1 Chron 12:32 report, 53: Plato's cave games in a Rom 1 world, as the North's dechristianising tidal wave thrusts further into the Caribbean

Over the past few days, I have been intending to remark on a pattern I have been observing through my ongoing study of the "eschatological literature" of evolutionary materialist secularism, i.e. science fiction.

For, in that literature, those who take God or his word seriously are commonly portrayed as irrational, dangerously violent zealots, as for instance can be seen in this free-access book by David Weber and Steve White, Crusade; published by Baen. (Weber's best selling Honorverse series about super-warrior Honor Harrington of the Star Kingdom of Manitcore is more subtle but therefore even more effective, e.g this on the imaginary planet Grayson, settled by an extremist, "fundamentalist" Christian sect.)

So, through enthralling (I mean that in the most pejorative sense, akin to Paul's use of "bewitched" in Gal 3:1) story-telling literary techniques that lead us to identify with certain heroes and their "progressive" ideas and to deplore their antagonists and their (obviously evil) ways and ideas, we see portrayed plausible -- but in fact seriously unrealistic -- worlds, agendas and characters. All of which cleverly gives us the impression that "this way lies progress," a process driven by "science" -- actually, usually only self-refuting evolutionary materialism.

But, while I was reflecting on contemporary science fiction and its manipulative techniques, the issues and dynamics just outlined suddenly took on unexpected reality.

For, I have learned in the past few days of a recent move by a Canadian "Human Rights" group, Egale Canada and the homosexualist -- pardon the neologism, but we need to distinguish people who struggle with homosexuality and those who turn it into a cultural identity, agenda and ideology -- Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) of Toronto, to stigmatise Jamaica as "homophobic," and to call for, among other things, a Canadian tourism boycott and a boycott on goods and services from Jamaica, as a part of a wider thrust to promote the homosexualist agenda in the Caribbean. [Cf here on linked problems in Canada, where criticism of homosexuality is rapidly being criminalised in the name of protecting homosexuals from feeling "offended," through the creation of what is tantamount to a Star Chamber Court with dubious procedures, all under the false colours of protecting human rights.]

As Neil Armstrong [Only in Jamaica . . . !], the Jamaica Star's Toronto Editor goes on to report:

. . . one individual who has been involved with Jamaica AIDS Support for Life and the Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays since 1998 and is now in Canada seeking asylum along with his partner [i.e., from this euphemism, we can see that he is a homosexual], said: "It's not just that we're singling out Jamaica, and it will only be about Jamaica, but as soon as the issues in Jamaica have been addressed, then we'll move on to another country. We're not only looking at Jamaica but also the region, the 11 other countries that have the sodomy laws on their books."

Nonetheless, he described Jamaica as the most homophobic of all the Caribbean countries.

In short, we are seeing the beginnings of a major, sustained thrust, one that now comes to us in the guise of a homosexualist "Church" [recall here, Mr Obama's recent dismissive remarks on Romans 1] acting in partnership with "Human Rights" groups and regional homosexuality and AIDS activists; some of whom now reside in Canada and elsewhere, as "refugees" from claimed anti-homosexual pogroms. [NB: In Jamaica, sadly, there are serious human rights concerns, but they do not target any one group. For instance, a goat thief "caught in the act" is notoriously in far more danger -- at the hands of angry mobs, not the police -- than a homosexual activist. In short the deplorable attitude to homosexuals in certain Jamaican pop songs is symptomatic of a wider pattern, not a mark of focused, officially supported persecution of any one target group. And, even more sadly, the police do have a serious -- and acknowledged -- problem with human rights in general. But, the plain underlying problem is lawlessness (something to be repented of and reformed from), not the general state of the law.]

Our task today therefore embraces "formulating cogent responses that will not only win the argument but also win the souls."

That is a challenging task.

For, we must first face a sobering truth.

One that we may reflect on in light of one of the most eloquently insightful, and at once simple but subtle remarks by the Spirit-inspired Apostle Paul, in Eph 4 - 5:

. . . you must no longer live as the [ethne — nations] do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more. You, however, did not come to know Christ that way. Surely you heard of him and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness . . . . For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. [Eph 4:17 – 24, 5:8 - 10.]

Jesus' earlier remarks in the Gospels bring out a subtlety in the just cited text -- for, what we at first think is light may in the end only be darkness, the darkness of deception:

The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is that darkness. [Mt 6:22 – 23]

No one lights a lamp and puts it in a place where it will be hidden, or under a bowl. Instead he puts it on its stand, so that those who come in may see the light. Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are good, your whole body also is full of light. But when your eyes are bad, your body also is full of darkness. See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness. Therefore, if your whole body is full of light and no part of it dark, it will be completely lighted, as when the light of a lamp shines on you. [Lk 11:33 – 36]

Of course, how we credibly know that Jesus is indeed true light was brought out by the Apostle Paul in a famous confrontation with Athens' leading intellectual lights on Mars Hill in Athens, in AD 50:

AC 17:22 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.

AC 17:24 "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. 27 God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28 `For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, `We are his offspring.'

AC 17:29 "Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone--an image made by man's design and skill. 30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead."

In short, the evidential anchor-point of the Christian faith is the risen, glorified Jesus who is our Lord, Saviour and Judge, before whom we shall all account. One may choose to dismiss that, but it stands as a fact of true, uncensored history, backed up by over five hundred eyewitnesses and a church that -- for all its failings over the centuries -- has manifested the beauty and power of that resurrection for two thousand years. One may dismiss it [to one's eternal peril], but one cannot overturn it, on any fair examination.

It is before that same risen Jesus that we will account for our lives, words, thoughts and deeds on a day set by the Lord God, our Creator. For, as Peter notes, in 2 Pet 1:16: "We [the Apostles] did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty."

The full force of these clash between true and false enlightenment is further brought out when we set the above Biblical discussions against the contrasting cultural backdrop of the classic C4 - 5 BC parable of Plato's Cave, which aptly brings out the difference between deceptive, manipulative, oppressive "endarkenment" -- I know, another neologism . . . --of heart and mind and true enlightenment.

Of this parable, Wikipedia gives us a reasonably good, useful precis. [NB: A useful -- though of course itself subtly ideologically loaded -- You-Tube video presentation is here.]

The Wiki summary leads us right up to -- but omits -- the ironic, tragic climax:

Imagine prisoners, who have been chained since their childhood deep inside a cave: not only are their limbs immobilized by the chains; their heads are chained in one direction as well so that their gaze is fixed on a wall.

Behind the prisoners is an enormous fire, and between the fire and the prisoners is a raised walkway, along which puppets of various animals, plants, and other things are moved along. The puppets cast shadows on the wall, and the prisoners watch these shadows. When one of the puppet-carriers speaks, an echo against the wall causes the prisoners to believe that the words come from the shadows.

The prisoners engage in what appears to us to be a game: naming the shapes as they come by. This, however, is the only reality that they know, even though they are seeing merely shadows of objects. They are thus conditioned to judge the quality of one another by their skill in quickly naming the shapes and dislike those who play poorly.

Suppose a prisoner is released and compelled to stand up and turn around. At that moment his eyes will be blinded by the sunlight coming into the cave from its entrance, and the shapes passing by will appear less real than their shadows.

The last object he would be able to see is the sun, which, in time, he would learn to see as the object that provides the seasons and the courses of the year, presides over all things in the visible region, and is in some way the cause of all these things that he has seen . . . . Once enlightened, so to speak, the freed prisoner would . . . be compelled to [try to free his fellow prisoners], [but] . . . descending back into the cave would require that the freed prisoner's eyes adjust again, and for a time, he would be one of the ones identifying shapes on the wall. His eyes would be swamped by the darkness, and would take time to become acclimated. Therefore, he would not be able to identify the shapes on the wall as well as the other prisoners, making it seem as if his being taken to the surface completely ruined his eyesight. (The Republic bk. VII, 516b-c; trans. Paul Shorey).[2]

Plato then observes, chillingly:

". . . Men would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes; and that it was better not even to think of ascending; and if anyone tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death."

In short, when the light in us is truly darkness, it may well lead us to distrust, rage against and even violently turn on those who, in love, would truly enlighten and liberate us.

Indeed, that is exactly what Jesus warned against in John 8, as he spoke to a small (but obviously powerful) minority group of his fellow Jews, who, ever so sadly, were more preoccupied with the privileges of being of the physical seed of Abraham, than with being his spiritual children; as is shown by how they responded to God and to others:

JN 8:39 . . . "If you were Abraham's children," said Jesus, "then you would do the things Abraham did. 40 As it is, you are determined to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. 41 You are doing the things your own father does." . . . .

JN 8:42 Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now am here. I have not come on my own; but he sent me. 43 Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. 44 You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. 45 Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! 46 Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don't you believe me? 47 He who belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God."

Grim reading.

Reading that is not lightened when we compare Romans 1 (a passage which also brings out the truth about the painful roots of widespread, accelerating homosexualisation of a culture):

RO 1:18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

RO 1:21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. [We may note: in the old days, statues in temples, nowadays images on TV, in textbooks and museums.]

RO 1:24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. RO 1:26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.

RO 1:28 Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

So, we first have to squarely face the power of deception, especially in the form of false enlightenment that thinks it is speaking the truth and doing the right, and challenging "backward fundamentalist attitudes" that are held by irrational, potentially violent would-be theocrats who want to impose their narrow morality on the wider community.

On this, we need to hear Rev Dr Rod Hewitt, a leading liberal-leaning theologian from Jamaica who has often appeared in the pages of that nation's leading newspapers, in words penned only a matter of weeks after the 9/11 attacks in the USA:

The human tragedy in USA has also served to bring into sharp focus the use of terror by religious fanatics/fundamentalists. Fundamentalism or fundamentalists are terms that are applicable to every extreme conservative in every religious system . . . . During the twentieth century in particular we have seen the rise of militant expression of these faiths by extreme conservatives who have sought to respond to what they identify as 'liberal' revisions that have weakened the fundamentals of their faith . . . They opt for a belligerent, militant and separatist posture in their public discourse that can easily employ violence to achieve their goals. [Gleaner, Sept. 26, 2001, italics added.]

In short, there is a "plausible" narrative out there that portrays Bible-rooted concerns over where our culture is going as reflecting the most irrational, backward, destructive and tyrannical of mindsets, comparable to the suicide Terrorists of 9/11. That is what we are up against, and it is a formidable barrier in the public, in many policy-making circles and even when we try to discuss our honest concerns at a personal level.

If you doubt me on this, consider the response to Oklahoma state Rep. Sally Kern when she spoke to the "same-sex marriage" agenda in her state as follows:

What they're trying to do is send a message of intimidation to those people who are taking a stand for traditional marriage and against the homosexual lifestyle. They want to silence us, is what they want to do. And it's happening all over the state. You know, the very fact that I'm talking to you like this, here today, puts me in jeopardy. OK, and so, so be it.

What was the response? [Pardon the easily discerned vulgarities in the following, sadly typical, email excerpts . . .]

• YOU NAZI FREAK!!!! …YOU MORON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  
  
• What a bigoted moron you are … a hate-filled, lying idiot. You would have made a great Nazi if you'd only have been born earlier.
  
  
• I heard what you said and you should be killed you stupid c---- b----! along with George W. Bush! Christianity is the cancer in our society and should be eliminated!
  
  
• YOU ARE A HOMOPHOBIC D-- YOU F--- C--- DIE. You're a horrible person who deserves to burn in hell.

So serious were some of the threats that the Representative was assigned a bodyguard by the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety.

Why is that?

First, because we are being perceived as cutting across "rights" and as enemies of "liberty."

In turn, that is because the sterling and massively sacrificial contribution of Christians to the rise of modern liberty and democracy is commonly censored out in how the history of the past 500 years is presented. But also, because of fundamental confusions on the nature of ethics in general and "rights" in particular, confusions that are driven by the rise of radical evolutionary materialism-driven secularism and relativism, which undermine the foundation of morality. As a result of such confusions, many assume, imply or assert that Bible-believing Christians [however labelled] are -- generally speaking -- potentially violent and/or oppressive enemies of liberty. Similarly, they confuse principled, reform-minded civil opposition to abuses, licence, libertinism and amorality [this last, often announced as "tolerance" and "diversity"] with enmity to liberty.

In short, those caught up in a Plato's cave world of manipulative shadow-shows will often misperceive deception as truth, and so will tend to resist those who would enlighten or help to liberate them. Truth and right held hostage to our follies, rhetorical tactics, sins and power games, in short.

Obviously, if we can avert the rise of a situation where more and more people in our region are caught up in such webs of manipulation, that would make a big difference.

But, how does that speak to the policy level, on things like the legalisation of sodomy and the obvious rapid follow-on agenda item to create out of whole cloth a homosexualised pseudo-marriage?

1] Obviously, it first helps us preserve the sort of broad-based, thoughtful support that is vital for the sustainability of law in a democratic community. In that regard, it will also help to show that marriage reflects a basic, natural diversity and complementarity in the sexes; indeed, the Creation Order as Jesus pointed out.

2] For, we should not seek to wedge apart what the basic, obvious biological nature of the two sexes tells us that our Creator has joined. As the gospels record:

MT 19:3 Some Pharisees . . . asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?"

MT 19:4 "Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator `made them male and female,' 5 and said, `For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh' ? 6 So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate." [And, we comment: if easy divorce and remarriage is against God's intent, how much more so, that which would twist marriage against nature?]

MT 19:7 "Why then," they asked, "did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?"

MT 19:8 Jesus replied, "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery."

3] This text also speaks powerfully into the astonishing incidence of sexual sin, cohabitation, visiting relationships and casual sexual promiscuity that so sadly typifies our region. (Cf, here.) In short, there is need for repentance and reformartion so that we all take the planks out of our own eyes even as we address the sawdust in our neighbours' eyes. (Sawdust in the eye, however, is not a good thing, to be made light of or treated as a benefit or a right rather than a danger to people, our children and the stability of the whole community!)

4] Similarly, we should realise that, properly, a right is a binding moral claim we make on one another, rooted in the inalienable dignity we have by virtue of our being made in God's image. Accordingly, we cannot just make up pseudo-rights that fly in the teeth of how God has made us. And, no sin can be a right or a valuable virtue. [Cf here on the issue of values, virtue and public policy in the community in a relativist age.]

5] So, law should properly -- and without danger to true liberty (license and libertinism are NOT liberty!) -- protect marriage from destructive counterfeits.

6] Similarly, in the church, we should expose and refute -- through "the truth in love" [a tough but vital balance to strike and keep . . .] -- the homosexaualist heresy, noting how it picks and chooses, then (sadly) twists scriptures to suit itself and its proclivities. For, it is simply not the case that -- citing Rev. Troy Perry, the founder of the said Metropolitan Community Churches -- “To condemn homosexuals, many denominations have intentionally misread and misinterpreted their Bibles to please their own personal preferences.”7

7] This accusation is plainly, and willfully, false. Instead, as Paul Morris wisely counselled: “. . . if I were a Christian homosexual, I think this one question would disturb me most: Am I trying to interpret Scripture in the light of my proclivity; or should I interpret my proclivity in the light of Scripture?"

8] At personal level, we must prevail through the Spirit-anointed power of the truth in love, backed up by a winsome, wholesome purity that shows that the truth works:

1CO 6:9 Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

9] In reaching out, personally, to those caught up in the homosexualist subculture, perhaps a few remarks by one who came out of that sub-culture into the light of liberation by the gospel will help:

1. Establish and accept for yourself that God’s Word is true AS-IS.

2. Seek the truth within the scriptures about homosexuality

3. Do not resist God’s call on your life

4. Know with certainty that you are loved by God exactly where you are and that your experiences are of great value for kingdom work

5. Say Yes. That’s really all it takes to accept the truth which is accepting Jesus Christ.

6. Make your salvation real . . . We must believe with our hearts AND confess with our mouths.

7. Experience paradise NOW! Consult God first, then go ahead and live your life! . . . Enjoy your life to a new degree, without the burden of sin AND with the confidence of ALL of God’s promises on your side!

8. Walk Carefully or ‘circumspectly’ as the scriptures describe. This is about being careful to keep your spirit clean and fresh.

9. Have fellowship with believers. We know that the church has largely failed gays and lesbians by not being a welcoming place for those who have sought spiritual change. The invitation to ‘come as you are’ seems to be extended to everyone but us. However God has people everywhere who are open, real and willing to walk out with you. Ask the Lord to lead you to a loving, caring, bible-believing fellowship where you can be nurtured, be blessed, grow AND be a blessing. [Hebrews 10:25]

So, now by God's loving grace, let us all turn from our oh so comfortable sins and let us repent, walking into the glorious light of grace and truth, then walking ever more, day by day, in that light. END

UPDATE Apr 11: Minor edits, and some further remarks, including amplifying John 8 and remarking in more details on mob violence and related lawlessness in Jamaica.

Matt 24 watch, 52: 66 lbs of -- thankfully, depleted -- uranium captured from FARC

As March wound down, and as the war scare over Columbia's cross-border raid against a FARC base in Ecuador gradually faded from the headlines, a troubling but largely unremarked event occurred:

following up on leads tracing to computer files captured during the raid, Columbian forces, as at March 20th, have now captured 66 lbs of [thankfully depleted] uranium, from what appears to be a FARC cache just south of Bogota. [VIDEO.]

This has led to considerable speculation over whether FARC is trying to develop a radiological "dirty" bomb, or is simply trying to trade on the radioactive materials black market. Then, the question arises: whether FARC was scammed or a potential scammer in that market. (I note that since in the video, the DU was in effectively woven fibre shopping bags, those handling it knew that the degree of radioactivity was low.)

Many experts think the bomb-making scenario is unlikely, as DU is of much lower radioactivity than its more infamous cousin, highly enriched uranium [which apparently sells for US$ 2.5 millions per kg on the black market]. Plutonium by contrast, is a deadly -- though not exceptionally so -- toxin, and ingesting a tiny fraction of a gram can kill, generally by triggering cancer (over the course of years or decades). Of course, if a significant quantity of Pu dust is inhaled or otherwise ingested, acute radiation sickness could follow, killing in a matter of days or weeks, not years or decades. It is also comparable to lead as a heavy metal toxin. However, it is so ticklish to handle -- there have been several nasty and fatal critical-mass radiological event accidents with it -- that it is unlikely that a common garden variety terrorist group would be likely to play around with "Ploot." (Obviously, the major terrorism sponsoring nation, Iran, has the science and technology infrastructure to work with it, so "ploot" should not be discounted once we can see a link back to Iran. North Korea is a similar risk, and on serious concerns, is held to be a potentially dangerous risk, as they reportedly will sell literally anything to anyone.)

Technically, DU is mostly U-238, which has a half life of ~ 4.46 billion years, as opposed to U-235's ~ 704 million years. As a result, the radiation dosage from a given quantity of DU is about 60% that of a comparable quantity of natural uranium. But in any case, uranium is a relatively low radioactivity element, as half life is inversely related to intensity of radioactivity. [Many radioactive isotopes have half-lives of order years or days or less; it is these that are the obviously more serious radiological hazards.]

Now, too, Jonathan Winer reports in his counter-terrorism blog:

The FARC computers had discussed selling up to 50 kilos of uranium to unspecified governments that might be interested in acquiring it. Notably, the press accounts suggest the uranium was not weapons grade. According to the Colombia military, a sample of the uranium was provided by the military to experts at the Colombian Institute of Geology and Mining, who confirmed the sample to be what was characterized as "depleted uranium."

Immediately, this find further underscores the credibility of the recovered files, following on the heels of the seizure of US$ 480,000 in Costa Rica and Peru's capture of two FARC operatives. That also means that the files' remarks on US$ 300 millions given to FARC by Mr Chavez -- perhaps under the nominal heading of a "ransom" for release of several hostages -- have to be viewed with a certain measure of seriousness.

Also, on the main point of the recovered uranium, we need to reckon that the point of terrorism -- as its very name suggests -- is psychological not military. Just simply to hear that a dirty, radiological bomb has gone off would be enough to evoke mass panic, regardless of the actual physical hazard involved. So, common sense tells us that black market trading and terrorism could both be involved.

Winter went on to remark:

. . . the latest revelation, should it be validated [cf the above linked video], provides further reason to believe that narco-terrorists with nuclear material are no longer the merely confined to Hollywood thrillers, but are dangerously real-world, requiring a real-world response, including from Colombia's neighbors, who need to decide whether they are serious about confronting terrorists in their midst.

FARC's operational, financial, logistical, and political networks now face exposure, and those who have directly facilitated terrorist or criminal activity -- regardless of their political position -- need to face practical consequences. Such consequences can include such responses as the imposition of economic sanctions and asset freezes, the bringing of criminal indictments, the loss of the right to travel in countries registering objections to those doing business with or supporting terrorists. But there have to be consequences, and they need to be multilateral, not confined to issuance by Bogota and Washington.

First, some honesty about what happened. Then, after the dose of reality, practical steps to deter those with public responsibilities who have chosen to become partners with an organization that specializes in drug trafficking and bombings.

Given what has now also come out on Mr Chavez's links to FARC -- and to Iran (and Hezbollah), we here in the Caribbean plainly need to do some very serious fact-checking and re-thinking of our diplomatic alignments and geopolitical inclinations.

But, there is an underlying issue: nuclear terrorism cannot any longer be viewed as a speculative scenario, for we see here a terrorist group in Columbia with 66 lbs of - thankfully, depleted -- uranium, acquired by plainly black market means.

However, though the situation is not a bad as it could have been, the ongoing global war with Islamist militants plainly just moved up another notch on the scale of escalation. END

Matt 24 watch, 51: Easter Conversions

CORRECTION: Thanks to Ilion, who has corrected me in a comment below. I therefore adjust the following.

_________________

Just before the Easter, Mr Mikhail Gorbachev was reported to have announced to the world that he had for decades been a secret Christian, on the occasion of his pilgrimage to the tomb of the Saint he looked to for inspiration, Francis of Assisi.

However, while the reports were in organs of generally reliable media houses, he has subsequently denied the reports. Church officials said that he visited St Francis of Assisi's tomb, but only as a tourist. They asked for prayer for the former Soviet leader.

And, while there are indubitably serious issues and challenges in Roman Catholic expressions of the Christian faith [as there are in Protestant and Orthodox expressions too], we must recognise that over the centuries there has also been a light of authentic Christian witness in that expression of the common Christian faith, and this is now seen in an actual conversion over the Easter.

For, on the Saturday before Easter, the Pope baptised a formerly Muslim Italian journalist during Easter Vigil Mass in St. Peter's Basilica, stirring the usual wave of Islamic protests. However, it is also significant to note the testimony of that Journalist, Magdi Allam, in a letter to the Italian press:

Yesterday evening I converted to the Christian Catholic religion, renouncing my previous Islamic faith. Thus, I finally saw the light, by divine grace -- the healthy fruit of a long, matured gestation, lived in suffering and joy, together with intimate reflection and conscious and manifest expression. I am especially grateful to his holiness Pope Benedict XVI, who imparted the sacraments of Christian initiation to me, baptism, confirmation and Eucharist, in the Basilica of St. Peter’s during the course of the solemn celebration of the Easter Vigil. And I took the simplest and most explicit Christian name: “Cristiano.” Since yesterday evening therefore my name is Magdi Crisitano Allam.

For me it is the most beautiful day of [my] life. To acquire the gift of the Christian faith during the commemoration of Christ’s resurrection by the hand of the Holy Father is, for a believer, an incomparable and inestimable privilege. At almost 56 […], it is a historical, exceptional and unforgettable event, which marks a radical and definitive turn with respect to the past. The miracle of Christ’s resurrection reverberated through my soul, liberating it from the darkness in which the preaching of hatred and intolerance in the face of the “different,” uncritically condemned as “enemy,” were privileged over love and respect of “neighbor,” who is always, an in every case, “person”; thus, as my mind was freed from the obscurantism of an ideology that legitimates lies and deception, violent death that leads to murder and suicide, the blind submission to tyranny, I was able to adhere to the authentic religion of truth, of life and of freedom.

On my first Easter as a Christian I not only discovered Jesus, I discovered for the first time the face of the true and only God, who is the God of faith and reason . . .

Sadly, Mr Allam was also forced to remark on not only the immediate wave of Islamist protests, but also on the longstanding opposition her faced as an avowedly moderate Muslim. In so doing made telling reference to Pope Benedict's watershed, much denounced, but plainly at length telling, Regensberg lecture:

. . . I had to ask myself about the attitude of those who publicly declared fatwas, Islamic juridical verdicts, against me -- I who was a Muslim -- as an “enemy of Islam,” “hypocrite because he is a Coptic Christian who pretends to be a Muslim to do damage to Islam,” “liar and vilifier of Islam,” legitimating my death sentence in this way. I asked myself how it was possible that those who, like me, sincerely and boldly called for a “moderate Islam,” assuming the responsibility of exposing themselves in the first person in denouncing Islamic extremism and terrorism, ended up being sentenced to death in the name of Islam on the basis of the Quran. I was forced to see that, beyond the contingency of the phenomenon of Islamic extremism and terrorism that has appeared on a global level, the root of evil is inherent in an Islam that is physiologically violent and historically conflictive.

At the same time providence brought me to meet practicing Catholics of good will who, in virtue of their witness and friendship, gradually became a point of reference in regard to the certainty of truth and the solidity of values . . . . But undoubtedly the most extraordinary and important encounter in my decision to convert was that with Pope Benedict XVI, whom I admired and defended as a Muslim for his mastery in setting down the indissoluble link between faith and reason as a basis for authentic religion and human civilization, and to whom I fully adhere as a Christian to inspire me with new light in the fulfillment of the mission God has reserved for me.

Perhaps the most challenging portion of Magdi Crisitano Allam's letter reads:

Dear Director, you asked me whether I fear for my life, in the awareness that conversion to Christianity will certainly procure for me yet another, and much more grave, death sentence for apostasy. You are perfectly right. I know what I am headed for but I face my destiny with my head held high, standing upright and with the interior solidity of one who has the certainty of his faith. And I will be more so after the courageous and historical gesture of the Pope, who, as soon has he knew of my desire, immediately agreed to personally impart the Christian sacraments of initiation to me. His Holiness has sent an explicit and revolutionary message to a Church that until now has been too prudent in the conversion of Muslims, abstaining from proselytizing in majority Muslim countries and keeping quiet about the reality of converts in Christian countries. Out of fear. The fear of not being able to protect converts in the face of their being condemned to death for apostasy and fear of reprisals against Christians living in Islamic countries. Well, today Benedict XVI, with his witness, tells us that we must overcome fear and not be afraid to affirm the truth of Jesus even with Muslims.

For my part, I say that it is time to put an end to the abuse and the violence of Muslims who do not respect the freedom of religious choice. In Italy there are thousands of converts to Islam who live their new faith in peace. But there are also thousands of Muslim converts to Christianity who are forced to hide their faith out of fear of being assassinated by Islamic extremists who lurk among us. By one of those “fortuitous events” that evoke the discreet hand of the Lord, the first article that I wrote for the Corriere on Sept. 3, 2003 was entitled “The new Catacombs of Islamic Converts.” It was an investigation of recent Muslim converts to Christianity in Italy who decry their profound spiritual and human solitude in the face of absconding state institutions that do not protect them and the silence of the Church itself. Well, I hope that the Pope’s historical gesture and my testimony will lead to the conviction that the moment has come to leave the darkness of the catacombs and to publicly declare their desire to be fully themselves. If in Italy, in our home, the cradle of Catholicism, we are not prepared to guarantee complete religious freedom to everyone, how can we ever be credible when we denounce the violation of this freedom elsewhere in the world?

It is plain, that, in the end, violence is self-defeating. But, along the way, it is appallingly destructive.

At the same time, we should also note on the secrets of the unprecedented success of the on-TV evangelistic work of Egyptian Coptic Priest Zakaria Botros:

Though he is little known in the West, Coptic priest Zakaria Botros — named Islam’s “Public Enemy #1” by the Arabic newspaper, al-Insan al-Jadid — has been making waves in the Islamic world. Along with fellow missionaries — mostly Muslim converts — he appears frequently on the Arabic channel al-Hayat (i.e., “Life TV”). There, he addresses controversial topics of theological significance — free from the censorship imposed by Islamic authorities or self-imposed through fear of the zealous mobs who fulminated against the infamous cartoons of Mohammed. Botros’s excurses on little-known but embarrassing aspects of Islamic law and tradition have become a thorn in the side of Islamic leaders throughout the Middle East.

Botros is an unusual figure onscreen: robed, with a huge cross around his neck, he sits with both the Koran and the Bible in easy reach. Egypt’s Copts — members of one of the oldest Christian communities in the Middle East — have in many respects come to personify the demeaning Islamic institution of “dhimmitude” (which demands submissiveness from non-Muslims, in accordance with Koran 9:29). But the fiery Botros does not submit, and minces no words. He has famously made of Islam “ten demands,” whose radical nature he uses to highlight Islam’s own radical demands on non-Muslims.

The result? Mass conversions to Christianity — if clandestine ones. The very public conversion of high-profile Italian journalist Magdi Allam — who was baptized by Pope Benedict in Rome on Saturday — is only the tip of the iceberg. Indeed, Islamic cleric Ahmad al-Qatani stated on al-Jazeera TV a while back that some six million Muslims convert to Christianity annually, many of them persuaded by Botros’s public ministry. More recently, al-Jazeera noted Life TV’s “unprecedented evangelical raid” on the Muslim world.

What are his key success factors? As Raymond Ibrahim continues:

First, the new media — particularly satellite TV and the Internet (the main conduits for Life TV) — have made it possible for questions about Islam to be made public without fear of reprisal. It is unprecedented to hear Muslims from around the Islamic world — even from Saudi Arabia, where imported Bibles are confiscated and burned — call into the show to argue with Botros and his colleagues, and sometimes, to accept Christ.

Secondly, Botros’s broadcasts are in Arabic — the language of some 200 million people, most of them Muslim. While several Western writers have published persuasive critiques of Islam, their arguments go largely unnoticed in the Islamic world. Botros’s mastery of classical Arabic not only allows him to reach a broader audience, it enables him to delve deeply into the voluminous Arabic literature — much of it untapped by Western writers who rely on translations — and so report to the average Muslim on the discrepancies and affronts to moral common sense found within this vast corpus.

A third reason for Botros’s success is that his polemical technique has proven irrefutable. Each of his episodes has a theme — from the pressing to the esoteric — often expressed as a question (e.g., “Is jihad an obligation for all Muslims?”; “Are women inferior to men in Islam?”; “Did Mohammed say that adulterous female monkeys should be stoned?” “Is drinking the urine of prophets salutary according to sharia?”). To answer the question, Botros meticulously quotes — always careful to give sources and reference numbers — from authoritative Islamic texts on the subject, starting from the Koran; then from the canonical sayings of the prophet — the Hadith; and finally from the words of prominent Muslim theologians past and present — the illustrious ulema.

Typically, Botros’s presentation of the Islamic material is sufficiently detailed that the controversial topic is shown to be an airtight aspect of Islam. Yet, however convincing his proofs, Botros does not flatly conclude that, say, universal jihad or female inferiority are basic tenets of Islam. He treats the question as still open — and humbly invites the ulema, the revered articulators of sharia law, to respond and show the error in his methodology. He does demand, however, that their response be based on “al-dalil we al-burhan,” — “evidence and proof,” one of his frequent refrains — not shout-downs or sophistry.

More often than not, the response from the ulema is deafening silence — which has only made Botros and Life TV more enticing to Muslim viewers. The ulema who have publicly addressed Botros’s conclusions often find themselves forced to agree with him — which has led to some amusing (and embarrassing) moments on live Arabic TV . . . .

Incapable of rebutting Botros, the only strategy left to the ulema (aside from a rumored $5-million bounty on his head) is to ignore him. When his name is brought up, they dismiss him as a troublemaking liar who is backed by — who else? — international “Jewry.” They could easily refute his points, they insist, but will not deign to do so. That strategy may satisfy some Muslims, but others are demanding straightforward responses from the ulema . . . .

But the ultimate reason for Botros’s success is that — unlike his Western counterparts who criticize Islam from a political standpoint — his primary interest is the salvation of souls. He often begins and concludes his programs by stating that he loves all Muslims as fellow humans and wants to steer them away from falsehood to Truth. To that end, he doesn’t just expose troubling aspects of Islam. Before concluding every program, he quotes pertinent biblical verses and invites all his viewers to come to Christ.

May we therefore draw lessons from the stunning successes of St Francis of Assisi, Pope Benedict XVI and Father Botros. For, the Kingdom of God is forcefully advancing in our day, and forceful men lay hold upon it; men who are willing to risk all for the truth and the right, in love.

So, with fear and trembling: why not now? why not here? why not us? END

Matt 24 Watch 50: On the significance of Senator Obama's recent media-hushed, pro-homosexuality, Anti-Bible outburst

A week ago, in answer to a question from a Pastor in his audience at a town-hall meeting held in Ohio on Sunday March 2nd, Senator Obama has evidently said:

"People who are gay and lesbian should be treated with dignity and respect and the state should not discriminate against them . . . I don’t think it [a same-sex union] should be called marriage, but I think that it is a legal right that they should have that is recognized by the state…. If people find that controversial then I would just refer them to the Sermon on the Mount, which I think is, in my mind, for my faith, more central than an obscure passage in Romans."

There are several points of concern in the above, and his campaign website's open letter to the "LGBT community" underscores many of them; for it shows that the above is no off-the cuff, impromptu, ill-considered remark but instead it is a calculated part of his political agenda:

. . . I’m running for President to build an America that lives up to our founding promise of equality for all – a promise that extends to our gay brothers and sisters. It’s wrong to have millions of Americans living as second-class citizens in this nation . . . Equality is a moral imperative. . . . as president, I will place the weight of my administration behind the enactment of the Matthew Shepard Act to outlaw hate crimes and a fully inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act to outlaw workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

As your President, I will use the bully pulpit to urge states to treat same-sex couples with full equality in their family and adoption laws. I personally believe that civil unions represent the best way to secure that equal treatment. But I also believe that the federal government should not stand in the way of states that want to decide on their own how best to pursue equality for gay and lesbian couples — whether that means a domestic partnership, a civil union, or a civil marriage. Unlike Senator Clinton, I support the complete repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) – a position I have held since before arriving in the U.S. Senate. While some say we should repeal only part of the law, I believe we should get rid of that statute altogether. Federal law should not discriminate in any way against gay and lesbian couples, which is precisely what DOMA does . . . I have worked to improve the Uniting American Families Act so we can afford same-sex couples the same rights and obligations as married couples in our immigration system.

The most obvious problem with Sen Obama's position as stated, is that equality of persons made in the image of God, for excellent reason, does not equate to moral equality of the ideas and behaviours of those persons.

For, as Greg Koukl so aptly points out in his essay on knowledge, truth right and wrong, we should indeed tolerate and respect persons, but we must be discerning in our evaluation of ideas and behaviours, as there are ideas and behaviours that are self- and/or socially destructive. That is, wrong, or even evil.

In short, unchecked error is destructive, and indeed, following Kant's logic on the Categorical Imperative, that is one way that we can discern errors of truth and moral behaviour. Namely, error is destructive so if it propagates across a community it would result in chaos.

Thus, we can identify evils by asking what would happen if a society were to allow that propagation to occur? If chaos would result, the behaviour is evil. [Try it with classical behaviours such as lying, cheating, stealing, murder, marital infidelity, etc. on one hand, and truthfulness, integrity, respect, love, kindness, marital fidelity, courage, etc. on the other.]

Further to this, some forms of immoral behaviour are sufficiently destructive that the Judaeo-Christian tradition, for very good reason, has long since seen such behaviours as injustice or crime to be curbed by the Civil Authorities acting as God's servants to do us good:

RO 13:1 Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established . . . . 4 For he is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience .

RO 13:6 This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants, who give their full time to governing. 7 Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor . . . .

RO 13:8 . . . he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, "Do not commit adultery," "Do not murder," "Do not steal," "Do not covet," and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: "Love your neighbor as yourself." 10 Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

Oops, I "forget"!

This is all from "an obscure passage in Romans" that can be safely dismissed as we pick and choose what biblical texts we want to use.

So "obscure" a passage that it is the (now too often unacknowledged) theological foundation behind the rise of modern liberty and publicly accountable democratic self-government of and by a free people over the past 500 years since the Protestant Reformation. For, if all civil authorities are God's servants to do us good, then if one turns tyrant, lower magistrates have a duty to act jointly with the people to defend the community from the destructive behaviour of the ruler gone bad.

For instance, as we may directly read in the opening paragraphs of the foundational US Declaration of Independence of 1776:

When . . . it becomes necessary for one people . . . to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, [cf Rom 1:18 - 21, 2:14 - 15], that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security . . . .

In short, we are made in God's image and as image bearers of God, we have rights to be respected under God. Governments, through their mandate to do justice, are in part ordained to protect such rights. So, when rulers sufficiently violate these rights they may forfeit the mandate to rule under God, and lower magistrates may properly act with the people and interpose themselves between the tyrant and those whom he would destroy. (Thank God, the institutionalisation of the free, responsible, watchdog press and the democratic, regular General Election --over the past hundred to two hundred years [and largely due to the success of the American Revolution] -- now allows us to do this peacefully. However, we must not ever forget that, proverbially, eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.)

One would imagine that a Constitutional Lawyer would know such elementary points. But, so far has radical secularism advanced in the United States, that basic, easily demonstrated facts that do not sit easily with the secularist, de-Christianising agenda are often obscured by many tortured twistings of history and historical, legal or -- more to our most direct concern -- Scriptural texts in service to the accelerating de-Christianisation of Western culture.

This brings us to my principal concern, addressing the agenda-serving, sad wrenching of the scriptures in Sen Obama's remarks:

1] "I would refer them to the Sermon on the Mount":

A sermon that in material part reads:

MT 5:17 "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them . . . 19 Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven . . . . 7:12 . . . in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

In short, Jesus' teachings must NOT be read as casting one part of Scripture against another, but as an integral, unifying part of the whole. Indeed, explicitly, Jesus' remark on doing to others as one would be done by in the context of God's Moral Law is EXPLICITLY a summary of the law, not its replacement. And, as Paul remarks in Rom 13:8 - 10, as already cited, the point of neighbour love is that it does no harm, so it fulfills the law. (Rom 2:14 - 16 amplifies that this principle is written on the hearts of all men by God, which is the reason why the Golden Rule in various forms, can be found written in the tablets of our hearts; from earliest childhood.)

Or, in other words, if a pattern of behaviour is harmful to the individual and/or the community, it is wrong. And, relativistic refusal to discern good from bad behaviours and treat them accordingly is plainly destructive.

Indeed, here is Isaiah on the folly of such relativism:

ISA 5:18 Woe to those who draw sin along with cords of deceit,
and wickedness as with cart ropes . . . .

ISA 5:20 Woe to those who call evil good
and good evil,
who put darkness for light
and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
and sweet for bitter.

ISA 5:21 Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes
and clever in their own sight.

The wanton destruction of marriage in the name of "fairness" and "equality" is precisely an example of this evil.

2] The destruction of Marriage:

Marriage is protected by the proscription on adultery, which in Jesus' words a few chapters later in the same Gospel of Matthew in which we find the Sermon on the Mount, encompasses thought and behaviour that would wrench apart what God has joined:

MT 19:3 Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?"

MT 19:4 "Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator `made them male and female,' 5 and said, `For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh' ? 6 So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate."

MT 19:7 "Why then," they asked, "did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?"

MT 19:8 Jesus replied, "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery."

Observe carefully: in Jesus' teaching, marriage is an integral part of God's creation order, the context for committed union between man and woman in which children are born and are to be raised up to follow in the path of right.

In that context, the divorce-remarriage game is viewed as fundamentally destructive and only allowed -- note Jesus' change of language from "command" to "permitted" -- for the hardness of men's hearts. In other words, divorce was allowed only as the lesser of evils. So, he underscored the principle: "what God has joined together, let man not separate."

3] How is this relevant to "same sex marriage," so-called [or its near-equivalent "civil unions"]?

A closer look at Jesus' words will help:

Q: Just what what did God "join"?

A: " . . . at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh' . . ."

In short, marriage -- reflecting the naturally obvious creation order and purpose of the two sexes -- is between man and woman, not between man and man, or woman and woman. If divorce and remarriage is destructive, how much more so is such a homosexual distortion of the creation order?

But, through the teachings of the Apostle to the nations -- so appointed by the Risen Lord [Ac 9] and so recognised by the other Apostles [Ac 15, 2 Peter 3:15 - 18] -- in his most important, well-known and definitive Epistle, in its very opening arguments, we are not left to speculate:

4] "an obscure passage in Romans . . ."

Romans 1, pace Senator Obama, is neither little known nor hard to understand.

Indeed, it is foundational to the most structured presentation of the theological substance of the Gospel in the entire Bible:

RO 1:16 I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes . . . 17 For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith."

RO 1:18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

RO 1:21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

RO 1:24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator--who is forever praised. Amen.

RO 1:26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.

RO 1:28 Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

This is plain enough: when men in their rebellion suppress the truth and the right, professing themselves to be wise, they become fools instead, refusing to acknowledge the testimony of nature without and mind and conscience within that we are the Creatures of a loving God and Father. In the old days that led to idols in temples and associated legends. Today, we have images made to look like men, birds, beasts and reptiles in museums, school textbooks and the popular media, and are invited to accept the absurdities of evolutionary materialism, which inter alia undercuts the very foundation-stones of reason and morality:

[evolutionary] materialism [a worldview that often likes to wear the mantle of "science"] . . . argues that the cosmos is the product of chance interactions of matter and energy, within the constraint of the laws of nature. Therefore, all phenomena in the universe, without residue, are determined by the working of purposeless laws acting on material objects, under the direct or indirect control of chance.

But human thought, clearly a phenomenon in the universe, must now fit into this picture. Thus, what we subjectively experience as "thoughts" and "conclusions" can only be understood materialistically as unintended by-products of the natural forces which cause and control the electro-chemical events going on in neural networks in our brains. (These forces are viewed as ultimately physical, but are taken to be partly mediated through a complex pattern of genetic inheritance and psycho-social conditioning, within the framework of human culture.)

Therefore, if materialism is true, the "thoughts" we have and the "conclusions" we reach, without residue, are produced and controlled by forces that are irrelevant to purpose, truth, or validity. Of course, the conclusions of such arguments may still happen to be true, by lucky coincidence — but we have no rational grounds for relying on the “reasoning” that has led us to feel that we have “proved” them . . .

Thus, evolutionary materialism reduces reason itself to the status of illusion. But, immediately, that includes “Materialism.” For instance, Marxists commonly deride opponents for their “bourgeois class conditioning” — but what of the effect of their own class origins? Freudians frequently dismiss qualms about their loosening of moral restraints by alluding to the impact of strict potty training on their “up-tight” critics — but doesn’t this cut both ways? And, should we not simply ask a Behaviourist whether s/he is simply another operantly conditioned rat trapped in the cosmic maze?

In the end, materialism is based on self-defeating logic . . . .

In Law, Government, and Public Policy, the same bitter seed has shot up the idea that "Right" and "Wrong" are simply arbitrary social conventions. This has often led to the adoption of hypocritical, inconsistent, futile and self-destructive public policies.

"Truth is dead," so Education has become a power struggle; the victors have the right to propagandise the next generation as they please. Media power games simply extend this cynical manipulation from the school and the campus to the street, the office, the factory, the church and the home.

Further, since family structures and rules of sexual morality are "simply accidents of history," one is free to force society to redefine family values and principles of sexual morality to suit one's preferences.

Finally, life itself is meaningless and valueless, so the weak, sick, defenceless and undesirable — for whatever reason — can simply be slaughtered, whether in the womb, in the hospital, or in the death camp.

In short, ideas sprout roots, shoot up into all aspects of life, and have consequences in the real world . .

If we accept such Creator-rejecting absurdities, whether in the guise of ancient paganism or modern evolutionary materialism, we become benumbed and en-darkened in heart and mind, so that our passions twist out of control, most notably our sexual ones, even twisting out of God's obvious creation order into various perversions.

This is personally and socially destructive -- which is massively documented [homosexuality takes literally decades off one's life expectancy and the associated agendas are plainly destructive to the community] -- and leads to the demand that such destructive behaviours not only be "tolerated" but that they must be APPROVED.

Sadly, with Senator Obama, that is where we have now arrived in American politics. And, if his proposed policy prevails, those who object on Biblical grounds will be targetted for persecution as intolerant bigots who would impose a religious tyranny on the latest legally protected group, homosexuals. (This has already begun to happen in Europe and Canada, so this is not empty speculation.)

Therefore, we must reflect soberly on the Apostle Peter's closing remarks in his last Epistle, written shortly before his martyrdom:

2 Pet 3:15 Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. 16 He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.

2PE 3:17 Therefore, dear friends, since you already know this, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of lawless men and fall from your secure position. 18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever!

Let us beware, then, of such scripture twisting, whether in the ever-tempting guise of political messianism, or in the name of "equality" or "tolerance" or any other persuasive excuse. END
_________

UPDATE: Minor copy editing, and a few additional remarks on the value of general elections and the role of a responsible, free press, March 13. It may also be wise to soberly but critically reflect on Jane Chastain's remarks on the Tony Rezko angle to the emerging Obama story, here.

Matt 24 [and Ez 38] Watch, no 49: Fidel retires as War clouds in the Middle East and in the Caribbean basin

First, an apology: over the past several weeks, this blog has been quiescent as I have had a major Internet connection breakdown, at last identified and fixed yesterday. (Also, I have had a major challenge with a consultancy project so that when I have been able to access the 'net, I have had to give that the priority over this blog.)

The first point of reference is of course the retirement of Mr Castro, and the astonishing associated regional silence on the need for liberation and empowerment of the long-suffering Cuban people. We need to do far better than that, especially as descendants of enslaved and otherwise oppressed people ourselves.

It also seems that Mr Skerritt of Dominica has at length made public statements on his involvement with the ALBA framework. In effect, under local pressure, he denies any military involvement.

It seems that that has happened just in time, for, over the weekend, Columbia seems to have struck across its Ecuadorean border at base of the Marxist [i.e. "Communist"], left-wing anti-government rebel group, FARC, killing Raul Reyes, one of its key leaders. In response, Mr Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has rushed ten battalions to the opposite border [about 6,000 troops], with tanks in support. In so dispatching troops, Mr Chavez reportedly stated: "we don't want war - but we won't let the empire [meaning the US] or its lap dog President [of Columbia] Alvaro Uribe try to make us weaker."

Ecuador, under its president, Rafael Correa, has reportedly placed 3,200 troops on its own border, and there is a wave of diplomatic protests over the cross-border attack. Mr Correa is quoted as saying:

"Ecuadorean territory has been bombarded and insulted intentionally by a foreign government; this situation is extremely grave and intolerable . . ."

According to the just cited [and above-linked] Daily Telegraph report, he rejected an apology by Columbia, expelled its ambassador, broke off diplomatic ties, and said that he "will take stronger measures in the coming hours."

In its own response, Columbia has first stated that "international law allowed such operations in pursuit of terrorists. "

It has also released some of the captured intelligence. So, as the UK's Daily Telegraph reports:

Colombia announced that computer files recovered from the site where Mr Reyes was killed showed that Ecuador's government had been in talks with the rebels and that Mr Chavez had recently sent $300 million to Colombian guerrillas.

"The questions raised by these documents need concrete answers," said the Colombian national police chief, General Oscar Naranjo.

The BBC adds:

Colombia accused Ecuador and Venezuela of having ties with the Farc and said the rebels had tried to buy uranium.

The Colombian authorities said the information had come from documents found during Saturday's raid on the rebel camp in Ecuador.

"When they mention negotiations for 50 kilos of uranium, this means that the Farc are taking big steps in the world of terrorism to become a global aggressor. We're not talking of domestic guerrilla but transnational terrorism," said Colombian national police chief Oscar Naranjo at a news conference in Bogota.

Other documents showed that President Chavez had provided $300m (£151m) to the Farc, and had received funds from them many years earlier, he said.

And there was also evidence of links between the Farc and representatives of the Ecuadorean government, Gen Naranjo claimed.

In another report, BBC goes on to observe:

Mr Uribe has promised the Colombian people he will take a tough stance against the guerrilla movement that for more than 40 years has used kidnapping and murder as a weapon against the state. He believes they can be stopped militarily.

Mr Chavez, on the other hand, has offered his support to the Marxist rebels.

While not endorsing their methods, he has said Farc should be treated as an insurgent force rather than as terrorists, claiming they have a legitimate political goal.

But anecdotal evidence points to more tacit support.

Former rebels who have defected have spoken of receiving co-operation from some in the Venezuelan military.

They have also reported that Venezuela has provided weapons, shelter and financial support.

Venezuela's main opposition leader, Manuel Rosales, has often spoken out about these links.

"The guerrillas go in and out of our national territory, kidnap people and make alliances with criminals, who they train in kidnapping and extortion," he said recently.

In short, some very worrying developments have been taking place, and on the reports in hand, they do not show Mr Chavez in a good light. This should be another warning-light to Caricom's leaders as we engage Mr Chavez in our own region, especially in light of our previous observations here and here.

But the issues do not stop there, as we can see by following the dotted lines to the Middle East in light of evident actions by Venezuela's partner, Iran -- an Iran which was just, 14-0, with Indonesia abstaining -- put under a third round of sanctions over its suspected nuclear weapons programme. [Not irrelevant is the fact that Iran just launched a satellite, i.e it has in effect shown to the world that it is capable of building an Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile, or ICBM. By its claim, developing that satellite launch rocket took just nine months]

In particular, we should observe the reported source of the new, 122 mm Grad rockets that were used to bombard Ashkelon over the weekend from Gaza, which provoked yet another round of Israeli cross-border attacks in response, and which then led to renewal of the bombardment as soon as Israel withdrew its troops:

Long-range rockets fired from the Gaza Strip into Israeli cities the past few days were manufactured in and imported from Iran, according to Israeli security officials speaking to WND.

In a major escalation, Hamas the past few days has been firing long range Grad rockets at the strategic Israeli port city of Ashkelon, home to some 125,000 Israelis about 11 miles from Gaza. Ashkelon houses a major electrical plant that powers most of the Gaza Strip.

Grad rockets are longer-range projectiles similar to the Katyusha rocket, which the Lebanese Hezbollah terror group successfully used in 2006 to barrage northern Israel, killing 42 Israeli civilians and reportedly wounding over 4,000. The Grad travels up to 12 miles and delivers a larger payload than the Qassam rocket, which can travel about four to five miles and is the usual rocket of choice for Palestinians.

At least three Grad rockets landed in Ashkelon today, wounding a woman who had used her body to protect her two children. A least a dozen Grads slammed into Ashkelon since Friday, causing injuries to civilians and massive damage to houses and buildings.

The WND report continues:

At least 140 rockets, mostly Qassams, targeted the Israeli city of Sderot the past four days . . . One man was killed and dozens injured last week. Thousands of rockets have been regularly launched at Sderot since Israel retreated from the Gaza Strip in 2005 . . . .

According to Israeli security officials, the Grad rockets fired at Israel in recent days were made in Iran and were smuggled in parts into the Gaza Strip, where they were assembled. It is thought a large number of rockets were brought into Gaza in January, when Hamas breached the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, the sources said . . . .

In a statement carried widely in the Middle East, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei yesterday called in Muslims and their leaders worldwide to "rise up" against Israel and the United States in response to Israel's anti-rocket operations in Gaza.

"It is with the support of that [the U.S.] oppressive government that the Zionists [Israel] are committing these unforgivable sins with impudence," Khamenei said in the statement.

"The Islamic (people) must rise and the Islamic leaders must hit the occupying regime in the face with their nations' anger," Khamenei's statement said.

First, let us observe that key term, "the occupying regime."

For, Israel is not occupying Gaza, has long since withdrawn from the Sinai and Jordanian lands it took in previous defensive wars. Lands it occupied in Lebanon in response to cross-border attacks, were evacuated as long ago as 2000. Similarly, strictly, the West Bank zone comprises Disputed Territories, and Israel has long since sought to find a reasonable compromise with the Palestinian Arabs. It is the Arabs who rejected 97% of the land inside the Green Armistice line [which is not a border], with land in exchange for the remainder, and went to a terrorism campaign in 2000.

What the term really means is that in the minds of the Iranian Mullahs and other islamists, Israel itself -- the historic and internationally recognised national homeland of the Jewish people -- is viewed as "occupied territory," as the PLO charter declares and as Hamas' charter declares. That is, once lands have once come under the domination of Islam, they are always "occupied" if they ever fall out of Islamist control. All of this, on the way to the sort of global domination implicit in how the Islamists -- with considerable historical basis, see Quranic texts such as Q 9:5 and 29:

5: But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, an seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war); but if they repent, and establish regular prayers and practise regular charity, then open the way for them: for Allah is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful. [This is the infamous Sword Verse that takes precedence under the doctrine of Abrogation, over a hundred more irenic passages in the Quran; mostly from the earlier Meccan period. It implies a global agenda of conquest, which led to the -- to the too often unrecognised, unacknowledged, unrepented of -- classical and modern history of Islamic imperialism and supremacism.]

[. . . . ]

29: Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued. [This is The Verse of Tribute, which is a cornerstone of dhimmitude, in which non-Muslims under Islamic rule are subjected to harsh, Apartheid-like conditions that deny their basic human rights.]

So, on whatever pretexts are convenient at any given time, the war to subjugate the world continues, and in that war temporary alliances and truces are just stages on the way to the intended subjugation of the whole world -- a subjugation that is envisioned for completion in this Century. Indeed, it is worth the time to observe again the following words from an Iranian Government Website, in a Christmas 2006 message to the world:

Man's effort to procure the facilities needed in his life, is as old as history. In today's world, science and technology have helped human societies to achieve many of the amenities. But mankind has not yet been able to eliminate poverty and remove the unequal distribution of income in the society, because of the unjust world order imposed by the so-called big powers, which by monopolizing science and technology terrorize weaker nations and plunder their wealth and natural resources. The cold and calculating domineering powers impose on the weaker nations, the methods of production, consumption and technology that are to the benefit of capitalists. In the weird system of today’s powerful counties, moral and spiritual values have no place and are seen as undesirable liabilities that prevent these powers from reaching economic welfare and what they call true prosperity. However, the exploitation of the weak, the unjust system of distribution and denial of the rights of nations, will end with the reappearance of Imam Mahdi (AS). In the government of the Imam man will witness real economic welfare throughout the world without any discrimination. The main issue in his global government is carrying out social justice and one of the main products of social justice is a highly developed economy that leads to the blossoming of moral and spiritual values as emphasized by the dynamic teachings of Islam.

Given the history of 1400 years of Islamist supremacism, imperialism, and oppression, these worlds ring hollow, even as they give us a chilling warning of the scope of the global conflictt hat even now is emerging: "the government of the Imam . . . throughout the world . . . global government."

In other words, we face a global agenda of Islamist domination, one backed up by a religious sanction for world conquest. As Lee Harris sums up; by way of reviewing Bostom's recent The Legacy of Jihad:

In our current climate of political correctness, there has been a reluctance even to acknowledge the most obvious facts about the nature of jihad. Indeed, just as there are Holocaust deniers, there is a contemporary tendency to deny the historical evidence relating to jihad, though, as Bostom’s book amply demonstrates, there is scarcely a lack of such evidence from any number of different sources, from every period, from the original wave of Arabic conquest in the seventh century to today’s headlines . . . .

[F]or those who wish to see Muslims repudiate the classical tradition of jihad, it may be beneficial to encourage the illusion that jihad has always meant an internal struggle against sin or a fight for a just cause and that any other interpretation is contrary to the “real” message of Islam.

Yet for those who are seeking to understand the nature of historical Islam, it is imperative to come to grips with what jihad has actually meant to Muslims throughout their history, and especially during those periods in which Islam expanded its domain, not only by conquering new territory, but also by transforming utterly the cultures of those who fell under its sway . . . .

Islamic jihad, from its commencement, refused to recognize the legitimacy of any status quo other than that achieved in Dar el-Islam, or “the domain of peace.” Other peoples’ delicate balance of power meant nothing. Outside the domain of peace there was only the domain of war, and here no entity could hope to be treated as representing a legitimate order, for no order that was not based on Islamic law could ever be recognized as legitimate in the eyes of Muslims. The only legitimate order was a Muslim order . . . . Muslim jihad followed logically from the principle that all men should live in Muslim societies. Like the French revolutionaries [of 200+ years ago], Muslims wished to liberate humanity, and they were aware that they could do this only by violently overthrowing the status quo and disregarding any claims to legitimacy based on mere custom or tradition.

Sobering.

So, when we see the dots that connect Mr Chavez to Iran, as in the following, we should take serious pause before we simply blindly nod as we hear the rhetoric of American imperialism [for all the sins of the Americans] -- especially now that over the past few days we are able to see a little more of what has been going on between Venezuela and Columbia:

"The two countries [Iran and Venezuela] will united defeat the imperialism of North America," a beaming Chavez told a news conference during an official visit to the Islamic Republic . . . ."When I come to Iran Washington gets upset," he said . . . . "Iran and Venezuela -- the axis of unity," read one of many official posters at the site near the port town of Assalouyeh, showing the two leaders hugging each other and shaking hands . . . .

Chavez, who last week pushed two U.S. oil giants out of his country as part of his self-styled socialist revolution, said: "This is the unity of the Persian Gulf and the Caribbean Sea."

Plainly, Caricom countries need to think about our regional and foreign policy stances in a world facing such a titanic struggle, very, very carefully and soberly indeed.

One for careful thought and serious intercessory prayer. END

Matt 24 [& Ezekiel 38] Watch, 48: Connecting dots from the Caribbean to Venezuela to Iran

In responding to the shocker announcement of an Anti-US "Military Alliance" implicating Dominica, a January 25, 2008 Starbroek News article observed:

The aims of ALBA reflect an ideological position espoused by President Chavez, making it as much a political and social movement as an economic one. In an address in the Nicaraguan capital, Managua, on Wednesday, the Venezuelan head of state told his audience, "Our calling is to convert Central America, the Caribbean into that great union envisioned by José Martí, a true world power, which can exist here if we join together . . ."

Commenting on the implications of this claim -- and after remarking on Venezuela's promised largesse in Dominica (approaching US $ 100 millions) -- the article went on to address the question of the strings attached to loans, grants and aid in kind:

. . . what is the price of this for Dominica? She will find that she has relinquished her freedom of action in the political and the economic spheres, and that she is no longer a free agent within the councils of Caricom. She may have paid another, more sinister price as well.

Last year, without warning, Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerritt of Dominica effectively acknowledged Venezuela's claim to Bird Island, a claim which Dominica, the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States and Caricom had rejected for years.

This affects more territories than the one Mr Skerritt represents; while the islet is uninhabitable, Venezuela is using it to ground a claim to a vastly expanded EEZ, which will deprive some other Caricom territories of their full maritime rights. As things stand, according to the Leader of the Grenada United Labour Party writing in the Trinidad Express on Friday, Venezuela has so far refused to negotiate a maritime boundary with his country.

It might be added that Caracas has been careful not to sign on to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, so the Caricom islands have no recourse to the court in Hamburg. So much for ALBA's supposed disinterested and declared objective of transferring resources to the most underdeveloped countries so they could develop . . . .

Venezuela has at last breached Caricom via the back door, allowing President Chavez to pursue his dream of regional integration under Venezuelan hegemony. There could be no other reason for him pouring so many millions into an island with 72,000 people.

In short, we are plainly facing exactly the sort of oil-money neocolonialism from the South that -- as the article reminds us -- Historian and Prime Minister Dr Eric Williams of Trinidad and Tobago warned the region against in 1975:

In a famous speech in 1975 entitled 'The threat to the Caribbean Community,' Dr Eric Williams spoke of a "Venezuelan oil and industrial metropolis and an indebted Caribbean hinterland." His words were prophetic, although they did not come to pass in his lifetime.

The Government of Dominica, possibly to be followed by two other Caricom states, may now be giving substance to those words.

Sobering -- especially given the sort of domineering, political messianistic and increasingly dictatorial political game that Mr Chavez is playing at home -- as we discussed last time.

Further, given unresolved, easily re-opened border and maritime rights disputes with territories ranging from Guyana and Trinidad to Grenada to Curacao to Dominica and now -- via Bird Island -- the whole EC chain, this is quite troubling.

But, it does not stop there. For, the dots go right on into the Middle East. This, we may easily see from a Parisa Hafezi July 2, 2007 Reuters report, datelined "ASSALOUYEH, Iran":

The presidents of Iran and Venezuela launched construction of a joint petrochemical plant on Monday, strengthening an "axis of unity" between two oil-rich nations staunchly opposed to the United States.

Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who both often rail against Washington, also signed a series of other deals to expand economic cooperation, ranging from setting up a dairy factory in Venezuela to forming an oil company.

"The two countries will united defeat the imperialism of North America," a beaming Chavez told a news conference during an official visit to the Islamic Republic, which the United States has labeled part of an "axis of evil".

"When I come to Iran Washington gets upset," he said . . . . "Iran and Venezuela -- the axis of unity," read one of many official posters at the site near the port town of Assalouyeh, showing the two leaders hugging each other and shaking hands . . . .

Chavez, who last week pushed two U.S. oil giants out of his country as part of his self-styled socialist revolution, said: "This is the unity of the Persian Gulf and the Caribbean Sea."

In short the connexions now plainly run from sister Caricom territories, to Venezuela, emerging regional hegemon, and onward to Iran -- the same Iran that through its Mahdist Islamism envisions itself as the vanguard of the eschatological conquest of the world by Islam. [Cf earlier discussions in this blog in January 2007, here, here and here. We have already noted on Hezbollah bases in Venezuela, pointing out that Hezhbollah is effectively the Foreign Legion component of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. (NB: Cf onward link here, on the gap between the amateur wanna-be "Hezbollah" easily found on the 'net, and the real one operating (a bit more quietly) in Venezuela.) So, we should take heed from how Hezbollah has carved out an effective colony in the south of Lebanon, and then managed to drag the unwilling country as a whole into a war with Israel in 2006. ]

Third, we should note a significant Iranian development announced to the world just last week: Iran has just launched its first successful orbital space satellite.

That may sound harmless, unless one has knowledge of what happened in 1957 when Russia surprised the world by launching the Sputnik series of satellites: panic across the West. For, satellite launching capability is technically equivalent to capacity to build Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles [ICBMs]. That, given the ongoing international concern over Iran's evident drive to achieve nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them, immediately explains the sub-headline in the just linked: "West fears Tehran mastering its atomic missile technology."


Indeed, the original web clipping (evidently succeeded by the just linked) had a perhaps even more telling subhead: "Talks underway to buy advanced Russian air-defense system." Namely, the S-300 advanced, long range air defense missile system that is more or less comparable to the US Patriot missile system. (NB: According to the just linked, the US reportedly bought a sample of these missiles to use it as a guide to upgrade capabilities of the Patriot missile.)

(So, the Ezekiel 38 dots just keep on coming . . . )

And, the pressure keeps on ratcheting up.

In the latest development, Venezuela is now (again, it seems) threatening to halt oil shipments to the USA, as ExxonMobil has sued Venezuela over unilateral expropriation of assets:

President Hugo Chavez on Sunday threatened to cut off oil sales to the United States in an "economic war" if Exxon Mobil Corp. wins court judgments to seize billions of dollars in Venezuelan assets.

Exxon Mobil has gone after the assets of state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA in U.S., British and Dutch courts as it challenges the nationalization of a multibillion dollar oil project by Chavez's government.

A British court has issued an injunction "freezing" as much as $12 billion in assets.

"If you end up freezing (Venezuelan assets) and it harms us, we're going to harm you," Chavez said during his weekly radio and television program, "Hello, President." "Do you know how? We aren't going to send oil to the United States. Take note, Mr. Bush, Mr. Danger" . . .

Of course, we must also note that a British court and a multinational corporation do not answer to the White House. And, Mr Chavez plainly knows that, but turning up the anti-Bush, anti-American rhetoric makes for better PR than acknowledging that there are serious legal issues attendant to his unilateral seizure of assets held by foreign investors in Venezuela. Issues over which some of the investors in question are taking legal action.

This is revealing on how the man who now rules Venezuela with powers of law-making by decree thanks to an Enabling Law, evidently habitually acts as though he is a law unto himself.

That is perhaps the most dangerous warning sign of all, and we should take heed; before it is too late for the Caribbean.

Take Note Messrs Gonzalves, Spencer and co. in Caricom: DANGER! END

___________________

PS: Before the now almost traditional rhetoric of "war for oil" gets heated up on this emerging situation until it explodes, poisoning and blinding the atmosphere, perhaps it would be wise to pause and read this report on the findings of Mr Saddam Hussein's interrogator.