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Original Message
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FEARFUL SIGHTS AND GREAT
SIGNS FROM HEAVEN
[Blowback and the "Beginning of Sorrows"]
September 20, 2005
by: S.R. Shearer
"And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and FEARFUL SIGHTS and GREAT SIGNS shall there be from heaven." (Luke 21:11)
"All these are the BEGINNING OF SORROWS." (Matthew 24:8)
INTRODUCTION
"He ... [was] cool [to the touch] ... and unresponsive. Pupils were fixed and ... insensitive to light. No cardiac activity was present. I determined at that time he was deceased. The patient was unfamiliar to me."
Statement made on 12/09/2003 by b7c-4, bb-4
[From the Death of Prisoner #58 by Sean Sullivan]
Prisoner #58 died of unknown causes while being jailed at the Army Brigade Holding Area (BHA) in Mosul, Iraq on December 9, 2003. Sean Sullivan, who works for the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, describes the official report, such as it is, on his death:
"Perhaps ... [prisoner #58] had a heart attack, perhaps he was diabetic, perhaps he had an allergic reaction, or perhaps he was beaten to death. We donīt know. No one in the U.S. Army cared enough to follow through on an investigation into his death. All we know about the fate of ... [prisoner #58] has come from a series of statements taken from soldiers in the U.S. Army in the days after his death. There was to have been an autopsy, as indicated in a checklist at the end of an official army report. They were going to do another round of information gathering, but from the files presented by the government, none of that ever happened. For the U.S. Army ... [prisoner #58īs] death amounted to a routine filing of paperwork on which no one remembered to follow up. The cause of [his] death, like ... [many others] in U.S. custody in Iraq remains unsolved."
The brevity and humdrum nature of the report Sullivan describes here is shocking - and whatīs especially troubling is that there is no explanation on how or even why prisoner #58 came into U.S. custody. He evidently was just another Iraqi who was picked up in a routine "security sweep," hooded and cuffed, and taken to a U.S. "holding facility."
Prisoner #58 was kept in a "general occupation cell" with numerous other Iraqis. He was apparently not a high security risk prisoner or a "major target." Plainly, he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when a so-called "security sweep" of the area in which he was living occurred. THE WHOLE INCIDENT SURROUNDING THE CAPTURE AND DEATH OF PRISONER #58 IS KAFKAESQUE IN ITS IMPLICATIONS: The haphazardness of it all is enough to send shivers down the spine of anyone familiar with the meaning of this phrase.
ROUTINE SECURITY SWEEPS LAND THOUSANDS OF INNOCENT
IRAQI CIVILIANS IN PRISON UNDER MEDIEVAL CONDITIONS
The kind of security sweep that landed prisoner #58 in jail in Mosul is now pretty much a commonplace occurrence in Iraq and Afghanistan. The captives caught up in these sweeps - tens of thousands of them, most of whom are innocent - are held incommunicado without charge or trial, according to a March 19, 2005 report in the British Newspaper, the Guardian. They are imprisoned under medieval conditions - in open-air cages, holes in the ground, in equipment storage containers, and in the barbaric prisons of the former rulers of these states. The fact is, THERE ARE MORE PRISONERS TODAY IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN THAN THERE WERE DURING THE BRUTAL REGIMES OF BOTH SADDAM HUSSEIN IN IRAQ AND THE TALIBAN IN AFGHANISTAN. All this should say something to us about the savage nature of the U.S. occupation of both countries.
Herbert Bix, a professor of history and sociology at Binghamton University and the author of the Pulitzer prize-winning Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, reports that the U.S. army has turned both countries into huge prison camps where gratuitous pain is inflicted on the bodies of prisoners, and where death is an ubiquitous, all-consuming presence. Indeed, U.S. soldiers, CIA agents ("case officers"), and mercenaries ("civilians") working for privatized military firms under contract to the Pentagon, are known to have sadistically tortured large numbers of prisoners while having their deeds photographed and filmed so that they could be seen by friends back home.
And all this is what Pat Robertson calls -
"... A MOVEMENT IN THE HEAVENLIES to break the power of deception so that people [in Afghanistan and Iraq] can be exposed to the gospel" ?
My heavens! - is Robertson "nuts?" But then what else should one expect from a man who openly has called for the assassination of Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela.
Robertson has since apologized for this, but only because he was "hoisted by his own petards" by the Left; after all, we have not quite reached the point in our society where this kind of arrogance can be openly supported, and where the Left is prevented from pointing out the shameful, UNCHRISTIAN character of such statements.
But one should not suppose that Robertson was necessarily apologizing to his own "Christian" constituency, most of whom would undoubtedly applaud his "guts" for making such a statement; nor should one assume that he was trying to "regain" the confidence of his corporate sponsors, who are as incensed as he is by the thought that their "holdings" in Venezuela and elsewhere in Latin America are threatened by the socialism implicit in the "Castroesque" politics that Chavez embraces. The American elites feel exactly as Robertson does, though they undoubtedly would have had the sense to have been a little more discreet in expressing their opinions on the matter.
THE DAYS BEFORE HIS DEATH
In the three days preceding his death, prisoner #58 was kept hooded and handcuffed; he was subjected to "up and downs" and "smoking." These procedures are not defined by the official army report. On the night of his death, prisoner #58 was given a blanket, and he went to sleep with a hood on his head and his hands tied behind his back.
According to the guards, he did not make any unusual noises in the night. He did not ask for medical assistance. None of the other prisoners touched him. The last time anyone saw him move was at three in the morning when he kicked off his blanket, and one of the soldiers placed the blanket back on top of him.
No lifesaving measures were attempted on him. The final report completed on prisoner #58 contains minimal medical notes and is roughly half a page long. He had ulcers on his wrists, a laceration on the back of his head, a hematoma under the skin on his right bicep and hideous hemorrhages on his stomach, as if he had been brutally kicked there shortly before he expired.
Obviously, if the guards werenīt responsible for these injuries, mercenaries were not involved, and CIA operatives were not lurking about that night, very strange supernatural and ethereal forces were at work - the kind that "go bump in the night:"
From ghoulies and ghosties
And long legged beasties
And things that go "bump in the night"
Good lord, Preserve us.
ROUTINE "SECURITY SWEEPS" AND THE EVER-PRESENT
DANGER OF PRISON SERVE A VERY REAL PURPOSE
The awareness of prison and the HORROR connected to it impose themselves in numerous ways onto the daily lives of people in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and they contribute to a climate in which the entire populations of both countries have in effect been CRIMANILIZED - and this fact is central to the institutionalization of the American puppet regimes in both countries.
The consciousness of prison bars imposing themselves on a people and disrupting their close personal, social and family networks is an all too familiar reality to the captive populations of Americaīs client-states. It disrupts their relationships, keeps the captive populations "off balance," and instills a paralyzing fear into all those who come in contact with it. Itīs probably safe to say that there isnīt a family in both Iraq and Afghanistan that hasnīt had at least one of its members mysteriously "disappeared" into the American gulag never to be heard of again; nor is there a family that has not received that dreaded "midnight knock on the door" and had family members hauled away. The terror of being "disappeared" into the American system of incarceration is an ever present and fearful reality to the people in these countries.
Some might object to this characterization of whatīs happening in Iraq and Afghanistan, claiming that these measures have not been sufficiently harsh to quell the "insurrection" in both countries. But one should remember that insofar as most of the captive population in these two countries are concerned, these measures have been very potent. After all, it has led, for example, to a situation in Iraq that has allowed 135,000 troops to control a population almost two hundred and twenty times its own size - a pretty remarkable feat by any estimation, despite the not so "occasional" roadside bomb.
"NOBODIES" THAT DONīT COUNT
But who really cares about those being killed? - Americans or Iraqis; the American soldiers are, for the most part, "nobodies" who have been recruited from the "down-and-outs" of American society and whose lives will hardly be missed - despite all the public hand-wringing and bogus posturing that seems to indicate otherwise. And, naturally enough, the Iraqis are even less of a consideration in the "risk to gain ratios" and financial calculations of Americaīs elites who are profiting by the U.S. occupation of these countries, OR does one really think that the deaths of these people - even the deaths of American soldiers - cause the CEOs of Exxon-Mobile, Phillips, Haliburton, General Motors, General Electric, Ford, DuPont, etc. to lose any sleep? If so, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I would like to sell them!
Indeed, the number of deaths occasioned by these bombs - again, both Iraqi and American - are not much more than occurs in the United States on a routine basis in Americaīs ghettos where the "outcasts" and so-called "failures" of the American "way-of-life" (who, sadly, are exactly those who have been inducted as "cannon-fodder" into Americaīs war machine) are effectively confined. Itīs just that the world press is riveted on whatīs occurring there (i.e., in Iraq and Afghanistan) and making a fuss over it, unlike the slaughter of innocents that goes on daily in the precincts of Americaīs underclass - a slaughter that the American media conglomerates have effectively hidden from the world. Oh that the world would simply avert its gaze from whatīs happening in Iraq - it would make things so much simpler for the elites.
MOST AMERICANS DONīT CARE
Of course, itīs not that average Americans themselves are totally ignorant of whatīs occurring in Iraq, itīs that THEY DONīT REALLY CARE - at least those who support George Bushīs American New World Order System, which includes, naturally enough, most Christians.
It seems that nothing is able to make Christians focus on whatīs happening there - not published reports that the CIA is training special units at Fort Bragg as "death squads" to be used in Iraq and Afghanistan; not the video pictures of U.S. helicopters murdering wounded Iraqis lying on the ground; not published reports by reputable newspapers in Europe that during the U.S. attack on Fallujah, napalm and poison gas were used; not the fact that civilians holding white flags have been routinely gunned down, and hospitals and health centers have been attacked; and not reports that the U.S. has seized foreign nationals in their own countries (in Italy, in Canada, in Germany, in Sweden, etc.) who ostensibly oppose George Bushīs so-called "War on Terror," and has had them shipped off to prisons in Syria, Jordan and Egypt to be tortured.
AMERICANS SHOULD CARE BECAUSE
"CHICKENS COME HOME TO ROOST"
But Americans should care! Why? - because, as Malcolm X once said,
"Chickens have a way of coming home to roost."
By that he meant, that the same techniques that the American military is now using against the citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan will someday be used against them: And there are indications that these techniques are already being used in the United States against "trouble makers" in the "Underclass."
The truth is, as the occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan rage on, the Bush administration is systematically - and without much public notice - putting in place an infrastructure designed to control the American population in much the same fashion that the captive populations in Iraq and Afghanistan are being controlled today. The fact is, as the "War on Terror" progresses throughout the world, as the country moves inexorably towards a "Draft" that is capable of providing the "cannon-fodder" for Americaīs wars of conquest, as more and more social programs for the poor are "dried up" in order to feed greater and greater amounts of money into the American war effort, as civil rights restrictions become ever more burdensome and people begin to become "restive," physical control of the population will have to become that much more onerous and "out in the open."
And thatīs precisely whatīs happening: For example, in Los Angeles, the pastor of the Bethel A.M.E. (African Methodist-Episcopal) Church, Dr. Lewis Logan II, called a press conference last July 11th at the corner of 89th Street and Western Avenue where - just a few months earlier - Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) Officer Stephen Garcia had brutally gunned down 13-year-old Devin Brown in one of the cityīs most contentious shootings. The community was so outraged that it formed the CCTAA, a grass-roots organization known for its rallying efforts in support of the rights of "disenfranchised populations." The purpose of the gathering at the intersection of 89th and Western was to call attention to a new covert government operation that was beginning to make its presence felt in the ghetto areas of Los Angeles. The operation is known as "Operation Nutcracker."
Dr. Logan told the assembled crowd:
"Our being here is not symbolic, but substantive of what we are here to discuss, to dramatize, highlight and underscore - that we are concerned that we will disproportionately suffer as a result of Operation Nutcracker."
THE GREATER LOS ANGELES "STABILIZATION" PROGRAM
Melane Muhammad, reporting for the Nation of Islamīs newspaper, The Final Call - a newspaper that historically has been one of the first to report on such clandestine government programs - relates that "Operation Nutcracker" is sponsored by the "First Greater Los Angles Neighborhood Stabilization Council (1st GLANSC), a shadowy "secret-police" organization that originated out of the federal governmentīs new "Gang Bill." The group coordinates the activities of the LAPD, the Los Angeles Sheriffīs Department, and federal agencies including the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearm Agency (ATF), the FBI, and the DEA. Similar programs are being organized in other cities around the country. The goal of the program is to -
"... STABILIZE" neighborhoods by identifying, extracting and detaining any gang members or alleged gang members as DOMESTIC TERRORISTS."
THIS IS EXACTLY THE KIND OF LANGUAGE USED BY THE MILITARY IN THEIR "STABILIZATION" PROGRAMS IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN. Melane Muhammad reports that at a recent city council meeting in Los Angeles, 1st GLANSC members informed those in attendance that gang members (which they identified as "domestic terrorists") would be -
"... carted off to undisclosed MILITARY CAMPS or bases for DISCIPLINE training."
GROWING CRIES TO ABOLISH THE POSSE COMITATUS ACT
Shocking? - you bet it is, It sounds like some kind of strange aberration out of a "Clockwork Orange." But it isnīt! - these are "statements of fact" provided to the L.A. City Council by 1st GLANSC and its related agencies. Whatīs particularly frightening in the L.A. "Stabilization Program" and similar programs throughout the country is the manner in which these programs have been related to the military. It gives one an idea of just how close the government has come to effectively nullifying the nationīs Posse Comitatus act and abolishing the line between the military and civilian police forces - a line that all dictatorships must inevitably and officially annul.
In this connection, it is interesting to note that in the wake of the disaster in New Orleans and what is being pawned off to the American population as an ineffective response by civilian authorities to the catastrophe, the president and many others - both Democratic and Republican officials - are calling for just that: THE ABOLITION OF THE NATIONīS POSSE COMITATUS ACT. How convenient for the government! We are surely on the verge of a military dictatorship! - and it seems that thatīs exactly what so-called "responsible people" want, at least those who voted for George Bush; specifically, Christians.
LABELING THE OPPONENTS OF THE AMERICAN NEW
WORLD ORDER SYSTEM AS "DOMESTIC TERRORISTS"
The L.A. City Council was further informed that any "identified domestic terrorist" would be issued a code red, orange or yellow status indicating his "threat" to the community. Moreover, those held under the auspices of "Operation Nutcracker" would be disallowed any visitations from family members, and the only way they would ever be allowed visitations or phone calls is if the parents or guardians of the detainees had volunteered them for the "stabilization program." And thatīs not all: It was reported that under "Operation Nutcracker" there will be a TOTAL media blackout, meaning the operating agencies involved in the program will not be required to inform the public of their operations.
Pastor Logan commented that -
"Under this policy, anyone who has a tattoo could be labeled a domestic terroristī. Those detained would have no right to a speedy trial."
ECONOMIC EXCLUSION
Another alarming element of "Operation Nutcracker," according to CCTAA organizers, is that any parent whose juvenile has been identified as a gang member will face eviction from public housing projects and the loss of any other form of government assistance, thus rendering them homeless and without resources to survive. The potential impact of all this could affect more than 60 large complexes that house thousands and thousands of poor families throughout the Los Angeles area.
Now this should cause a great deal of alarm to anyone cognizant of the Scriptures concerning the "MARK OF THE BEAST," specifically, those references to the MARK in Rev: 13:
"And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
"And that NO MAN MIGHT BUY OR SELL, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. (Rev. 13:16-17)
The salient feature of these verses is this: The exclusion of all those deemed "enemies of the system" (i.e. "domestic terrorists") from the ECONOMIC activity of the state! - and isnīt this PRECISELY what "Operation Nutcracker" is aiming at? Of course it is!
Forget about the technical aspects of the "mark" (i.e., implanted microchips, bar codes, etc.) and concentrate on what the purpose of the "mark" is all about: Economic exclusion! - whole classes of people permanently ghettoized and roaming about within the ghetto with nowhere to go, no roof over their heads, nothing to eat; permanent castoffs living hand to mouth - and not just those directly labeled as "domestic terrorists," but their families and loved ones as well, UNLESS THOSE SAME FAMILIES ARE WILLING TO "COOPERATE" WITH THE GOVERNMENT AND TURN THEIR LOVED ONES IN.
Turning family members against one another is a classic technique of ALL dictatorships. This has NEVER happened before in the history of the country, despite what you might think, but it is what happened to the Jews in Germany. All this gives credence to the words of Jesus when He warned His disciples concerning the exigencies of the "end of days:"
"And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death." (Matthew 10:21)
FASCIST FORM OF LAW ENFORCEMENT
Pastor Logan says that there apparently have already been a series of "Operation Nutcracker" raids in Los Angeles. For example, Carol Brown, a 35-year resident of the Jordan Downs Housing Project, reports that her nephew has been carted off to an undisclosed military reservation for "disciplinary action." Thatīs all she seems to know: she doesnīt know where he is, she doesnīt know the charges against him, and she doesnīt have any way of finding out. What makes Brown suspect that her nephew was the "subject" of an "Operation Nutcracker" raid is that her sister - the boyīs mother, who is also a resident of Jordan Downs - was subsequently evicted from the housing project.
This is something straight out of the armyīs "SOP" (i.e., "Standard Operating Procedures") in Iraq - after all, whatīs there to differentiate between the way that Carol Brownīs nephew was handled in Los Angeles and the way that Prisoner #58 was handled at the Army Brigade Holding Area (BHA) in Mosul, Iraq? Obviously, there is nothing! Both were picked up in a routine "security sweep" because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and both were treated in a cavalier, haphazard way with no real concern for their safety, let alone their innocence or guilt. THE OBJECT IN BOTH INSTANCES IS TO INSTILL FEAR INTO THE CAPTIVE POPULATION; what happens to those who are actually caught up in these operations is of no real concern to the authorities. FEAR is the object here, not justice.
And there are other stories similar to Brownīs. Leannette Hill, another occupant of the Jordan Downs Housing Project, is appalled; she says that -
"... itīs outrageous that in 2005 we are dealing with a very fascist form of law enforcement."
She goes on to say that it -
"... sounds like what it is: MARTIAL LAW."
CHICKENS COMING HOME TO ROOST
A third resident of Jordan Downs dryly, but very astutely observes:
"[The Bush administration] is hell-bent on putting the poor of the world on their knees. These evil people know that by classifying any person or group of people as "terrorists," they have the right to lock them up or shoot them ... The bottom line is that U.S. democracy has become a Christian theocracy fascist police state where all your phone calls are heard, your internet sites you visit are traced and many other things you would be alarmed to know about. IN THESE DAYS IF YOU ARE NOT A CHRISTIAN REPUBLICAN, YOU ARE A TERRORIST."
My heavens! - if a poor, relatively uneducated resident of the Jordan Downs Housing Project can see whatīs happening, why is it so difficult for "well-meaning" Christians to see whatīs going on. Could it be that they donīt see because THEY DONīT WANT TO SEE? that they refuse to see that the very same techniques the U.S. military is using in Iraq and Afghanistan are now being used against American citizens? that the "CHICKENS HAVE COME HOME TO ROOST?"
Moreover, for Christians to think that these techniques will be limited to Americaīs black underclass is about as ridiculous as believing the fairy tale that the moon is made out of green cheese. Soon - very soon now - these techniques will be utilized against ALL the enemies of George Bushīs American New World Order System; again, techniques that will cause -
"...brother to deliver up brother to death, the father his child: and shall cause children to rise up against their parents, and have them put to death." (Matthew 10:21)
Of course, most Christians think that this wonīt happen to them: that they wonīt be reduced to this kind of groveling acquiescence to the wishes of the state; that somehow or other those who donīt have the courage to take action now - action that is plainly called for in the Scriptures (Rev. 18:4) - will magically "RISE TO THE OCCASION" and be capable of standing up to their adversaries when they are finally "put on the test." [Please see our article, Come out of Her."]
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