US hopeful as al-Maliki steps down

Iraq's new prime minister-designate vows to fight corruption, terrorism

In an article at FoxNews.com published today, August 15, 2014, Fox News reporters say there is "relief in Iraq and among Western leaders... as a new prime minister-designate vowed to unite the Iraqi people, and fight corruption and Sunni militants who have overrun large parts of the country."

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said he would not seek a third term, making room for new leader Haider al-Abadi. The decision gives hope to U.S. officials that Iraq will now be able to move towards a more united front against Islamic State extremists, who have conquered about a quarter of the country.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is quoted in the article as saying the move "sets the stage for a historic and peaceful transition of power in Iraq."

READ MORE HERE...

I am skeptical of the optimism expressed by Kerry.  So far, every major event that has occurred in Iraq since the original 1993 Gulf War invasion by U.S. forces has coincided with the sequential judgments on the "land of Babylon" decreed by the prophet Jeremiah in chapters 50 and 51 of his book in the Hebrew bible.

The judgments and decrees fulfilled thus far:

The judgments come when Israel has been "(brought) back to his pasture" (Jer 50:19)
      -  Israel became a nation once again in 1948 after almost 1,900 years of exile

The "report" of coming "violence" will come in one year, and then another report in another year, and then "violence will be in the land" (Jer 51:46)
      -  The first Gulf War did not result in invasion of Iraq itself, but then ten years later, the second Gulf War resulted in invasion of the land of Iraq itself

An "outcry is heard among the nations" at the shout "Babylon to be seized!" (Jer 50:46)
      -  The largest expression ever seen of mass anti-war protest against the announcement of the intent to invade Iraq breaks out world-wide

Invasion by "a great nation and many kings" (Jer 50:41)
      -  US-led invasion by the "Coalition of the Willing"

The "mighty men of Babylon" cease fighting and hide (Jer 51:30)
      -  Saddam's armies gave little resistance and many of them threw down their weapons and melted into the civilian population

The invaders are cruel and have no mercy (Jer 50:42)
      -  Abu Graib tortures

The king of Babylon has heard the report of them and distress grips him (Jer 50:43; 51:31)
      -  Saddam Hussein cried when he was told Baghdad was captured

Capture of the whole land (Jer 50:24; 51:41)
      - The invasion results in a complete capture of the whole nation, culminating in the capture of dictator Saddam Hussein

The "noise of battle in the land" and "great destruction" (Jer 50:22)
      -  Critics say the U.S.-led invasion "destroyed" Iraq

Punishment of the "Arrogant One" with no one to support him (Jer 50:32)
      -  The execution of the "arrogant" Saddam Hussein while witnesses deride and mock him

There is a sound of fugitives and refugees in the land (Jer 50:28)
      -  Mass exodus of refugees continuing even to this day

"I will dispatch foreigners to Babylon to devastate her land" (Jer 51:2)
      -  Islamic State militants are wrecking havoc and destruction all over Iraq

There is a call to God's "people" to come out of her (Jer 51:45)
      -  Jews have all left Iraq, and now Christians are fleeing Iraq in droves in the face of militant Islamic jihadist threats

JEREMIAH'S JUDGMENTS YET TO COME --

"I will set fire to his cities, and it will devour all his environs" (Jer 50:32; 51:58)
      -  The cities of Babylon will be set on fire

The occupiers abandon her after a failed attempt at reconstruction (Jer 51:8-9)
      -  With the U.S. back in Iraq with military advisers and troops to protect "U.S. personnel" and interests, the scenario exists for an announced abandonment of Iraq as a failed attempt to "heal her"

"A horde of great peoples from the land of the north [the Medes] draw up their battle lines against her and take her captive" (Jer 50:9; 51:11,14,27,28)
      -  The Kurds, modern-day Medes, are growing more powerful economically and militarily in a stunning transformation; they will invade and defeat Iraq

"A sword against her treasures, and they will be plundered!" (Jer 50:10,37)
      -  The nation from the north will plunder Babylon's "treasures"

A major flood event devastates the land (Jer 51:42)
       -  The dams on the Euphrates and Tigris rivers are potentially dangerous, both in potential collapse or as targets of sabotage

"A drought on her waters, and they are dried up!" (Jer 50:38; 51:36)
      -  After the flood event, the rivers will be dried up, and the land will be unable to sustain life

"And it will never again be inhabited from generation to generation" (Jer 50:39)
     -  Because of the wars, flood, and perpetual drought, no one shall be able to live there ever again

Complete desolation.  This is the judgment of the LORD in the land of Babylon according to Jeremiah the Hebrew prophet, at the time Israel is back in its promised land.

Is the fulfillment of Jeremiah's prophecy coming true in our time?  Are we witnessing prophecy being fulfilled? Will the cities of the "land of the Chaldeans" soon be burning?

Is Babylon burning, Jeremiah?

Dismemberment of Iraq gives Kurds hope of independence

Excerpts from article by Margaret Evans, CBC News Jun 25, 2014
at CBCnews | World www.cbc.ca/news/world/

The Kurdish Peshmerga forces have been able to keep ISIS at bay while Iraqi forces melted away in the face of the militant group's advance (Margaret Evans/CBC)

Baghdad's increasing ire over Kurdish plans to export its oil and gas abroad directly led the central government to suspend the Kurdish share of Iraq's national budget in 2013.

It would be an understatement to call it bad timing for Iraq's beleaguered Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to be on the outs with the Kurds given they control the only truly cohesive fighting force in Iraq, the renowned Peshmerga.

At first glance, there would seem to be little incentive for the Kurds to prop up a central government under al-Maliki's control.

The chaos in Iraq and the potential for its dismemberment has opened up a crack through which the Kurds can clearly see their long cherished dream glistening in the distance -- that of an independent Kurdistan.

Said Gareth Stansfield, a professor of Middle East politics at England's University of Exeter, "The Kurdish leaders... (are) being very quiet and they're waiting for everything to fall around them."

Kirkuk is key to the notion of Kurdish independence. The city would give the Kurds the economic independence that they need to pursue their own course.

Last year, Kurdish and Iraqi government troops came close to open clashes after Baghdad moved a special army unit up to Kirkuk. But that unit is no more. Its commanders and soldiers simply melted away two weeks ago like other Iraqi troops in the north when faced with the potential threat of the group calling itself the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) coming their way.

The Kurds, would-be claimants to the throne of Kirkuk, simply slipped in and took over their abandoned positions.

Kurdish troops have also moved in to other mixed or disputed cities in Iraq proper since the advance of ISIS. The Kurds have taken advantage of the chaos in the rest of the country to expand their borders.

Said Stansfield, "If ISIS and [its allies] are successful (the Kurds) will be facing an enemy that will turn its attentions north very quickly."

"We often hear how good the Kurdistan army is, that they're willing to defend Kurdistan to the death," said Stansfield. "But we haven't seen them fully deployed. We haven't seen them face an opponent as brutal, as well organized, as well funded as ISIS and their (allies) that we see here."

READ MORE HERE...

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Now we see the battle lines drawing between the "kings of the Medes" -- the leadership of the modern day Kurds -- and a re-constituted and extremely militant Iraq -- the land of the Chaldeans, the Babylon of Jeremiah's prophecy:

"Behold, I am going to  arouse and bring up against Babylon a horde of great nations from the land of the north, and they will draw up their battle lines against her; from there she will be taken captive... Chaldea will become plunder... Because you are glad, because you are jubilant, O you who pillage my heritage, because you skip about like a threshing heifer and neigh like stallions, your mother will be greatly ashamed, she who gave you birth will be humiliated. Behold, she will be the least of the nations, a wilderness, a parched land and a desert..." Jer 50:9-12

Nouri al-Maliki rejects John Kerry's call for unity government

nbcnews.com June 25, 2014

Iraq's Shiite prime minister appeared Wednesday to reject John Kerry’s call for an emergency unity government to help tackle the Sunni insurgency that has overrun key cities. Nouri al-Maliki rejected forming a "national salvation" government, which he said would go against the results of parliamentary elections held on April 30 in which his coalition won the most seats, The Associated Press reported.

Kerry met Maliki on Iraq on Monday, calling on him to form a “broad-based inclusive government” in exchange for American help in the fight against Sunni militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). However, Maliki on Wednesday said such calls represented a "coup against the constitution and an attempt to end the democratic experience,” the BBC reported.

READ MORE HERE...

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By insisting the Kurds stay in a "unity" government of Iraq to fight the insurgency, Kerry is ensuring the Kurds will stay out of the fight to protect Iraq from a takeover by the Sunni ISIS militia. Once Maliki's government is overwhelmed, and Baghdad falls, the Kurds will have every right to declare independence, as the old Iraq will cease to exist.

Had Kerry and the US acknowledged Kurdistan's right to self-determination and independent statehood, the Kurds would have had negotiating power with Maliki's government to enter the fray and help prop up what is left of the Iraq nation under Shia Muslim rule.

Now, they will simply sit back and watch the demise of Iraq, and declare independence completely free of the constraints of the existing constitution.

All oil fields and production facilities currently under the KRG protection and control, and right to export and keep all its own oil revenues, and the establishment of new, broader borders, will be the windfall from the ISIS revolution.

Kurdistan is about to become a major power in the middle east, and a force to be reckoned with, just as predicted by Jeremiah's prophecy of 2,600 years ago -- "Sharpen the arrows, fill the quivers! the LORD has aroused the spirit of the kings of the Medes [Kurds], because his purpose is against Babylon to destroy it, for it is the vengeance of the LORD..." Jer 51:11

Why now? Because Israel is back in the land. It is a prophecy for the end times, following the third in-gathering of the Jews to the Promised Land. It is the time for the fulfillment of the prophecy --

"In those days and at that time... the sons of Israel will come, both they and the sons of Judah as well; they will go along weeping as they go... They will ask for the way to Zion, turning their faces in its direction; they will come that they may join themselves to the LORD in the everlasting covenant that will not be forgotten... Wander away from the midst of Babylon, and go forth from the land of the Chaldeans... For behold, I am going to arouse and bring up against Babylon a horde of great nations from the land of the north, and they will draw up their battle lines against her, from there she will be taken captive... (and) Chaldea will become plunder..." Jer 50:4-10.

'I risked my life, for what?': Iraq War veterans chilled by country's slide into civil war

At U.S. News on NBCNEWS.com July 25, 2013, NBC News contributor Bill Briggs brings a story of the effects of Iraq's renewed civil strife on Iraq War veterans 10 years after the invasion and capture of Saddam Hussein -- "As they watch Iraq's mounting body count and potential slide into civil war, some Iraq War veterans are more intensely questioning why they went, what it all meant, and whether the deaths of 4,486 U.S. troops on that foreign soil were worth the permanent cost."


Civilians inspect the aftermath of a car bomb attack in Baghdad, Iraq, on July 24. A bomb exploded near a Sunni mosque in Baghdad's southern Dora neighborhood on July 23, killing several people and wounding many more, police said.

Briggs recounts the struggles many veterans are having with depression, anger and suicide stemming from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of the war. One veteran, Andrew O'Brien, an Army convoy gunner who served in Iraq in 2008 and 2009, survived an IED blast, but attempted suicide in 2010.

READ MORE HERE...

Briggs reports that "during July, almost 700 people in Iraq have been killed in militant attacks, including car bombs, ambushes and gun fights." He quotes Alex Horton, a former specialist in the 3rd Stryker Brigade of Second Infantry Division who served during "the surge": "Many troops in Afghanistan have also deployed to Iraq, so to see their hard work unraveling while their mission in another country is still in progress could be demoralizing... Personally, it's frustrating to see this."

Jeremiah the hebrew prophet foresaw the frustration of having the reconstruction efforts go for naught: "Suddenly Babylon has fallen and been broken; wail over her! Bring balm for her pain; 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).

"Now that I'm hearing about (all the bombings and deaths), all I think about is the guys we lost in Iraq. It's hard to not think that it meant nothing," Briggs quoted O'Brien as saying.

According to Jeremiah, the destruction brought upon the land of the Chaldeans by the invading forces had a resounding purpose -- to bring vengeance upon the land for "arrogance against the LORD" --

"The word which the LORD spoke concerning Babylon, the land of the Chaldeans, through Jeremiah the prophet: 'Declare and proclaim among the nations; proclaim it and lift up a signal flag; do not conceal it, but say, "Babylon has been captured... Behold, I am going to punish the king of Babylon and his land, just as I (will) punish the king of Assyria... Against the land of Merathaim, go up against it, and against the inhabitants of Pekod. Slay and utterly destroy them... and do according to all that I have commanded you.

"The noise of battle is in the land, and great destruction... How Babylon has become an object of horror among the nations! I set a snare for you and you were also caught, O Babylon, while you yourself were not aware; you have been found and also seized because you have engaged in conflict with the LORD. (He) has opened up his armory and has brought forth the weapons of his indignation. For it is a work of the Lord GOD of Hosts in the land of the Chaldeans.

"Come to her from the farthest border; open up her barns, pile her up like heaps and utterly destroy her... A great nation and many kings will be aroused from the remote parts of the earth. They seize their bow and javelin; they are cruel and have no mercy. Their voice roars like the sea; and they ride on horses, marshalled like a man for the battle against you, O daughter of Babylon...

"I am going to arouse against Babylon and against the inhabitants of Leb-kamai the spirit of a destroyer. I will dispatch foreigners to Babylon that they may winnow her and may devastate her land; for on every side they will be opposed to her in the day of her calamity... For neither Israel nor Judah has been forsaken by his God, the LORD of hosts, although their land is (still) full of guilt before the Holy One of Israel...

"For this is the LORD's time of vengeance; he is going to render recompense to her," (excerpts from Jer 50:1 - 51:6).

Briggs quotes an anti-war activist, Mike Prysner, who also was part of the 2003 Army invasion: "What (the violence in Iraq) makes me feel is deeper guilt... One of our roles was to shred their national identity. What is happening today is a direct result of the U.S. occupation's strategy... I'll live the rest of my life knowing I was a part of that."

What Prysner was a part of, was God's wielding of his weapons: "You are my war-club, my weapon of war; and with you I shatter nations, and with you I destroy kingdoms... I will repay Babylon and all the inhabitants of Chaldea for all their evil that they have done in Zion before (my) eyes," (Jer 51:20-24).

Gulf News reviews devastation inflicted on Iraq

Patrick Seale, Special Correspondent to the Gulf News, recounts in an August 12, 2011 article the destruction inflicted upon Iraq in the last 30 years:

Iraq was once a proud and powerful Arab country. With its vast oil resources, its great rivers, and its educated middle class, it was in many ways an Arab success story — before things started to go wrong. The last 30 years have been terrible.

Among the gruesome landmarks were first, the eight-year-long life-and-death struggle with the Islamic Republic of Iran, 1980-88, which Iraq managed to survive, but only with great loss of life and material destruction; second, the Gulf War of 1991, when it was forcibly expelled from Kuwait by America and its allies after Saddam Hussain was rash enough to invade his neighbour; third, the 13 years of punitive international sanctions which followed the Kuwait war and which are said to have cost the lives of half a million Iraqi children; and fourth, America’s devastating invasion of 2003 and its long occupation of the country, which is due, at least in principle, to end on December 31 this year.

Jeremiah the Hebrew prophet of 2,600 years ago predicted an invasion and occupation of the land of the Chaldeans by "a great nation and many kings... aroused from the remote parts of the earth... (who are) cruel and have no mercy" (Jer 50:41-42) who then "cry out with shouts of victory over (it)" (51:14), foreigners who "winnow (Babylon) and... devastate her land" (51:2).

Seale continues:

Iraq’s dilemma today is that it may still need help from the United States, the power which, more than any other, has destroyed it.

Jeremiah describes this destruction: "How (you have) been cut off and broken! How Babylon has become an object of horror among the nations!...The LORD has opened his armory and has brought forth the weapons of his indignation... Come to her from the farthest border; open up her barns, pile her up like heaps and utterly destroy her" (50:23-27).

Despite an agreement of withdrawal, a possible extension of U.S. troops may be in the works:

This is the background to the current discussions between Baghdad and Washington about a possible extension of America’s military presence in Iraq beyond 2011 — the date set by the 2008 Status of Forces Agreement (Sofa) for a final US evacuation.

There are still some 46,000 American soldiers in Iraq,

While the respective political leaders of today hold "divided" opinions on the extension, Jeremiah describes the scenario that will precipitate a rapid abandonment of Iraq by its occupying reconstructionists -- "I shall set fire to his cities, and it will devour all his environs... The broad wall of Babylon will be completely razed, and her high gates will be set on fire; so the (foreigners) will toil for nothing, and the nations become exhausted (because of the) fire" (50:32; 51:58). Then they will say, "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" (51:8).

Writes Seale:

The Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid declared last month that ‘now is the time for our military mission to come to a close.’ Republicans, in contrast, want America to remain in Iraq — to defend its interests and confront Iran. Senator John McCain, for example, has argued that there is a ‘compelling case’ for the US to keep at least 13,000 troops in Iraq indefinitely. Opinion is divided in Iraq also. The Kurds desperately want the Americans to stay as guarantors of their fragile semi-independence from Baghdad, while hardline Shiite factions, notably the Sadrists, who are close to Iran, want to get rid of the Americans altogether, and the sooner the better. In between these two poles are a number of more moderate parties, both Shiite and Sunni, who have no great love for the Americans, and would rather be free of them, but recognise that they may still be needed to stabilise a highly volatile situation — both inside the country and in the surrounding neighbourhood.

But when the fires break out and consume the cities, the occupiers will "forsake" the land, and the rest of the judgments will then play out, leading to a final and complete "desolation" (51:62), "and it will never again be inhabited or dwelt in from generation to generation" (50:39).

Seale declares the present state of Iraq:

There is a vast amount of rebuilding to be done in Iraq. The 2003 war overthrew Saddam Hussain’s brutal regime, but the horrors which followed have been at least as bad as — and probably a good deal worse than — anything he was guilty of.

Just as Jeremiah quoted the occupying reconstructionists lamenting in his vision: "'Suddenly Babylon has fallen and been broken; Wail over her! Bring balm for her pain; Perhaps she may be healed...'" (51:8). But of course she will not be healed, but abandoned.

Seale then counts off the "horrors" -- just as Jeremiah called them -- inflicted upon the land:

The US invasion triggered a sectarian war between Sunnis and Shiites which killed tens and possibly hundreds of thousands of people, displaced millions inside the country and sent millions more fleeing as refugees abroad (including much of the Christian community).

And so Jeremiah recites the same: "There is a sound of fugitives and refugees from the land of Babylon... Flee from the midst of Babylon, and each of you save his life! Do not be destroyed in her punishment... Come forth from her midst, my people, and each of you save yourselves..." (50:28; 51:6, 45).

It destroyed Iraq as a unitary state by encouraging the emergence of a Kurdish statelet, now linked awkwardly to the rest of the country in a loose federation.

The prophecy envisions the rising again of this nation to the north, which shall itself be "aroused" against Babylon, the kingdoms of "Ararat, Minni and Ashkenaz... the kings of the Medes" (51:11,27-28), who are in fact none other than the Kurds [Who are the Kurds?; Are Kurds descended from the Medes?].

It smashed Iraq’s infrastructure to the extent that, in this summer’s heat, with temperatures climbing to over 50 degrees Celsius, the country suffers from crippling power cuts. On average in the south, electricity is on for one hour and off for four. The population is clamouring for better services.

As Jeremiah recounts: "She will be the least of the nations, a wilderness, a parched land, and a desert... Everyone who passes by Babylon will be horrified and will hiss because of all her wounds" (50:12-13).

And so Seale concludes:

Al things considered, it does not look as if America’s involvement with Iraq — which has proved catastrophic for both countries – will be ended soon.

Until the fires begin. Then we shall "forsake her", and each return to his own country.

US ready to extend stay if Iraq asks

09 November 2010 Voice of America VOANews.com English


U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates Photo: AP

As reported by a Voice of America news article today, the U.S. defense secretary says the U.S. is willing to keep troops in Iraq past the current deadline, but only if that is what Iraq's leaders want.

Robert Gates made the comment to reporters in Kuala Lumpur Tuesday after a meeting with Malaysia's defense minister.

The current agreement calls for U.S. troops to leave Iraq by the end of 2011.

A rising wave of violence has prompted U.S. and Iraqi officials to express a willingness to revisit the deal. But Gates said any request would have to come from a functioning Iraqi government.
Iraqis went to the polls in March to elect a new government, but no one bloc won an outright majority, and the country's leading political parties remain deadlocked eight months later.

Iraq's quarrelsome politicians are meeting for a second day Tuesday in an attempt to resolve their differences.

Meanwhile, violence claimed at least 21 lives in a series of car bombings Monday, including a blast in the southern Shi'ite city of Basra that killed five people and wounded 30.

Earlier, two separate attacks targeted buses carrying Iranian pilgrims in the southern Shi'ite holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, killing at least 16 people and wounding 50 more.

Read more here...

Jeremiah prophesied that the occupiers of Babylon would abandon her after fires raged through her cities. If the U.S. leaves Iraq before the cities burn, these events in Iraq today are NOT the fulfillment of Jeremiah's 2,600 year old prophecy.

But if the cities go up in flames, and then the U.S. pulls out because of the failure of reconstruction, two more judgments in Jeremiah's prophecy will have come true in sequential order.

Invasion, capture, execution, burning, abandonment. Five of nine judgments will have happened, in order.

After that, civil war, plundering, flood and drought, leading to a complete desolation. And the fulfillment of Jeremiah's 2,600 year old prophecy.

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?

Broken promises, broken Iraq

An August 30, 2010 article at English.xinhuanet.com gives a pretty good synopsis of the events of the Iraq conflict thus far, which can be compared to the initial judgments of Jeremiah upon Babylon:

A secure, stable and free Iraq, it's what the United States promised after its tanks and armored vehicles rumbled into the center of Baghdad and toppled former Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein. Yet, as the U.S. troops are leaving "as promised and on schedule," for Maher Abbas, a Bagdhad lawyer, the world is as broken and dangerous as these promises could be.

"Broken" -- just as Jeremiah saw the land of the Chaldeans after the invasion by "a great nation and many kings... aroused from the remote parts of the earth," (Jer 50:41): "Suddenly Babylon has fallen and been broken; wail over her!" (Jer 51:8). The invasion of those forces foretold: "Surely I will fill you with a population like locusts, and they will cry out with shouts of victory over you," (Jer 51:14) along with the capture of the capital: "Tell the king of Babylon that his city has been captured from end to end," (Jer 51:31) and the 'toppling' of Saddam: "I am against you, O arrogant one... for your day has come, the time when I shall punish you. And the arrogant one will stumble and fall with no one to raise him up," (Jer 50:31-32a).

The 'broken promise' of a secure, stable and free Iraq was also foretold: "Bring balm for her pain; perhaps she may be healed. We applied healing to Babylon, but she was not healed," (Jer 51:8b-9a). And the abandonment at the failure of 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 heaven and towers up to the very skies," (Jer 51:9).

Abbas, 34, is a Sunni resident living in the capital's western neighborhood of Khadraa with his family.He said that the U.S. invasion and the following seven years were devastating to Iraqi society.

"Devastating," just as Jeremiah prophesied: "I shall dispatch foreigners to Babylon that they may winnow her and may devastate her land," (Jer 51:2).

"It created deep cracks between the Iraqi factions who used to live together for hundreds and thousands of years," he said with an apparent anguish.

And so the specter of civil war looms, just as Jeremiah foresaw, not war between factions of Islam, but between Chaldean (Iraqi) and Mede (Kurd): "Sharpen the arrows, fill the quivers! The LORD has aroused the spirit of the kings of the Medes, because his purpose is against Babylon to destroy it... The kings of the Medes, their governors and all their prefects, and every land of their dominion... The sound of an outcry from Babylon, and of great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans! For the LORD is going to destroy Babylon... And her mighty men will be captured, their bows are shattered," (Jer 51:11,28,54,56).

Seven years and five months ago, the Americans rushed to war. Now they are trying to leave the mess of their own making by convincing their victims that they could put things strait [sic] all by themselves. [...] As Iraqis are taking over the baton, they are destined to face the consequence of similar broken promises. The only difference, if any, is the Iraqis may have to struggle much longer and with far greater efforts to put their broken homeland back to normal life.

According to Jeremiah, there will never be another normal in Babylon.

Iraqi Freedom fulfilling Jeremiah's prophecy of doom on Babylon?

Here was a post I made Oct 27, 2009 at the History Channel community forum:

History Channel's "Decoding the Past: Prophecies of Iraq" [link to youtube segments added 9-3-2010] from Nov 13, 2006 asserted that "Ancient Babylon is now known as modern-day Iraq, and eerily similar parallels exist between the prophecies of Babylon [e.g., Jeremiah 50-51] and the events of the late 20th and early 21st centuries--including both Gulf Wars and the downfall of Saddam Hussein." It then asked the question: "Is it possible that Biblical prophecies are playing out in modern times?"

Three years later, the answer is yes, so far. We have had invasion, capture, and execution of "the arrogant one", the first three judgments out of nine, just as Jeremiah foresaw.

Next up in his vision, the cities of Iraq will burn, and then the coalition will abandon her out of frustration at the failure of reconstruction, at least as prophesied by the prophet.

Then a civil war with the Kurds, and defeat at their hands, followed by a plundering of Iraq's "treasures."

Finally, a catastrophic flood event and consuming drought, leaving Iraq a desolate wilderness, devoid of inhabitants.

It's time for the History Channel to re-visit the "Prophecies of Iraq." Just in time to watch history unfold with Babylon burning. Could it be on January 16th, 2010?

History Channel's 'Prophecies of Iraq' compare Jeremiah with Isaiah

While I generally found the History Channel's program "Decoding the Past: Prophecies of Iraq" [link added 9-3-2010] , broadcast last Monday, November 13th, 2006, to be lacking in focus, I did find a few interesting nuggets. For instance, I appreciated their comparison of the Jeremiah 50-51 judgments on Babylon to a similar brief parallel made in Isaiah chapter 13 --

"The oracle concerning Babylon which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw... I have commanded my consecrated ones, I have even called my mighty warriors, my proudly exulting ones, to execute my anger. A sound of tumult on the mountains, like that of many people! A sound of the uproar of kingdoms, of nations gathered together! The LORD of hosts is mustering the army for battle. They are coming from the farthest horizons, the LORD and his instruments of indigation, to destroy the whole land" (Isaiah 13:1-5).

This repeats the warning to Babylon found in Jeremiah: "The LORD has opened his armory and has brought forth the weapons of his indigation. For it is a work of the Lord GOD of hosts in the land of the Chaldeans. Come to her from the farthest border... and utterly destroy her..." (Jer. 50:25-26).

The Isaiah prophecy against Babylon continues: "Behold, I am going to stir up the Medes against them, who will not value silver or take pleasure in gold, and their bows will mow down the young men, they will not even have compassion on the fruit of the womb, nor will their eye pity children. And Babylon, the beauty of kingdoms, the glory of the Chaldeans' pride, will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It will never be inhabited or lived in from generation to generation... but desert creatures will lie down there... and hyenas will howl in their fortified towers and jackals in their luxurious palaces" (Isaiah 13:17-22).

This is repeated in Jeremiah: "Behold, I am going to arouse and bring up against Babylon a horde of great nations from the land of the north, and they will draw up their battle lines against her; from there she will be taken captive. There arrows will be like an expert warrior who does not return emptyhanded. And Chaldea will become plunder; all who plunder her will have enough... A sword against her treasures, and they will be plundered!... Therefore the desert creatures will live there along with the jackals... And it will never again be inhabited from generation to generation, as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah with its neighbors... Sharpen the arrows, fill the quivers! The LORD has aroused the spirit of the kings of the Medes, because his purpose is against Babylon to destroy it... And all her slain will fall in her midst" (Jer. 50:9-10, 37-40; 51:11, 47).

The Isaiah prophecy against Babylon also provides a time marker for when this judgment will take place: "Her fateful time also will soon come and her days will not be prolonged, when the LORD will have compassion on Jacob, and again choose Israel, and settle them in their own land..." (Isaiah 13:22-14:1).

This timeframe for the final desolation of the land of the Chaldeans is repeated in Jeremiah: "Babylon has been captured... For a nation has come up against her out of the north; it will make her land an object of horror, and there will be no inhabitant in it... In those days and at that time... the sons of Israel will come, both they and the sons of Judah as well... They will ask for the way to Zion, turning their faces in its direction..." (Jer. 50:2-4).

While Israel was scattered among the nations, the prophecy of doom on Babylon could not come to pass, for it could only happen once the Jews had returned to the land of Zion, Israel. Now that they have returned, and have a nation once again, the time of Babylon's final desolation is here.

And the reason for her destruction also has to do with Israel.

[link to youtube segment added 9-3-2010:]

History Channel's Decoding the Past: Prophecies of Iraq

The History Channel will be broadcasting Prophecies of Iraq tomorrow, Monday, November 13th, at 11am and again at 5pm. While the program will undoubtedly confuse the issue by allowing certain "scholars" to mush several distinct prophecies together into one incoherent mass, and allow others to myopically focus on the city of Babylon now long gone, there may be a few nuggets of light as they fitfully and fleetingly compare the specific prophecies of Jeremiah 50-51 to the modern-day war in Iraq.

I'm going to watch it anyway.

Time for review

Have you seen these prophecies about Iraq in Jeremiah 50 - 51?

So far fulfilled:

1. “Be afraid at the report that will be heard in the land — for the report will come one year, and after that another report in another year, and violence will be in the land...”

The first Gulf War, with a pull back, and then preparations for a second Gulf War.

2. “A great nation and many kings will be aroused from the remote parts of the earth. They seize their bow and javelin; they are cruel and have no mercy... Marshalled like a man for battle against you, O daughter of Babylon.”

The U.S.-led coalition forces preparing for invasion.

3. “Summon many against Babylon, all those who bend the bow; encamp against her on every side... Her young men will fall in her streets, and all her men of war will be silenced in that day.”

The advancing of the U.S.-led forces over the Iraqi army.

4. “Surely I will fill you with a population like locusts, and the will cry out with shouts of victory over you.”

The quick victory of the U.S.-led forces over the Iraqi army.

5. “Tell the king of Babylon that his city has been captured from end to end; the fords have been seized and they have burned the marshes with fire, and the men of war are terrified.”

The Iraqi army setting fire to oil wells in retreat and the fall of Baghdad.

6. “The king of Babylon has heard the report about them, and his hands hang limp; distress has gripped him, agony like a woman in childbirth.”

Hussein’s second wife, Samira Shahbandar, told the Sunday London Times that after the fall of Baghdad, Saddam “came to me very depressed and sad. He took me to the next room and cried.”

7. “At the shout, ‘Babylon has been seized!’ the earth is shaken, and an outcry is heard among the nations.”

Huge protests break out all over the world protesting the invasion of Iraq.

8. “There is a sound of fugitives and refugees from the land of Babylon.”

The UN has claimed 100,000 are fleeing Iraq every month.

Yet to be fulfilled:

9. “I am against you, O arrogant one... For your day has come, the time when I shall punish you. And the arrogant one will stumble and fall with no one to raise him up...”

Saddam will be punished.

10. “... And I shall set fire to his cities, and it will devour all his environs.”

The cities of Iraq will be set on fire.

11. “Her high gates will be set on fire; so the peoples will toil for nothing. And the nations become exhausted for fire.”

With the cities burning, the nations will be tired of the occupation and reconstruction efforts.

12. “Suddenly Babylon has fallen and been broken; wail over her! Bring balm for her pain; perhaps she may be healed. We applied healing to Babylon, but she was not healed...”

The infrastructure and political reconstruction efforts will be viewed as failures.

13. “...Forsake her and let us each go to his own country.”

The call will come for the coalition forces to be withdrawn, and they will leave.

14. “Behold, I am going to arouse and bring up against Babylon a horde of great nations from the land of the north...”

The outside threat against Iraq is not over...

15. “Summon against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni and Ashkenaz... the kings of the Medes, their governors and all their prefects, every land of their dominion... The LORD has aroused the spirit of the kings of the Medes...”

The Medes are the modern-day Kurds...

16. “They will draw up their battle lines against her; from there she will be taken captive. Their arrows will be like an expert warrior who does not return empty handed...”

The Kurds will defeat the Iraqi army...

17. “A sword against her treasures, and they will be plundered!... And Chaldea will become plunder; all who plunder her will have enough.”

...The Kurds will plunder Iraq’s treasures (oil?).

18. “The ‘sea’ has come up over Babylon; she has been engulfed with its tumultuous waves...”

The Euphrates will overflow its banks and cover the cities of Iraq with a devastating flood...

19. “A drought on her waters, and they will be dried up!... I shall dry up her ‘sea’ and make her fountain dry.”

Then the rivers flowing into Iraq will dry up.

20. “Her cities have become an object of horror, a parched land and a desert...”

Desertification takes over...

21. “... A land in which no man lives, and through which no son of man passes... Therefore the desert creatures will live there along with the jackals... And it will never again be inhabited or dwelt in from generation to generation... It will be a perpetual desolation.”

That’s pretty clear all by itself.

History Channel: Ancient Babylon is now known as modern-day Iraq

In that one statement, they got it right. The hypothesis that Jeremiah's ancient prophecies of doom on Babylon may be playing out in modern-day Iraq has not escaped the attention of the History Channel. An episode of Decoding the Past: Prophecies of Iraq [link to archived site updated 08-29-08] will run on Monday, November 13th at 11am and again at 5pm. [link to archived youtube videos updated 09-01-10:]



The producers, however, give nod to those who say the prophecies deal strictly with the ancient capital city, also called Babylon: "It was one of the greatest cities ever depicted in biblical text. Hebrew prophets of the Bible all predicted its destruction -- as many as 150 years before it happened. And, when in 539 BCE, Babylon fell to Cyrus the Great of Persia, the prophets were thought to have been proven correct."

As I've noted already, however, Jeremiah's prophecy is explicit in its description of doom upon the entire "land of the Chaldeans" and all her "cities... and... environs", not just upon the single city. And this argument has not gone unnoticed by the History Channel: "Ancient Babylon is now known as modern-day Iraq, and eerily similar parallels exist between the prophecies of Babylon and the events of the late 20th and early 21st centuries--including both Gulf Wars and the downfall of Saddam Hussein. Is it possible that Biblical prophecies are playing out in modern times?"

I, of course, say yes, and am exploring those similarities between Jeremiah's curse on the land of Babylon and the events of the current coalition occupation of Iraq and its subsequent near-future events here in this weblog. My position is based on the premise that Jeremiah's decrees are against the "whole land" of the Chaldeans -- Iraq as a nation -- and not meant at all for just the one-time capital city long gone.

But I fear the idea remains stuck in the head for many, for the History Channel continues: "But scholars and academics have long debated the question of whether these ancient predictions were meant for the city of Babylon of more than 2,500 years ago, or whether they referred to a different Babylon, a future Babylon to be rebuilt where the old city once stood."

I say, forget the city once called Babylon, and forget a future rebuilt city on its ancient site, and take Jeremiah for what he said -- he is talking about Babylon the kingdom, the "land of the Chaldeans" (Jer. 50:1) -- now Iraq the nation -- and not just about the capital city of that ancient kingdom also called Babylon, a city now gone. He is talking about the "inhabitants of Chaldea" (Jer. 51:24), the whole region, not just the inhabitants of one ancient city. He is talking about "the land of the Chaldeans", not one city. He is talking about the "cities" and "all (the) environs" (Jer. 50:32) of Babylon, not just the one-time city called Babylon.

When people can come to take Jeremiah as if he said what he meant and meant what he said, then they may be able to figure out what he was talking about. It was the land of Babylon, not the city of Babylon. Like the state of New York, not just the city of New York. Like the country of Kuwait, not just the city also called Kuwait. There is more beyond Manhattan, however that may come as a shock to some.

I look forward to watching the History Channel's offering, but expect to be disappointed. Then I won't be disappointed.

Iraq is Babylon of Jeremiah 50-51

That is what this blog is about. Jeremiah 50-51 is a prophecy against Babylon. Not the ancient city, which no longer exists, but against "the land of the Chaldeans" (Jer 50:9). It is a prophecy against "Chaldea" (Jer 50:10). It is against "the king of Babylon and his land" (Jer 50:18). It is against "the land of Merathaim... and against the inhabitants of Pekod..." (Jer 50:21). It is against the "cities, and... all (the) environs" (Jer 50:32) of the land of Chaldea -- modern day Iraq.

C. Marvin Pate and J. Daniel Hays say no, Iraq is not the Babylon of the "end-times", in their 2003 book, "Iraq; Babylon of the End-Times?" by Baker Books, because they claim the prophecy refers narrowly and only to the capital city of Babylonia, and its destruction by Antiochus I c. 270s B.C.E. (pg 37).

However, the words of the prophecy themselves define the prophecy as relating to the "land" of the Chaldeans, and their "cities" -- not just one city -- and "all... environs" of the Chaldeans. "Her cities [plural] have become an object of horror, a parched land and a desert, a land in which no man lives..." (Jer 51:43). It is not just talking about the one-time capital city of Nebuchadnezzar's empire, it is referring to the "whole land" (Jer 51:47).

This blog is going to explore the explicit decrees of destruction against the land of Babylon, and how the current U.S.-led occupation of Iraq has begun to fulfill those decrees, and what we can expect to happen in sequence if this current conflict is the literal fulfillment of Jeremiah's prophecy.