Let’s Sit Out World War IV
Since their other rationales for the Iraq war have been long-since discredited, the neocons have resorted to issuing dark warnings of calamity should America withdraw. Having created a nasty set of “facts on the ground,” they pepper antiwar pundits with a barrage of hostile questions whenever the issue arises: So what do you suggest we do? Won’t the situation get much worse if we leave Iraq? What about the global threat of “Islamofascism?”
Unlike many libertarians and paleoconservatives, I happen to agree with the neocons on one point. Specifically, I really do believe the world is experiencing what some have called “World War IV.”
The point on which I vigorously disagree concerns America’s role in this conflict.
The Islamic world is in the midst of a civilizational crisis. This crisis has its genesis in the revealed nature of the Muslim religion and was described most succinctly by Pope Benedict XVI during his annual academic confab at Castle Gandolfo (the papal summer residence in Italy).
The pope noted that the Koran, unlike the Bible, is considered by Muslims to be the literal word of God. Whereas Christians believe the Bible was written by fallible humans under divine inspiration, Muslims believe that the Koran was dictated directly to Muhammad by the Angel Gabriel. The Koran’s words are thus not Muhammad’s - who functioned more or less as a stenographer - but are rather the verbatim words of the Almighty himself.
To further complicate matters, while ruling the early Muslim community, Muhammad handed down numerous judicial decisions concerning criminal and civil disputes. These decisions have survived the intervening centuries and form the basis of Islamic law.
As a result, much of Islamic culture is frozen in a 7th Century worldview that it can neither reject nor reform. After all, how could the very words of God be subjected to critical analysis? Who could overturn one of Muhammad’s verdicts?
With the world around Dar-al Islam changing rapidly, Islamic culture, as currently constituted, lacks the flexibility to change with it. This conundrum (and the numerous conflicts it has spawned) will be the central geopolitical challenge of the 21st Century.
In his now-infamous book The Clash of Civilizations, Samuel Huntington predicted that the 21st Century’s will not be defined by ideological conflicts, but will rather be plagued by warfare among the world’s major cultural zones. In particular, he noted that Islamic civilization is clashing with every one of its neighbors.
A quick look at Huntington’s map is revealing:
Islam is locked in conflict with Hindu civilization in Kashmir, with Chinese civilization in Xingjian, and with Orthodox Slavic culture in the Caucuses and the Balkans. To its south, Islam is waging bitter wars with African civilization in a horizontal band across Africa from Nigeria to Somalia.
As for Western Civilization, in what was perhaps the single most incomprehensible policy decision in the history of Western governance (a distinction that covers quite a bit of territory) Europe permitted the mass immigration of impoverished Muslims during the decades after World War II. These immigrant populations, who probably can not be peacefully assimilated, now threaten to demographically overwhelm their host nations and embroil Europe in widespread civil unrest or outright warfare.
While this map casts doubts on the prospects for world peace, it also reveals the central irony of America’s “War on Terror”: The United States of America is the only major world power that is not forced by geography into a conflict with Dar-al Islam.
America does not border the Islamic world. It has a statistically insignificant Muslim population that is better assimilated than that of any other Western nation. America is bounded on its east and west by vast oceans and to the north and south by two militarily weak and predominantly Christian nations.
The irony resides, of course, in the fact that despite these blessings, America is the nation doing most of the fighting against radical Islam.
When analyzing the likely course of these civilizational struggles – and plotting a strategy for America to deal with them – one must also recognize another important fact: The ultimate outcome of Islam’s civilizational wars has already been determined. Radical Islam is not a viable paradigm upon which a modern society can be built. It is destined, like communism before it, to collapse from within. The trajectory of political Islam can already be seen in Iran, where it first came to power. As a governing system, the Islamic Republic has been discredited in the eyes of the masses and survives mostly by repression and manipulation. Economically and culturally, it is an utter failure.
Furthermore, radical Islam is not now, nor will it ever be, a civilizational threat to America. Nor will it conquer the world or overturn modern civilization. These goals are simply beyond its capacity.
When these two ideas are considered together (i.e. the lack of geopolitical conflict between America and Islam, and the inevitable collapse of Islam as a political ideology), America’s most prudent path becomes obvious: The United States should withdraw from the Middle East and declare itself a non-belligerent in Islam’s civilizational wars. In so doing, America can avoid the casualties and ruinous costs of wars which have nothing to do with our national survival.
Given the immediate proximity of numerous, ancient enemies (and the many bloody divisions that exist within the body of Dar-al Islam itself), the Muslim combatants will not long bother themselves with a non-threatening nation on the other side of the planet. America’s tragic involvement in these wars was wholly the product of our wrong-headed, interventionist foreign policy. When that provocation is removed, so will the cause for enmity.
While obviously beneficial to America, this strategy leaves open the issue of what will happen in the aftermath of our withdrawal.
In all probability, the civilizational struggles between Islam and its neighbors will progress along their natural trajectories. While one must use caution in predicting the future, the course of these conflicts is nevertheless becoming visible in vague outlines:
Islam vs. Hindu Civilization:
This conflict has been bogged down in a stalemate for decades and will probably remain so for quite some time. Despite the occasional terrorist attack in Kashmir, India is a powerful and rapidly growing nation that is outdistancing Pakistan by the hour. While the possibility of a conventional war (or even a nuclear one) cannot be entirely discounted, it is remote. More likely than not, this civilizational “cold war” will drag on indefinitely and will remain cold.
Islam vs Chinese Civilization:
This conflict is even more lopsided than the Hindu one. The Muslim population in Xingjian is minuscule compared to China’s, and the Chinese government is not known for subtlety when it feels threatened. Any significant Muslim uprising there would be an act of collective suicide.
Islam vs Orthodox Christendom:
In many ways, this is the most interesting of the civilizational clashes. Orthodoxy is crippled by falling populations and the dispiriting aftereffects of soulless communism. But despite these handicaps, there is a certain toughness and ruthlessness that persists in Orthodoxy (unlike the soft, materialistic culture of Western Europe). Orthodoxy is, after all, the civilization that gave the world leaders with names like “Ivan the Terrible” and “Vlad the Impaler.”
Russia, Orthodoxy’s leading nation, is currently trapped in a demographic nightmare. It is losing population because of its dismal birthrate and falling life expectancy. Russia also has a large and growing Muslim population that will, in the not-too-distant future, become the majority.
Long before this happens, I believe the situation will reach a crisis point. In this eventuality, I agree wholeheartedly with Spengler’s (the Asia Times columnist, not Oswald) incisive analysis:
“European Russia is dying, and Muslims will compose a majority of citizens of the Russian Federation by as early as 2040. But the successors of Imperial Russia, the Third Rome after the fall of Constantinople to Islam in 1453, refuse to slide without a struggle into the digestive tract of the House of Islam. Western Europe may go with a whimper rather than a bang as Muslim immigrants replace the shrinking local population, but the Russians have no such intention. Putin and his comrades will employ all the guile and violence at their command to delay the decline of European Russia. The Europeans are the emasculated remnant of a fallen civilization; for better or worse, the Russians still are real men.”
In addition to Russia’s drama, there are two additional fronts in this civilizational war. America’s interference in Bosnia and Kosovo froze each of those theaters in unstable ceasefires. Since the underlying issues remain unresolved, these wars will probably flare up again and progress to their natural conclusions.
Islam vs. Western European Civilization:
Sometime this century, Muslim immigrants will make up the majority of the population in most Western European nations. As far as I can tell, nothing like this has ever happened before. Never has a native population allowed itself to be peacefully displaced from its homeland by a neighboring people, especially one with which it has a long history of mutual hatred and warfare.
The peculiar thing about this impending crisis is that it is wholly of Europe’s doing. Their governments allowed the immigration wave to occur, and their own people voluntarily decided not to have children. It is as if sometime in the mid 20th Century, Europeans decided that their existence was no longer necessary or desirable.
Exactly how this plays out will be a fascinating thing to watch. It could end quietly, or with a bang, or anywhere in-between.
But either way, I believe that America should remain firmly on the sidelines. Whatever happens (and I believe that Europe’s demographic transition will be extremely violent – somewhere between a continent-sized Belfast and a continent-sized Srebrenica), America should not involve itself in another European war. Three times in the past century, American mothers have sent their sons across the ocean to intervene in a European war that was not of our creation. Our reward for those efforts is a still-imperiled Europe dotted with American graveyards. I admire European culture and civilization (it is the homeland of all of my ancestors), but the time has come for Europe to sink or swim. However it chooses to manage its impending demographic transition is entirely its own affair. The Europeans must regain their “will to permanence,” or take a final bow and exit from the stage of History.
Either way, enough is enough. America can do no more.
Conclusion
Despite many admirable traits I observed while living in the Middle East, the Islamic world is trapped in a profound civilizational crisis. This crisis has its roots in the peculiarities of the Muslim religion and is complicated by numerous economic and demographic factors. The major consequence of this crisis is the proliferation of violent clashes between Islam and neighboring civilizations.
The roughly triangular region between Londonistan, the Hindu-Kush, and central Africa will be the scene of a brutal, Hobbesian conflict that will take decades to play itself out and may ultimately claim the lives of millions of people. (And if Islam’s external wars were not enough, one can expect numerous internal ones as well - Turks vs Kurds, Sunnis vs Shiites, Arabs vs Persians, etc.). This conflict was not started by America, cannot be prevented by America, and will progress according to its own internal logic regardless of American action (or inaction). In truth, our interventions up to now have only served to make things demonstrably worse.
But even if America had the ability to effectively intervene in these conflicts, we will soon lack both the means and the motivation. Decades of reckless deficit spending and profligate monetary policy have brought America to the doorstep of economic disaster. We are facing a collapsing currency, runaway inflation, and economic stagnation.
Since the Islamic wars are not directly relevant to America’s national survival, and since radical Islam will not emerge victorious as a world-conquering ideology anyhow, America’s involvement in the Middle East is an intolerable and unnecessary distraction from our own serious domestic problems. The time has come for America to discard its disastrous interventionist foreign policy, to withdraw from the Middle East, and to expend our energies addressing our impending economic crisis.
I believe America’s adoption of this strategy is inevitable, since the American people will not accept the casualties and expenses of fighting absurd foreign wars while our economy enters a steep decline.
The only remaining question is how much blood and treasure we will expend in the meantime.
Steven LaTulippe was an officer in the United States Air Force for 13 years. He currently practices medicine in Ohio.
Comments
Here are the things you are not considering: A) We
cannot withdraw from the Middle East so long as our
strategically important energy supplies continue to
repose in large quantities in that region; B) Continuous war
and preparation for war continue to be immensely profitable
to the globalist economic system we’ve developed and
imposed upon so much of the world; and, finally, C) we cannot
withdraw from the Middle East so long as we insist upon being
defender of the Zionist apartheid State.
In addition, the Protestant Fundamentalist elements of the
“conservative” alliance in the United States are obsessivel
focused on a neo-Christian “manifest destiny” that involves the
dominance of the region by the apartheid Zionist State.
So you can see, there’s no possiblity of America becoming
isolationist, as you recommend.
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The article by pseudonymous “Spengler” cited
unspecified UN data to support the projection
that “Muslims will compose a majority of citizens of the Russian Federation by as early as 2040”.
That’s just sloppy, for many reasons.
For one thing, those demographic projections
were based on an extraordinary, and very short,
transitional period in Russia’s history,
the interregnal “Time of Troubles” of the 1990s.
It cited the decline of Russian life expectancy
in the 1990s. But statistical life expectancy
declined by, what, around 50 percent during
WWII, then rapidly recovered in the 1950s-60s.
It will do so again as Russia’s recovery continues.
Then there’s the problem of defining “Muslims”
in Russia. At least until the 1990s (I don’t
know if this has changed), all Russians were
categorised according to “nationality” on their
internal ID cards (internal passports, a misnomer),
and those identities overlapped with religious
background. EG, to be “Jewish” was considered
a “nationality”, not a religion, and many or most
Russian Jews were non-practicing (Boris Pasternak
was one.)
Similarly, many Russian minorities of originally
Muslim background are non-practicing Muslims,
but this is not reflected in the demographic data
which is based on old Soviet ways of categorising
national minorities. Just because the Soviet, and
later Russian governments classified people as
“Tatars” didn’t mean those people practiced Islam;
it’s an ethnic, not a religious category. And even
as ethnic/national categories, they’re very sloppy
due to the assimilation of Tatars and other Muslim
ethnicities into the White/European Russian
population over the centuries. In the Urals
I once met a Tatar - officially designated as
a Tatar - who had blonde hair and blue eyes
and was culturally 100 percent Russian and fiercely
patriotic in the traditional Russian way; he just
happened to descend from Tatars, centuries ago.
In other words, there are very few real Muslims in
Russia, except in the margins like Chechnya.
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Fundamentalist elements of the
“conservative” alliance in the United States are obsessive
The Dispensationalists believe supporting AIPAC will start a seven-year war with the EU and Russia over the Middle East. Millions will die, ultimately leading to the (literal) Battle of Armageddon. This will induce the Second Coming. This crazy theology started with some British Anabaptists around 1810, which means it predates Zionism. Don’t laugh, as it is no weirder than the apocalyptic legends surrounding Marian apparitions.
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Islam is not a threat to America. You will be colonised by Latin Americans, not by Muslims like us in Europe. Either way, it’s the death of Western Civilization as we know it.
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@ “Lost in Finland”, come on. If your country was able to fend off the Russians when you were vastly outnumbered in 1940,
then you AND your Russian and European cousins as a united front (I believe they will be, soon enough) can certainly fend off the Golden Horde.
Finland. God, how I love Finland. For the rest of my life I’ll keep, as a memento, my passport with the stamp of entry to Finland on 26 March 2000, when I fled from Russia to Finland on an overnight train because I got caught in the crossfire between Russia and the Americans who were trying to ruin Russia.
I don’t blame the Russians for that, for how a handful of them mistook me for an enemy at the time; but I WAS grateful for the fiercely defended border of Finland, through which I crossed over to freedom.
I owe eternal draughts of Kosten Korva vodka to the valiant Finns who defended that border (well, defended a border close to it) in 1940.
But those old wars between Europeans/Christians (including Russians) are over now, and Russia is now, once again the “Shield of Europe” (and of Christendom) just like it was 600-900 years ago, like when (Saint, perhaps?) the Russian icon painter Rublev painted this icon of the “Face (of Christ) Not Made By Hands”. He painted it (I believe it was Divinely inspired) at a time (early 1400s) when the Russians were liberating themselves from the Tatar yoke - one generation later, the Tatars were finally defeated in Russia (simultaneous with the Turkish conquest of Constantinople) - and then Moscow was declared by Russian Christians to be “the Third Rome”, and although I’m not Russian Orthodox, I do believe there’s some truth in Moscow being “a” (even if not “the") Third Rome, meaning (at least) a locus of
Christian resistance to Christendom’s enemies.
By the way, an anecdote about this icon:
During the Bolshevik revolution, around 1918 or so, this wooden icon was dumped into a pile of firewood (when the Communists were denuding Churches), but then miraculously, a poor Russian who was
pilfering firewood found this icon in a stack of “junk” wood, and he preserved it even though he didn’t even know it was by Rublev. Now it’s in the Tretyakov art museum in Moscow (and even in “Communist” times, it was kept safe there - that’s a big difference between Russian “Communism” and the infinitely more barbarian Chinese kind).
The survival and preservation of this Russian icon - painted while the Russians were saving Christendom from the Islamicist would-be-invaders/conquerors -
is, I believe, a miracle. And I say that as an Anglo-Catholic with a very Protestant mind.
Here is the icon. Please contemplate it, and its history, and then contemplate the necessary alliance between Catholics and Eastern Orthodox AND Protestant Christians, against our mutual enemies (not all Muslims, but yes the likes of Osama Bin Laden.) Here - brace yourselves, because (I believe) this icon really was Divinely inspired:
http://web.ku.edu/~russcult/visual_index/images/orthodoxy/christ_rublev.jpg
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PS, actually THIS icon by Rublev is my favourite one, his icon of the Holy Trinity.
I think it’s an especially good image for ALL of us Christians (Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant) to contemplate. Because, it depicts perfect friendship (philos) and harmony between the three persons of the Holy Trinity - and that is a good model for us besieged and beleagured Christians of various sects to follow today.
In that icon, the Divine Person on the left is God the Father (that’s why he has a Church behind him, symbol of his authority); and the Person at the right is the Holy Spirit (no temporal image above HIS head); and the Person in the CENTRE is Christ, and the tree behind him represents:
A. The family tree of Jesse and David etc, Jesus’ family lineage;
B. The tree on which Christ was crucified, which was God’s solution to
C. The tree in the Garden of Eden.
And all three of those Persons of the Holy Trinity are painted in perfect geometric balance, and they all point and look toward the Cup of Christ’s blood.
Now, this might sound heretical to some of the Catholics AND Protestants among us, but after I lived in Russia for a while, I imagined the following:
1. The Roman Catholic Church is like Holy Thursday and Good Friday: God on a temporal pilgrimage. I am inclined to equate this with Jesus, “God the Son.”
2. Protestantism is like Easter Sunday, the EMPTY cross, outside of Time. I am inclined to equate this with God the Father.
3. Orthodox (perhaps especially Russian) Christianity is like Holy Saturday, God in Hell, offering inexhaustible mercy to the Damned. I equate this with the Holy Spirit.
And I believe Christianity is a coat of many colours, badly in need of mending, and that all three of the major factions of Christianity need reconciliation in these times while we face - and (we will) resist and ultimately defeat - the enemies of Christendom. But we cannot do so unless we all stick together, and create friendship among one another like the Holy Trinity does in this icon:
http://www.cameronlawrence.com/images/posts/rublev_trinity.jpg
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Although your essential conclusions about the policy the U,S should adopt are correct: There is no threat to America, sadly you are looking at the muslim world through the neocon prism and the rest of your article is frankly absurd.
Here is why:
1. There is no such thing as radical Islam. The growth of fundamentalist thinking in some muslim countries Egypt and Iran, and Aghanistan is a direct consequence of the repeated assaults on these societies by the U.S. and its Zionist rulers.
2. There is no such thing as Islamofascism ( a military industrial state bent on conquest based on racial theries such as the Nazis or Zionists).
3. Islamic socities have proved from Turkey to Malaysia that they are able to evolve into successful modern states as well if not better then most.
4. The threats to the U.S, are:
a) economic colonization by China (a fait accompli now)
b) demograhic conquest by hispanics by 2050.
c) Military conflict with Russia and china if the U.S. persists in the zionist project of trying to control the oil resources of the middle east.
5. You fail to mention that muslim scholars responded to the Pope and to world leaders of all christian churces and debunked each one of his arguments. Can you cite one muslim belief that conflicts with modern democracy? What do you think The people of Pakistan are asking for on the street everyday?
You quote the mad zionist “Spengler” is that the best you can come up with?
6. 700 years of muslim rule is Spain should have shown you that Islam only preserves and improves Christianity and Judaism when they come in close contact.
7. The development of international violent movements like Al-Qaida are blowback for the russian Invasion of Afghanistan and the continuing crusade launched by the zionist rulers of the U.S. They will become irrelevent and go away once the crusaders go home.
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Just outstanding, and another one for the files. A few quibbles:
My quibble with Huntington: If there is a fault line between the Orthodox civilization and the rest of Europe, then there is certainly also fault line on his map of civilizations that runs through the English Channel. The Anglophone world – the British Isles, the Dominions, and the US – is really a different civilization. Mr. LaTulippe may in fact be supporting this fault line.
Likewise, Serbian Nationalism is of even less concern to the Anglophone Civilization’s interests. Many Orthodox nations: Bulgaria, Macedonia Montenegro, the Orthodox part of Romania, will join up soon with the rest of Europe, as Greece did so long ago. Serbia herself has a sizable element eager to join Europe, and Albania also probably isn’t to be counted among Islamic Civilization, nor the Bosniaks.
Europe’s demise is highly exaggerated. The tide will turn once the Cultural Marxists are out of power. They already are out of power in France and much of Mitteleuropa. They probably are out of power in Italy as well. They are solidly in power in the UK and Spain. I suspect that will not be for long.
John Paul II got rid of Communism. Benedict XVI will lead the charge against the European demise.
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Never give up on Europe.
I respect the US and I understand that they don’t want to keep bailing us out. Leave Europe’s sorrows to Europe. We’ll deal with this Islam menace.
Islam is beneath contempt, muslims must be saved from this abberation.
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Digbydolben’s point above (scroll to first comment) about energy renders much of this article moot. As the world’s oil reserves are rapidly depleted, the remaining supplies will be allocated arbitrarily, not through free-market mechanisms, leading to shortages, hoarding, turmoil, and violence. We’re witnessing the early stages of the turmoil and violence now in Iraq. The U.S. is building “permanent” military bases in Iraq to last 30 years, and completing the world’s largest embassy (104 acres/nearly $1 billion) in a destitute country of 25 million people. I recall reading recently that Iraq’s oil reserves are valued at something like $30 trillion (maybe someone can correct me on that). I’m sure Cardinal Dickelieu (aka Dick Cheney) and his band of rapacious neocons feel that 30 trillion isn’t a bad return on a $1-2 trillion investment. With that kind of payoff, you can afford a few mishaps along the way. And there we are, the Great Allocator, plunked right down in the middle (Saudi Arabia on one side, Iran on the other) of the world’s greatest remaining pool of liquid gold. The great game is afoot. Digby’s other comments about our subjection to the “Zionist Apartheid State,” etc. are also relevant to our predicament.
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By declaring war on terror (Islamo-fascism) neo-cons ensured this mainly
dormant conflict would turn into an ever increasing hot war.
Our satellites are beaming non-stop saber rattling war frenzy to the
rest of the world every day. Like a matador they keep
stabbing the bull, provoking it into the threatening posture they
need to justify their global fascist mercenary industrial complex.
They would not have gone to all this trouble just to let the conflict
fizzle out. They are working up this charade to justify some real 21st
Century carnage.
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Will Europe rise from the ashes the same way Rome rose up from defeat
against those earlier Semites, the Punici/Canaanites/Carthagians/Phoenicians?
Except, what’s interesting, is that The West, and the United States in
particular, may be the New Carthage. Who will play the Rome to the
West’s Carthage, if that is the case?
Are “the barbarians at the gate” of America the Catholic Hispanics? If
America is the “New Carthage”, does that make Mexico the “New Rome”?
Would it not be appropriate for the United States, a county that, just
like Carthage, uses commericial trading, a superior navy (and, in modern times, air force), and a seemingly mercenary army to be eventually defeated by a people
representing Roman [Catholic] Culutre?
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Perhaps my favorite icon is the one described below, from the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of St. John in Washington, DC (I don’t have the skill to transfer the mage itslef so you’ll have to go over there to see it--note also the reverence now given by the ROCOR writer to Patriarch Alexei--following the reconciliation of RCOR and Moscow). Pace our friend Mr. Ramus, it isn’t just us Catholics who go for this kind of thing:
From: http://www.stjohndc.org/Russian/english.htm
The Miraculous “Reigning” Icon
2/15 March
The Miraculous “Reigning” Icon of the Mother of God was discovered on the day of the abdication of Emperor-Martyr Nicholas II from the throne, 2/15 March 1917. The Russian People saw it as evidence that supreme authority over Russia, and the responsibility for assisting Russia, had been transferred to the Queen of Heaven.
On two separate occasions, the Most-holy Theotokos appeared to the peasant woman Eudokia Adrianovna in a dream. On February 13, 1917, Eudokia heard the Theotokos say the following words, “In the village of Kolomenskoye, there is a large black icon. It has to be taken – let people pray [before it].” On February 26, she had a vision of a white church, within which there sat enthroned a majestic Woman. The peasant woman decided to seek out the church she had seen in her dream. On March 2, in the village of Kolomenskoye, near Moscow, she recognized the Church of the Ascension as the very one she had seen in her dream. After an conducting an exhaustive search, she and the parish rector found a large, dark icon of the Mother of God in the church basement; it was the very Icon that had been revealed to Eudokia [in her vision].
People immediately began to revere the Icon as miraculous. Many copies of the Icon were made, and It was invited to be brought for prayer services to all of the surrounding villages, and to many monasteries, churches, and factories and manufacturing plants all over Moscow. St. Tikhon, Most-holy Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, blessed the writing of a service and akathist to the Reigning Icon, and participated in the composition of the service. (Another service, later published in Jordanville, was composed by V. V. Bogoroditsky.)
The Icon’s title is consistent with the image depicted. The Theotokos is depicted as both a Heavenly Queen and an earthly one. Attired in a red vestment (resembling the mantiya worn by the Emperor) and a green tunic, she is seated on a throne. In her extended right hand, she holds a scepter, and her left hand rests upon an orb. On her head is a regal crown surrounded by a gold halo. On the Sovereign Lady’s knees sits the Divine Infant, making [a sign of] blessing, and with his left hand, pointing to the orb.
It has been conjectured that the Reigning Icon, which was painted in the 18th Century, had previously been in the Ascension Convent in the Moscow Kremlin, and was removed to Kolomenskoye during Napoleon’s invasion in 1812.
After the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the Icon and other holy things from the shuttered Ascension Church were warehoused in various storage facilities belonging to the State Historical Museum.
Significantly, the return of the Miraculous Icon coincided with the liberation of Russia from the atheist yoke. In the late 1980s, thanks to efforts made by Metropolitan Pitirim (Nechaev) of Volokolamsk and Yuriev and by Archimandrite Innokenty (Prosvirnin), and at the personal direction of Museum Director K. G. Levykin, the Icon was secretly transferred to the offices of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Publications Division, where it remained for several years in the Altar of the house church dedicated to Venerable St. Joseph of Volotsk.
On July 27, 1990, with the blessing of the Most-holy Alexei, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, clergy and Orthodox Muscovites took the Icon in solemn procession to Kolomenskoye, to the functioning Kazan Church. The Icon was installed near the right kliros. Ever since, on Sundays the akathist composed with the participation of Holy Hierarch St. Tikhon is chanted there.
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The link posted above gets you to the opening page in English for the web site. Select “Icons of the Mother of God” from the list on the left and once tere scroll to the date shown (old and new calendar) with the title “Reigning”. It is also interesting to note the style of the icon--very Latin in its appearance, as opposed to more traditional Byzantine. My own theory (perhaps crackpot, as many of mine are) is that this icon may been painted (written) in Ukraine originally, where I believe Latin influence to have been more pronounced.
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“locked in conflict” HAH! I’ve been to Kashmir and I saw no conflict
in 2004 when I was there. It is the vacation spot for the
middle-class Indian families living in the hot southern regions.
Terrorism during the summer would bring to an end the financial
benefits to being a vacation spot. I don’t foresee that happening.
I look at assimilation in a generational way. The arab immigrants
coming to europe and american are very traditional, for two
generations tops. Once assimilated, they will see the benefits of
birth control. Then they see the value of 1 and 2 children versus 5,
6.
I would have liked to see the author mention the changes that will
be brought about by recession/depression. Imigration will stop with
the economy is suffering, I expect the illegal immigrants whoare in
this country and others now, when looking at a recession, they will
retreat back to their home country.
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The low birthrates in the West/among Westerners are averages.
Within this group large families will eventually replace the small ones.
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to Peter Ramus
“Don’t laugh, as it is no weirder than the apocalyptic legends surrounding Marian apparitions.”
I have read many of the prophecies from Marian apparitions and none of them is encouraging Catholics or anyone to go and bomb other people. Moreover they don’t gloat about the supposed coming problems, much less foster them. They are rather severe warnings that advice people to repent and straight up their lives without messing up other’s people lives.
to AL
“700 years of Muslim rule is Spain should have shown you that Islam only preserves and improves Christianity and Judaism when they come in close contact.”
I agree with most of your points, but not this one. The Muslim joke in conquered Spain was not good for the Christian population. There are many sources of information that prove it. Even if you read the poem of the ‘Cid Campeador’ based on events in the XI century you will notice the tensions between Christians and Muslims. The reaction was getting momentum and ended when Isabel and Fernando got rid of the Muslims and other enemies of Christian Spain in Granada in 1492.
I am against invading Muslim countries a la G. W. Bush, but that does not mean I agree with bringing millions of them to historical Christian countries. Especially if there is no reciprocity as Christians are not allowed to go say to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, and even Turkey, and have a normal Christian life (schools, churches, cultural activities, etc)
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LaTulippe is simplifying here very complex political conflicts occurring across the globe. The so called “political” or “radical” Islamic movements are generally using Islam as a rhetorical tool to rally people to their cause and to ideologically legitimate tactics and goals within societies where Islam substantially influences culture and identity.For the most part, these movements are fueled by local and idiosyncratic grievances which only have become anti-Western or anti-US because the West and/or US is perceived as supporting or controlling the ruling establishment or otherwise influencing the internal politics of the society in question. If the US and the West in general were to take a more non-interventionist approach to the Islamic world, these groups, including al-Qaeda, would be forced to focus on internal, non-Western enemies (such as the Shiites) or they die on the vine. Moreover, there has been far too little appreciation (and exploitation) of the enormous limitations of radical Islam’s Salafi ideology within the wider context of Sunni and Shiite parts of the Islamic world. The news media has widely publicized the fact that 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia and that Saudi Arabia is the main source of funding and recruits for the al-Qaeda terrorist group. Al-Qaeda’s tie to Saudi Arabia is not accidental, rather it clearly relates to the religious dominance of the Wahabi sect over the Kingdom. The Wahabi sect preaches an extremely austere, anti-modernist religious and social ideology that really isn’t compatible with the sectarian character of the vast majority of Sunni and Shiite world outside of the Gulf states. Minus the (admittedly many) local and idiosyncratic grievances of the Islamic world, Salafism is unlikely to garner much religious interest among the 95% of Shiites and Sunnis who make up the Islamic world. Furthermore, it doesn’t get much attention in the US press, but there is a free market capitalist revolution occurring throughout the Middle East and the larger Islamic world which is having a much more profound effect than radical Islam (this trend in turn is also leading to political liberalization and modernization but it admittedly lags the embrace of free market capitalism that is occurring). The UAE, for instance, located in the Gulf and traditionally (mostly) Wahabi in its religious beliefs, is a bastion of Western style capitalism and a widely discussed model among the political elites of the Middle East, including Iran. Egypt, to cite another example, was recently cited by the World Bank as the country whose business climate most improved over the past year (it went up about fifty country rankings). These trends toward free market capitalism are far more significant than radical Islam and I would predict a strong trend toward greater convergence between the West and Middle East and the larger Islamic world in the near future.
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H.A.
Thank you for your comments. Take a trip to any muslim country, say starting with Pakistan and you will see the major cities proud of their promionant landmark Churches, Cathedral, and Convent schools for girls.
Christians enjoy full legal protections. Religious minorities are represented on the national flag by the white Band closest to the flag pole representing the non-muslim portion of the public.
Christians lived side by side with muslims for last 1400 years in Syria.
The same is true of the rest of the muslim world. Saudi Arabia is an exception and a backward clan and tribal society.
However, since Darth Vader & shrub launced the neo crusades christians have been mostly driven out of Iraq.
The Pope is seriously concerned that this claptrap about a war of civilizations might well result in the persecution of christian minorities from Morroco to Indonesia.
However, its really about the oil. The clash of civilizations and demographic catastrphe talk is just a smokescreen to hide the real agenda from the people of the “West”.
The Russians and Chinese are not fooled. They have no intention of letting the U.S. establish hegemony over them by controlling middle eastern oil. They are letting the U.S exhaust itself economically and militarily before they intervene themselves.
Putin has clearly drawn a line in the sand at Iran’s borders.
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I wish I had included what accompanies the financial depression
is the cancellation of the retirement pension programs. If I had
remembered that without the pension program, families/parents
must rely on their children to support them. This means in order
to have a reasonably good life in their later years, parents must
sacrifice the ease that comes with 1 or 2 children, in hopes of
multiple children supporting them later on.
I’m childless, but I imagine myself drinking tea in the local shops
in my fifties and sixties. If the social security system fails, I’ll
have to go back to work.
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The Fourth Crusaders who preferred sacking Constantinople instead of liberating the Holy Land illustrate what is wrong with Christianity, but the idea that Islam causes stagnation is as blind as Doge Dandolo. Moslem Iran experienced a series of isms in the 20th Century: constitutional monarchism under the last Qajar king; enlightened authoritarianism under Reza Khan Shah Pahlavi; despotism under his son, Mohammad Reza, liberalism under Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh. Thanks to repeated western meddling, the good among these isms was not able to take root and bring Iran lasting prosperity, and the reign of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi accomplished little apart from fulfilling the grandiose ambitions of the shah’s wife and the toadying up to Israel, including letting the Mossad design the SAVAK. Like the words on those pizza boxes we see everywhere, they tried the rest, now they are trying… the best?
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to Al
I confess I have not been in any Muslim country. My knowledge is based on reading books and listening the experiences from other people. I do know that in Syria Christians are allowed a relative normal life, as also were in Iraq under Saddam Hussein. However my understanding was that those were exceptions to the rule, rather than the other way around.
What you are telling me about Pakistan is news to me. I hope the lives of the Christian population there are not threatened by the present unrest in that country.
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Sir,
I suppose your interpretation of US interventionism is way to much concerned with the official excuses for this policy, extremely successful and now a bit more than 100 years old.
In the past century, the US intervened twice in european conflicts, twice “against” Germany, twice to make the world “safe for democracy”.
However: in 1914, the British Empire ruled the world and the seas, and any overt competition with this empire would have been suicidal for the US. Two world wars later, the president of the United States was able to forbid the british to defend the Suez Canal. another fifty years later, and the US rule of the seas is unchallenged in a way, the Britannia’s rule of the waves has never been - no Admiral Tirpitz in sight. or is there?
My point: stoking other people’s conflict using a 3000 mile long pole has been the US extremely successful modus operandi for a century now. Why not do it again? Indeed, no muslim country has the wherewithal to do any real damage to the continental US.
However, if heating muslim fury to “white hot” is accomplished, Western Europe and probably Russia will see external as well as civil war to an extent that will first neutralize and then exhaust them while there is little or no risk of any serious damage to the US.
Just as the US-Americans had the good tact (contrary to unjust prejudice, which has them as tactless brutes) never to tell the british to their face that they had just lost a couple of world wars plus an empire, they now have the good tact not to tell western Europeans why it is so urgent that a blaze has to be started in their immediate neighbourhood.
Thus: while you are absolutely right: radical islam is not a great danger to the continental US - it is ever so handy to neutralize competition. Therefore, american interventionism is a relatively cheap, and, up to now highly successful course to follow. Divide et impera forever!
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H.A.:
In the past in Pakkistan, there have been christian judjes of the supreme court, chiefs of police, senior members in the armed forces and they have enjoyed a very important influence in education as they occupied the commanding heights in terms of centers of excellance in education at the school and college levels.
Since the war in Afghanistan occured there have been a couple of incidents of firebombing of churches by extremist. Since that happened security has been reinforced to protect these places and nothing has happened in the last couple of years. But lets understand, attitudes harden atleast amonst the backward classes as they are exposed to news form Palestine and Iraq and Afghanistan daily.
In the muslim world ther is the concept of “Umma” referring to the muslim world as opposed to any nation state. People in Pakistan react to Palestine as if it were an assault on them.
That is why when the USSR occupied Afghanistan you had volunteers from scores of muslim countries showing up to get a chance to bag a ruskie.
The west is really playing with fire and the law of unintended consequences may surprize us all.
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“Thus: while you are absolutely right: radical islam is not a great danger to the continental US - it is ever so handy to neutralize competition. Therefore, american interventionism is a relatively cheap, and, up to now highly successful course to follow. Divide et impera forever!”
You can’t fool me, Zbigniew Brzezinski. I know it’s you. And how we reap the fruits of those “relatively cheap” victories: rock music; drugs, sex and violence; Jackson Pollack. Yep, we showed it to those uncultured slobs of the Central and Axis Powers, but somehow I can’t visualize Imperial Germany presiding over the cultural decline of Europe or Imperial Japan sponsoring re-education camp entertainment like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade with its Marxist subplot, both of which have spread here. Call it national karma, call it irony, but we and the Brits made fortunes forcing opium on the Chinese, now drugs are our curse; we paved the way for Kurt Weill, now we agitate our bodies to rap; we crushed the land of Da Vinci and Michaelangelo, now the best we can produce is Andy Warhol. Over there, over there, the yanks are coming. Indeed!
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Thank you John Ball for your kind words about my country. It is always a joy to read your writings on Russia, too, because you understand that the Russians are a different lot. People in the US tend to believe that inside any Russian there is a small American waiting to get out. Well, they are fundamentally different. Normally it takes about 30 years to decide if you love them or hate them. I have not made up my mind yet.
The icons reminded me that most religious art let you look at God, but through an Orthodox icon God is looking at you.
As for the article, it is good to remind us that the Islamic terrorists really are not capable of destroying the US. There is not a single Western country that all the worlds terrorists, united, could defeat. If they could they would have already. Also mr. LaTulippe is absolutely correct in assuming that rigorously Islamic societies will implode when people get fed up, like communism did. Boredom would do the trick better than military intervention.
The wiew of Europe surrendering to the demographics of immigration is far too pessimistic. Somehow it is always exemplified by Amsterdam or French suburbs. Well, if I were to spend time in San Fransisco I might make some pretty far-reaching conclusions about the reproductive prospects of Americans, but that would of course be untrue. The very reason most people immigrate to Europe, is the longing to live in a less oppressive society. Of course some Islamic clergy rush in to try and oppress them over here as well, but once all this crusading business is over they might lose their best arguments.
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@ H.A.
There is one detail not mentioned here about the
extremists in Pakistan. I can only recall that in one instance,
a christian school was overrun. The christians were not the
victims in this attack, but recent converts from islam,
students and employees, were killed.
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I have read many of the prophecies from Marian apparitions and none of them is encouraging Catholics or anyone to go and bomb other people.
The Guadalupe hoax encourages the Mexican invasion of the US. The Fatima nonsense came up constantly during the Cold War. Mother Socialism supports and funds it.
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to Peter Ramus
“The Guadalupe hoax encourages the Mexican invasion of the US. The Fatima nonsense came up constantly during the Cold War. Mother Socialism supports and funds it.”
You are wrong. Tell me where in the Guadalupe messages such a thing is stated, and tell me where the Fatima messages hint people should become reds?
The Guadalupe apparitions are in 1531 the US did not exist yet. The Mayflower had not even arrived either.
The Fatima apparitions are in 1917 before the Soviet Union was created. The apparitions tell about the coming communist terror, predict the end of WWI and warn about the coming of a worse war, which materialized with WWII. They are against “Mother Socialism”, not for it.
Mr. Ramus I think you have no idea what are you talking about. Your prejudices do not let you see what is in front of your nose, which as Orwell said, demands a constant struggle.
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It can be boiled down to the fanatics of materialism (the West) versuses
fanactics of religion (Islam); this confrontation was inevitable since
some segments of Islam refuse to join the New World Order (think
abortion, homosexuality, etc...). As regarding Fatima, it is a hint that
the Muslims will be converted in the future. They are Not responsible ie..
for the 50 million abortions in the USA. No, Fatima warned about RUSSIA,
and her errors...could it just be that Russia will be given the role
to destroy the New World Order? Is this what Our Lady meant when she
said the “annihilation of nations” which has NOT happened yet? The New
World Order is a evil entity period. Islam is a heresy and will be dealt
with, but the NWO will not convert them. Our Lady will do it ie. Zeitun,
Egypt. Perhaps when the NWO will be destroyed, Islam will be converted.
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Tell me where in the Guadalupe messages such a thing is stated
I see La Raza types with that logo everywhere. Even the Che lovers have it. Mother Socialism supports it, permits it, and encourages it.
They are against “Mother Socialism”, not for it.
The same pressure group that sells Marian hoaxes to the pious also peddles Goddess Equality:
“Every form of discrimination against individuals and groups—whether because of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, economic status, or national or cultural origin—is a serious injustice which has severely weakened our social fabric and deprived our country of the unique contributions of many of our citizens… The structures of our society are subtly racist, for these structures reflect the values which society upholds. They are geared to the success of the majority and the failure of the minority. Members of both groups give unwitting approval by accepting things as they are.”
This is from a 1979 pastoral letter from that incubator of Bolsheviks, the US Catholic Bishops. Traditionalists will claim this is not true teaching, yet there are countless statements just like this. The RCC knows all about this, supports it, pays for it, and permits it. If _your_ version of holy tradition differs from this, then it is not the institution that claims descent from Peter.
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The Muslim joke in conquered Spain was not good for the Christian population.
Conquered Spain also developed the tradition of multicultural respect and intermarriage so popular today. It worked wonders for Latin America. What are machismo and marianismo but a baptized version of Islamic incivility?
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Is this what Our Lady meant when she said the “annihilation of nations” which has NOT happened yet?
You and Pat Robertson have more in common that you realize.
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“I see La Raza types with that logo everywhere. Even the Che lovers have it. Mother Socialism supports it, permits it, and encourages it.”
“Conquered Spain also developed the tradition of multicultural respect and intermarriage so popular today. It worked wonders for Latin America. What are machismo and marianismo but a baptized version of Islamic incivility?”
These two statements are non sequiturs. I don’t need to respond them. It only confirms that you cannot tell what is in front of your nose.
Regarding the pastoral letter of the USCCB I would like to see the whole context, especially since you Mr. Ramus have a big chip on the shoulder against all things Catholic. In any case a pastoral by the USCCB is not representative of 20 centuries of Catholic traditional teaching. In fact I would say that with that pastoral the USCCB resembles the teachings of the Protestants churches, the liberal ones and even the evangelicals, as Paul Gotfried explained in other posts.
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Navel Gazing:
Looking at many of the posts here one gets the sense that maybe we are beyond saving. The level of ignorance about the world we live in is frightening.
We compensate for our ignorance with our prejudices.
Instead of exchanging ideas we reinforce our prejudices.
And this is a forum of the “informed”
What would Jesus Christ make of all this?
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It only confirms that you cannot tell what is in front of your nose.
I see a Roman Catholic church promoting social justice, mass immigration and all sort of fun stuff. It is everywhere.
In any case a pastoral by the USCCB is not representative of 20 centuries of Catholic traditional teaching.
They’re bishops. They’re supposed to know something. This document was never reversed to my knowledge. Rome pays for and allows this stuff.
the USCCB resembles the teachings of the Protestants churches, the liberal ones and even the evangelicals
The liberals are another religion. The evangelicals put a protestant brand name on an Anabaptist faith.
I’m not forced to pay for them, as you are for your liberals and “charismatic renewal” propaganda.
At any rate, something called the Holy Mother Church must live up to a higher standard. It looks like Rome would rather rest on ideology until the hordes sack the Vatican.
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Ramus your rants are ludicrous.You don’t even know the Bible was put together to be said at the Holy Eucharist.It is a product o the Apostolic church Roman and Eastern Orthodox in the late fourth century.Veneration of the Blessed Mother came long before the formal cannon of the Bible was put together by the Church. The muslims also venerate Mary and Luther was very devoted to her as well.You sure sound like a disgruntled former Catholic in holy roller church trying to justify your apostacy.
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Mr Ramus,
I agree with you about the liberal side of the RCC. I don’t like it and I don’t defend it.
All this started because of your coarse words regarding Guadalupe and Fatima ("hoax" and “nonsense") followed by your historical ignorance about the nature and content of these phenomena (e.g. Guadalupe, happening in 1531, “encouraging the invasion the US”; and Fatima being pro Communist), and finishing with your ridiculous statement that because La Raza and Che lovers have the logo (sic) of Guadalupe it somehow implies that the RCC is bad…
I am not asking you to agree with me, I am just asking you to make sense and if possible show a little bit more of civility.
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All this started because of your coarse words regarding Guadalupe and Fatima
I don’t mean to offend you for sounding skeptical. I don’t think non-Hispanics are likely to believe in Guadalupe, which may encourage them to doubt things like the virgin birth or the Incarnation.
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The wiew of Europe surrendering to the demographics of immigration is far too pessimistic. Somehow it is always exemplified by Amsterdam or French suburbs. Well, if I were to spend time in San Fransisco I might make some pretty far-reaching conclusions about the reproductive prospects of Americans, but that would of course be untrue.
My point exactly.
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You will be colonised by Latin Americans, not by Muslims like us in Europe. Either way, it’s the death of Western Civilization as we know it
You are making the unfounded assumptions that (1) America “as we know it” somehow = western civilization, and (2) Latin America is not part of western civilization.
If you want to argue that Latin American immigration may make America less Anglo, that is obvious. But Anglo does not exhaust (or even approach exhausting) the whole of Western Civilization.
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I always have to laugh when some neocon states that if we
don’t destroy islamofascism “over there”, they will surely follow us home when we pull out!.........It’s not a stray dog!......They have maps!
They could be here now if they wished! Our wide open
southern border that has millions of illegal alliens and drug s
smuglers crossing yearly, is not a secret! So, where’s our
enemy amongst us?....Are they under the bed?...In the closet?
Is it sane to send troops into battle because Ted Kennedy dislikes
windmills on the horizon, and environmentalists can’t live with
drilling in Anwar? Or Floridians see no reason for drilling off
of their coast? Continuous intervention is a failed policy!
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You are making the unfounded assumptions that (1) America “as we know it” somehow = western civilization, and (2) Latin America is not part of western civilization.
Here’s the problem: America is not just Western, but explicitly Anglo. Mexico is Mestizo, which is part Western, but not Anglo.
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Muslim, muslim, muslim...bah. So if 4 billion (and counting) sub-Saharan African Christian negroes, Christian Mestizo-Aboriginals, atheistic/Confucian East Asiatics and Hindu Dravids, overwhelm and displace us culturally and physically, we’d all be fine with that, huh?
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@ Scotus “No, Fatima warned about RUSSIA,
and her errors...could it just be that Russia will be given the role
to destroy the New World Order? Is this what Our Lady meant when she
said the “annihilation of nations” which has NOT happened yet? The New
World Order is a evil entity period..”
Russia is part of the NWO. The case can be made that the annihilation of
nations that Our Lady of Fatima spoke of, refers to the nations
that once made up the Holy Roman Empire (Austrian Empire)
which as of 1960 no longer exist. This was one of the
achievements of the modern forms of government (new world order):
USA,Russia, Nazi Germany and the UN etc. which set out to destroy the Old World
Order: The Holy Roman Empire. It all started with the assassination of the archduke in 1914 resulting in the total annihilation of the Holy Roman Empire (Austrian Empire) by 1960 when OttoVon Habsberg renounced all claims to the Austrian throne in 1961and therefore leaving the seat of the Holy Roman Emperor unoccupied,
thus continuing the abeyance of the Holy Roman Emperor up to the present day.
It is now in a 100-year abeyance.
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Our lady of Fatima:
Fatimah was the name of a beloved daughter of prophet Muhammad. She led an exemplary life and is venerated in Islamic tradition.
Could the appearance of our Lady at Fatima be a message from God or our Lady, and what are they trying to tell us about our prejudices against Islam?
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Concerning Fatima & Russia:
Good folks, please take notice that the so-called “second secret” concerning the consecration of heathen Russia to the heart of Mary was made public only in 1929, from Tuy in Galicia, where the alleged visionary Lucia was kept as a secluded nun. That was the time when it was revealed and incorporated in the Fatima story as an alleged prophecy attributed to the so-called 1917 apparition.
Of course, the October Revolution in Russia only took place in November 1917 by the Western calendar. No one—not even Holy Ladies and little shepherds—even suspected from May 13 to October 13 (the apparition dates) that the Russian provisional government would be succeeded by the anti-Christ itself after four years of civil war. At the time of the 1917 Fatima events all we get is wrong prophecies about the end of the Great War within the same year (once within the same exact day even), when in fact it ended in 1918.
The first mention to Russia appears only 12 years later as “retroactive prophecy” attested to by Lucia, who as an adult nun went on claiming numerous talks with Christ himself—as a child, an adult and a voice—and a host of other celestial entities as well. Non-celestial visits to her were under severe vigilance; she was under a strict discipline rule and every single visit had to be previously authorised by both the Portuguese bishop of Leiria and the Spanish bishop of Tuy. Her interviewers were therefore always carefully selected clergymen or, eventually, trusted catholic laymen.
Retroactive prophecy is no big deal, I’m afraid.
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Michael, i agree with your historical assestment, but must disagree over
Russia and the NWO today. Presently, Russia has been ostrasized by the
NWO, and Putin has boldly reclaimed its international economic status
again via any means it takes. In one sense, the NWO and Russia are of the
same evil hybrid, on another level, they both have their own NWO ideas of
how to run things and competitors. Hence, we are in a new Cold War, with
Russia/China supporting the Muslim terrorists organizations and rogue
nations (payback time for the 1980s). Ultimately, the western NWO is
weakening. Regarding retroactive prophecy, thanks for the clarification,
yet i will take it seriously.
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Orthodoxy is tough ??? I think Eastern Christianism had no Inquisition or Hugenots massacres like in 1572… Ivan and Vlad did not belong to clergy while in Western tradition, Popes controlled everything, from the Crusades till the expansion of science (Galileo)…
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