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Since
I don't read the bible I took this bit from the Net.
This great slaughter of the Antichrist and
his armies will take place in and around the valley of Megiddo near Haifa in
Israel. It will mark the end of man's cruel rule on earth, as Jesus, the King of
Kings and Lord of Lords, and His Heavenly forces forcibly take over the World to
rule and reign and run it the way it should have been run if man had not
disobeyed God and gone his own selfish way!
And so begins a period known as the Millennium, a thousand years
of peace and plenty and paradise on Earth.
Hi,
Arthur,
A
few months ago I tried to figure out what is meant by the term "Armageddon",
and the range of answers was boggling, ranging from a long-ago battle in
Palestine, to a coming all-world cataclysm.
How
are you using the term?
Thanks,
Lawry
In
my more gloomy moments it seems that the Biblical prohecies seem
to be unfolding inexorably. Armageddon.
...
arthur
US policy is being used for a narrow set of interests: the
Christian evangelicals seem determined to create a clash of religions --
Christianity vs Islam. Oddly, a branch of them, the
Christian-Zionists, have added to the portfolio an Israel-first agenda.
Given the Christian-Zionist belief that all non-Christians will be
destroyed, it seems strange that some elements in Israel have embraced an
alliance with these Christian-Zionists, but then the Israelis probably
don't think that God has that in store for them, so don't much care
for the beliefs and values that lie behind Christian-Zionism, happy to
settle for the political support the Christian-Zionists offer Israel.
In case any of you missed it, by Christian-Zionist I am referring
to people like Tom DeLay -- see the very interesting speech he gave to the
Israeli Knesset recently.
Right now, the Christian evangelical and Christian-Zionist agenda
is powerfully placed within the Administration: Rove, DeLay, Feith, Perle,
Bolton, Reed...et al. US policy toward the rest of the world
generally and the Arabs and Muslims specifically has been hijacked by
these folks, and is now working against the interests of the country.
Sometimes these US policies are justified by the 'war on terrorism' -- one
of the inventions of the Christian evangelicals -- but the sad fact is
that the 'war on terrorism' is actually aggravating the terror threat, not
diminishing it. This is a pedantic way of saying that Americans will die
thanks to these Christian evangelicals.
As the rest of the world reacts to what they see as a US out of
control, we will see a broadband resistance to the US take shape. Not only
will there be further terror attacks on US interests, but trade relations
will suffer, and cultural ones. I don't know if you ever had a desire to
take your art overseas, but the chances of that happening have taken a
nose-dive in the last two years. Then, also, we have the trillions
of dollars that this 'war on terror is costing us, or rather costing
future generations. And the impact on US civil liberties, e.g. the 'sneak
and peek' and unlimited uncharged detention policies pushed by Ashcroft
and the President.
The Christian evangelicals simply do not care about these costs to
the US and our interests: they give their religious goals precedence over
US interests.
The American public is gullible. How many Americans have ever
traveled to the Muslim or Arab worlds (other than in a tank)? How many
Americans even know Arabs or Muslims who live in this country, as their
neighbors? Hell, how many people even on this
list???
Americans are patriotic. Combined with their gullibility, this
leaves them open to being exploited, to being conned into giving their
support, if only a passive support, for policies that would readily appear
inimical to a populace that was more knowledgeable, thoughtful, and
skeptical.
While the gullibility of Americans is
saddening, the pernicious behavior of those who are willing to exploit
this gullibility is nothing short of
criminal.
Could you
speak more about this?
REH
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, November 02, 2003
3:17 PM
Subject: RE: [Futurework] Riots
in Riyadh?
Excellent article -- thanks for posting it,
Keith.
If Turki al-Faisal is criticizing US policy and actions openly,
this is indeed serious. I figure it will take the US and UK about two
decades to repair the damage they have done to themselves overseas..
What an unnecessary penalty we have to pay for the ignorance and
narrow-focus agenda of the US administration.
The Shah tried the White Revolution, and found that it led to
greater demands for civil liberties and economic freedom, not fewer.
Then with US advice and advisors, he created SAVAK, an instrument of
secret and not so secret repression. And so he was overthrown and a
counter-revolution swept into power, instead of the moderates who led
the anti-Shah effort. I don't think the Saudis will go this way;
the Saudi populace is more united and coherent than Iran's (and
smaller), and they have the tribal structures of governance, which are
accepted generally by all, to fall back on. Specifically, I am
referring to the diwanniya and succession
practices.
There is no intrinsic reason that the US and Saudi Arabia
should not get along. Attacks on Saudi Arabia have been pretty well
organized by those who want generally to poison US relations with the
Arab and Muslim worlds. These same people have orchestrated a series
of actions by the US that is designed, in my opinion, to harm US
relations with these countries, and so to set the US and Arabs/Muslims
against each other long term. Unfortunately, no one in the US
government seems ready to denounce these efforts.
The
following, by our best foreign reporter, John Simpson, with a
long-time experience in the Middle East, can be read as an adjunct
to my previous posting (Crystal ball gazing on Saudi Arabia) with
the FT's interview with Prince Turki al-Faisal.
There have
been reports of small riots in Jeddah and other smaller towns in
Saudi Arabia from time to time, and there have also been small riots
in Riyadh, the capital, using football matches as excuses, but John
Simpson writes here of what seems to be the first serious riots in
Riyadh. If, as I suggested previously, a future riot starts getting
out of hand, then that will give the opportunity for someone to
mount a coup d'etat -- probably someone in the
military.
KH
<<<<
SAUDIS FEAR THAT
BRITAIN SEES THEM AS THE NEXT IRAN
John Simpson
There
was silence among the orderly lines of men sitting cross-legged down
the length of a hall in the King Abd-al Aziz Mosque. Someone looked
at his watch. Another man fiddled with the box of food in front of
him, caught the disapproving looks of his neighbours, and
stopped.
Then came the stuttering of a microphone, and
expectant movement in the lines. The instant the muezzin's voice
proclaimed the end of the day's fasting, the hungry men pulled their
boxes open and started eating. The warm evening air was filled with
the smell of chicken and saffron rice. Iftar, the evening feast, had
begun.
The holy month of Ramadan is a bad time to visit Saudi
Arabia if you want to do business. This year it is worse then usual:
to the irritation of the Saudi government, the British Foreign
Office and the American State Department have warned people not to
come here unless they have to.
Half a column-inch in the
newspapers here hints at the reason: a senior al-Oaeda figure, Abu
Mohammed al-Ablaj, has sent out an e-mail promising "devastating
attacks" during Ramadan. This is presumably part of the information
the British and Americans have based their warnings on. It looks to
me as though al-Ablaj is talking about Iraq, but now that people
have taken to suing their governments for not telling them the
obvious, the State Department and the Foreign Office tend to warn
first and ask questions afterwards.
This has, of course, got
up the nose of the Saudis in no small way. The government here
maintains that it has a very firm grip on the security situation.
Six hundred suspects have been arrested since April, and 3,500
Muslim clerics have been sent for "re-education". At Friday prayers
two days ago, the sermon I heard could have been written by the
Ministry of Information, it was so politically correct.
The
irritation with Britain and America is widespread throughout
officialdom, from Saudi Arabia's urbane ambassador to London, Prince
Turki al-Faisal, to his relative Prince Sultan, the minister of
defence. Last Thursday, choosing his words carefully. Prince Sultan
told a group of generals who came to offer their Ramadan greetings
that there was a smear campaign against the kingdom. "We are neither
terrorists nor parasites," he said.
In other words, he was
responding angrily to accusations in Washington that Saudi Arabia,
the recipient in the past of so much American military support, is
somehow behind the new wave of anti-American violence.
Here,
most people seem to take it for granted that the United States has
shifted decisively away from Saudi Arabia as a result of the
September 11 attacks. They see the invasion of Iraq as being
America's way of securing a safe supply of oil for the future, and
assume that the shifting of US military bases from here to Qatar and
Iraq symbolises the parting of the ways.
As for the British
attitude, it is a source of annoyance rather than anger. The Saudis
expect a greater sensitivity and understanding from the British, and
feel that they haven't had it. Senior government figures scan
British statements anxiously for any sign that London believes that
Saudi Arabia is going the way of Iran, a generation ago; and they
feel they can spot them.
Having watched the course of the
Islamic Revolution in Iran, I think the similarities are exaggerated
-- and yet the danger is clearly there. The Shah, too, tried to
re-educate his clergy, but he did it the hard way and simply
reinforced their anger and willingness to be martyred. In the
teeming slums of Teheran his soldiers shot down the demonstrators,
while he himself vacillated between toughness and
conciliation.
The Saudis are aware of the precedent, though
they feel that the experiences of a Shi'ite state have little
relevance to them. Perhaps they are right, but history never repeats
itself precisely. Two weeks ago, hundreds of Saudis demonstrated for
economic and political reform in the streets of Riyadh; since
demonstrations are illegal here, the police dispersed them with tear
gas and arrested a hundred or more.
As in Iran in 1978, the
opposition comes as much from liberals as from fundamentalists, and
they have a tendency to make a brief, tactical alliance, though it
doesn't last long. Like the Shah, the Saudi government is
experimenting with a little ultra-cautious liberalisation: press
restraints are marginally fewer, and there will be limited elections
next year.
These are nerve-racking times for the Saudi
government. It feels abandoned by its friends and increasingly
threatened by its enemies, and the princes who control most of the
ministries cannot agree on the right way forward. Maybe Ramadan will
pass off without the attacks the Americans and British have warned
about; even so, the political choices here won't be any
easier.
John Simpson is the BBC's World Affairs
Editor
Sunday Telegraph 2
November
>>>>
Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>, <www.handlo.com>, <www.property-portraits.co.uk>
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