This one comes from Front Page Magazine:
Syrian dictator Bashar Assad has privately pledged to “fight to his last bullet” in his ancestral hometown of Qardaha, vowing, “If I go, none of Syria remains.” The daily pools of blood spilled by his madmen cause hearts to be warmed by signs of Assad’s impending fall, but one Syrian Christian opposition activist is loudly warning that light is not waiting at the end of the tunnel. Islamist hordes are.
Michel Kilo is no friend of the Assad regime, though most of his Syrian Christian brethren fear what awaits them once it falls. He is a long-time and well-known opposition activist. His joy over Assad’s defeat comes with an honest and bleak reality check. The fight against Assad will be followed by a fight against foreign-backed Islamists.
“[A democratic] future that felt certain has now become nothing more than a vague promise—which might not be kept by the Islamist groups known for their lies, lust for power and cooperation with foreign powers,” Kilo urgently writes about “our hijacked revolution.”
“It is very likely that we will be dragged into a deep pit of chaos, violence and civil war, and that serious efforts will be deployed to prevent any evolution toward democracy by stifling the voices of free, secular forces,” he says.
On the ground, Islamist militants including Al-Qaeda-linked terrorists are the ones taking the lead. An infantry base in Aleppo has justfallen to the Al-Tawheed Brigade. It is described as an “Islamist faction” even though it fights under the FSA name. It is unclear if the Free Syria Army affiliated with Riad al-Assad incorporated it into its ranks or if the Al-Tawheed Brigade Islamists decided to unilaterally use the popular name.
The U.S. now knows that when it decided to “lead from behind” by letting Qatar act as the gun store for the Libyan rebels, it armed Islamic extremists. Qatar favored the Islamists in its role in Libya to the detriment of secularists. Non-Islamist Libyan rebels warned us then. Non-Islamist Syrian rebels are warning us now.
On Dec. 5, the first American, Dutch and German Patriot missiles landed in Turkey.
Within hours, three Russian warships had put into Syria’s Tartus port – the Novocherkasskand Saratov landing craft and the MB-304 supply vessel. Aboard were 300 marines. And not only fighting men. They also delivered a fearsome weapon for Assad’s army and a game changer in the Syrian conflict: 24 Iskander 9K720 (NATO codenamed SS-26 Stone) cruise missile systems, designed for theater level conflicts.
While NATO unpacked the Patriots in Turkey, a dozen mobile batteries, each carrying a pair of Iskander missiles, were fixed into position opposite Turkey, and another dozen, opposite Jordan and Israel.
So while the West was gripped with alarm over Assad’s poison sarin gas shells and bombs and gearing up for missile attacks on Turkey, the Russians were injecting into the Syrian war field the most sophisticated weapon of death thus far.
The West and Israel have no answer for the Iskander’s hypersonic speed of more than 1.3 miles per second with a 280 mile-range and a 1,500-pound warhead which destroys targets with pinpoint accuracy. It is also nuclear-capable.
Russian President Vladimir Putin promised two US presidents, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, not to let the Iskander reach the hands of Syria or Iran.
Moscow has no illusions that once in Syria, the lethal cruise missile will pretty soon reach Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Moscow has no illusions that once in Syria, the lethal cruise missile will pretty soon reach Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Saturday, Dec. 15, Iran’s chief of staff Gen. Hassan Firouzabadi warned that the Patriot missiles in Turkey portended world war. He was referring to the missile-versus-missile face-off in Syria .
By giving Assad the Iskanders, Moscow has plumped itself squarely in the Tehran-Damascus-Hizballah camp, whereas President Obama is carefully holding back from an unreserved commitment to the Syrian insurgency.
Some Western circles see Russia’s military intervention in the Syrian conflict as presaging Bashar Assad’s early downfall. The reality, according to DEBKAfile’s sources, is that before he falls, the Syria ruler is getting ready for desperate measures – first by unleashing chemical warfare and, after that, using the deadly Iskanders for a last throw against his enemies.
Iran's president says Western sanctions could cause a short delay in Tehran's nuclear program but will not slow it down substantially.
State TV quoted Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday as claiming that the "West is not happy with Iran's progress" in various technological fields, including uranium enrichment, which is a possible pathway to nuclear arms.
World economic growth has weakened substantially this year and faces the confluence of a triple threat — the so-called fiscal cliff in the United States, the European debt crisis and a sharp slowdown inChina, the United Nations said in a report released on Tuesday. The worst case, the report said, could be a new global recession that mires many countries in a cycle of austerity and unemployment for years.
“I’m afraid this time around we’re not very optimistic about how things are moving,” Mr. Vos said at a news conference at United Nations headquarters.
“A worsening of the euro area crisis, the ‘fiscal cliff’ in the United States and a hard landing in China could cause a new global recession,” Mr. Vos said in the report, “World Economic Situation and Prospects 2013.” He said the forecast growth was “far from sufficient to overcome the continued jobs crisis that many countries are still facing.”
The article below is fascinating and dissects point-by-point how far down the pagan path we have gone. The quotes below represent the introduction to this timely article that is most definitely worth reading in full:
It must be some kind of joke to suggest the United States of America is turning resolutely towards paganism, the antithesis of Christianity—correct? Sadly, this is exactly what appears to be quickly happening to this most Christian of all nations in terms of origin and practice. We see this in our views of government, family, economics, freedom, law and especially religion. We are now presented with a kind modern homo paganus, a modernized version of ancient man. Paganism is defined as:
- An adherent of a polytheistic religion in antiquity, especially when viewed in contrast to an adherent of a monotheistic religion.
- A Neopagan.
- Offensive—a. One who has no religion;b. An adherent of a religion other than Judaism, Christianity, or Islam.
- A hedonist.
Paganism is a set of beliefs and practices essentially tied to the societies of the ancient world outside Judaism and Christianity. In particular, classical paganism was the worldview of the ancient Greeks and Romans. The revival of these ancient cultures during the Renaissance by way of the ancient writers is the foundation for Humanism. Despite the many high points of ancient classical paganism, these cultures’ values were rejected by the Christian West as utterly at odds with the great standards created by the rise of Christian Europe. This article details how these standards, misunderstood and rejected, are being slowly lost and replaced by unenlightened instincts and more primitive beliefs.
Paganism therefore rejects biblical revelation of the One God, and an objective definition of truth—replacing it with a regime of superstition, earth worship, polytheism, and radical humanism. The latter is the replacement of any traditional Western idea of religion with rank secularism, however that might attain. An example of the latter would be Marxism with its savage embargo of God, which replaced tradition with a comically inept reign of humanistic pseudo-science, totally rejecting constitutionalism, natural law, and human rights.
This is another fairly long but very interesting article. Its essence could be boiled down to this quote:
To understand the left’s position on nearly any issue, imagine a 20th Century American and then take away accountability. Assume that the individual is helpless and stupid, has little to no control over his own behavior and is only responding to stimuli and functions in a purely reactive capacity. Then use that data to come up with a response to anything from kids getting fat to a football player shooting his wife to terrorists firing rockets at Israel. The only possible answer to reactive behavior is to find the thing being reacted to and condemn it.
The final failure of accountability for the left is a failure of moral organization, while for the right it is a failure of personal character. The right asks, “Why did you kill?” The left asks, “Who let him have a gun?”, “Who didn’t provide him with a job” and “Who neglected his self-esteem?”
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