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The Omega Letter Intelligence Digest
Vol: 41 Issue: 10 - Thursday, February 10, 2005--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Got Nukes?
This week, the Stalinist government of North Korea dropped all pretenses and admitted, for the first time, that it indeed possesses nuclear weapons. Pyongyang dismissed any future disarmament talks, saying it needs its nuclear arsenal to protect itself from an 'increasingly hostile' United States.
Previously, North Korea had reportedly told U.S. negotiators in private talks that it had nuclear weapons and might test one of them. The North's U.N. envoy said last year that the country had "weaponized" plutonium from its pool of 8,000 nuclear spent fuel rods.
Those rods contained enough plutonium for several bombs.
But Thursday's statement was North Korea's first public acknowledgment that it has nuclear weapons.
North Korea's "nuclear weapons will remain (a) nuclear deterrent for self-defense under any circumstances," according to a statement issued from Pyongyang.
It said Washington's alleged attempt to topple the North's regime "compels us to take a measure to bolster its nuclear weapons arsenal in order to protect the ideology, system, freedom and democracy chosen by its people."
Since 2003, the United States, the two Koreas, China, Japan and Russia have held three rounds of talks in Beijing aimed at persuading the North to abandon nuclear weapons development in return for economic and diplomatic rewards. No significant progress has been made.
A fourth round scheduled for last September was canceled when North Korea refused to attend, citing what it called a "hostile" U.S. policy.
North Korea said it decided not to rejoin such talks any time soon after studying Bush's inaugural and State of the Union speeches and after Rice labeled North Korea one of the "outposts of tyranny."
"We have wanted the six-party talks but we are compelled to suspend our participation in the talks for an indefinite period till we have recognized that there is justification for us to attend the talks and there are ample conditions and atmosphere to expect positive results from the talks," said the North Korean Defense Ministry statement.
In Vienna, a spokesman for the International Atomic Energy Agency said that "North Korea remains our single highest priority."
"We know they have raw materials to build nuclear weapons. We also know that they have a delivery system and they've expressed their intentions to have a nuclear arsenal," spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said.
The nuclear crisis erupted in October 2002 when U.S. officials accused North Korea of running a secret uranium-enrichment program in violation of international treaties.
The Bush administration and its allies subsequently cut off the free fuel oil shipments program negotiated in 1994 by the Clinton administration.
Assessment:
While the North Koreans, easily the most deranged government on the face of the planet, flex their Chinese-made nuclear muscles, the EU is planning to unilaterally lift the 15-year-old arms embargo against China.
Unsurprisingly, the effort is being spearheaded by France and Germany, who have between them, pretty much shanghaied the rest of the EU into following whatever trail they blaze, no matter where it might lead.
The ban is expected to be lifted by EU governments, despite the clear opposition of EU lawmakers. The European Parliament last November passed a resolution calling for the ban to be retained until China had "taken concrete steps toward improving the human-rights situation."
Last week, US lawmakers also spoke up, passing a non-binding resolution in the House (411-3) urging President Bush to pressure the EU into abandoning the plan.
The motion said lifting the embargo would place European security policy "in direct conflict" with the security interests of the U.S. and its allies in Asia. It threatened unspecified "limitations and constraints" on trans-Atlantic security cooperation if the move went ahead. ccording to John Bolton, U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, North Korea's nuclear program and its extensive missile proliferation programs are the result of what he termed China's 'serial proliferation' policies.
The EU is facilitating China's proliferation program by lifting sanctions for one central reason. Because Washington doesn't want them to.
France, Germany, Russia and China have come together in a kind of backroom men's club where they dream up ways to counter what they term America's 'unipolar superpower status' by creating a kind of 'anti-America' bloc to oppose whatever Washington supports.
In this way, according to Jacques Chirac, the global balance of power will teeter somewhere between America's 'unipolar' interests and their 'multipolar' power bloc.
To illustrate, the EU voted two weeks ago to restore diplomatic relations with the only remaining Soviet-style communist country remaining in the Western hemisphere.
While one might be able to mount an argument that there are compelling reasons apart from sticking a thumb in Washington's eye for the EU to lift its arms embargo against China (e.g. the profit motive), there is no such alternate explanation for the EU's embrace of Fidel Castro's Cuba.
Cuba has no money, so the EU isn't looking at exploiting anything resembling China’s billion-strong consumer market.
Cuba doesn't have a major manufacturing economy, so Cuba offers neither a rich market for EU exports; neither does it have much potential for cheap imports from Cuba to Europe.
Castro's Cuba is attractive to the EU for only one reason. It sits just ninety miles off the coast of Florida and has been a constant source of irritation to Washington since Castro took over in 1959.
Then, there is Iran, where the EU has refused to work with the United States to prevent the mad mullahs from getting the bomb, preferring instead to apply the North Korean model of appeasement and bribes that so magnificently failed the Clinton administration.
For all its talk about democracy and human rights, the EU has done little or nothing to actively push for democratic reforms and improving human rights conditions.
Indeed, lifting the Chinese arms embargo and normalizing relations with Cuba (two of the world's worst abusers) are only slightly less absurd than the UN's decision to seat Cuba, China and Zimbabwe on the UN Human Rights Commission.
Secretary Rice's tour included stops in Europe where she valiantly tried to 'mend fences' with our European 'allies', but it put me in mind of Neville Chamberlain and Eduard Deladrier returning from their 1938 meeting with Adolph Hitler.
Chamberlain returned waving a document with Hitler's signature on it saying Hitler had no interest in further conquest and proclaimed it meant, "We shall have peace in our time."
It was only last week that the EU rejected ban on symbols of Nazism and Communism being included in a proposed Europe-wide law on racism and xenophobia after Prince Harry of the UK showed up to a costume party dressed as a Nazi officer, complete with swastika.
The Bible says that, in the last days, Europe will finally achieve its goal of supplanting the United States as the world's leading superpower when the antichrist comes to power as leader of a revived Roman Empire.
The US plays no significant role during the final seven years of the Tribulation -- indeed; it plays no discernible role at all.
There are several explanations for why the US is absent the scene; perhaps we face off with China over Taiwan and spark a limited thermonuclear war.
Maybe the Islamic fifth column inside the US successfully launches a chemical or biological attack that decimates America and renders it powerless in the last days.
Or maybe the Lord comes back for His Church at the Rapture before the Tribulation begins. To my thinking, that is the most likely explanation of the three. Most of the current administration's top officials are born-again Christians, as are most of the senior officers in the US military.
Judging from the emails we get from military personnel here at the Omega Letter, and my own daily interaction with Marines stationed at the two Marine bases within 20 miles of me, I would hazard a guess that a significant portion of the rank-and-file military are also Christians.
The whole country is divided politically between the 'Red States' and the 'Blue States’ -- with the Red States earning the derisive nickname, "Jesus Land".
Scripture says that, when the Lord returns for His Church, all those who have put their trust in Jesus will "God bring with Him".
1st Thessalonians 4:16-17 tells us that, on that day, “the dead in Christ shall rise first, then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord" at the Rapture.
Think of what effect the sudden disappearance of most of the government, the military, and most of the population of the Red States would have on America's position as the world's only remaining superpower.
What would remain would be a crippled, confused and frightened remnant only too eager to embrace the promise of security offered by their relatively-intact 'allies' across the Atlantic.
When Hal wrote the Late, Great Planet Earth in 1969, the world's only superpowers were America and the Soviet Union. Europe was fractured, with half of it under Soviet domination and the other half still under post WWII Allied occupation.
Based on the prophecies of Scripture, Hal confidently predicted that, somehow, Europe must rise to ascendancy in this generation, while, somehow, both the US and Soviet Union would decrease in power and influence until both were subordinate to the revived Roman Empire of Europe.
Forty years ago, it sounded like science-fiction -- so much so, that Hal told me most bookstores put "Late Great" in their science fiction, rather than religious sections -- something Hal believes explains why it sold 37 million copies, unheard of for any Christian-themed book before or since.
Forty years later, it sounds like a reasoned geopolitical forecast drawn from a reasonable interpretation of current trends. But Hal didn’t have 'current trends' forty years ago -- he had only the Bible and what it forecast for the last days.
He was right forty years ago - because the Scriptures are true. If these were NOT the last days, then he wouldn't have been. If we were not as far along on the prophetic timetable as we are, then the last forty years would have proved him wrong.
I recently re-read Late Great, and I continue to be astonished at its accuracy. With a few minor updates to reflect the demise of the Soviet Union and the rise of the EU and it could be re-published today with few other substantive changes.
I say all that, not to praise Hal as a prophet (he is not) or to sell more copies of his book (its out of print) but rather, to make a point.
Using only the prophecies of Scripture, Hal accurately forecast the fall of the Soviet Union, the reunification of revived Rome, the rise in Islamic fundamentalism and the steady erosion of US influence and power abroad -- forty years in advance.
And as remarkable as THAT is, it pales in comparison to the Bible's feat of doing the same thing THOUSANDS of years before the fact.
The Scriptures are true, Bible prophecy is as accurate as tomorrow's newspaper, and the fact that it continues to unfold precisely as God said it would is proof positive that we are living in the days just before the return of the Lord.
In the natural, we live in a world more dangerous and more prone to self destruction than at any time in our history. Knock over the wrong domino and the resulting chain reaction could result in life on earth as we know it ceasing to exist.
But we have the unspeakable gift of, "a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts." (2nd Peter 1:19)
But we have nothing to fear and every reason for hope.
"What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" (Romans 8:31-32)
"For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:38-39)
"Wherefore comfort one another with these words." (1 Thessalonians 4:18)
Note:
Yesterday, I received an email from our friend (and OL subscriber) Zola Levitt, who accurately pointed out a Biblical error in Wednesday's OL entitled 'Road map to Pieces'.
(Zola Levitt's Messianic Christian ministry website is at http://www.levitt.com/ -- and I highly recommend it)
He wrote, "I read the Omega Letter daily and I enjoy it very much. In the February 9th issue however, you use this image ' that the scriptures were wrong about Israel, and that the New Testament is subordinate in authority to the old.
I understand what you are saying, but the comparison is incorrect.
Both testaments were written and published in Israel by Jews and comprise one cohesive book. You have stated in effect that there is a difference in a telephone directory between the first three quarters of the names and the listings from the letter R onward. The comparison is not apt.
Otherwise I enjoy your observations very much.
Zola Levitt"
Zola is correct, of course. The comparison is incorrect and my analogy was unfortunate. Please accept my apologies and let the record be corrected.
Also, last night, Hal announced his participation in our member's forums on his TV show.
(Hal's discussion forum is named after his first ministry, "The JC Light and Power Company" and can be accessed from a link on the main page at the Omega Letter website)
Since Hal's broadcast, we've had more than forty new trial subscribers sign up in less than twelve hours.
Allow me to welcome each new trial member on behalf of our Omega Letter family and encourage you to browse our forums and get to know us a little better. I pray you will find a cyberspace home here among us.
Much love in Christ
Jack Kinsella
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