Iraq begins crackdown on Shiite Militias

From THE NEW YORK TIMES By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT

Published: July 1, 2011

BAGHDAD — Against a backdrop of rising violence against American soldiers, Iraqi security forces have unleashed a sweeping crackdown on Iranian-backed Shiite militants responsible for most of the lethal attacks, according to American and Iraqi officials.

The operation has been welcomed by the United States military, which announced the deaths of three Americans in southern Iraq on Thursday, bringing the total of combat-related deaths in June to 14 — the bloodiest month in three years.

READ MORE HERE...

Will the new crackdown bring about the conflagration of the cities of Chaldea, as prophesied by the hebrew prophet Jeremiah 2,600 years ago, which precipitates the abandonment of the nation by the occupying reconstructionists? --

"'I shall set fire to (the) cities (of Babylon), and it will devour all (its) environs'... 'I had dispatched foreigners to Babylon that they would... devastate her land... [Afterward, they will say,] "We applied healing to Babylon, but she was not healed; (now) forsake her and let us each go to his own country, for her judgment has reached to heaven"... [For] the broad wall of Babylon will be completely torn down, and (then) her high gates [i.e., city centers] will be set on fire; so the (foreigners) will have toiled for nothing, and the nations will become exhausted (because of the) fire.'" (Jer 50:32, 51:2,9,58).

If the cities of Iraq burn before the scheduled withdrawal, we will have witnessed the fourth judgment on Babylon out of the nine declared by Jeremiah in chapters 50 through 51 in the hebrew bible, just as we have already witnessed the first three -- invasion (Jer 50:41-46), occupation (Jer 51:14) and punishment of the "arrogant one" (Jer 50:31).

If the military occupiers then abandon Iraq out of frustration at the failure of reconstruction, the fifth judgment will have occurred in sequence, and we can then expect that the remaining four terribly destructive judgments will also occur in their order: civil war with and defeat by the Kurds (Jer 51:27-29); their plundering of Chaldea's treasures after the victory (Jer 50:37); a devastating flood from the "broad river" (Jer 51:42); and a resulting drought (Jer 50:38, 51:43) that makes the land completely desolate and uninhabitable (Jer 51:37,62).