do not understand it. We are so grateful for them removing Saddam and giving us back our freedom. We do not want their effort to be a failure if the dictatorship of Saddam is replaced by the dictatorship of Islam." He continued: "The American-funded TV station, Al Iraqia, broadcasts Muslim programs four times every day and for two hours each Friday, but nothing from the other religions. The recent inauguration of the new government was opened by a Muslim mullah reciting a long passage and a prayer from the Quran, but none of our priests were invited. Why do they do this? Why do the Americans promote Muslims? They need to promote equality and democracy and freedom, not Muslim dictatorship." Sharia law is the law of the land in the new Iraq, as it is in Iran. That means only Muslims are first-class citizens, and it will eventually mean that anti-Americanism will prevail.
Vatican Downplays the Inquisition June 16….(Telegraph) The Vatican sought to play down the terrors of the Inquisition yesterday, claiming that far fewer people were tortured and executed for heresy than was popularly believed. The reassessment by Church historians was seized on by the Pope to qualify the apology he made for the Inquisition during the Church's millennium celebrations. The research emerged from a conference of scholars convened in 1998 to help the Pope assess the impact of the Inquisition, which often used brutal methods to suppress alleged witchcraft and doctrinal unorthodoxy. Church officials said that statistics and other data demolished myths about the Inquisition, including that torture and executions were commonly used. "For the first time we studied the Inquisition in its entirety, from its beginnings to the 19th century," said Agostino Borromeo, a professor of history of Catholic and other Christian confessions at Rome's Sapienza University. Prof Borromeo said that while there were some 125,000 trials of suspected heretics in Spain, research found that about one per cent of the defendants were executed, far fewer than commonly believed. Many of the burnings at the stake were carried out by civil rather than religious tribunals. Yesterday, the Pope reiterated his mea culpa but stressed that actions which had "disfigured the face of the Church" had to be viewed in their historical context.
The Chinese Dragon is Coming! June 16….(New York Post) A storm is brewing across the
Pacific and almost no one seems to be paying attention, except the Pentagon.
With all eyes pealed on Iraq and terrorism, only a precious few outside of
dedicated China hands have noticed the swelling military might of the People's
Republic of China. In fact, when the Pentagon issued its "Annual Report on the
Military Power of the People's Republic of China" (defenselink.mil) in late May,
it made a nary a splash in any media market. The report's a big deal because
China looms as America's biggest foreign-policy challenge in this century. Iraq
will pass and al Qaeda will be defeated, but China will soon stand before us
like a teenage Goliath, anxious to flex its political, economic and, perhaps,
even military muscle. To boost its access to top-of-the-line weaponry, Beijing
is lobbying the European Union to lift its 1989 Tiananmen Square arms embargo.
France and Germany are supportive of lifting the ban, while the US and Great
Britain oppose it. The People's Liberation Army is paying very close attention
to the revolution in American military affairs (beginning with Operation Desert
Storm) in order to improve its doctrine and assess U.S. vulnerabilities. The PRC
has more than 500 increasingly accurate, short-range ballistic missiles, mostly
aimed at democratic Taiwan. Five years ago, the Pentagon thought this number was
growing by just 25 a year, but the new estimate is three times that. This means
that China will have a first-rate military in 10 to 15 years and be the most
powerful armed force in Asia, with the exception of the United States. The
buildup far exceeds China's self-defense needs. No nation threatens China. So
what's it all for? Short term, Beijing's military focus is on unification with
Taiwan. Long term, the goals include making Japan strategically subservient and
replacing America as the preeminent power in Asia. Reagen Spearheaded the Soviet Collapse June 16….(FOJ) It was reported that former President Bill
Clinton questioned why he was not invited to speak at the National Funeral for
former President Reagen. Former Congressman John LeBoutillier, who had friends
close to the Reagan White House, said it indeed was Nancy Reagan’s adamant
wish that Bill Clinton not speak at her late husband’s funeral. LeBoutillier
said a source very close to Mrs. Reagan told him that Nancy ‘feels that
President Clinton stained the image of the Oval Office.’ Margaret Thatcher
shocked (and angered) many in Britain when she paid her respects to President
Reagan at the Rotunda in Washington. After standing at the flag-draped coffin
for several minutes, she backed away and curtsied to the former president. In
the United Kingdom, the curtsy is reserved only for royalty, Kings or Queens,
specifically. Yet she did so without hesitation. In fact, as she left the
Rotunda, a reporter asked her why she had curtsied to the dead American
president. To that she is said to have replied: “I should think it would have
been obvious.” Classic! It should also be noted that Margaret Thatcher traveled
to America to honor Ronald Reagan against the advice of her doctors. Her health
has been in decline due to a series of strokes. Yet despite the doctors, she was
not going to miss Reagan’s funeral. It was reported that she believed that
Reagan’s funeral was one of the last important occasions in her public life. So
important that over two years ago, with Reagan’s health failing, she purchased a
black dress for the occasion. During her travels since then, she took the dress
with her, just in case Reagan passed and she had no time to return to London.
After the national funeral, she even flew back to California to be with Nancy
and the family for the burial. Baroness Thatcher was the only world leader to
attend both the funeral and burial service. France, even though President
Jacque Chirac was in Georgia the day before the funeral chose to not even send a
representative to the State funeral. “I remember the Geneva summit meeting in 1985, when he met
Mikhail Gorbachev for the first time. The two were scheduled to talk about the
full range of issues confronting the United States and the Soviet Union. On
the second morning, the subject was strategic nuclear arms. Donald Regan, Bud
McFarlane, Paul Nitze, Roz Ridgway and Arthur Hartman joined the president and
me on our side of the table, facing our Soviet counterparts. Suddenly
Gorbachev began to harangue us about the Strategic Defense Initiative, our
plans for missile defense [SDI]. President Reagan exploded. The two leaders
went back and forth, interrupting each other and expressing their views with
vehemence. Then Reagan got the floor. He spoke passionately about how much
better the world would be if we were able to defend ourselves against nuclear
warheads on ballistic missiles. He was intense as he expressed his abhorrence
at having to rely on the ability to ‘wipe each other out’ as the only means of
keeping the peace. ‘We must do better, and we can,’ Reagan declared. The depth
of the president’s belief in missile defense was vividly apparent. Reagan was
talking from the inside out and, with simultaneous translation, Gorbachev
could connect what Reagan was saying with his facial expressions and body
language. When the president finished, there was total silence. After what
seemed an interminable time, Gorbachev spoke. Mr. President, I don't agree
with you,’ he said, ‘but I can see that you really mean what you say.’
Reagan had made an immense impression on Gorbachev, who must have realized
that he could not talk, con, bully or in any other way manipulate the
president into dropping his missile-defense [SDI] research program. Reagan
had personally nailed into place an essential plank in our negotiating
platform.” And yet Reagan had little or nothing to do with winning the Cold War? Reagan Said “NYET” (NO) In Reykjavik Islamic Group Shows Tape of U.S. Hostage June 16….(FOJ) Al Qaeda connected terrorists in Saudi Arabia
have kidnapped an American from New Jersey and distributed a videotape of him
and threatened to kill him unless Saudi authorities release al-Qaida prisoners
within three days. Paul Johnson, 49, of Stafford Township, New Jersey, was
kidnapped Saturday by a group calling itself al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula.
The organization is believed to be headed by al-Qaida's chief in the Saudi
kingdom, Abdulaziz Issa Abdul-Mohsin al-Moqrin. Obviously, Al Qaeda is
attempting to disrupt oil production export plans in the Saudi kingdom and to
drive its infamous wedge between Saudi Arabia and the US. For further insights
into the role of Saudi Arabia in Bible Prophecy, see
SBC Pastors Urged to Preach God's Word at All Costs June 16….(Agape Press) Throughout this week in Indianapolis,
Indiana, more than 5,000 pastors representing the nation's largest evangelical
denomination are being encouraged to preach God's word at all costs. While there
is a growing need for overseas missionaries, SBC president Dr. Jack Graham feels
Southern Baptists in North America need to be mission minded here at home. "I'm
going to be bringing a message at the convention, the president's address," he
says, "and I'll be challenging Southern Baptists to rekindle the fires of
evangelism at the local level." Graham, who has served as SBC's president for
two years now, says he is praying, through "our work within the churches,
through our Bible teaching ministries, through our worship leadership, that we
will commit as never before to fulfill the Great Commission until Christ comes."
Setting the tone for the conference on opening night was Dr. Paige Patterson,
president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, who gave the keynote
address. Taking his text from the book of Matthew, Chapter 7, where Jesus
preached on how to enter the kingdom of God, the speaker pointed out that
pastors who preach the true gospel cannot expect to win any popularity contests.
After all, he says, the message of Jesus was not particularly popular among some
people at that time. "The princes didn't like it, the politicians didn't care
for it, the preachers were offended by it, the priests certainly didn't like it,
the professors were dubious about it, and the philosophers thought they had a
better way," Patterson said. "It is, in fact, the most hated doctrine in all of
the world today that Jesus came preaching, the exclusivity of Christ in
salvation." The seminary head and former SBC president said rather than trying
to be "user-friendly" or "seeker sensitive," pastors should be focused on
preaching God's Word without compromise. He contends that the gospel is clear
when it states that many who believe they are following God will not be ready to
meet Him, and for them, "It's going to be a startling moment, an amazing day
when they stand before the judgment bar of God." That is why pastors have a
responsibility before God to preach his truth rather than seeking emotional and
religious experiences, Patterson said. He told the conference crowd that pastors
today should emphasize Christ's sacrifice for sin and man's need for a savior.
G8 Allies Warn Bush that Stability in Iraq Demands Arab-Israeli Deal June 16….(Independent) President Bush yesterday was bluntly told by European and Arab allies alike that a serious new push for a Palestinian-Israeli peace solution was vital if his vision of a stable Iraq at the heart of a reformed Middle East were to have any chance of success. Boosted by the unanimous United Nations vote on sovereignty, Mr. Bush used the first day of the G8 summit here to try and advance his agenda for Iraq, seeking to widen the role of Nato, gain relief for Baghdad's debt, and launch a much-touted initiative to promote democracy in the Middle East and the Islamic world. But the Palestinian-Israeli conflict quickly leapt to the centre of proceedings, as Tony Blair attempted to secure a US commitment to revitalise the virtually moribund "road map" towards a comprehensive settlement. President Jacques Chirac of France, the fiercest critic of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, warned that "real progress" toward a peace deal was a "precondition" of any successful attempt at reform of the region. But despite some nods of assent, there was little sign that Washington has agreed to a major rethink of its Middle Eastern policies, and its embrace of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's controversial plan to withdraw from Gaza.
Bush: No to 'Gay Pride Month' June 16….(FOJ) Homosexual activists are fuming over President Bush's refusal to declare the month of June "Gay Pride Month." During the Clinton Administration, the annual gay day was supported with taxpayer dollars and government facilities. The Bible clearly describes homosexuality as a grave sin, a sin so depraved in its effects that that God says that even he will give up on those who persist in such activity. Furthermore, it especially foolish for a nation to mock God by promoting its insidious national sins, when we need his hand of divine protection from the particularly devious enemy of terrorism! (Psalms 81:11-14 But my people would not hearken to my voice; and Israel would none of me. So I gave them up unto their own hearts' lust: and they walked in their own counsels. Oh that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways! I should soon have subdued their enemies, and turned my hand against their adversaries.) The Great Liberator: by Margaret Thatcher June 14….(FOJ) What a day it was! America’s farewell to Ronald Reagen last Friday was soul stirring, and befitting a wonderful Christian leader. It almost seemed for awhile that his goodbye would spawn a national revival. Truly, President Reagen was a God-send, and oh that such leaders were plentiful today. Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher spoke eloquently for all. Following are the remarks by Baroness Margaret Thatcher, at President Reagan’s State Funeral.“We have lost a great president, a great American, and a great man. And I have lost a dear friend. In his lifetime Ronald Reagan was such a cheerful and invigorating presence that it was easy to forget what daunting historic tasks he set himself. He sought to mend America's wounded spirit, to restore the strength of the free world, and to free the slaves of communism. These were causes hard to accomplish and heavy with risk. Yet they were pursued with almost a lightness of spirit. For Ronald Reagan also embodied another great cause, what Arnold Bennett once called 'the great cause of cheering us all up'. His politics had a freshness and optimism that won converts from every class and every nation - and ultimately from the very heart of the evil empire. Yet his humor often had a purpose beyond humor. In the terrible hours after the attempt on his life, his easy jokes gave reassurance to an anxious world. They were evidence that in the aftermath of terror and in the midst of hysteria, one great heart at least remained sane and jocular. They were truly grace under pressure. And perhaps they signified grace of a deeper kind. Ronnie himself certainly believed that he had been given back his life for a purpose. As he told a priest after his recovery "Whatever time I've got left now belongs to the Big Fella Upstairs." And surely it is hard to deny that Ronald Reagan's life was providential, when we look at what he achieved in the eight years that followed. Others prophesied the decline of the West; he inspired America and its allies with renewed faith in their mission of freedom. Others saw only limits to growth; he transformed a stagnant economy into an engine of opportunity. Others hoped, at best, for an uneasy cohabitation with the Soviet Union; he won the Cold War, not only without firing a shot, but also by inviting enemies out of their fortress and turning them into friends. I cannot imagine how any diplomat, or any dramatist, could improve on his words to Mikhail Gorbachev at the Geneva summit: "Let me tell you why it is we distrust you." Those words are candid and tough and they cannot have been easy to hear. But they are also a clear invitation to a new beginning and a new relationship that would be rooted in trust. We live today in the world that Ronald Reagan began to reshape with those words. It is a very different world with different challenges and new dangers. All in all, however, it is one of greater freedom and prosperity, one more hopeful than the world he inherited on becoming president. As Prime Minister, I worked closely with Ronald Reagan for eight of the most important years of all our lives. We talked regularly both before and after his presidency. And I have had time and cause to reflect on what made him a great president. Ronald Reagan knew his own mind. He had firm principles, and, I believe, right ones. He expounded them clearly, he acted upon them decisively. When the world threw problems at the White House, he was not baffled, or disorientated, or overwhelmed. He knew almost instinctively what to do. When his aides were preparing option papers for his decision, they were able to cut out entire rafts of proposals that they knew 'the Old Man' would never wear. When his allies came under Soviet or domestic pressure, they could look confidently to Washington for firm leadership. And when his enemies tested American resolve, they soon discovered that his resolve was firm and unyielding. Yet his ideas, though clear, were never simplistic. He saw the many sides of truth. Yes, he warned that the Soviet Union had an insatiable drive for military power and territorial expansion; but he also sensed it was being eaten away by systemic failures impossible to reform. Yes, he did not shrink from denouncing Moscow's 'evil empire.' But he realized that a man of goodwill might nonetheless emerge from within its dark corridors. So the President resisted Soviet expansion and pressed down on Soviet weakness at every point until the day came when communism began to collapse beneath the combined weight of these pressures and its own failures. And when a man of goodwill did emerge from the ruins, President Reagan stepped forward to shake his hand and to offer sincere cooperation. Nothing was more typical of Ronald Reagan than that large-hearted magnanimity, and nothing was more American. Therein lies perhaps the final explanation of his achievements. Ronald Reagan carried the American people with him in his great endeavors because there was perfect sympathy between them. He and they loved America and what it stands for, freedom and opportunity for ordinary people. As an actor in Hollywood's golden age, he helped to make the American dream live for millions all over the globe. His own life was a fulfillment of that dream. He never succumbed to the embarrassment some people feel about an honest expression of love of country. He was able to say 'God Bless America' with equal fervor in public and in private. And so he was able to call confidently upon his fellow-countrymen to make sacrifices for America, and to make sacrifices for those who looked to America for hope and rescue. With the lever of American patriotism, he lifted up the world. And so today the world, in Prague, in Budapest, in Warsaw, in Sofia, in Bucharest, in Kiev and in Moscow itself, the world mourns the passing of the Great Liberator and echoes his prayer "God Bless America." Ronald Reagan's life was rich not only in public achievement, but also in private happiness. Indeed, his public achievements were rooted in his private happiness. The great turning point of his life was his meeting and marriage with Nancy. On that we have the plain testimony of a loving and grateful husband: "Nancy came along and saved my soul." We share her grief today. But we also share her pride, and the grief and pride of Ronnie's children. For the final years of his life, Ronnie's mind was clouded by illness. That cloud has now lifted. He is himself again, more himself than at any time on this earth. For we may be sure that the Big Fella Upstairs never forgets those who remember Him. And as the last journey of this faithful pilgrim took him beyond the sunset, and as heaven's morning broke, I like to think, in the words of Bunyan, that "all the trumpets sounded on the other side." We here still move in twilight. But we have one beacon to guide us that Ronald Reagan never had. We have his example. Let us give thanks today for a life that achieved so much for all of God's children.”
King Abdullah calls for 'Marshall Plan' for Middle East June 14….(Ha Aretz) Jordan's King Abdullah II wants a program for the Middle East modeled after the Marshall Plan, which is credited with saving post-war Europe from economic and political disarray. In an address Friday to business leaders, the king said he had approached U.S. leaders about such a project before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. He says the attacks and subsequent problems they triggered overseas make it all the more pertinent. "The plan is needed now more than ever, to give people hope and offer them an alternative to hate and division," he told 500 people at a hotel in downtown Chicago. "I'm talking about a Marshall Plan, as it were, for the recovery of the Middle East."Abdullah said bringing stability to Iraq is crucial to any Middle East revival, but that it is secondary to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Terrorists, he argued, were using the Palestinian issue to woo recruits. "If we solve the Israeli-Palestinian problem, 90 percent of the battle is over," he said. The four-year Marshall Plan cost $13 billion and helped rebuild Germany as well as 14 other war-damaged European nations after World War II. Abdullah didn't say if the United States alone should take part in putting together such a plan, nor did he say how much it might cost.
Terorist Bombing in Baghdad June 14….(AP) car bomb tore through a convoy Monday in central Baghdad, killing at least 12 people, including an American and four other foreigners working to rebuild Iraq's power plants. A crowd gathered, shouting "Down with the USA!" and dancing around a charred body. Passions boiled over as the crowd of youths taunted American troops and Western journalists who rushed to the scene near Tahrir Square. American troops beat one man with a stick, but after failing to restrain the crowd, the troops and police withdrew. The bomb went off as three SUVs carrying the contractors were passing through the square. Five other vehicles were also destroyed. Scattered around one of the damaged SUVs were manuals that appeared to be for energy turbines, including one titled, "GE Energy Products, Europe." The attack unleashed fresh anger at the United States, with crowds chanting "Down with the USA!" and burning an American flag. "We deplore this terrorist act and vow to bring these criminals to justice as soon as possible," Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said. The bloodshed has stunned Iraq's new government, which had hoped to gain public support as the legitimate representatives of the Iraqi nation. U.S. authorities had feared an escalation of violence before the June 30 handover of sovereignty, but they hoped the recent establishment of a sovereign Iraqi government would drain support for the insurgency, allowing security to improve so that balloting for an elected administration can be held by the end of January. Allawi accused Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi of trying to disrupt the transfer of sovereignty. "Al-Zarqawi and his followers are earnestly working to prevent the success of this measure," he said.
Muslim Professor: Koran States Holy Land is Jewish June 14….(Weekend) According to Professor Khaleel Mohammed, Assistant Professor at the Department of Religious Studies at San Diego State University, the Koran clearly states that the Holy Land was promised by God to the Jewish People. In a revealing interview, Mohammed noted, "If God has 'written' Israel for the people of Moses, who can change this?" In his interview last week with FrontPageMagazine.com's managing editor Jamie Glazov, Mohammed quoted the Koran as saying: "Moses said to his people: O my people! Remember the bounty of God upon you when He bestowed prophets upon you, and made you kings and gave you that which had not been given to anyone before you amongst the nations. O my people! Enter the Holy Land which God has written for you, and do not turn tail, otherwise you will be losers." (Chapter 5: 20-21) "In both Jewish and Islamic understandings of the term 'written,' there is the meaning of finality, decisiveness and immutability," Mohammed explained. "So the simple fact is then, from a faith-based point of view: If God has 'written' Israel for the people of Moses, who can change this?" According to the professor, "the Koran refers to the (Jewish) exiles, but leaves it open for return, saying to the Jews that if they keep their promise to God, then God will keep the divine promise to them. We may argue that the present state of Israel was not created in the most peaceful means, and that many were displaced, for me, this is not the issue. The issue is that when the Muslims entered that land in the 7th century, they were well aware of its rightful owners, and when they failed to act according to divine mandate (at least as perceived by followers of all Abrahamic faiths), they aided and abetted in a crime. And the present situation shows the fruits of that action - wherein innocent Palestinians and Israelis are being killed on a daily basis." Referring to the Muslim conquest of the Holy Land in the 700s, Mohammed said, "When the Muslims conquered Jerusalem, it should have been left open for the rightful owners to return (due to divine mandate). It is possible that Jewish beliefs of the time only allowed such return under a Messiah - but that should not have influenced Muslim action." And, "The later Muslim occupation and building a mosque on the site of the Temple was something that was not sanctioned by the Koran. How honest is contemporary Islam with this? Given the situation in the Middle East, politicking stands in the way of honesty," he said. The San Diego professor said he was "interested in a moderate Islam, one that is inclusive and is concerned about all human rights. My mission is to help reclaim the beauty that once was practiced in Islam, a message not currently in fashion amongst more traditional or fundamentalist Muslims(practice of original Islam)," he said. Prof. Mohammed is the latest Muslim expert to claim that the Koran says the Holy Land belongs to the Jews, Israel National News noted. Imam Abdul Hadi Palazzi, secretary-general of the Italian Muslim Association, told students at Rutgers University earlier this year that it is possible to be a Muslim scholar and leader and still support America, Israel and democracy, the website reported. Speaking to a Jewish audience in Cleveland recently, Sheikh Palazzi cited pro-Jewish verses in the Koran and said, "There are many good Muslims who value life on earth and the sanctity of their families. Israel should make every effort to support the growth of a pro-Israel movement among these Muslims. [sadly, even Muslims in Israel were emotionally and morally defeated by the Oslo Accords.] They felt that Israel was selling them out to Arafat. They need to be supported and encouraged to speak out in defense of Israel without fear of being assassinated by the PLO or Hamas. Oslo signaled to many of us that Israel was ready to accept peace at any price, and make incredible concessions to ruthless criminals." Last year, Ahmad Muhammad 'Arafa, a columnist for the Egyptian weekly Al-Qahira, wrote an article rejecting the theorized, but long taught Islamic doctrine (not in the Quran) that the Prophet Muhammad's celebrated "Night Journey" took him from Mecca to Jerusalem. According to a translation provided by MEMRI - The Middle East Media Research Institute - the true location of the Al Aqsa (most distant) mosque is in Medina, on the Arabian Peninsula, and not in Jerusalem. WEEK OF JUNE 7 THROUGH JUNE 13
G8 Considers Becoming the G-10June 10….(Reuters) Faced with the growing importance of
developing countries, the rich club of G8 nations mulled different ideas for
holding regular talks with countries like China and India. Canadian Prime
Minister Paul Martin said he had floated the idea of holding summits of the
Group of 10, which includes the Group of Eight leading industrial nations but
adds other important countries, in addition to G8 summits. Italian Prime
Minister Silvio Berlusconi said the leaders were thinking of inviting China and
India into the G8 itself. "It doesn't make much sense for us to talk about
the economy of the future without two countries that are protagonists on the
world stage," Berlusconi told reporters during a break in talks at the annual G8
summit. The G8 comprises the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Britain,
Italy, Canada and Russia. Berlusconi said the leaders discussed the strength of
the Chinese economy and the fact that it was not constrained by the sort of
labor laws that exist in the West. "But we said that we shouldn't be afraid of
China because it is a huge consumer market and the idea was put forward to call
China and India to join the G8, making it the G9 or G10," Berlusconi said. The
G8 took root in 1975 when French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing invited what
was then the Group of Six to a fireside chat about the world economy in
Rambouillet, near Paris.
America Says Goodbye to President Reagen June 10….(FOJ) "If children prayed together, would they not understand what they have in common, and would this not, indeed, bring them closer, and is this not to be desired? So, I submit to you that those who claim to be fighting for tolerance on this issue may not be tolerant at all. When John Kennedy was running for President in 1960, he said that his church would not dictate his Presidency any more than he would speak for his church. Just so, and proper. But John Kennedy was speaking in an America in which the role of religion, and by that I mean the role of all churches was secure. Abortion was not a political issue. Prayer was not a political issue. The right of church schools to operate was not a political issue. And it was broadly acknowledged that religious leaders had a right and a duty to speak out on the issues of the day. They held a place of respect, and a politician who spoke to or of them with a lack of respect would not long survive in the political arena. It was acknowledged then that religion held a special place and occupied a special territory in the hearts of the citizenry. The climate has changed greatly since then. And since it has, it logically follows that religion needs defenders against those who care only for the interests of the state. The churches of America do not exist by the grace of the state; the churches of America are not mere citizens of the state. The churches of America exist apart; they have their own vantage point, their own authority. Religion is its own realm; it makes its own claims. We establish no religion in this country, nor will we ever. We command no worship. We mandate no belief. But we poison our society when we remove its theological underpinnings. We court corruption when we leave it bereft of belief. All are free to believe or not believe; all are free to practice a faith or not. But those who believe must be free to speak of and act on their belief, to apply moral teaching to public questions. I submit to you that the tolerant society is open to and encouraging of all religions. And this does not weaken us; it strengthens us. You know, if we look back through history to all those great civilizations, those great nations that rose up to even world dominance and then deteriorated, declined, and fell, we find they all had one thing in common. One of the significant forerunners of their fall was their turning away from their God. Without God, there is no virtue, because there's no prompting of the conscience. Without God, we're mired in the material, that flat world that tells us only what the senses perceive. Without God, there is a coarsening of the society. And without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure. If we ever forget that we're one nation under God, (Hey, isn’t somebody trying to eliminate this pledge) then we will be a nation gone under." – President Reagen at National Prayer Breakfast, 1984 "I have wondered at times what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the U.S. Congress." …..Ronald Reagan
America, Reagen, Conservatism and Socialism June 10….(FOJ) Former President Reagen is usually
credited with bringing about the downfall of the Soviet Union, and with
reestablishing a base of traditional conservatism in the US. That conservatism
base was primarily rooted in America’s Judeo-Christian foundation, and a belief
in core principles such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness without
government interference through higher taxes and socialistic ideals. Socialism
had made great strides and inroads in America from the 1930’s through the
1970’s. In the late 1970’s, America was staggering around like a punch-drunk
boxer suffering from Watergate, high interest rates and higher taxes, an ever
expanding socialistic government, a Viet Nam syndrome of hopelessness, a
defeatist attitude about advancing Communism around the world, and a general
feeling that Christianity was outdated. But, Ronald Reagen helped to restore
confidence in the soul of the American spirit simply because he believed that
America had originally been built on a strong foundation of faith and work
ethic. Whether he planned it or not, his Presidency reached back to the spirit
of 1776 and revitalized the dream of America’s founding fathers by
reincorporating Christianity into the government. For 3 decades, since the 1947
Supreme Court ruling inventing the Separation of church and state mirage,
American socialists had basically sliced the influence of Christianity out of
the political arena. President Reagen, at least to some extent appealed to the
traditional roots in American culture and started a political renewal to counter
the Socialist agenda. But, still today, as evidenced in the hate for President
Bush and the culture war that is waging even hotter, we still see two competing
visions for America. One of those is characterized by the Reaganesque belief in
the uniqueness of the American constitutional experiment and the other vision
(residing primarily in the Democratic Party) is a vision that seeks to emulate
the so-called "enlightened" European continent with its socialist economies and
its pacifist foreign policies that are engineered to foster the growth of Global
Governance.
China Buying Cars & Needing More OIL June 9….(FOJ) The growing middle class leaving their
bicycles behind and buying automobiles. A stream of gleaming cars recently pulled
into a drive-in cinema in China, demonstrating that China is eagerly looking
ahead to becoming more mobile. The mobility idea is from America, and, like
America, China is finally entering into the auto age," much like America in the
1950’s. The young generation of Chinese are seeking modernity and exploration.
Backed by government strategy and consumer demand, the stage is now set for
China's auto revolution, a historic shift of image for a country known as the
kingdom of bicycles. The explosive growth of China's auto industry in recent
years has not only tantalized the world's auto giants, which have already poured
in more than $30 billion in investments, with billions more to come, it has also
stirred debate about how the world's environment and energy supply could cope
with the motorization of a nation of 1.3 billion. China’s car sales surged 40
percent and raced past the one million mark for the first time in 2002, and then
nearly doubled to almost 2 million last year, with a projected 2.6 million
output this year, a phenomenal rate of growth that has pushed it to overtake
Germany as the world's third biggest auto market, after the United States and
Japan. General Motors, which just announced a new $3 billion investment over
three years, with the aim of doubling its yearly output from over half a million
to 1.3 million units by 2007. GM's move will pit it against Europe's leading
producer Volkswagen, which also aims to increase its China output to 1.6 million
units in the same time frame. Volkswagen, which enjoys a leading 33 percent
market share in China, now sells more cars in China than it does in its home
market of Germany. Playing a cautious catch-up strategy, the U.S. number two
producer Ford recently announced over $1 billion new investment in China with
the aim of tripling its output. Daimler-Chrysler has also signed a $1.23 billion
deal with a Beijing partner and rivals Toyota, Nissan, Honda and Hyundai have
announced new investments of $10 billion as well. China is expected to surpass
Japan as the second biggest auto market in the world in five years' time, with a
"reasonable chance" of overtaking the US in 10-20 years. China's huge potential
is also seen in the fact that only 20 people per 1,000 own cars, compared with
120 per 1,000 globally. While the United States has 200 cars per 100 households,
there is only one per four homes in major cities here like Beijing.
Will Rising Gas Prices Tank The Economy? June 9….(Gary Halbert-Investors Insights) No. Oil prices soared to new record highs last week following the attacks in Saudi Arabia. This has led many investors to wonder if sharply higher energy prices will send the economy into a tailspin. As is widely known, consumer spending accounts for over two-thirds of GDP. With gasoline prices above $2 per gallon in many parts of the US, some wonder if consumers will cut back sharply on other purchases. The Department of Energy (DOE) recently released the findings of a five-year study which focused on how much American families spend on energy. The study found that families making $50,000 per year spend approximately 3.7% of their income on energy costs, including both gasoline and home energy expenditures. This was actually slightly less than a similar study showed in 1997. The point is that while gasoline prices have soared, higher energy costs are not likely to tank the economy. Virtually everyone expects oil prices to stay at high (or even higher) levels at least through the peak summer demand period and there is a case building for a meaningful decline in oil and gasoline prices later this year, assuming of course, there are no serious terror attacks in the energy sector. There is no question that the oil market is tight. Yet production is rising and inventories of crude are rebuilding slowly. Saudi Arabia agreed last week to increase production by two million barrels per day. The United Arab Emirates also announced an increase in daily production. Together, they can lift OPEC’s output by approximately 2.5 million barrels per day, up to 30 million bpd. Then there is Iraq which should continue to increase its daily production. Global demand for oil is at or near an all-time high. Much of the increase in demand in recent years has come from China and other parts of Asia. Yet we have seen widespread reports and forecasts over the last couple of months predicting a slowdown in the Chinese economy. Some forecasters are predicting more than a minor slowdown in China, which would also affect much of the rest of the world. This would reduce the demand for oil. Prices could continue higher this summer. If there are terror attacks that hit oil production facilities and/or transportation, then oil could spike a lot higher. However, oil is still a commodity, its higher prices will reduce demand and the market will top out when it’s least expected.
Reagen on the Israeli-Palestinan Conflict June 9….(Arutz) The 40th President of the United States, Ronald Reagan was not popular in the Middle East. In fact, Israel has been the only country to pay him tribute as a fond friend. "President Reagan was a friend to Israel," Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office said in his official statement, "and during his presidency, relations between our two countries were based on both understanding and cooperation." Ariel Sharon extended his condolences to the Reagan family immediately after Reagan died last Saturday. While President, on Sept. 17, 1982, Reagan made an important speech in which he said, "The United States will not support the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. The final status of these lands must, of course, be reached through the give and take of negotiations. However, it is the firm view of the United States that self-government by the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza in association with Jordan offers the best chance for a durable, just, and lasting peace. We base our approach squarely on the principle that the Arab-Israeli conflict should be resolved through negotiations involving an exchange of territory for peace."
Bush Seeks Allied Support for Mideast Plan June 9….(AP) The United States and its biggest allies are
proclaiming that a unanimous UN vote will heal their bitter divisions over Iraq.
But the newfound unity faces a major test when they take up a US plan to expand
the push for democracy throughout the Arab world. President Bush was touting the
success on Iraq in a one-on-one meeting with the new interim Iraqi president,
Ghazi al-Yawer on the sidelines of the Group of Eight Summit. But significantly,
the four G-8 nations that have refused to send troops to Iraq, Russia, France,
Germany and Canada said the UN Security Council resolution did not change their
opposition to putting troops in the country. The world leaders were meeting over
lunch with the leaders of six Middle Eastern nations in a discussion aimed at
boosting Bush's initiative to promote freedom, democracy and economic growth
throughout the Middle East. Bush hopes the plan will emerge as the central
achievement of the summit. But the plan has stirred deep suspicion in the
Mid-east region, home to some of the world's most authoritarian regimes.
Many Arab and European countries view the proposal as unwanted meddling. And
three Arab countries, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Morocco turned down Bush's
invitation to participate. The US cause in the Arab world has not been helped by
Bush's support for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's handling of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, nor by the worldwide uproar over the Iraqi
prisoner abuse scandal. But after weeks of bad news on Iraq, the Bush
Administration was heartened by Tuesday's unanimous UN Security Council vote to
approve a resolution endorsing the transfer of sovereignty to Iraq's new interim
government by the end of June. (Koinoia House commentary) The most immediate concern that Christians in Iraq have is Iraq's temporary constitution, which declares that Islam is "the Official Religion of the new State." They also note with apprehension that not one position on the Executive Council was given to a Christian. The one ministry post to be filled by a Christian is the "The Ministry of Emigration", which many see as an ominous message to Christians to "get out." Unfortunately, America, in its respect for the Islamic nature of the region, has failed to do enough to protect or promote the Christian community in Iraq. Iraq has a long history as a spiritual battlefield. In the earliest chapters of the Bible we find the people rebelling against God at Babel. In Daniel 10, we learn that it took three weeks for an angel to fight through spiritual enemies to give his message to Daniel at the Tigris ("Hiddekel") River. Throughout the Bible, the great city of Babylon is seen as a place of spiritual turmoil, full of wickedness. FOJ Note: Most Iraqi’s are grateful to the US for removing Saddam and giving them the opportunity for to have freedom, but they are also very fearful that our departure, which is being enforced by the UN, will lead to the failure of the new government, and simply end up being replaced by the dictatorship of Islam. Many Iraqi’s refer to the sword of Islam as a “black cloud, or black mind”, and that the black mind is being propagated by Islamic clerics on behalf of Satan. It is obvious to me that the UN is worried that the US will stick around in Iraq and spread Christianity, and inflict a wound not only on the terrorists, but also upon the “black mind” that lies at the foundation of Satan’s designs on the Arab-Mid-east. Israel Strikes Back at PFLP in Beirut June 8….(World Net Daily) The Israeli Air Force struck a Palestinian guerrilla target yesterday near the Lebanese capital of Beirut in response to rocket fire from Lebanon on an Israeli naval vessel earlier in the day. Four Israeli missiles fired by fighter planes in three sorties hit the Lebanese headquarters of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The retaliatory strike came just hours after six rockets were fired at an Israeli navy vessel patrolling Israeli territorial waters in the Mediterranean. The State of Israel is determined not to allow terrorist actions against Israel from Lebanese territories and demands that the Lebanese and Syrian governments take responsibility," an IDF spokesman said. The Israeli Air Force has carried out a number of retaliatory attacks against terrorist targets in Lebanon since Israel pulled out of the border country in May 2000. It also attacked Syria, which occupies Lebanon and allows the overall leader of Hamas to live openly in Damascus, following a Syrian-aided suicide bombing in Israel last October. Israel says yesterday's strike was to demonstrate to Syria and Lebanon that terrorists operating in neighboring countries will not be immune to Israel's anti-terror operations. Israel’s air raid was the closest to Beirut since Israeli troops withdrew from south Lebanon in 2000. Lebanese President Emile Lahoud condemned the attack in the Naameh village, 12 miles south of Beirut, as a violation of Lebanese sovereignty. A Foreign Ministry source said Lebanon sent a letter of protest to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, asking him to take it up with the Security Council. But Israel sais: "The government of Lebanon is responsible for what happens in Lebanon, and Israel will continue being decisive and unequivocal when it comes to any attack on its civilians and soldiers." The UN is also considering plans to deal with another complaint against Israel as well, though this one is much older. It concerns Israel's air raid on Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi atomic reactor no fewer than 23 years ago.
PLO Continues to Glorify Child 'Martyrs' June 8….(World Net Daily) The Palestinian Authority is continuing its promotion of children as combatants with a long interview on national PA television feting the "martyrdom" of three boys killed in an attack on Israel. The interview yesterday featured the mother of a 15-year-old who said her son's death last year was both "sad and joyous," because he always liked Shahada, or martyrdom, "as all children do." The mother presented an unusual public display of regret over her son's death, noted Israel-based Palestinian Media Watch, but it was tempered with her expression of willingness to give her sons to Allah for martyrdom. "He was my first son, he always cared for me," she said." I would have preferred that one of his other brothers would have attained Shahada instead of him, because he was the joy of my life. During the interview, PA television displayed photographs of the boys with text that read: "The Popular Resistance Committee proudly announces the falling of three Shahids [martyrs] of the Great Islam." PMW said the picture "represents a strong message to viewer, and especially to children that the dead combatants are role models for children." The interviewer said the dead combatants "became outstanding for all Palestinians, outstanding in their medals of honor, Shahada." As World Net Daily reported, a Senate appropriations committee last year watched excerpts from Palestinian television illustrating the Palestinian Authority's indoctrination and grooming of children to become suicide bombers, prompting calls for a cessation of aid unless the propaganda stops. A Palestinian psychologist claims more than half of Palestinian children aged 6 to 11 dream of becoming suicide bombers. Dr. Shafiq Massalha conducted a study that has led him to conclude that "in about 10 years, a very murderous generation will come of age, full of hatred and ready to die in suicide missions." The Palestinian Education Ministry sponsored a letter-writing contest that rewarded children for embracing violence. The winner, a seventh grader wrote "My heart has turned into a sad block of pain. One day I will buy a weapon and I will blow away the fetters. I will propel my living-dead body into your arms, my father, and you will gather me into your hands." PMW noted in May 2001, Mohammed al-Dura, the 12-year-old Palestinian youth whose shooting death in Sept. 2000 made him the poster boy of the "intifada," was courtesy of Palestinian television, speaking to an ever-angrier generation of Arab youths from beyond the grave, beckoning to them from paradise to become terrorists and suicide bombers. In November 2000, the Mufti of Jerusalem, the city's highest Muslim religious authority, called for the complete "liberation" by Palestinians not only of Jerusalem, but of all of Israel, and stressing "sacrifice" and "martyrdom" of Palestinian children prove that "the new generation will carry on the mission with determination." World Net Daily also reported on a 1998 documentary showing a "Sesame Street"-like children's program called the "Children's Club," complete with puppet shows, songs, Mickey Mouse and other characters focused on inculcating intense hatred of Jews and a passion for engaging in and celebrating violence against them in a perpetual "jihad" until the day the Israeli flags come down from above "Palestinian land" and the Palestinian flag is raised.
Rumsfeld Fears Losing War on Extremism June 8….(Newsmax)The United States and its allies are winning some battles in the terrorism war but may be losing the broader struggle against Islamic extremism that is terrorism's source, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Saturday. The troubling unknown, he said, is whether the extremists, whom he termed "zealots and despots" bent on destroying the global system of nation-states, are turning out newly trained terrorists faster than the United States can capture or kill them. "It's quite clear to me that we do not have a coherent approach to this," Rumsfeld said at an international security conference. His remarks showed a level of concern about the long-term direction of the U.S.-led global fight against terrorism that Rumsfeld rarely addresses in public. The Pentagon chief usually lauds the efforts of U.S. troops, denounces terrorist networks and urges other countries to join the effort to stop terrorist acts. On Saturday he went further, saying that while terrorists must be confronted, the bigger problem is the extremist Islamic ideology that produces them. Rumsfeld said it is impossible to know if the United States and its allies are winning or losing the fight against extremists. "How many more of those folks are being trained and developed and organized and deployed and sent out to work the seams and the shadows and the caves?" he asked. No one knows for sure, the secretary said. In his keynote address at the conference, Rumsfeld put it this way: "We need to do even more than simply attempt to capture, kill or thwart terrorists. We have to find ways to persuade young Muslims that the way of the future is through education and opportunity, not through suicide and terrorism." Rumsfeld argued there is no acceptable alternative to taking the offensive against terrorism because it is not possible to defend against the threat in every place and at every hour. "Because it cannot be appeased, it must be confronted on many fronts by all civil societies," he said. The remark echoed comments he made Friday that any government hoping to "make a separate peace" with terrorists would be mistaken, just as were Europeans who had hoped to appease Germany's Adolf Hitler in the 1930s.
US Views West Bank as Start of Withdrawal June 8….(Middle East News Line) The United States wants
Israel to begin withdrawing from the West Bank in the first stage of a
unilateral Israeli pullout that will lead to a Palestinian state in 2006. U.S.
officials said the Bush administration has drafted priorities for an Israeli
withdrawal that would begin over the next few months. They said the first step
would include the dismantling of more than 100 outposts deemed as unauthorized
by the Israeli government. The next stage would be the evacuation of at least
four Israeli communities in the northern West Bank, officials said. They said
the administration envisioned that this would take place at the end of 2004. By
February 2005, the officials said, Israel would begin to dismantle its 21
communities in the Gaza Strip. This process would last until the end of that
year. Ronald Reagen: A Friend of Israel June 7….(Jerusalem Post) Ronald Reagan had the confidence that comes with conviction, the strength that comes with character, the grace that comes with humility, and the humor that comes with wisdom. He leaves behind a nation he restored and a world he helped save. (President George W. Bush) It is fitting that President Bush was in France to commemorate the 60th anniversary of D-Day when he said these words on the passing of Ronald Wilson Reagan. D-Day began the rollback of fascism in Europe. Reagan led the rollback of the Soviet communism. And America has, since 9/11, taken on the rollback of the 3rd great global bid to spread tyranny in the world in the modern era, the jihad against America and Israel. We now look back at World War II as the ultimate war of American consensus, the war that produced the Atlantic alliance, NATO, and the United Nations. Indeed, it was obvious after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December, 1941, that this was not a war in which America could stand on the sidelines. For by this time the Nazis had already overrun Poland, Norway, Denmark, the Low Countries, and France, and were sitting on the English Channel. Like World War II, the Cold War is now viewed retrospectively through American eyes as inevitable, just, and ending in the West's victory. But as Reagan himself pointed out in his farewell address, the policies that he espoused were widely derided as "dangerous" before and during his tenure as well. Reagan's critics accused him of risking nuclear war. Reagan seemed almost alone in understanding that the only way to end the Cold War was for the Soviet Union to cease to exist, and that that day would come. In the end, it came even quicker than he imagined. Reagan was vilified at the time for calling the Soviet Union an "evil empire," much as President Bush is being derided for fingering the "axis of evil." And Bush seems to have a similarly unpopular insight that the jihad will only end when the regimes that support it have gone the way of either Gaddafi or Saddam and the entire region is on the path to freedom. In all 3 modern global conflicts the pattern has been the same: a Western reluctance to recognize both the scope of the danger and the power of its own secret weapon, the power of freedom. In World War II the need for complete victory was eventually recognized, but in the Cold War and in the current conflict, the assumption of indefinite, perhaps even deteriorating, stalemate is widespread. Given his focus on freedom, it is not surprising that Reagan was considered one of the most "pro-Israel" presidents ever. Missteps aside, such as the condemnation of Israel's attack on Iraq's Osirak reactor in 1981, supporting Israel came naturally for him. President Reagan was also thought to have been a friend of the Jewish people as a result of his efforts to aid the release of Jews in the USSR, opening the way for immigration to Israel. But President Reagen’s visceral sympathy for Israel was undermined by his uneasy relations with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. In June 1982, the two leaders faced off when Israel invaded Lebanon in order to oust the PLO from its stronghold there. Israel said it had gotten a “yellow light” from Secretary of State Haig. President Reagan secretly formulated a plan not only to pull Israeli troops out of Lebanon, but to force Israel into withdrawing from the West Bank and Gaza. He ultimately envisioned Palestinian autonomy in a federal system with Jordan. It didn’t help Israel that when a suicide attack the following summer in Lebanon killed 241 U.S. Marines, some blamed Israel for dragging the United States into the conflict there. In truth, Israeli officials had tried hard to persuade Reagan not to deploy troops to the region.
Palestinians Want Democracy 'like Israel’s' June 7….(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.
Arabs Don’t Recall Reagen Fondly June 7….(MY WAY) Former President Ronald Reagan was remembered across Europe for his role in breaking down Cold War divisions and opening the path to independence for Soviet bloc nations. Arab nations recalled the Reagan days as a dark period. Former Soviet republics and other ex-East Bloc nations remembered Reagan as the American president who stared down Moscow and won, clearing the way for their independence and the 1991 Soviet collapse. "President Ronald Reagan will be remembered in the hearts of all Latvians as a fighter for freedom, liberty and justice worldwide," Latvian Pesident Vaira Vike-Freiberga said. The former US President was not remembered so fondly in many Arab nations. The Reagan years marked the beginning of what Lebanon's culture minister, Ghazi Aridi, called a "bad era" of American Mideast policy that he said continues to this day. Political analyst and former Syrian ambassador to the United Nations Haitham al-Kilani agreed. "Reagan's role was bad for the Arab-Israeli conflict and was specifically against Syria. He was the victim of the Israeli right wing that was, and still is, dominating the White House," al-Kilani said. Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi said he was sorry that Reagan died without standing trial for 1986 air strikes he ordered that killed Gadhafi's adopted daughter and 36 other people. Reagan ordered the April 15, 1986, air raid in response to a disco bombing in Berlin allegedly ordered by Gadhafi that killed two U.S. soldiers and a Turkish woman and injured 229 people. "I express my deep regret because Reagan died before facing justice for his ugly crime that he committed in 1986 against the Libyan children," Libya's official JANA news agency quoted Gadhafi as saying Sunday. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office expressed sorrow over Reagan's death, calling him "a friend of the state of Israel."
Thumbs Up, President Reagen 
June 7….(FOJ) President Reagen probably helped save America from itself and a Cold War demise that belabored our nation for so long. During the dark days of the 60’s and 70’s, America seemed headed for certain self-destruction of at least submission into the world’s system of Global Governance. He emphasized the goodness in America, and worked to highlight a return to America’s former values, when this nation truly looked to God for its blessings. In his final remarks to our nation, President Reagen said, "When the Lord calls me home, I will leave with the greatest love for this country of ours and eternal optimism for its future,"on Nov. 5, 1994. "I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead." But as I look at America’s future, I wish I could be as optimistic as was Ronald Reagen. I sense that current President Bush is attempting to carry on America’s tradition of Christian ethic and principles, but I can also see that our house is again truly divided over issues such as Bible, prayer, abortion, homosexuality, gay priests, and God’s commandments. In America, we need a nationwide return to God and a renewed respect for his word like never before. But in the event that America does not repent and that dark days are in store for America, I am confident and optimistic about one thing. Jesus Christ is coming, and he will destroy the forces of Antichrist that are today being empowered around the world.
World Leaders Honor D-Day Vets June 7….(Fox News) With pride and tears for fallen comrades, Allied veterans joined world leaders in remembering the sacrifices of soldiers 60 years ago and the trans-Atlantic unity that overcame Adolf Hitler's tyranny in World War II. Atop rocky cliffs over the town of Arromanches, President Bush and President Jacques Chirac of France used Sunday's glitzy commemoration of the Allied invasion on D-Day, June 6, 1944,to reinvigorate relations damaged by differences over the Iraq war. On a giant screen, organizers showed sepia-toned photos of Nazi concentration camps and rail cars carrying wartime Jews to evoke the evils of the Nazi regime the soldiers fought to topple. Drill teams marched to tunes played by military bands. Some veterans wiped away tears during an elegant song and dance routine by black-clad performers on a hot asphalt tarmac under a searing sun. The commemoration brought together heads of state or government, and former comrades-in-arms, from wartime allies including Belgium, Poland, the Czech Republic, Britain, Canada and the United States. Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder of Germany, which has become a close postwar ally of France, accepted Chirac's invitation to become the first German leader invited to D-Day ceremonies. Russian President Vladimir Putin, also the first representative for his country, sat next to First lady Laura Bush during the three-hour ceremony. Putin's attendance marked a turnaround for Russia. Moscow, and many military historians, had long played down the significance of the D-Day landings, arguing earlier Nazi defeats in battles such as Kursk and Stalingrad had already fatally weakened the German Wehrmacht. The remembrance put new light on the epochal undertaking that, while many nations were involved, was spearheaded by American forces. It also allowed France and the United States to return their focus to the historical bedrock of strong ties. "France will never forget what it owes America, its steadfast friend and ally," Chirac said. "Like all the countries of Europe, France is keenly aware that the Atlantic Alliance, forged in adversity, remains in the face of new threats, a fundamental element to our collective security." At an earlier U.S.-French ceremony at the Normandy American cemetery in Colleville, Bush also appeared to reach out to the French, saying "history reminds us that France was America's first friend." The ceremonies offered the chance for veterans, some in wheelchairs draped with blankets or whose pockets hung heavy with medals, to reminisce about agonies of war and joys of victory. Many of the veterans said their main concern was that younger generations will learn about the sacrifice of their brothers in arms buried in French soil.
Iran Hosts Conference for Suicide Bombers June 7…..(Middle East New Line) The conference was sponsored by the Iranian government and its state-financed Center for the Appreciation of the Martyr. Iranian news media said the conference had gathered candidates from around the world for a meeting in Teheran. The Fars News Agency said the conference was part of the events to mark the anniversary of the death of Iranian revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The conference included envoys from a range of Islamic insurgency groups sponsored or financed by Teheran. WEEK OF JUNE 1 THROUGH JUNE 6
Saudi Prince Blames Zionism for Terror June 4….(Middle East Media Research Institute) At the Saudi embassy in Washington D.C. on June 2, 2004, U.S. and Saudi officials held a news conference to announce stricter Saudi government oversight of charitable organizations which have been accused of supporting terrorism. The officials present at the press conference were Adel Al-Jubeir, foreign affairs adviser to Saudi Crown Prince Abdallah, E. Anthony Wayne, Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs, and Juan Zarate, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Executive Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crime, Treasury Department. The officials were asked by the media about comments made by Crown Prince Abdallah in reaction to the May 1, 2004 terrorist attack in Yunbu, Saudi Arabia, in which seven people were killed. On the day after the attack, Crown Prince Abdallah stated at a gathering of Saudi dignitaries that "Zionists" were to blame: "This is seduction. You all know who is behind it all. Zionism is behind it. It has become clear now. It has become clear to us. Zionist hands are behind what happened. But I tell you that you can be 100% sure that, Allah willing, this country will be victorious, whoever the faction that turns against it may be. But we are convinced that Zionism is behind everything. On May 6 Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef Abd Al-'Aziz told the Yemenite weekly September 26 that blaming Al-Qa'ida for attacks in Saudi Arabia does not contradict the words of Crown Prince Abdallah that the Zionists are behind these operations, because Israel and Zionism are behind Al-Qa'ida, which is responsible for all attacks in Arab countries.
Russia Poised to Become World Oil King June 4….(World Net Daily) 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. When President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin meet in Normandy, France, later this week for D-Day commemorations, it is unlikely they will spend much time discussing the past. More likely both will be keen to discuss the present and future of international petroleum production and export. For Bush, the present is marred with problems: International terrorism has come to oil-export giant Saudi Arabia, a barrel of oil hovers around $40, at home a gallon of gasoline costs up to $2.50 and weapons of minor destruction limit the prospect of Iraqi oil significantly impacting international oil markets any time soon. The future does not look very promising either for Bush. Energy-hungry China and India also are actively interested in sourcing new and secure energy export markets. Bush and Putin also may discuss what the future holds if Saudi Arabia becomes a target of larger and increased terrorist attacks. Without Saudi exports of crude, OPEC would lose its influential powerbroker. As the largest producer in the world, Russia might rethink its position concerning membership in the international petroleum cartel if Saudi exports were to face long-term risk. Russia, with OPEC observer status, has flirted with the idea of joining OPEC in the past. However, regaining the market share of international exports held by the Soviet Union has been the primary goal.
President Bush Meets With Pope at Vatican 
June 4….(Fox News) Pope John Paul II called for Iraq's
quick return to sovereignty Friday after receiving the Presidential Medal of
Freedom from President Bush at the Vatican. The pontiff and the president held
brief closed-door talks at the Vatican as part of Bush's 36-hour visit to Italy.
The president nodded and smiled as he greeted the 84-year-old pontiff, leaning
down to hold his trembling hands. Calling the pontiff "a devoted servant of
God," Bush presented him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest
civilian award. "We appreciate the strong symbol of freedom that you have stood
for and we recognize the power of freedom to change societies and to change the
world," Bush said. After the short meeting, the two appeared before reporters
and the pope spoke about the war in Iraq and said, "It is the evident desire of
everyone that this situation now be normalized as quickly as possible with the
active participation of the international community and, in particular, the
United Nations organization, in order to ensure a speedy return of Iraq's
sovereignty, and with conditions of security for all nations. The Pope said,
“Mr. President, your visit to Rome takes place at a moment of great concern,"
the pope said, noting conflict in Iraq, the Middle East and terrorism.” Vatican
officials recently have issued sharp criticism of Bush Administration's actions
leading up to the Iraq war and have been extremely critical about the Abu Ghraib
abuse scandal. Last week the Pope condemned the US for the prison torture.
President Bush to Commemorate D-Day 
June 4….(MSNBC) During the D-Day invasion 60 years ago
this weekend, the Allied forces used massive firepower to rout Nazi forces from
this strip of French coast. On Sunday's anniversary, thousands of troops will
again be on alert, this time to prevent a possible terrorist attack at
ceremonies marking the event. Visits by Russian President Vladimir Putin and
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, invited for the first time this year will
add extra layers to security. Was Chalabi Set Up By Iran? June 3….(Washington Times) U.S. officials yesterday confirmed the FBI is investigating whether a government employee provided Iraqi political leader Ahmed Chalabi intelligence he is accused of giving Iran, but several said the prominent member of Iraq's now-dissolved Governing Council is the target of a dis-information campaign. One official said Mr. Chalabi, who until recently had been on the payroll of the Defense Intelligence Agency, was set up by his enemies in Iraq, Iran, or the Central Intelligence Agency, which views him with suspicion. "Why are the Iranians setting up Chalabi? They want an Islamic republic and he represents democracy for secular Shi'ites. They saw him maneuvering for power and they wanted to discredit him," the official said. A US intelligence official said the unauthorized disclosure probe is focusing on officials in Baghdad. Richard Perle, a Chalabi supporter who until recently was a member of a Pentagon policy advisory board, said he doubts that Mr. Chalabi would disclose such information or that Iran would risk revealing that it had learned of the compromise through a suspect communications exchange. "I think it's absurd on its face to think that if the Iranians had learned from Ahmed Chalabi or anybody else that their most sensitive communications channels were compromised they would reveal that in those channels," Mr. Perle said. "Instead, they would use those channels for disinformation and would not reveal their knowledge. That's Intelligence 101.
President Bush: Transforming Mid-east Key to Terror War June 3….(CTV) President Bush, preparing new Air Force officers for war, cast the fight against terrorism as a struggle between freedom and tyranny similar to World War II and the Cold War. The day after he embraced the new Iraqi interim government, U.S. President George Bush used a military commencement address to restate his view that the Middle East has become a central front in the war on terror. Billed as a follow-up to the speech he delivered at the Army War College last week, Bush's Air Force Academy speech on Wednesday is the latest in planned series outlining U.S. intentions for post-occupation Iraq. "You will carry the hopes of free people everywhere," he said, describing the global war on terror that the graduates will now be dispatched to fight. In recent years, Bush said, many countries around the world have been the targets of terrorism. "Yet the center of the conflict, is the broader Middle East." "Just as events in Europe determined the outcome of the Cold War, events in the Middle East will set the course of our current struggle," he said. If that region is abandoned, he said, it will be "a constant source of terror and alarm." "If that region grows democracy and prosperity and hope, the terrorist movement will lose its sponsors, lose its recruits and the festering disagreements that keep terrorists in business." To that end, Bush said that America and its allies are pursuing a four-pronged anti-terror strategy:
A Tale of Prayer in Two Cities June 2….(Koinonia House) For Muslims in a small enclave in Detroit, it is the best of times. A local mosque will be using its loudspeakers to call all Muslims in the community to prayer, with the approval of the City Council. However, the City Council of a Pennsylvania town may soon forgo its opening spoken prayer in favor of a minute of silent prayer. While apparently unrelated, these two examples represent a mentality in America that encourages respect for diverse minority religions while seeking to silence Christianity. It is a double standard that is greatly tearing at America's highly valued freedom of religion. In Coatesville, Pennsylvania, the City Council has long opened with a prayer and a salute to the flag. Recently, it was suggested that because Coatesville is a religiously diverse community, the council should open with a silent prayer. "Personally, I believe in spoken prayer," Councilwoman Carmen Green said in response to the suggestion. "But I know that my religious beliefs may not be the same as someone else's." She said she was willing to change her position if spoken prayer offended any of the town's residents. Even though each of the council members take turns writing the prayers, which are to be kept "universal" and non-denominational, some were concerned that agnostics or atheists could be offended by any spoken prayer at all. Until last year, the Coatsville Area School Board opened with the Lord's Prayer, but their new president had it changed to a silent prayer for the benefit of those with different faiths. Only a few states away, in Hamtramck, Michigan, the City Council agreed to allow the local al-Islah mosque to broadcast its call to prayer over loudspeakers. The council simply voted to alter Hamtramck's noise ordinance so that the call to prayer, normally made 5 times a day, would be considered legal. At least 630 residents signed a petition opposing the amendment to the noise ordinance, arguing that they did not want to hear the Muslim declaration of faith every day for a variety of reasons. The petition has stopped the amendment to the noise ordinance from being finalized and the issue will come before the people of Hamtramck for a vote. In the meanwhile, the al-Islah mosque is planning to go ahead with the calls to prayer. "We're working to keep united. We're working to respect each other's traditions and enter into dialogue," said Rev. Stanley Ulman, pastor of a Catholic Church across the street from the mosque. Hamtramck is a traditionally Polish area completely surrounded by Detroit. In recent years a large influx of Muslim immigrants from Bangladesh, Yemen and Bosnia have come into the area, so that only 23% of the current population is Polish. Those non-Muslim longtime residents are encouraged to respect the religious diversity of the area. Founded on biblical principles, by primarily God-fearing men, America is country full of Christian people. Yet, minority religions have been allowed to flourish in this Christian nation. It can even be argued that because the country was founded on Christian principles it offers true religious freedom, freedom to be responsible before God for one's beliefs without government interference. That religious freedom has been one of the greatest blessings the country has had to offer its citizens. In recent years, however, freedom of worship has been offered to religious minorities while Christianity has found itself the object of constant discrimination, all in the name of 'diversity'. The double standard not only denies the Christian nature of a majority of American communities, but also threatens the very foundations of America's religious freedom.
Al Qaeda Cells in US Targeting Houston? June 2….(Stratfor Intel) In our last Terrorism Intelligence Weekly, Stratfor discussed improvements in intelligence-gathering efforts that have aided the ability of Western governments to predict or pre-empt attacks. At the same time, however, the threat within the continental United States, where al Qaeda is likely to attempt a major strike before the presidential elections, also has intensified. Logic dictates that Washington, New York, Dallas, Houston or Austin, Texas, could be targeted in an attack that quite possibly would involve a "dirty bomb." Continuing with this line of reasoning, Houston, Texas appears to be the most likely target. Concerns over the safety of U.S. citizens are legitimate. Well-placed U.S. government counter-terrorism sources have confirmed the presence of al Qaeda "sleeper cells" within the country. Although it is not known how many cells could be in place, intelligence indicates that militant operatives are in place, to be deployed for the next 9-11, or Madrid-style attacks. Analysis leads us to believe that a cell could be in place in Houston. Sleeper cells are difficult to ferret out, with profiles that do not differ greatly from those of the rest of the public. Like the Sept. 11 attackers, militant operatives do not hesitate to violate Islamic custom by shaving, dressing and behaving so as to blend into their temporary communities. These militant units are not totally independent: Courier services are used to send money and orders to operatives, whose leaders frequently have had contact with members of other cells. If one operative is arrested, pocket litter and phone records can lead authorities to other cells. And there certainly are opportunities for arrests. Sleeper cells fund some of their activities through credit card and financial fraud, and members often use false identification documents. Elements of these crimes are much easier than terrorism charges to prove in court, which gives police and federal officials some traction in disrupting attack planning. Other activities also provide clues: The premier example, of course, is that the Sept. 11 team had to learn how to fly airplanes, but more universally, virtually all terrorist attacks follow a period of eyes-on surveillance of the target. At the tactical level, counter-terrorism experts have observed that members of al Qaeda's sleeper cells carry out many duties within their units, which increases the chances that an arrest could throw off a planned attack. For example, analysis of past attacks has revealed that the same members tasked with carrying out pre-operational surveillance for a strike also work on the logistics and attack teams. Operationally, this places them at greater risk than groups who use highly trained, specialized cells for each function. Moreover, a study of past al Qaeda attacks and training manuals reveals that the group carries out extensive pre-operational surveillance. This renders militants vulnerable to detection by counter-surveillance teams, who could trail them back to the rest of their cells, the bomb-makers and attack teams. For intelligence and law enforcement agencies, this is the best time to pre-empt a terrorist attack: If one militant can be caught conducting pre-operational surveillance, the entire cell can be uncovered and destroyed. In the two-and-a-half years since the Sept. 11 attacks, the efforts of the FBI and CIA to root out these cells have paid dividends. FBI Director Robert Mueller asserts that federal officials have disrupted dozens of planned attacks, and sleeper agents have been uncovered and deported. However, we do not believe that all of al Qaeda's sleeper cells have been identified or crippled. In addition to pre-existing cells, al Qaeda also has had plenty of time to infiltrate more operatives into the United States. Why Houston? For the next major al Qaeda strike, pre-operational surveillance is likely under way. The timing for an attack within the United States is nearly perfect: while Americans are engrossed with Iraq, presidential politics and the rising price of oil. Logic dictates that cells are in place and awaiting a signal to act; as in the recent attack in the Saudi city of Yanbu, operatives could have had time to infiltrate the potential target, observing the lay of the land and the routines of security forces. Although Stratfor believes that strikes could be carried out against multiple targets of opportunity, certain factors, including time and al Qaeda's targeting criteria, lead us to conclude that Houston, Texas, is near the top of the list. Not only is it home to much of the nation's oil infrastructure, which carries significant economic implications, but it also is a city of 5 million people, and the home of former President George H.W. Bush. A strike here would lend a personal nature to the attack that would send a clear message across the desk of President George W. Bush. In our view, the strike would be sophisticated and spectacular. It likely would involve either a dirty bomb deployed within the city, or a conventional attack against oil infrastructure, carried out on the scale of Sept. 11. In this case, we believe a truck bomb is the most likely delivery mechanism, perhaps a stolen delivery van, helping to mask the driver's intentions. However, it also is feasible that they could use legitimate company identification cards in order to slip past the guards. Once near the target, the explosive would be detonated, killing the attack team. A truck bombing would succeed in taking out only a small portion of an oil complex, whereas a stolen or hijacked airplane could cause much greater damage. At an oil processing facility, this type of strike would have a psychological impact on the American public, creating a smoky explosion that would be broadcast far and wide. Strikes against supertankers also are plausible. Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden recognize that oil drives the U.S. economy. Returning again to proven tactics, they could choose to strike at platforms in the Houston Ship Channel, much like the successful strikes against the French tanker Limburg and the USS Cole.
Chalabi Turned Iran Informant June 2….(Fox News) Ahmad Chalabi, the former Iraqi exile
who once was a favorite of the Bush Administration but now is viewed with
suspicion, passed information to Iran that U.S. intelligence had broken its
secret code. The FBI is investigating who in the US government leaked
information to Chalabi that made its way into the hands of the Iranian
government, government officials said. According to media reports, Chalabi told
an Iranian intelligence official that the United States had gained the ability
to monitor secret communications from Iran.
EU Urges Syria To End WMD June 2….(Middle East News Line) The European Union has urged Syria to end its weapons of mass destruction programs. EU diplomats said an association deal that would boost trade between Brussels and Damascus continued to be linked to Syrian measures to dismantle its WMD programs. Syria has been the only Mediterranean State that has not signed an EU association agreement. EU ambassadors discussed the wording of a new resolution on Syrian WMD as part of the free trade agreement, the diplomats said. They said the ambassadors concluded a new draft on May 26 that will be relayed to the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad by the end of June. On Tuesday, Assad flew to Madrid for meetings with EU officials. U.S. Focuses on Syrian Border June 1….(Middle East News Line) The U.S. military, withdrawing from Sunni and Shi'ite cities, has been ordered to stop Islamic insurgents from entering Iraq from Syria. U.S. officials said the military has redeployed marines from Faluja to the Syrian border. They said the marines have been operating in the Anbar province in an effort to prevent the flow of Al Qaida-inspired insurgents from Syria into Iraq. "They were able to go ahead and pull some of those forces back out to not only secure the borders," Maj. Gen. John Sattler, Central Command operations director, said. "But also to work the towns along the Syrian border, which is important to make sure that there are no safe havens in those towns." Officials said the military has determined a priority the prevention of foreign insurgency movement from Syria to Iraq. They said thousands of mostly Sunni insurgents from throughout the Middle East have arrived in Syria for the trek to Iraq.
Frustrated Palestinians Blame Arafat June 1….(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. He resigned in late February, after watching his city slide out of control, and after losing his brother in an assassination. In his resignation letter to Arafat, Shaka'a wrote, "Nablus is going through a state of chaos and accelerated deterioration, resulting in confusion and the interruption of the daily lives of citizens, but now that chaos has become the normal attitude; the lack of security and order, the daily practice; and the law of jungle, a point of view."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 Israeli 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." According to many observers, the Palestinian Authority is a one-man show, run by Arafat. It is one he operates like a personal business. Given this situation, many Palestinians are now asking, where's the money? "Most of all, they want to know, where is the money going." said Toameh. "Why are billions of dollars disappearing? Why hasn't the Palestinian Authority built one refugee camp? Why hasn't the Palestinian Authority built schools and hospitals? And instead, why did the Palestinian Authority establish 14 different security organizations? Why did they waste the money? This is the question many Palestinians are asking themselves." Many others are asking similar questions. For example, the World Bank reportedly gave Arafat an ultimatum to end graft and mismanagement, or risk losing foreign aid. The French government is investigating whether Arafat's wife has laundered money. Despite the billions in aid since 1993, the Palestinian Authority is now nearly bankrupt. "The Palestinians need the money, and when I'm talking about the Palestinians," Toameh said, "I'm talking about the refugees, the people who have lost their homes, the needy people who have lost their jobs. And the money is badly needed, but the way it looks now is that the money is going to the wrong hands." Diker said, "The criticism today is the loudest and the most public it's been within the Palestinian society ever, because it's the breaking point where the Palestinian public is saying ‘enough is enough.’ There's too much corruption, there's too much brutal handling of the opposition voices. Human rights are being violated day in and day out." But could the situation change? Some believe a lot depends on the United States and the European Union. They maintain that U.S. and E.U. support for the Palestinian Authority props up and strengthens Arafat and weakens democratic reformers within Palestinian society. With Arafat in control of the security services, the press, and much of the money, it is unlikely that true democratic change will occur anytime soon. 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."
Al Qaeda Targeting US Oil Supplies June 1….(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 markets, closed Monday, are expected to experience a slight spike because of the Khobar attacks. Saudi Arabia is the world's No. 1 oil producer and provides for more than 10 percent of worldwide consumption. "Hurting the US economy is a longtime Al Qaeda goal and is one of the reasons the World Trade Center in New York was targeted. They're now striking these oil- related sites in Saudi Arabia in an attempt to keep oil prices high and hurt the US economy," says Saud al-Sarhan, a Saudi writer and researcher who follows Al Qaeda closely. A statement posted on the Internet and signed by the Saudi Al Qaeda leader, Abdul-Aziz al-Miqrin, claimed responsibility for the Khobar attack. "Our heroic fighters were able, by the grace of God, to raid the locations of the occupying American oil companies, which are plundering the Muslims' resources," it said. Mr. Miqrin also criticized the Saudi government for "supplying the United States with oil for the cheapest prices, according to their master's wish, so that their economy does not collapse." A Westerner killed during the operation was dragged though the streets, the statement said. Oil is the blood of the world economy and Al Qaeda wants to strike at it through the Saudi facilities," says Abdullah Bjad al-Otaibi, a writer at al-Riyadh newspaper. Oil prices jumped more than a dollar a barrel Tuesday in the first trading since the attack on the Saudi oil industry, by suspected al Qaeda militants, but that did not interrupt oil output. Saudi leaders moved to reassure the world about security as police hunted three militants who escaped a siege in the eastern city of Khobar, where the shooting and hostage-taking spree took place Saturday and Sunday.
Egypt Tells Arafat to Step Down June 1….(World Net Daily) Egypt's intelligence chief has warned Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat to give up power or face possible deportation, or Israeli "removal" according to a major Arab newspaper. Meeting with Arafat in Ramallah yesterday, Egyptian Gen. Omar Suleiman demanded that Arafat turn over control of all security forces to Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei, and give Qurei complete authority to conduct negotiations with Israel over Sharon's unilateral disengagement plan, stated the report yesterday in the popular newspaper Al-Quds-al-Arabi. Arafat reportedly was then told to step aside and allow new leaders to take over the Palestinian Authority. If the demands are not met by June 15, states the Al-Quds-al-Arabi report, Arafat has been warned that his future would be "left in the hands of Ariel Sharon." The newspaper claims that although the demands were delivered by Egypt, they were drawn up by the U.S. and Israel. Israel's Security Cabinet last September passed a resolution to "remove" the Palestinian leader, but did not specify which actions would be taken. A Likud minister who asked that his name be withheld explained to WND that if Arafat willingly stepped down, he would not be imprisoned, but likely would be offered deportation to an Arab state "until he finally dies." But Nabil Abu Rudeineh, senior aide to Arafat, told WND that while he cannot substantiate the contents of the Suleiman meeting, "everyone must realize that President Arafat is the elected official of the Palestinian Authority. No outside government has the right to interfere with the wishes of the Palestinians and their elected officials." The report, if true, marks a substantial departure in the relationship between Egypt and Arafat, whose original guerrilla organization was funded in part by Egyptian President Gemal Abdul Nasser. Egypt was also directly involved in bringing Arafat from Tunis to the Palestinian territories, where Arafat was built up as a national leader. According to the account, a senior Palestinian official told Al-Quds-al-Arabi America is trying to force a peace plan on the Palestinians to cover up the "mess in Iraq" and improve its image in the Arab world. The official also said Arafat intends to refuse the Egyptian demands. In another account, the Jerusalem Post quotes, 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. The Egyptian emissary, who last Monday shuttled between Jerusalem and Ramallah to discuss Egypt's role following a possible Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, warned Arafat that the suggested political and security reforms are necessary and will facilitate Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's initiative. Arafat was given a deadline of June 15 to give a decisive reply with regards to the suggestion or else his future will be "left in the hands of Ariel Sharon." The newspaper reported that although the list of reforms was communicated by Egypt, it was drawn up in conjunction with the US and Israel. A senior Palestinian official informed al-Quds al-Arabi that the US is eager to push forward a peace plan between Israel and the Palestinian to cover for the letdown of its policy in Iraq and improve its image in the Arab world. The same official met with Arafat in Ramallah, where the PA chairman told him he intends to refuse the Egyptian demands, because their implementation means the end of his de facto leadership and his reduction to a purely symbolic figure.
Iraq has a New President 
June 1….(Worthy News) The Iraqi Governing Council was dissolved Tuesday as a new president and prime minister took their positions in Iraq's government. The new President of Iraq is Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawer. New Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Al- Allawi said Iraqis "are starting our march toward sovereignty and democracy." In Washington, President Bush hailed the new government as a team that "represents the talent, commitment and resolve to guide Iraq through the challenges that lie ahead." "The naming of the new government brings us one step closer to realizing the dream of Iraqis, a fully sovereign nation with a representative government that protects their rights and serves their needs," Bush continued in the Rose Garden. "This is a very hopeful day for the Iraqi people, and for the American people." Noting the recent terror attacks in Iraq, Bush said, "we will not be deterred by violence and terror and "we will stand with the Iraqi people." The selection of al-Yawer to the largely ceremonial position broke a deadlock over the makeup of a new Iraqi government set to assume power June 30. A graduate of the Petroleum and Minerals University in Saudi Arabia and of Georgetown University, Al-Allawi is a prominent member of the Shammar tribe, one of the largest in the Gulf region that includes Shiite clans. A tribal magnate and businessman, 46-year-old Yawar is distinctive for his rather chubby face and characteristic smile. But his traditional flowing white tribal robe and keffiyeh headscarf belie his Western connections and education. From the multi-ethnic northern city of Mosul, Yawar has promoted his inter-sectarian ties, and reportedly has close relations to Kurds and that his mother taught him to respect the Shia as well as Sunni tradition, and Christianity. The Shammari tribe, of which he is a leader, is one of Iraq's largest and incorporates some three million Sunni and Shiites. The U.S.-picked Governing Council decided to dissolve immediately to make way rather than wait until June 30. Iyad Allawi said his government would soon negotiate a crucial agreement on the status of U.S.-led international forces that will remain in Iraq. Meanwhile, car bombs tore through the headquarters of one of Iraq's main Kurdish parties in Baghdad on Tuesday, killing and wounding dozens shortly before Iraq's new government was announced.  
 
 
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God is soon going to allow Satan and his puppet Antichrist to
culminate Lucifer’s grand conspiracy for Global Governance and global worship.
After the roots of America are cut and Israel is coerced into a covenant with
Hell, God will likely allow Satan to have his hour. (the Tribulation)
(Revelation 17:12) Satan’s hour is not just 60 minutes, but rather is a short
space of time. (Revelation 17:12) (7 years) 
Under the disengagement plan approved by
Sharon’s cabinet, the homes and synagogues in the settlements will be dismantled
in Gaza, although Israel intends on transferring industrial and agricultural
facilities to an international third party that will use them for the benefit of
the Palestinian population. Israel continues talks with the international
community concerning the administration of Gaza’s economic infrastructure after
the withdrawal. Fatah, Hamas, and other Palestinian militant groups issued a
joint statement strongly opposing the “security role” proposed for Egypt and
Jordan in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Although the Palestinian Authority
officially supports the disengagement plan and Egyptian efforts in helping to
implement it, Arafat’s own party, the Fatah joined other groups in deploring
Egyptian and Jordanian roles throughout PA controlled regions. The statement
lambasted Egypt and Jordan for attempting to “take over the Palestinian
problem.” 