Iran, Syria sign secret new intelligence cooperation accord
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
July 6, 2008, 1:20 PM (GMT+02:00)
Iranian intelligence insignia
Under the intelligence cooperation agreement Iran and Syria signed secretly in Tehran on June 27, thousands of Syrian intelligence and police officers will receive special training in Iran, DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources report. It was signed at the end of an unpublicized five-day visit to Tehran of Syria’s clandestine and security service chiefs headed by Gen. Fouad Sultan, superintendent of internal security. His opposite number was the director of the Iranian interior ministry’s external affairs department Ahmed Hosseini.
The accord they concluded is a crucial element in the deepening strategic relationship between Tehran and Damascus. It belies the contention by French president Nicolas Sarkozy and prime minister Ehud Olmert, accepted also by Washington, that the Syrian regime is about to desert its close alliance with Tehran and embrace the West. On the strength of this false premise, Olmert is pressing forward along his peace track with Syria, and Sarkozy invited president Bashar Assad to be his guest of honor at the Bastille Day parade of July 14.
While secretly bolstering his partnership with Iran, Assad has no trouble spreading the illusion of his willingness for a turn to the West, especially when his propaganda effort is promoted by none other than former Israel foreign ministry official Alon Liyel.
Liyal, calling himself “an Israeli diplomat” asserted in an interview to the July 6 Sunday Times that Damascus would sever its strategic ties with Tehran, Hizballah and Hamas for substantial American military and economic aid and Israel’s renunciation of the Golan. All this would happen, the ex-official promised, on Assad’s behalf, after the change of presidents in Washington.
DEBKAfile’s sources report that Liyel spoke without authority or factual corroboration about Assad’s intentions. He omitted to mention the fact that the Assad regime would have acquired a facility to produce fuel for Iran’s nuclear weapons program, were it not for Israel’s pre-emptive strike in September 2007. He also forgot that Damascus has for years provided friendly hospitality for the headquarters of the most extremist Palestinian terrorist groups and shown no sign that he means to evict them.
Isaiah Chapter 17
| א מַשָּׂא, דַּמָּשֶׂק: הִנֵּה דַמֶּשֶׂק מוּסָר מֵעִיר, וְהָיְתָה מְעִי מַפָּלָה. | 1 The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap. |
GOP Rep: Bush "Should Stay Home" During...............................................................................................................................................................
Boys punished with detention for refusing to pray to Allah
'If Muslims were asked to go to church on Sunday and take Holy Communion there would be war'
Posted: July 04, 2008
6:15 pm Eastern
© 2008 WorldNetDaily
Two seventh-grade boys were given detention and their classmates forced to miss their scheduled refreshment break when the pair refused to kneel and pray to Allah during a religious studies class.
...................................................................................................................................................................| Alaska’s Gull Island Oil Fields Could Power U.S. for 200 Years By Mark Anderson “Crude oil is the real ‘currency’ of the world,” said Lindsey Williams at a gathering of the Midwest Concerned Citizens group in Kansas City on July 22. But Americans will never hear about huge oil and gas reserves in the United States, which, if ever tapped, would bring today’s fuel prices at least as low as $1.50 per gallon and make America more energy independent. |
Preparing for War
As the Nazi storm brewed in 1936, only one man was forecasting where it was headed. On reading one of Winston Churchill’s speeches, Sir Clive Morrison-Bell wrote to him: “It is quite one of your best I think. You are so right about not being mealy-mouthed just now; the tone everywhere is far too apologetic, and you seem to be almost the only person who ever speaks out” (Martin Gilbert, The Prophet of Truth; emphasis mine throughout).
Isn’t the tone in Britain and America apologetic and “mealy-mouthed” today? Who is there that speaks out with a strong voice in foreign policy?
Churchill wrote on April 9, 1936 (ibid.):
It seems a mad business to confront these dictators without weapons or military force, and at the same time to try to tame and cow the spirit of our people with peace films, anti-recruiting propaganda and resistance to defense measures. Unless the free and law-respecting nations are prepared to organize, arm and combine, they are going to be smashed up. This is going to happen quite soon. But I believe we still have a year to combine and marshal superior forces in defense of the League and its Covenant.
The leaders and people had become their own worst enemy!
On April 13, 1936, he wrote his wife: “We are really in great danger” (ibid.).
Does it make sense to think we can confront dictators without weapons, or, if we have weapons, without the will to use them?
As the danger grew worse, the British Parliament showed more peace films and kept resisting a strong defense! And if it hadn’t been for Churchill, they would have been “smashed up.”
The British leaders lacked the will to even prepare for war. They certainly lacked the will to lead in such dangerous times. Weak men will never face the brutal facts until it’s too late.
A few more people were beginning to see that Churchill was right. Gilbert wrote:
Three months later, at an Independent Labor Party summer school, Eleanor Rathbone declared: “I have described Winston Churchill as a new recruit to pro-League forces. Watch that man carefully. You may feel distrustful. So did I. I’m not certain yet. But I ask you to dispel prejudice and consider facts. Churchill for three years has pointed out extensive German rearmaments. Later facts have justified his estimates.”
Those people who listened closely to Churchill’s message and watched the terrifying events unfold knew he was right about Germany.
Surprise Attack?
Churchill saw that his nation was not mentally and physically prepared for war. He gave this warning in 1936: “Europe is approaching a climax. I believe that that climax will be reached in the lifetime of the present Parliament.”
Gilbert wrote,
At the end of his speech Churchill called for a Ministry of Supply, or a Ministry of Munitions, to provide the necessary armaments in good time. As he told the House of Commons: “Surely the question whether we should be working under peace conditions depends upon whether working under those conditions will give us the necessary deliveries of our munitions—upon whether the gun plants and the shell plants and, above all, the airplane factories, can fulfill the need in time. If they can do so, then peace conditions are no doubt very convenient; but if not, then we must substitute other conditions—not necessarily war conditions, but conditions which would impinge upon the ordinary daily life and business life of this country. There are many conditions apart from war conditions—preparatory conditions, precautionary conditions, emergency conditions—and these must be established in this country if progress is to be made, and if Parliament and the nation are not to find themselves deluded in the future by mere paper programs and promises which in the result will be found to be utterly unfulfilled.”
What a deep lesson in this statement! If only we would so examine every phase of our individual lives and the life of our nation today, we would not be easily deluded. You can tell so much about people by how easily they are deceived. Deceit is our main enemy. The whole world is deceived about true leadership and God (Revelation 12:9). But who really believes that today?
America and Britain are deeply deceived about leadership today. And we are facing a greater crisis now than World War ii! The very same nation—Germany—is going to trigger that crisis—just as it did in World Wars i and ii! (You can learn about this prophecy by reading Germany and the Holy Roman Empire.)
War is ready to explode in Europe and the Middle East. The global economy is on the verge of collapse!
The time for polite words is past. It is time for the blunt truth.
Churchill said, “Something quite extraordinary is afoot. All the signals are set for danger. The red lights flash through the gloom. Let peaceful folk beware. It is a time to pay attention and to be well prepared” (ibid.). And so it is today. The danger signals and the red lights are flashing. But people are prone to ignore their watchmen until it is too late.
Churchill was accused of having a “strong anti-German obsession.” Sometimes we are so accused. But some of our own members are German. We believe in facing the truth. Those who fail to do so are going to learn by the sledgehammer of events!
Churchill continued: “What woke them up was a series of horrible shocks, and intelligence from every quarter streaming in. … If I read the future aright, Hitler’s government will confront Europe with a series of outrageous events and ever-growing military might. It is events which will show our dangers, though for some the lesson will come too late” (ibid.).
He read the future beautifully. But most people still didn’t listen to his words and awaken until it was almost too late!
Prime Minister Baldwin publicly accused Churchill of a serious lack of judgment. But events eventually revealed who had good judgment.
Ezekiel is an end-time prophetic book. God prophesied that He would send a watchman (Ezekiel 33:6-7). That is the good news. But there is also some very bad news. “And when this cometh to pass, (lo, it will come,) then shall they know that a prophet hath been among them” (verse 33). The people don’t recognize the watchman until it is too late physically. They ignore his words until they are in the midst of a nuclear disaster.
Churchill once said, “There is a purpose being worked out here below.” He sensed that God was working out His plan. And so He is.
But there is no Winston Churchill to lead us to safety this time. God is not going to save us again unless we repent (verse 11).
We can’t hide and escape from the series of shocking events that are about to bombard America and Britain!
“Churchill was one of the speakers at a Ralegh Club dinner, telling the assembled students and dons: ‘When I came to Oxford to make a speech, five years ago, I said you must re-arm. I was laughed at. I said we must make ourselves safe in our island home, and then laughter arose. I hope you have learned wisdom now’” (ibid.).
Did Oxford learn a lasting lesson from Winston Churchill? No! Has higher education today learned from Churchill’s World War ii experience? Mostly they scorn his political views today. Would they listen to a Churchill today? The answer is no! They would treat him just as they did in World War ii—only worse! If he were alive he would have some strong views on what is happening today in Germany, and other monstrous problems facing the world.
Some people also laugh at our warning today. But God prophesies that the laughter is about to be totally silenced!
Only fools laugh at God’s warning message! Gilbert continued in his book:
Also on June 12, Ralph Wigram sent Churchill copies of three further Foreign Office dispatches dealing with different aspects of Nazism. “Will you kindly destroy them when you have read them,” he added. “I have marked the important passages.” Six days later the Duchess of Atholl sent Churchill the transcript of a speech Hitler had made to the League of German Maidens. One paragraph, she pointed out, had been deleted in the broadcast version. In it Hitler had said that if war came, “I should fall upon my enemy suddenly, like lightning striking out of the night.”
These words had a great impact on Churchill’s mind. He also remembered Germany’s history in warfare. Gilbert continued:
Churchill … was convinced about the possibilities of surprise in the German organizational framework. Commenting on the 1,200 machines and 1,114 pilots for whom the Air Staff had located no specific squadron and only non-first-line duties, he wrote, “This would be amply sufficient to duplicate every one of the 88 squadrons now believed to have been identified. When we remember the fondness evinced by Germany in history for this particular form of surprise, and note the large number of machines and pilots which seem to have vanished into thin air and the hundred-odd aerodromes which have been constructed, this possibility cannot be excluded.”
He understood Germany’s history of surprise attacks! The Air Staff fully agreed with him. Germany had been fond of such attacks. And this is the method of warfare it followed throughout World War ii! This happened repeatedly to Hitler’s enemy nations and even those who thought they were his friends! Daniel 8:23-25 state that deceit and surprise attacks by Germany will be even worse in World War iii! History keeps repeating itself.
Still, the British government rejected what “might come as a great shock to the country and result in an upheaval of industry.” They refused to do what the crisis demanded! Time was running out.
A Thankless Service
“At any rate my conscience is clear,” Churchill said.
I have done my best during the last three years and more to give timely warning of what was happening abroad, and of the dangerous plight into which we were being led or lulled. It has not been a pleasant task. It has certainly been a very thankless task. It has brought me into conflict with many former friends and colleagues. I have been mocked and censured as a scare-monger and even as a warmonger, by those whose complacency and inertia have brought us all nearer to war and war nearer to us all.
But I have the comfort of knowing that I have spoken the truth and done my duty, and as long as I have your unflinching support I am content with that. Indeed I am more proud of the long series of speeches which I have made on defense and foreign policy in the last four years than of anything I have ever been able to do in all my 40 years of public life. …
Through our own folly and refusal to face realities and deal with evil tendencies while they were yet controllable, we have allowed brutal and intolerant forces to gain almost unchallenged supremacy in Europe and have placed ourselves in a position of weakness and peril, the like of which our history does not record for 2½ centuries. …
We are going away on our holidays. Jaded ministers, anxious but impotent members of Parliament, a public whose opinion is more bewildered and more expressionless than anything I can recall in my life—all will seek the illusion of rest and peace.
Many authorities agree that the Western world probably would not have survived without the warning and leadership of Winston Churchill. It is hard to imagine a greater service than that. Yet he was castigated even by many of his friends and party members as a scare-monger and warmonger. A thankless service indeed.
Yet I perceive that Churchill’s warning is being pushed aside more and more by some journalists and scholars today. It is to their shame and our terrifying danger that they do so.
We must work hard to avoid making this same mistake. Instead of pushing aside reality we must accept it, and prepare accordingly. This is why the Trumpet exists: We not only strive to explain the dark realities of the present, but we explain the thrilling realities of the future, and what you can do to see them come to fruition in your life. Don’t hesitate—click here to subscribe to the free print edition of the Philadelphia Trumpet. •
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FROM www.survivalblog.com
Letter Re: The Reactive Culture, or 20 Years of Greater Depression
Dear Jim,
America, and modern industrial democracy, is a reactive culture. We wait for disaster to strike, then we talk about it, vote, and throw money at it until it goes away. That's what we've been doing since the deficit spending initiated by FDR, socialist that he was. Now we've reached the end of deficit spending, having exported our jobs, currency, and control of our economy overseas and become a great big lazy balloon floating over the glass recycling bin at the local dump. Gasoline, food, and other essentials are in a tight 18% inflationary spiral and the public is only just now starting to complain, to shift their behaviors. Carpooling is becoming more common and accepted. Smaller cars are replacing SUVs and large pickups for solo commuting needs.
The trouble is, this is too little, too late. The disaster is already upon us. Oil prices are $140/bbl. Financial opportunists claim "oil price correction next week" then exploit the delusional optimism for profit. Gasoline is $4.50/gal, diesel $5.30/gal. Thieves (most of them methamphetamine junkies) are stealing the copper wiring running irrigation pumps, gutting houses abandoned by foreclosure (an irony if ever there was one), taking the farm diesel from unguarded tanks and equipment. Farmers are angry, but basically helpless to stop this. The Chinese pay top dollar for "salvage copper" and ship it back to mainland China to grow their own economy, meanwhile gutting US infrastructure. And its probably even worse in the Third World. Then again, lose enough infrastructure and the USA will be the Third World (again).
As a Republic, we are ill-positioned to deal with proactive efforts. There's no percentage in the risk associated with planning out a solution you may not be in office to reap the political capital for. Instead, our representatives vote for pork that benefits their constituents and wins votes now or in the next few months. Stuff that people remember at the polling station.
Trouble is, Peak Oil isn't going away. It's getting worse. And solutions need to be developed 5 years ago to have any value today, to help with this situation. What can be done today is grassroots carpooling, use of mass transit (often slow, smelly, and expensive, as well as impractical), and eventually the highly unpopular but inevitable: fuel rationing. I know that's terrible, but that's inevitable too. If you don't ration, you get hoarding and the US economy collapses faster. What's worse, it's terribly unpopular politically and no Rep who wants re-election will vote for a national fuel rationing plan. We, as citizens, are going to have to beg for fuel rationing just to make sure we get some fuel as things get more dire. Even with that, America only produces 7 million barrels per day of oil, and our demand is 21 million barrels. Libya and much of OPEC is responding to the threat to seize assets of terrorist sponsoring nations by cutting production to the world, which then pressures the world to squeeze the USA to back off. So expect trade tariffs, first as warnings, then as punitive measures. That means our inflation rate will worsen.
We've seen protests and riots over fuel prices in Portugal, France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, and the UK over the last few weeks. This is only the beginning of troubles. As the prices rise thanks to production falling, the blame game will continue, and further irrational public behavior will worsen. The public have resolutely refused to grasp that oil is ancient energy and it will run out. Right now, our leaders here in the USA point fingers to delay tactics, like offshore drilling, domestic discoveries (which would have already been exploited if they were remotely as big or easy as these non-geologists like to claim). The oil under the ANWR? That's 45 days of [global] oil supply. That's it. If you saved it for US-only consumption, you can stretch it to around 6 months of oil supply. Better than nothing--only it takes five years to reach the marketplace. All those pipelines and wells and sideways drilling takes time, and by five years from now, the price of oil will be around $500/bbl. and gasoline something like $20/gal, well beyond the means of humble lower and middle class users to buy. Only the rich will be burning $500 per barrel oil.
And at some point, your fuel ration and carpool won't get you to work, or it won't get most of your co-workers to work so your operation/job ends. It doesn't have to be your fault, it just happens. Some few businesses will relocate, but they may leave your area and offer you a job if you follow--if you can sell your house and convince your family to join a company town somewhere in the Midwest (assuming that's where they go, not overseas). Rinse and repeat and the conservative estimate for job loss due to Peak Oil is around 20%. Public works programs, hiring the unemployed on contract for physical labor is very likely, a return of the WPA. Roads must be maintained. Railroads need to be rebuilt, with spurs reaching every town in the USA (and other nations would be wise to do this too). That's a high demand for steel, so all those useless SUVs can be turned into 3 feet of heavy rail apiece. Rail is cheap transportation, very cheap with energy. Frugal. We like that.
Smarter and wealthier towns will also install streetcar railing and overhead wiring for electric operation. And then police that wiring for thieves looking to steal it or the power generated. That returns mobility to the local population so they can get to school, get to work, get from their neighborhood to the job on the other side of town instead of bicycling. But it may take 5 or 10 years before the economy can support that. It's cheap to do it now, but nobody cares enough to make it happen while they can still afford it on Chinese-supported bonds. And that's the real tragedy of Democracy.
None of this happens until after the disaster, after people can't buy gasoline, after they've lost their jobs and the unemployment rate jumps 20% in a week. Only after disaster will things change. And when you proactively Hurry Up And Wait and Just In Time, you get slow improvements, shortages of critical infrastructure supplies so you can't rebuild fast enough to save all those businesses. Unlike the Great Depression, your gasoline, the fuel that runs the recovery, isn't going to cost four cents a gallon. Its going to be "out of reach", "can't buy it here", and "sorry Mister, we're out." With no interim solution, those jobs are going away for good. And the general public is going to shift from Middle Class to Poverty with no way around it.
Both candidates for US President are funding a contest to invent a new car battery for all electric cars. Good move. Doubt we'll see it anytime soon, as the laws of physics and chemistry are laws for a reason, but maybe we'll get lucky. It would be nice. Even with a crash program like the Manhattan Project, you're still looking at years before a product hits the shelf, years with a collapsed economy is decades of Greater Depression and generations of mistrust and sore memories of our suffering. You don't recover from that easily or quickly. Children today are going to have to grow up in a time that's worse than the Great Depression was, and it will last longer, too.
We still need to face facts that the Saudis have promised us $200 oil this year, and that's $6.30/gal. gasoline. Think about how you're going to operate your life on $6 gasoline. My commute is now two miles. I could walk if I had to. How many people can do this? Not many. If you own a house, or are leasing one from a bank, you probably don't have the option to just move closer to work. If you take a job you hate or aren't suited for to have a commute, your pay will decline and your job security too. Not a good move for most people. And businesses won't move to keep their employees until after they stop showing up for work and they realize they have to close their doors. It only pays to be Proactive if you're smart enough to look ahead. The fact that you're here reading this means you're smart enough. But are your neighbors? Your coworkers? Your boss? Your congressional representative? Probably not. And we get to live with their mistakes and ignorance as a consequence. Best, - InyoKern
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FROM "GLOBAL RESEARCH"
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