Today is my father’s birthday. Bear with me for a second: he was born during the depression, when Britain had an empire. By the time he was a grown man, India was independent: by the time I was in high school, there was no empire, and ous soldiers were not fighting for King and Country but in proxy wars against Communists in Malaya and Vietnam.
By the time I was a grown man Britain was in the European Union, and New Zealand as almost bankrupt, as we tried to socialize and industrialize, regardless of the cost, because the Keynesians said so.
I now have grown sons, and Russia is winning the proxy wars as the star of America fades.
One question that’s been asked repeatedly over the past thirteen months is why Washington has been unable to achieve the Pentagon’s stated goal of “degrading and defeating” ISIS despite the fact that the “battle” pits the most advanced air force on the planet against what amounts to a ragtag band of militants running around the desert in basketball shoes.
Those of a skeptical persuasion have been inclined to suggest that perhaps the US isn’t fully committed to the fight. Explanations for that suggestion range from the mainstream (the White House is loathe to get the US into another Mid-East war) to the “conspiratorial” (the CIA created ISIS and thus doesn’t want to destroy the group due to its value as a strategic asset).
The implication in all of this is that a modern army that was truly determined to destroy the group could likely do so in a matter of months if not weeks and so once Russia began flying sorties from Latakia, the world was anxious to see just how long the various rebel groups operating in Syria could hold up under bombardment by the Russian air force.
The answer, apparently, is “less than a week.”
On Saturday, the Russian Ministry of Defense said it has conducted 60 bombing runs in 72 hours, hitting more than 50 ISIS targets.
According to the ministry (Facebook page is here), Islamic State fighters are in a state of “panic” and more than 600 have deserted.
Scripture is given to us as a guide, and there is much to learn from the evil examples therein. And Manasseh makes Ahab look like a wimp. He participates in infanticide. He is a tyrant. He reintroduced all the pagan cults into the nation, because tolerance. He was too young when he came to the throne, and reigned too long.
And one wonders, in this day where the President of the USA uses drones and accepts collateral damage, where historical allies are shunned and enemies encouraged to destroy those who shed blood on the advice of the CIA, if the comments on tyranny apply now as well.
Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hephzibah. And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, according to the despicable practices of the nations whom the LORD drove out before the people of Israel. For he rebuilt the high places that Hezekiah his father had destroyed, and he erected altars for Baal and made an Asherah, as Ahab king of Israel had done, and worshiped all the host of heaven and served them. And he built altars in the house of the LORD, of which the LORD had said, “In Jerusalem will I put my name.” And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the LORD. And he burned his son as an offering and used fortune-telling and omens and dealt with mediums and with necromancers. He did much evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking him to anger. And the carved image of Asherah that he had made he set in the house of which the LORD said to David and to Solomon his son, “In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my name forever. And I will not cause the feet of Israel to wander anymore out of the land that I gave to their fathers, if only they will be careful to do according to all that I have commanded them, and according to all the Law that my servant Moses commanded them.” But they did not listen, and Manasseh led them astray to do more evil than the nations had done whom the LORD destroyed before the people of Israel.
And the LORD said by his servants the prophets, “Because Manasseh king of Judah has committed these abominations and has done things more evil than all that the Amorites did, who were before him, and has made Judah also to sin with his idols, therefore thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Behold, I am bringing upon Jerusalem and Judah such disaster that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle. And I will stretch over Jerusalem the measuring line of Samaria, and the plumb line of the house of Ahab, and I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down. And I will forsake the remnant of my heritage and give them into the hand of their enemies, and they shall become a prey and a spoil to all their enemies, because they have done what is evil in my sight and have provoked me to anger, since the day their fathers came out of Egypt, even to this day.”
Moreover, Manasseh shed very much innocent blood, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another, besides the sin that he made Judah to sin so that they did what was evil in the sight of the LORD.
Now the rest of the acts of Manasseh and all that he did, and the sin that he committed, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? And Manasseh slept with his fathers and was buried in the garden of his house, in the garden of Uzza, and Amon his son reigned in his place.
I am not sure in Putin is a Christian, but he knows his nation, and it was on the ropes. He deliberately aligned himself with the Orthodox faith and when he gets into a war he tries to win it. The European and American elite have rejected Christianity and have lawyers write rules of engagement that mean that their soldiers die: they are opening their borders for the sake of diversity and not letting in the persecuted, the widows and the orphans but young men of military age who continue to persecute the Christians in refugee camps.
And one then wonders why people look more to Putin than Obama. Putin might be a product of the KGB, but he has chosen to support the faith, and his nation rebuilds. Obama and Merkel reject the faith, and their nation falls.
It may be that when you let the idols into your temples because of tolerance then you start sliding down the slope that leads to the end of empire. The Assyrians were struck with a plague because they mocked the God of Israel: when Judah rejected him, they too were destroyed, and in that process their leaders tyrants became.
My fear is that I have just described the West. I pray that we are facing not the time of Manasseh, but that we will have a chance to repent, before the ears of all tingle at the destruction of the Inland Empires of North America and the hegemony of the Northern European Plain.
Your observations are pretty well accurate.
“We” have become what we formerly loathed and detested and to the contrary, it certainly looks like the Russians have once again found God (and through Him strength and righteousness), having finally rid themselves of the system designed and implemented by the antiChrist forces who now run the “West.” We fund the Butchers and Butcherettes of Planned Parenthood and they are writing legislation to outlaw abortion. They arrest, convict and imprison “Pussy Riot” while we revel in disgusting, degrading filth and give awards to those who create it. We legalize homosexual marriage. We reward “state-sanctioned usury” while the Russians are doing everything they can to destroy that sinful system.
As Putin said last week about the results of our actions of the last decade-plus: “Look what you have done.”
Indeed. Millions of deaths, multiple countries and infrastructure destroyed, millions in refugee camps with other millions now over-running Europe.
“Look what you have done.”
Regarding ISIS, I will add though, in this case you best believe the conspiratorial because that is exactly what ISIS grew from. No one can tell me that their fleets of new Toyota pickups couldn’t have been chopped to pieces by a couple of A-10’s at the beginning of this latest round of murderous insanity designed and implemented by the “West.”. No one can tell me that they are not a “protected asset” when the antiChrist Israelis treat wounded ISIS members and then return them to Syria to murder again another day. No one can tell me that the supposed “allies” involved in their funding, such as the Saudis, Bahrain, Quatar and the like, with training provided in Jordan by the U.S. and Israel does not clearly state that ISIS is an asset of the West.
At best, God has turned His back on us and rightfully so. At worst, we are damned by our own actions and inaction and a the heavy price of the curses in Deuteronomy are about to arrive in full force.
God bless.
I don’t suppose I have to like Putin or have an opinion on his faith to say that I respect him. He has a willingness to fight and win and stand his ground.
Unfortunately, our gov’t doesn’t have a backbone. :/