Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Will Iraqi cities burn September 30th?


270 days passed from the day of the U.S. air strike on the Presidential Palace in Baghdad on March 19, 2003 -- the start of the U.S.-led coalition invasion of Iraq -- to the day Saddam Hussein was captured while hiding in a rat hole on December 13, 2003.

1,113 days passed following that date to the day he was executed by being dropped through a trap door to his death by hanging.

These three events, the invasion, the capture and the execution, are the first three judgments of the prophecy of doom upon the land of the Chaldeans -- Babylon -- and their king, as pronounced 2,600 years ago by the prophet Jeremiah in chapters 50 through 51 of the hebrew bible.

Six judgments remain: burning of the cities, abandonment by the occupiers, war with the Medes, plundering, flood and drought, leading to complete and perpetual desolation.

The numbers of the days that have passed between judgments may be significant, since numbers in the bible suggest certain meaning.

For instance, the number one represents God himself, as exemplified by the primal exhortation to the sons of Jacob -- "Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one!" (Deut 6:4). The number two represents being cut off or separated, as the second day of creation recounts: "'Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.' And God... separated the waters... And (it was the) second day," (Gen 1:6-8). Three suggests the works of God, in that he performs his work over the course of three major events, such as the gathering of Israel out of captivity: 1st from Egypt, 2nd from Babylon, then 3rd, from "the remote parts of the earth," (Jer 31:8). Seven represents something complete, such as the creation itself: "And by the seventh day God completed his work which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day..." (Gen 2:2). Zero can signify an empty desolation, such as what existed on earth prior to the first day of creation: "And the earth was formless and void..." (Gen 1:2).

The numbers 270, the number of days from judgment 1 to judgment 2, take on this meaning: "Separated (or cut off) * (to) complete * desolation." Numbers 1113, the number of days from judgment 2 to judgment 3, say this: "I the LORD, God, the Almighty, (this is my) work."

Read together: "Cutting off to complete desolation, I the LORD, God, the Almighty, this is my work."

The prophecy itself declares just this very message over three separate verses: "(Chaldea) will be completely desolate... For it is a work of the Lord GOD of hosts in the land of the Chaldeans... 'Thou, O LORD, hast promised concerning this place to cut it off..., but it will be a perpetual desolation," (Jer 50:13,25, 51:62).

If the fourth judgment were to occur on September 30th, 2010, then 1,370 days will have passed since the third judgment, and the message would be this: "God * my work * complete * desolation." In other words, "The LORD's work of complete desolation."

Read together with the others: "Cutting off to complete desolation, I the LORD, God, the Almighty, this is my work! The LORD's work of complete desolation." Just as the prophecy itself states: "Chaldea will be completely desolate, for it is a work of the Lord God of hosts. Thou, O LORD, have promised to cut it off to perpetual desolation."

Will the fourth judgment occur on September 30th? Will the message of the numbers of the days be completed? We will find out in seven days.

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Monday, September 20, 2010

Bombs kill 37, injure more than 100 in Iraq

By Janine Zacharia and Aziz AlwanMonday, September 20, 2010
BAGHDAD - Washington Post Foreign Service

Six car bombs detonated across Baghdad on Sunday and a suicide bomber blew up a car in nearby Fallujah, killing a total of 37 people and wounding more than 100 in the deadliest day of violence in Iraq since the United States announced the end of combat operations three weeks ago.

The scope of Sunday's attacks - especially a pair of simultaneous car bombings - illustrated how uncertain the security situation remains as the United States hands over more security responsibility to its Iraqi counterparts. A political void deepens each day that Iraqi leaders fail to form a new government.

Traffic snarled in parts of Baghdad as Iraqi police tightened checkpoints after the twin car bombings struck at 10 a.m. in the Mansour and Kathumya neighborhoods, killing 29 people and wounding 111, according to Iraqi security authorities.

Read more at Washington Post online...

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Monday, September 13, 2010

Jim Morin of Miami Herald 07-1-09

Here is an editorial cartoon from Jim Morin of the Miami Herald first published back in July 2009 that really captures the predicament of the Iraqi security forces now that the U.S. has withdrawn its combat troops and prepares to remove all remaining forces by the end of 2011 --


While the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq may seem like a good thing on its face, Jeremiah the hebrew prophet considered the withdrawal of the occupiers of Babylon to be a judgment in itself, an abandoning of a country that has been "broken" and in need of "healing" but which shall then face even greater calamity following the pullout -- "Babylon has... been broken... Perhaps she may be healed. 'We applied healing to Babylon, but she was not healed; forsake her and let us each go to his own country, for her judgment has reached to heaven and towers up to the very skies,'" (Jer 51:8-9).

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Wednesday, September 08, 2010

Iraq bombings continue: six dead, 35 hurt

From UKPA at Google news report today -- At least six people have been killed and 35 injured in two separate bomb attacks in Baghdad, Iraqi police and health officials said.

A police officer said three policemen and one civilian died when a car bomb exploded near a bus station in the southern Bayaa neighbourhood.

A second bomb targeting police and rescue services arriving at the blast site detonated minutes later. There were no reports on casualties from the second blast.

In eastern Baghdad, two bombs near a bus station detonated simultaneously, killing two civilians and wounding 12 others.

Health officials confirmed the death toll.

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Tuesday, September 07, 2010

"Combat in Iraq is not over" AP tells its reporters

David Sirota, newspaper columnist and radio host, in an article published at huffingtonpost.com today, reports that the Associated Press is telling its reporters in the field:
Combat in Iraq is not over, and we should not uncritically repeat suggestions
that it is, even if they come from senior officials. The situation on the ground in Iraq is no different today than it has been for some months...As for U.S. involvement, it also goes too far to say that the U.S. part in the conflict in Iraq is over...50,000 American troops remain in country. Our own reporting on the ground confirms that some of these troops, especially some 4,500 special operations forces, continue to be directly engaged in military operations. These troops are accompanying Iraqi soldiers into battle with militant groups and may well fire and be fired on. In addition, although administration spokesmen say we are now at the tail end of American involvement and all troops will be gone by the end of 2011, there is no guarantee that this will be the case.

Sirota notes the White House's "victorious declarations" of the end of the Iraq War are just "spin", because the war certainly continues, as a Los Angeles Times headline from yesterday makes clear: "U.S. soldiers help repel deadly attack on Iraq army headquarters."

And so Jeremiah's prophecy of doom upon the land of the Chaldeans remains viable, as we wait for the burning of the cities and the subsequent abandonment of the nation by the invader-occupiers.

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Friday, September 03, 2010

Kurdish politician: Obama wants to "run away from Iraq"

A Washington Post article by Leila Fadel published on line yesterday quotes Kurdish politician Mahmoud Othman, after listening to President Obama declare Tuesday that it was "time to turn the page," as saying the new administration wants to "run away from Iraq."

The newly arrived U.S. ambassador to Iraq, James F. Jeffrey, tried to reassure Iraqis in his first briefing to reporters in Baghdad last month. "The point we're trying to make ... is that we're not abandoning Iraq, and we're not really even leaving Iraq," he said.

According to the article, the perception of a mixed U.S. message has fed the uncertainty many Iraqis say they feel, as to whether the United States is staying or going.

The prophecy of Jeremiah is clear, however -- the occupiers are going to abandon the land in concession to the failure at reconstruction: "We applied healing to Babylon, but she was not healed; forsake her and let us each go to his own country, for her judgment has reached to heaven," (Jer 51:9).

After that, civil war, plundering, flood and drought -- "and it will never again be inhabited or dwelt in from generation to generation as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah..." (Jer 50:39b-40a).

But first, the cities burn.

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Wednesday, September 01, 2010

Tony Blair says did not foresee Iraq "nightmare"

Karolina Tagaris reports for Reuters from London today that former British prime minister Tony Blair said on Wednesday he could not have imagined what he called the "nightmare" that unfolded in Iraq, but still did not regret joining the U.S.-led invasion.

In a political memoir Blair echoed previous statements that the 2003 invasion was justified because Saddam Hussein posed a threat and could have developed weapons of mass destruction.
The self-penned volume "A Journey" was published on the day the United States formally ended combat operations in Iraq after a conflict that claimed more than 100,000 deaths, most of them civilians.

It is perplexing to me that Blair says he "could not have imagined" the "nightmare" in Iraq, when a prophecy of catastrophic doom on the "land of the Chaldeans" -- now modern-day Iraq -- is written so clearly in the Bible there in Jeremiah chapters 50 through 51: invasion, capture, execution, burning, abandonment, civil war, plundering, flood and drought, culminating in utter desolation and emptiness of the land.

At no time in the history of the world has all of that happened to the land of the Chaldeans, the area now populated by the modern-day Iraqis, so it must refer to events that have not yet happened. To "invade" and "capture" that land, should have been a tip-off that the rest of the "nightmare" could and would follow. Has he never ever read the Bible?

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