Tripoli Rises Up Against Gaddafi

I have heard that the people of Tripoli are now raising up against the forces of that murderer Gaddafi. It will be good when he is removed. I hope that this overthrowing of that murderous dictator is accomplished as cleanly as possible so that the proud and noble people of Libya may live in a free society and are able to enjoy peaceful lives.

Thoughts on S&P's Downgrading of US Bonds: The GOP is Responsible

I have just heard that Standard & Poor has downgraded US bonds.

As far as I am concerned this fact can be entirely blamed on the Republicans in Congress who decided to politicize the debt ceiling, something that had never been done before.

Before 2011 whenever the debt approached the debt ceiling limit Congress simply raised in a proceedure as mundane as looking at both sides of the road before you cross.

But the GOP in Congress chose to politicize it and refuse to raise it unless they got what they wanted. From the very start experts, such as Geithner, warned that this was very dangerous.

This makes me angry. I have no doubt many innocent people within the good old USA are going to suffer because the stupidity of those who decided to use the debt ceiling to humiliate President Obama. That decision deserves to be labeled as nothing less than stupid and horrendously irresponsible.

Thank you John Boehner, Eric Candor, and Mitch McConnell for bringing this reverse to the USA.

Bob Theil Fails to see Crisis in Debt Ceiling Crisis

LCG apologist Bob Theil appears to have no understanding of why the debt ceiling crisis is a crisis. Obama Says He is Trying to Avert ‘Armageddon’.

Since the USA seems intent upon increasing debt (as the current ‘crisis’ has to do with RAISING the DEBT ceiling AGAIN), this will continue to insure that the USA is the most indebted nation in the history of humankind....

Right now, the USA crisis is that it wants and hopes to increase debt and borrow more from its foreign creditors, yet its leaders believe that not increasing debt will be a greater calamity.

I am amazed that he is so apathetic about this issue.

If the US gets more debt that is fine because those willing to invest in US bonds are willing to buy them, the US government meets its financial obligations, and these matters will be dealt with later in the future.

If the debt ceiling is not raised...

No. Wait. I don't even want to imagine what would happen if that occurred.

The reason why not raising the debt ceiling is a problem is that it would force the US to not pay their debts.

The entire world economy is based around the belief that you can trust the US dollar. You invest in a US bond and it will be paid back to you. You can't be too sure about any other thing you invest in, but you can trust the US bond.

If the debt ceiling is not raised then the US bond, something in which people all over the world have invested in, rich people, poor people, Americans, others, some who are reading this, all their holdings in US debt become unreliable. None of them can be sure that they will be paid back. The US Treasury will not be able to pay the necessary financial obligations of the US.

I recall hearing President Obama saying that Social Security checks will not be made, Soldiers will not be paid, if the US Treasury is unable to meet its financial obligations because Congress did not raise the debt ceiling.

And it cannot but be recalled that back in 2008 when just one major Wall Street bank went bankrupt it caused the entire world economy to freeze, have a heart attack, and brought the world economy to the precipice of another Great Depression.

Far more people are invested in US bonds than was the case with Lehman Brothers.

A lot of people fear that if the debt ceiling is not raised, thus forcing the US government to not pay their debts, we will have another Lehman moment which will freeze the entire financial world.

This is the crisis that Bob Theil pretends that this is not a real crisis. He even puts brackets around the word crisis as though it is not a real crisis. It is a real crisis.

All of that will be avoided if Congress simply raises the debt ceiling.

Somehow Bob Theil seems to think that the US government shirking its responsibilities to its debtors, and causing soldiers to not be paid, Social Security checks to not be paid, etc, and possibly creating another Lehman Brothers moment is less of a problem then for the US government to honor its obligations.

PCG, Behold The People of Free Libya

Recently, citing "a report from two French think tanks", PCG has been trying to slur the Libyan rebels as Islamic fundamentalists. The report, as presented by PCG, have even charged that Al Qaeda is the main force of the armed resistance against Gaddafi.

The al Qaeda-affiliated Libyan Islamic Fighting Group is the “main pillar of the armed insurrection,” the report says.

If you believe that please make the time to watch this video.


How can PCG tell us those vast multitudes are Al Qaeda? Or Islamic fundamentalists?

They are simply people struggling to gain basic human rights consistently denied them during the 42 year tyranny of Colonel Gaddafi.

Gaddafi has had a terrible impact upon the world. Bombing the cafe in Berlin, bombing the plane over Lockerbie, contributing to the terrible wars in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Darfur.

The sooner he goes the better.

PCG Blind to EU's Current Divisions

PCG just posted the following tweet:

Herbert Armstrong, July 22, 1984: a global financial crisis could "suddenly [trigger] European nations to UNITE as A NEW WORLD POWER"

It needs to be stated that the current financial crisis in the European Union is actually dividing the EU.

I am sure the Greeks are very angry at other nations for imposing the current austerity measures. The Germans are bitter over having to bailout Greece. Here is one example from the German newspaper Der Spiegel:

Given that Germany is shouldering risk to the tune of hundreds of billions for a life-threatening euro crisis, it may seem absurd that Berlin is perceived abroad as 'euro Nazis' rather than as a benevolent leader. ... Germany is in the impossible situation of having ponied up hundreds of billions of euros but is nevertheless being pilloried. Some Greek newspapers refer to Germans as "euro Nazis," and not as a benevolent leading power.

How is this situation supposed to unify Europeans together and become a militarily unstoppable empire?

This simple fact needs to be stated.

PCG Slur Libyan Rebels as Al Qaeda

I was just reading PCG's Week in Review. In it PCG continue their shameful denigration of the brave persons seeking change in the Arab world.

Here they accuse the Libyan rebels of being Al Quaeda.

A new report by two French think tanks indicates that the West is on the side of Islamic terrorists in the war against Muammar Qadhafi in Libya. The report concludes that jihadists have played a predominant role in the eastern Libyan rebellion, and that “true democrats” represent only a minority in the rebellion....

Here's PCG's opinion on what arming the Libyan rebels means.

The al Qaeda-affiliated Libyan Islamic Fighting Group is the “main pillar of the armed insurrection,” the report says....Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry pointed out on May 5 that “NATO is considering arming the rebels. That’s practically handing Libya over to the radical Islamic camp!”

Please watch this TV report, Libya responds to Bin Laden death. It is an report in which Libyan freedom fighters speak about Osama bin Laden upon the occasion of his death. The ones in this report are unsympathetic towards him, state that he was a terrorist who murdered innocent people, destroyed public property, and had his terrorism rebound back to him. They also note that the Gaddafi dictatorship often accused suspected opponents of having links to Al Qaeda.

I cannot help but believe that the real reason PCG has taken such a negative view of the Arab Awakening is that the PCG leadership fear that their eternally abused flock might try imitating the protesters who have shaken the Arab world to its core.

As for Libya as far as I am concerned the sooner Gaddafi is overthrown the better. I hope he is removed as soon as possible.

Below is the relevant section in full. Note how shamefully there is no concern here over the literally thousands of peaceful protesters who were murdered by Gaddafi's shoot-to-kill thugs.

A new report by two French think tanks indicates that the West is on the side of Islamic terrorists in the war against Muammar Qadhafi in Libya. The report concludes that jihadists have played a predominant role in the eastern Libyan rebellion, and that “true democrats” represent only a minority in the rebellion. It also found that the justifications given for Western military intervention in Libya were largely based on media exaggerations and “outright disinformation.” The two organizations sent a six-member expert mission to Libya at the end of March to evaluate the situation and consult with representatives on both sides of the conflict. The report reveals that the Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC) is comprised of four factions: “true democrats,” which are a minority; partisans of a restoration of the monarchy that was overthrown by Qadhafi in 1969; Islamic extremists seeking the establishment of an Islamic state; and former figures in the Qadhafi regime who defected for opportunistic or other reasons. Many of the monarchists are also Islamists. The president of the NTC is a “traditionalist” who is “supported by the Islamists,” according to the authors of the report. The al Qaeda-affiliated Libyan Islamic Fighting Group is the “main pillar of the armed insurrection,” the report says. “Thus the military coalition under NATO leadership is supporting a rebellion that includes Islamic terrorists,” the authors write. “No one can deny that the Libyan rebels who are today supported by Washington were only yesterday jihadists killing American GIs in Iraq.” Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry pointed out on May 5 that “NATO is considering arming the rebels. That’s practically handing Libya over to the radical Islamic camp!” It appears the current military campaign in Libya may well facilitate that country falling to Islamists and into the Iranian orbit—an outcome prophesied by the Prophet Daniel.

Children Made to Sweat in Philadelphia Youth Camp

Recently I read this terrible story about how one father in PCG was horrified at the neglectful treatment his children endured at Philadelphia Youth Camp. There have long been stories insisting that Philadelphia Youth Camp does not come up to scratch in looking after the children in its care.

Those concerned about such matters will not find any comfort in Brad MacDonald's article:

Parents, Make Your Child Sweat!

(In the context of PCG I find this title quite cringe inducing.)

In five weeks, 144 teenagers from around the world will arrive on the campus of Herbert W. Armstrong College for our annual youth camp. Our camp is designed to ensure these young people go home mentally charged and focused, their attitudes and spirits refreshed and renewed.

We also plan to send them home utterly exhausted.

For three weeks, these teens will spend their days mountain biking, canoeing and practicing archery, as well as playing basketball, water polo, soccer, softball, volleyball and flag football. They will walk, and sometimes jog, between activities, as well as to breakfast, lunch and dinner. In the evenings they will engage in other taxing activities, including a track and field event and camp dances. And if all that activity isn’t strenuous enough, much of it will occur in daytime temperatures hovering in the mid 90s.

If you’re like me, simply reading that paragraph is enough to make you sweat.

Those unaware of what PCG is like will simply assume that this is a simple exhortation for people to look after their health by embracing a physical pursuits. But knowing that PCG is an authoritarian group, in which their leaders are given far too much leeway and the fruits of authoritarianism are allowed a very free hand within it, I find these exhortations concerning.

Gerald Flurry's New Doctrine: The Psalm 83 Nations are not with the King of the South

Gerald Flurry has changed Mystery of the Ages, The Proof of the Bible and Who or What is the Prophetic Beast?

Now he has changed how prophecies concerning the future King of the South is understood among PCG members.

The future King of the South is taught among many COGs to be a great Arab-Muslim combine who will arise, help to enslave Israel (the USA, Britain, and Israel) and later somehow provoke the European Empire to conquer the Arab world in a blitzkrieg attack.

PCG teaches that Iran is the King of the South. Most other COGs are more inclined to say it will be mainly composed of Arabs. Not least because Iran is east, not south, of Israel.

Daniel 11:40 is used to support this theory.

Another Scripture often used in regard to this is Psalm 83. As I understood it this Scripture was used by the COGs to say that later the Arabs will ally with Germany (Assyria) to defeat Israel (the USA, Britain and Israel).

However Gerald Flurry has put a new twist to this interpretation. He now says that the King of the South and the Psalm 83 nations are separate and distinct, and the Psalm 83 nations hate Israel even more than the King of the South.

He has revealed this 'new light' in the article A Mysterious Prophecy (The Philadelphia Trumpet, May-June, 2011).

These peoples’ enemies want to cut them off from being a nation (they are the descendants of the ancient nation of Israel). Their enemies don’t even want the world to remember the name of Israel!

The leader of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has vowed to wipe the Jewish nation off the map. The enemies of Psalm 83 have what appears to be an even deeper hatred. They even want to obliterate the biblical name of Israel forever! ...

“For they have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee: The tabernacles of Edom, and the Ishmaelites; of Moab, and the Hagarenes; Gebal, and Ammon, and Amalek; the Philistines with the inhabitants of Tyre [Lebanon]; Assur [Assyria or Germany] also is joined with them: they have holpen the children of Lot. Selah” (Psalm 83:5-8). Here are the modern names of these nations, as taught at Ambassador College under Herbert W. Armstrong: Edom—Turkey; Ishmaelites—Saudi Arabia; Moab—Jordan; Hagarenes—anciently dwelt in the land known as Syria today; Gebal—Lebanon; Ammon—also Jordan. (We cannot be extremely precise in this understanding, but it gives a good general idea of where these nations are today.)...

Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Libya and Ethiopia are missing from this list. They will be allied with Iran when they are conquered by a German-led Europe (Daniel 11:42-43).

It appears Iraq, with its massive oil reserves, will be solidly in the Iranian camp. I have predicted this would happen since the early 1990s!

This Psalm 83 nations doctrine is a completely new prophetic doctrine that I have never encountered among the COGs.

As far as I can tell it is true that Gerald Flurry preached that Iraq would be allied with the King of the South BUT Gerald Flurry has never taught that the Psalm 83 nations are distinct from and unaffiliated with the King of the South (Iran) before now.

Therefore his "I have predicted this [Iraq will ally with Iran] would happen since the early 1990s!" statement must be regarded as simply a distraction obscuring the fact that Gerald Flurry has changed this doctrine.

Those of us who understand these things must make it clear that Gerald Flurry has opportunistically changed this doctrine.

Thoughts on the Incident at Jisr al-Shughour, Syria

So today I hear that Syrian state media are now claiming 12o of the Assad regime's security personnel have been killed by armed gangs.

As far as I am concerned this is a lie or extremely distorted message produced by the Assad regime. Until this is independently confirmed one way or the other I will assume it is a lie or extremely distorted. I feel it is more likely the Assad regime itself murdered them and is now blaming the protesters. That is what one local resident of Jisr al-Shughour told the BBC:

But opposition websites insisted that their protests had been peaceful, and they scorned the government's talk of armed gangs. A Jisr al-Shughour resident told BBC Arabic that the protesters did not have any weapons and blamed the authorities for Monday's deaths. "The soldiers were coming our way, then they were shot in the back by some Syrian security elements," Abu Nadir said....

Others said that members of the armed forces had changed sides and joined the protests. Some also said the town had been relatively calm until a mutiny at the security headquarters, where so many deaths were reported. "I think they executed policemen who refused to open fire on demonstrators. There was a mutiny in the security service," one told the AFP news agency.

This is an excuse for the murderous and devious Assad regime to continue their reckless murders and tortures and their frightfulness that have already claimed more than 1100 precious lives of peaceful protesters, more than the uprising in Egypt.

I have read about how dictatorships operate. I remember reading in Berlin Diary how British Prime Minister Chamberlain was impressed by the crowds welcoming him on his visit to Germany. Safire wryly commented that he did not know that those crowds are organized by the ruling party.

Already I have heard of rumors that people are paid by the Syrian dictatorship to lie and claim to see atrocities committed by alleged armed gangs that did not happen.

I will admit for a little while I thought Bashar al-Assad would murder his oppressed victims into submission and win, but recently I now feel he will fall. And it cannot come too soon.

PCG Calls Srebrenica Massacre "a Crime of Passion"

PCG has always been supportive towards Serbs in regards towards the Yugoslav Wars. This was made clear in a previous post and PCG's hack writer Richard Palmer's article, What Really Happened at Bosnia continues in this tradition.

In this article Palmer, who has written for PCG since August 2007, breathlessly cites various atrocities committed by non-Serbs against Serbs, as though all of this information is being kept hidden from you. He cites one claim from the then Yugoslav government that

Yugoslav envoy Vladimir Pavicevic claimed that 15,000 Serbs were dead in Krajina, and that this total included slain refugees and soldiers who had already surrendered (Deutsche Presse-Agentur, Aug. 14, 1995).

He completely ignores the fact that Serbian state television has just apologized for its role as a propagandist during those dark and terrible days.

In the week of his [Ratko Mladic] arrest, Serbian state television finally apologised for its role in inciting the barbaric war through misinformation, deception and propaganda thinly disguised as news.

AP reported:

Radio Television of Serbia, or RTS, said in a statement posted on its website yesterday that the station's programme was "almost constantly and heavily abused'' by Milosevic's regime with the aim of discrediting his political and ethnic opponents and spreading official propaganda.

Liberal politician Marko Karadzic described the apology as a "positive step'' but said the television's managing board did not distance itself clearly enough from the past.

"RTS's programme was an organised campaign of support to the policies of extinction and violence which we cannot view as insult or slander,'' aid Karadzic.

(Remembering War Crimes and Media Obligations, Danny Schlechter.)

Contrary to what Palmer's assumption that the world, due to perfidious German influence has been blinded to the excesses and atrocities of non-Serbs the article above cites RTS's apology as an opportunity to call for Croatian TV to apologize as well.

It's time for Croatian TV to make a similar statement: this statement clearly defines the often complicit relationship between war and media showing how TV networks promote wars in the guise of covering them.

Too many media organisations took their cues from state propagandists.

Also in my previous post I cited an article, The Devolution of Ratko Mladic by Sumantra Bose, and it freely acknowledged that many Serbs did indeed suffer during those wars.

It is not that Bosnia's Serbs did not suffer during the 1992-1995 war. Far from it. There are numerous well-documented cases of Bosnian Serb civilians being murdered, forcibly expelled from their homes and tortured in detention camps by Bosnian Muslim as well as Bosnian Croat forces, and of Bosnian Serb combatants taken prisoner being brutally mistreated and even executed.

The Bosnian Serb army led by Ratko Mladic lost 20,649 soldiers, killed in action during the war. But the overall picture is unmistakable. Bosnia's Muslims, about 45 per cent of the population, account for two-thirds of the total deaths and - most telling - a staggering 83 per cent of the civilian dead.

That is the real reason why there is so much attention upon what Serb forces did during the Yugoslav Wars. It is not because of some German conspiracy to trick you into supporting moves designed to cripple Serbia's power. No one pretends that Serbs did not suffer during these wars.

Palmer also insinuates that the stresses of waging war contributed to the massacre at Srebrenica.

It was this hatred and circle of revenge that lead to the Srebrenica massacre....The Serbs finally reacted to [Bosnian Muslim] Oric’s provocations. When they took Screbrenica far more easily than they thought they would they took their revenge on the men they found there. But, unlike Oric, they let the women and children go....The full context presents a very different picture of Srebrenica. It was not a cold-hearted Nazi-style final solution for Bosnian Muslims. Instead it was a crime of passion—still a crime, but one that was provoked by crimes on the other side.

Palmer wishes to make us sympathetic towards the murderers of Srebrenica by calling it "a crime of passion". First of all everyone loses people in a war, that is why we all hate war.

I do not feel that rounding up unarmed men to be killed in a vast logistical operation involving 8000 people deserves to be whitewashed as "a crime of passion". As far as I understand it it is illegal to arrest people and then simply kill them. To call that "a crime of passion" is obscene.

If PCG wishes to support Serbia thinking it will weaken Germany and prevent the creation of the false prophet of 1975 Herbert Armstrong's European Empire then it is their affair but to whitewash the horrendous crime at Srebrenica as "a crime of passion" is obscene and, as far as I am concerned, is not a statement people of conscience would allow themselves to say, and therefore deserves to be condemned.