The World is Discombobulated, Suffering from “High Anxiety”
Over the summer, as so often happens, the geopolitical scene changes drastically. It is even more so in the Summer of ’16. We have seen radical events take place — and this begins with the political conventions in the U.S. where “establishment” candidates were threatened by radical alternatives.
In the case of the Republican Party, the outsider Donald Trump defeated Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio, ousting the odds-on favorites. In the Democratic Party case, Bernie Sanders lost to Queen Hillary and the cries of “foul” and the heated protests outside the convention hall in Philadelphia occupied the stories of every news channel except CNN and MSNBC which avoided (intentionally) any distractions to Mrs. Clinton’s coronation.
The rebellion won in the Republican Party and was lost in the Democrat. Rebellions won are sweet and rebellions lost are bitter. The theme of politics has changed from the usual “conservative versus liberal” diatribe to the much more revolutionary “status quo versus retaking the republic”. This means, in short, that there are two totally completely different visions of America — not just “how do we want to move forward”, but “how do we size up just how messed up things are right now”. This schism promises to a vitriolic campaign unlike any we’ve witnessed in our lifetimes. And yet, the political war in America is nothing compared to what else that has been happening around the globe.
Could the U.S. be Preparing for Wars with Russia and China?
Author and friend Terry James summaries the mess quite well from a recent article he penned, hitting almost all the vital topics. Here is a pithy recap guaranteed to get your attention:
War is straining to breakout in so many places and at so many levels around the globe that the world could explode at any moment from the slightest miscalculation. Russia is on edge, agitating with military maneuverings that threatens Soviet-style aggression. China is seeking to shut down freedom of the seas with its island building and harassment of U.S. naval forces. North Korea sends missiles in test firings that obviously are meant to intimidate its neighbors, while selling its offensive military technology to Iran and other diabolist nations. Iran continues with its nuclear weapons program while shaking its angry Islamist fist in the face of America. Israel continues to be the target for destruction for all of its terrorist-spawning neighbors. Yet the unseen force holds back man’s final thrust into all-out warfare. [1]
My friend and expert on the Russian threat to the United States, J.R. Nyquist, told me in a personal email just a few weeks ago, “War is not far from us”. His subtle statement reinforced my point of view. It’s certainly a theme I have written and talked about relentlessly since last September (2015) when I published, Is Russia Destined to Nuke the U.S.? (Faith-Happens, 2015). I don’t need to change a word of what I wrote.
While most of the year was consumed with bombings, beheadings, and other bellicose confrontations in the Middle East between ISIS, Russia, and the United States, 12 months ago the issue was about Russia challenging NATO in Eastern Europe. One year later, this focus has returned and heated up even more. During the summer the U.S. placed “defensive weapons” in Romania, that Russia worried were really “offensive missiles” that could be targeting THEM. Indeed, despite claims to the contrary, the Launchers in Bucharest could be refitted promptly. Nuclear weapons would then only be a hop, skip, jump, and a 930-mile missile ride away from Moscow. To say that Putin grew perturbed would be an understatement. The threats of Russia attacking NATO resound more loudly day by day.
What Does the British Exit (Brexit) Mean for European Unity?
One of the most popular prophetic writers at the current time, albeit from a Post-Trib perspective, is Michael Snyder. His book attacking the Pre-Trib position has been one of the summer’s best sellers spurred by myriad appearances on evangelical television. While I strongly disagree (and take offense) at Michael’s castigations against we who hold to the Pre-Trib position, I can still readily acknowledge the value of his insights on economics and geopolitics.
Michael summarizes the dark side of the Brexit vote, what it means for Europe and what could happen in a war of sorts between Britain and European nations, particularly Germany, France, Spain, and Italy. Michael asks:
What’s next? From a game theory perspective, the EU and ECB need to crush the UK. It’s like the Greek debt negotiations … it was never about Greece, it was always about sending a signal that dissent and departure will not be tolerated to the countries that matter to the survival of the Eurozone (France, Italy, maybe Spain). Now they (and by “they” I mean the status quo politicians throughout the EU, not just Germany) are going to send that same signal to the same countries by hurting the UK any way they can, creating a narrative that ‘it’s economic death to leave the EU’, much less the Eurozone. It’s not spite. It’s purely rational. It’s the smart move. The elite need a crisis now in order to show everyone that globalism is the answer and not the problem. If the British people were allowed to thrive once they walked away, that would only encourage more countries to go down the exact same path. This is something that the elite are determined to avoid. [2]
Terrorists that Disquieted the Summertime
Just how far the Europeans are prepared to go in retaliating against Britain for failing to play ball with the rest of the 27 nations in the Eurozone (but mostly Germany and France), from my perspective is hard to say. After all, France and Germany have their hands full dealing with radical Muslim attacks against their citizens.
While America’s political conventions were transpiring in Cleveland and Philadelphia, Europe was besieged with terrorism. These tragedies have been another enormous story this summer. 84 killed in Nice, France. 10 killed in Munich, Germany. And the attacks are clearly carried out by terrorists, motivated jihadis, demonstrating that the migration of millions of Islamic peoples from the Middle East has been, what conservatives in America predicted, a disaster just waiting to happen. Likewise, attacks occur daily in Israel in the Palestinian Jihad about unarmed Israelis. Reports of knifings and bombings there are as routine as weather reports here.
And yet, the U.S. has not been unscathed by this issue either. We’ve seen a dozen killed in Dallas, mostly policemen and shortly thereafter, three more cops killed in Baton Rouge. Law Enforcement has become a major subject in American discourse. This led, somewhat unpredictably, to Donald Trump indicating he would be the “law and order” President during his acceptance speech on July 21. Says Trump,
We will be a country of generosity and warmth. But we will also be a country of law and order. Our Convention occurs at a moment of crisis for our nation. The attacks on our police, and the terrorism in our cities, threaten our very way of life. Any politician who does not grasp this danger is not fit to lead our country. Americans watching this address tonight have seen the recent images of violence in our streets and the chaos in our communities. Many have witnessed this violence personally, some have even been its victims. I have a message for all of you: the crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon — and I mean very soon — come to an end. Beginning on January 20th, 2017, safety will be restored. [3]
The Democrats emphasized the attacks of police on young black men with the mothers of those killed (tragically and even more unjustifiably) featured as convention speakers. The point was that the vision seen by Democratic leaders is at the opposite end of the spectrum from those now at the helm in the Republican Party.
For Democrats, they seem gobsmacked. “Law and order? What’s the problem?” Instead of abhorrence to the strife in the streets, Mrs. Clinton counseled “White America” to “walk a mile” in the shoes of black men who seem to be targets of the police. Meanwhile, while a few vocal radicals caught on camera (during organized protests asserting that the lives of certain minorities mattered just as much as white people), called for killing cops. Those of us old enough to remember “the Sixties” saw this as an ominous ode to Marxist revolutionaries from the Black Panthers, the Weatherman, and Students for a Democratic Society that often occupied Walter Cronkite’s Evening News. Could the birth of race wars be one of the legacies of the summer of ’16? And this upon the heels of eight years of the first black President of the United States. Who could have foreseen this?
The Biggest Story of the Summer
As stunning as all of the prior stories are, the real “headline” (the “lead that I’ve buried until the conclusion”) is the Coup in Turkey. (This assumes that nothing happens in the Olympics held in Rio during the month of August that has any geopolitical impact — I write this article on July 30). President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on July 15-16 lay in wait for a military coup he knew was going to happen (he may have even encouraged it as an intentional “false flag”).
As the coup began, reports around the world were predicting it would be a successful coup — Erdogan would be thrown out and the Islamist-dominated government would return to a secular government of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk which lasted from 1921 to 1938. Atatürk is considered the founder of the Turkish Republic. Earlier, he played a significant role in the “Young Turks” (that’s where that familiar moniker comes from) that ousted the Sultan Abdülhamid II in 1909 and a counter revolt in 1910. In reality, Turkey has been the center for many coups. The most newsworthy occurred in 1960, 1971, 1980, and 1997. “The military has long seen itself as the ‘guardian of Turkish democracy’, which it defines as the staunchly secular state created by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the modern Turkish republic. It has directly intervened three times in Turkish politics, and in 1997 it carried out what some scholars describe as a ‘postmodern coup'” [4].
Some allege that the U.S. CIA has been the primary instigator of these coups. The CIA acts whenever the Turkish government wanders too far from America’s directives. Reuters reported (and commented) as follows:
Older Turks recall past coups. Many see evidence that the United States backed a 1980 coup, at the height of the Cold War, citing reports that the CIA station chief in Ankara cabled Washington to say “our boys did it”. Mystery still shrouds modern Turkey’s first coup in 1960 which overthrew a pro-American prime minister but was led by a U.S.-trained officer. One newspaper published a photograph of a hotel it identified as a nerve center for CIA agents it said helped hatch the coup plot this month. [5]
Erdogan has been vying to consolidate his power, to make the “executive branch” of the government a virtual dictatorship, in order to facilitate the creation of an Islamic caliphate and a return Turkey to the glory days of the Ottoman Empire which ended circa 1922. [6] For those who subscribe to the view that the Islamic Antichrist will come from Turkey, the news of the coup appears to be confirmation.
Journalist Svetlana Gomzikova of the Svobodnaya Pressa cited Erdogan, who after thanking the Iranian president Rouhani asserted that Turkey is “even more determined to work hand-in-hand with Iran and Russia to resolve regional issues and to strengthen our efforts to return peace and stability to the region.” [7] Both Rouhani and Erdogan agree that a certain superpower wants to destabilize the region. Apparently that superpower isn’t Russia since they have both decided to “cozy themselves up” to Vladimir Putin.
However, the fact that Turkey has opted to work closely with Russia post-coup suggests not only will Turkey back away from NATO and from the European Union, but it likely sees Moscow a more trustworthy friend that the United States. The possibility that Russia will lead Turkey, or even work closely with it, actually contradicts the teachings of the Islamic Antichrist theorists, Walid Shoebat and Joel Richardson. Indeed, the thinking now is that Turkey will join with Russia and Iran, setting up what appears to be the exact confederation of nations of Ezekiel 38-39. That is the view that I hold which is the thesis of my book, THE NEXT GREAT WAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST.
This weekend I will continue to leave Power Quest Book One and Two on sale all this weekend. However, all three of my latest books are especially relevant to this article.
I encourage you to visit my author page on Amazon.com. Click HERE.
NOTES
[1] Terry James, Brexit and God’s Declaration of Independence. Retrieved from http://raptureready.com/terry/book36.html. (2016)
[2] Michael Snyder, We Just Witnessed the Greatest One Day Global Stock Market Loss in World History. Retrieved from http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/we-just-witnessed-the-greatest-one-day-global-stock-market-loss-in-world-history. (2016)
[3] Donald Trump, Acceptance Speech at the Republican Convention. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/07/21/full-text-donald-trumps-prepared-remarks-accepting-the-republican-nomination/. (July 21, 2016)
[4] Al Jazeera, A History of Turkish Coups. Retrieved from http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2012/04/20124472814687973.html. (July 15, 2016)
[5] “A successful overthrow of Erdogan, who has run the country of about 80 million people since 2003, could have sent Turkey spiraling into conflict. The intrigue in the aftermath is helping justify a wide crackdown, analysts say, with more than 60,000 soldiers, police, civil servants and other officials detained, suspended or under investigation. “This has helped him strengthen his position,” said Andrew Finkel, a journalist and political analyst based in Turkey since 1989.” Michael Georgy and Mert Ozkan, Conspiracy Theories Flourish after Turkey’s Failed Coup, Reuters. Retrieved from http://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-security-conspiracy-idUSKCN1071XZ. (July 27, 2016.)
[6] Ibid.
[7] Sputnik News, What to Make of Erdogan’s Proposal for a ‘Turkish-Iranian-Russian Alliance. Retrieved from http://sptnkne.ws/bK3Z. (July 21, 2016).
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