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There are several news articles today; many are unrelated - all of interest:

"Gulf States Nudging for Attack on Iran"

An editorial in an official Saudi Arabian newspaper indicates that a military attack against Iran might be the only way of stopping it from obtaining nuclear weapons. “Tehran is moving its conflict with the international community into high gear,” the Al Madina daily wrote this week, “and [in this case] some may consider the military option to be the best solution.

”Ambassador Yousef al-Otaiba was unusually candid in his remarks, saying, "I think it's a cost-benefit analysis. I think despite the large amount of trade we do with Iran, which is close to $12 billion… there will be consequences, there will be a backlash and there will be problems with people protesting and rioting and very unhappy that there is an outside force attacking a Muslim country; that is going to happen no matter what… Am I willing to live with that, versus living with a nuclear Iran? My answer is still the same: 'We cannot live with a nuclear Iran.' I am willing to absorb what takes place at the expense of the security of the U.A.E."

"Rattling the Cage: War without end, amen"

I know – Israeli leaders want the Iranians to be afraid and might be inclined to rattle their sabers even if they didn’t really mean it, but still: This isn’t altogether new – what Goldberg and Will, but most authoritatively Goldberg, are saying. Everyone knows an Israeli attack on Iran is at least a possibility. But when Goldberg talks to 40 bigwigs and comes back saying “it is a near-certainty that Israel will act against Iran soon if nothing or no one else stops the nuclear program,” and Will returns from an interview with Netanyahu talking about “the potentially world-shaking decision that will be made here, probably within two years,” then I think this counts as a wake-up call.

With all of the discussion about the mosque in NYC, the following is a must read and it is very sobering:

"The Civilization of Islam"

One of the clearest lessons about Islam is found in the Sharia. The largest part of the Sharia is devoted to regulating the life of Muslims down to the smallest detail. There is no aspect of life that is not regulated -- sex, food, art, business, education, prayer, manners, speech, and how to think and not to think. There is no aspect of life that is outside the power of Sharia -- religion, politics, ethics, and culture are included. The Sharia is the operating manual for a complete civilization. Islam is complete within itself and needs nothing from the outside.


The Sharia has one other quality that is as important as the totality of its scope. The civilization of Sharia is not just different from our civilization -- it contradicts our civilization.

Our civilization is based on the principles of the Golden Rule and critical thought. We do not always fulfill the principles, but they are the ideals we strive for, and they can be used for debate and self-criticism to correct and improve our culture.

Our principles lead to the ideals of critical thought, self-criticism, equality of all peoples before the law, freedom of thought and ideas, freedom of religion, public debate, separation of church and state, liberal democracy, and a free-ranging humor.

Civilizational War

Part of the genius of Islam is the totality of Sharia, which includes a concept of war that attacks the host civilization at every aspect of its being. In modern times, the military power of Islam is weak, but this is more than compensated by its ability to attack along legal and cultural lines under the guise of being a religion.

As Sharia is applied to a society, the host civilization is annihilated in each and every manifestation of culture. This annihilation is demonstrated by a peculiar fact about the history of Islamic countries -- part of it is missing. Afghanistan used to be a Buddhist civilization. We see its remnants in ruins and fragments such as the Bamiyan Buddhas, which were destroyed by the Taliban. Who knows the Buddhist history of Afghanistan? Practically speaking, it does not exist. Who knows the history of how Turkey, North Africa, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq went from being Christian to Islamic?

We don't know the history because of the total annihilation of the past cultures by Sharia law. As time goes on, the customs, law, art, literature, and ethics of the host culture are replaced by Islamic values under the application of Sharia. The result is that there is nothing left of the history before the implementation of Sharia law.

There is a second aspect of this annihilation: the dhimmitude of the Kafirs (non-Muslims) remaining inside Islamic society. If you talk to Christians who are left in Islamic countries, they are an abused people who are unable to fight back after centuries of suffering and degradation under Sharia law. They are not supported by other Kafirs and are left to suffer under the oppression that will eliminate their few numbers. Whatever memory they have of the past is ignored by those who should be defending them.

If we are to go down the Sharia road, history teaches that it has always led to an Islamic mono-culture. In the end, there is no such thing as a little Sharia.

Our liberal friends in NYC obviously have no idea what they are getting into by allowing this mosque to be built. In fantasy land, the view is that we (Americans) will be accepted by Islam just by showing "tolerance". Nothing could be further from the truth.

Below is a related article:

"So How Has the West's Policy Towards Hamas Worked Out?"

Remember Hamas?

Let me review. It’s that group governing the Gaza Strip; providing it with a revolutionary Islamist, terrorist, would-be genocidal client of Iran; repressing women; kicking out Christians; and seeking to subvert most Arab states, expel Western influence from the region, indoctrinate children to be suicide bombers, and set off another war with Israel as soon as it is ready. Oh, yes, and it’s on the Mediterranean Sea.

Let’s cut away all the obfuscation and detail and understand something that is of the most vital importance: Western governments have secured the survival and stability of a revolutionary terrorist Islamist regime that is dedicated to destroying their interests.

Despite the Western support for sanctions, the United States and European countries:

– Prevented Israel from overthrowing that regime during the 2008-2009 war initiated by Hamas. By doing so, they also badly damaged any hope for Israel-Palestinian peace, since the Palestinian Authority (PA) is greatly intimidated by fear of being outflanked and subverted by Hamas. And the PA cannot make peace when it cannot deliver half the territory it claims to speak for.

– In the Gaza flotilla issue, the West allowed the success of an operation mounted by Hamas supporters using classical terrorist group tactics, albeit disguised as a humanitarian operation. By using jihad warriors willing to give up their lives, a confrontation was generated. The jihadists attacked Israeli soldiers, willingly suffering nine dead.


As always, if you want to see what revolutionary Islamists are doing, you need merely read what they are saying to each other. Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal recently made two speeches, both in significant venues. One was to the graduation ceremony of a military training camp in Damascus organized by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC).

He explained that negotiations with Israel were forbidden, though there might be tactical talks for temporary truces. But Hamas’s goal is Israel’s destruction, and that will never change.

OK. That is worth repeating:

He explained that negotiations with Israel were forbidden, though there might be tactical talks for temporary truces. But Hamas’s goal is Israel’s destruction, and that will never change.

The article concludes with this little bit of information:

In an interview with the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood publication — another sign of Hamas’s international alliances with radical groups that many in the West deem to be moderate — Meshaal explained that Hamas did want to open up relations with the West, as long as it didn’t have to recognize or stop attacking Israel.

Meshaal acknowledged that to get its way entirely would take a while, but expressed confidence that the West would give in if Hamas remained intransigent long enough. Who can blame him for believing that?

It's too bad that our liberal leaders would prefer to live in some kind of fantasy land, as opposed to living in reality. This lack of historical perspective and lack of objective reality, along with a strong dose of political correctness - will be our undoing. It's already a work in progress - the mosque proposal in NYC is only one example.

According to this article in the American Thinker, however, Obama's enthusiastic support for this "victory monument" may be his ultimate undoing:

"Obama's Point of No Return"

There comes a moment in a failing presidency where the incumbent, through some single gesture, action, or statement, crosses a certain line from beyond which there is no return. Through his own will and behavior he so underlines his failings, so frames his negative image, that no further action can ever erase it. Fate, accident, and circumstance have nothing to do with it. It is the president himself who puts the period at the end of his own sentence.

With Obama, we have an abundance of riches: the multiple vacations, the legal harassment of the state of Arizona on behalf of illegals, the clownish response to the Gulf oil blowout. But when historians come to select the moment when Obama went over the edge of the world, I think they'll find the great Iftar mosque speech of August 13, 2010 hard to beat.

During a White House dinner celebrating Ramadan the president found it appropriate to come out in favor of religious freedom. Not in support of Christians being attacked by janjaweed gunmen, or Bahais tormented by Iranian mullahs, or Jews being stalked by assassins, or even American citizens being told that they cannot pray in public, but in favor of a shadowy foreign foundation with suspicious financing and disturbing Jihadi connections that wishes to build some kind of victory monument congruent to the site of the 9/11 massacre.

Impressions trump arguments, and for most of the country, Obama will, from here on in, be a strange and untrustworthy figure -- a man who does not understand what Ground Zero means to America, who utilizes American law and custom to support foreign interests, who speaks to strangers more clearly than to his own.

The past two years are the best Obama will ever see. The real crises of his presidency are still to come, and are easily visible as they move toward us -- Iran, terrorism, the economy, the collapse of the national health care system hastened by his own policies. He will meet them under a cloud of his own making, attempting to overcome them as a president who takes endless vacations, who will not defend his country's borders, who sat out the Gulf oil crisis, who overlooks the sacrifices of his own countrymen in favor of dubious foreign figures.

The tide has gone out for Barack Obama. It is all epilogue from here on in.

Watching the signs has been a fascinating process. Over the years, we have seen surprises, dead periods ("lulls" in the birth pains), moments of epiphany, excitement, and great anticipation depending upon the world's events.

At this point - at least for this watcher - it all seems to be moving into the "surreal stage". Everything is so bizarre, so upside down, and so seemingly against previously known realities -- well, it just seems surreal at this stage. We are seeing things that many of us didn't think would occur until the Tribulation (that doesn't indicate that we ARE in the Tribulation - by any means - only that events that could have seemed appropriate as occurring during the Tribulation are actually already occurring).

It's hard to imagine that we'll be on this earth much longer. Things are just moving too fast towards the Tribulation.

We'll see.

Jesus clearly told us to start looking up once these signs began, and the signs are most definitely in progress.

So thats my plan. To be looking up - as directed by Jesus. Our redemption is drawing near, and soon we'll hear the Trumpet call.

It doesn't get any more "real" than that. It's a promise by our Lord and Savior.