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Plans for a European army (in place of NATO) simply won't disappear and continue to resurface from time to time. The European Parliament is now considering proposals for setting up EU forces under EU command. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said at a May 5 security policy conference in Berlin that he favored the establishment of a European military force and that he wanted moves in this direction to be sped up. He also noted that the EU treaty currently being ratified byEU member states allows a group of member states to work together toward establishing a common defense policy.
According to Shadow Conservative Defence Secretary Liam Fox, Brussels should not get in the way of British forces in Afghanistan and other areas where EU policy could potentially undermine NATO. Dr. Fox stated: "This is another example of the EU getting involved in an area in which it has no business. NATO must maintain its primacy in European defence. Anything less, including a Euro army, is simply unacceptable" (Daily Express, June 5, 2008).
In the same article Geoffrey Van Orden, British Conservative policy spokesman concerning Defense in the European Parliament (EP), plainly stated the following: " This [Euro] report is a manifesto for an EU takeover of our armed forces-the greatest prize for the federalists and their ambition to create a state called Europe" (ibid., emphasis added throughout).
Van Orden is a member of the EP. The European Union wants to consolidate its powers, moving forward as quietly as possible on many fronts-eventually making Europe into one country with the present nation-states redrawn on the political map and reduced to the status of provinces-with a powerful Germany at the center of it all.
The Daily Telegraph reported that "there is rich symbolism in the fact that the former Conservative Central Office in Smith Square, Westminster, is to be renamed 'Europe House', as the new London headquarters of the European Commission" (June 1, 2008). Indeed there is-the European Union marches on! (Sources: Daily Express, The Daily Telegraph [both London], euobserver.com.)
Sex and the City was a U.S. cable TV mainstay for several seasons as it tracked the life and loves (numerous sexual encounters) of four fictional single New York women. No sooner had the series gone off the air than plans started for a feature-length movie sequel.
It's ironic timing that the week after the movie hit U.S. theaters, a city health department study found that more than one in four adult New Yorkers (26 percent) are infected with the sexually transmissible disease genital herpes. That's considerably higher than the already-high national rate of about 19 percent (nearly 1 in 5).
Herpes causes painful sores in some of those infected by it, although most show no recognizable symptoms. In New York the herpes rate is higher among women, blacks and homosexual men. Those infected by genital herpes have double the risk of contracting HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. (Source: Associated Press, June 9, 2008.)
I ran and Israel have exchanged threats and counter threats regularly in recent years. The difference is that Iranian leaders threaten Israel with total annihilation and Israel usually responds by saying that it will take the necessary steps to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons-the existence of which would give Tehran the means to destroy the Jewish nation.
This latest news emerged from Shaul Mofaz, a former defense minister in the Israeli cabinet and one of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's deputies. He is privy to private defense plans in the Israeli government and is a participant in the security cabinet. He clearly stated, "If Iran continues with its programme for developing nuclear weapons, we will attack it" (The Irish Times, June 7, 2008, emphasis added). He said these words to the Hebrew daily Yediot Aharonot.
In December 2001, then-Iranian president Hashemi Rafsanjani expressed the logic, as he saw it, of a nuclear attack on Israel-that such an attack would eliminate the Jewish state, but Israel in return could only temporarily set back the Islamic world. He believed it would be worth starting a war in which 15 million Muslims would die-since well over a billion would remain-if Israel would no longer exist.
But is such a calculation reasonable or close to accurate?
Anthony Cordesman, former director of intelligence assessment for the U.S. secretary of defense and currently a top analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, offers a different and profoundly disturbing view-that an Israel-Iran nuclear war would devastate the region and the entire world economy.
He believes that Israel, being a more advanced and organized society, could conceivably survive a nuclear exchange while losing 200,000 to 800,000 citizens within 21 days, but Iran would face 16 to 28 million dead in the same time frame and no longer survive as an organized society (United Press International, Nov. 22, 2007).
The difference, he points out, is that Israel is presumed to have better antimissile defenses and more warheads with vastly greater explosive yields (up to 10 times as powerful) with far more accurate delivery systems. He notes that the Iranian capital of Tehran, with its 15 million inhabitants packed into a basin surrounded by mountains, is a "nearly ideal nuclear killing ground."
Israel, Cordesman says, would need a "reserve strike capability to ensure no other power can capitalize on an Iranian strike"-meaning Israel would have to target such "key Arab neighbors" as Syria and Egypt. While a Syrian attack on Israel with chemical and biological weapons could kill another 800,000 Israelis, an Israeli nuclear attack on Syria would kill up to 18 million and finish Syria as a nation. A similar attack on Egypt would kill tens of millions of Egyptians.
Other damage from such a war would include major population centers in the region, the Suez Canal, ports, refineries and oil-producing centers.
While it would not be Armageddon for the human race, he says, it would be for the global economy, marking the end of the Oil Age, globalization and world economic growth and prosperity. "The only way to win is not to play," he concludes.
The stakes are indeed high in the Middle East, and Bible prophecy reveals that the region will see devastating warfare that will shake the entire world to its core. To learn more, request our free booklet . (Source: The Irish Times, United Press International.)
On May 15, 2008, four justices of the California Supreme Court dealt a huge blow against marriage and family by approving same-sex marriage, overturning the expressed desire of millions of state voters. Beginning June 16, thousands of homosexual couples across the state began obtaining marriage licenses on which the words "Party A" and "Party B" replaced "bride" and "groom."
The court decision overruled a 2000 state ballot initiative, approved by Californians by a 61-39 percent majority, defining marriage as only between a man and a woman. To their credit, clerks in some counties protested the ruling by refusing to perform marriage ceremonies altogether rather than officiate for homosexual couples.
Writing for the minority that opposed the court's ruling, one justice stated that the court "simply does not have the right to erase, then recast, the age-old definition of marriage, as virtually all societies have understood it, in order to satisfy its own contemporary notions of equality and justice" (emphasis added throughout).
Another justice wrote in a dissenting opinion that the court's decision "does that which it acknowledges it should not do: it redefines marriage because it believes marriage should be redefined."
What's really behind the push for gay marriage?
Advocates admit that it's really to further a homosexual agenda to transform society.
As one homosexual same-sex marriage proponent wrote: "A middle ground might be to fight for samesex marriage and its benefits and then, once granted, redefine the institution of marriage completely, to demand the right to marry not as a way of adhering to society's moral codes but rather to debunk a myth and radically alter an archaic institution."
"Being queer is more than setting up house, sleeping with a person of the same gender and seeking state approval to do so," wrote another. "Being queer means pushing the parameters of sex, sexuality and family, and in the process, transforming the very fabric of society . . . We must keep our eyes on the goals of providing true alternatives to marriage and radically reordering society's view of reality."
After the court decision was announced, an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Web site gloated: "We won the marriage case in California.
No need for hyperbole here; this is big. . . [Gay] marriage in California will transform the discussion of marriage nationwide . . . The fact that California is marrying same-sex couples will put considerable pressure on the rest of the country to recognize those marriages . . . Cultural change in California is usually a preview of what is to come in the rest of the United States . . . This was a prize of inestimable value."
Clearly the California court decision has major implications for the rest of the country. As one gay activist wrote: "The sheer number of [homosexual] couples who will marry (and divorce, it is California, after all), will forever change this debate. It will cause a legal mess, as many of these married couples-often with children-migrate to [other] states."
Underlying this reality is the fact that California has no residency requirement for a marriage license.
Georgetown University government professor Clyde Wilcox noted that many homosexual couples will come to California to marry, then return to their home states and sue to have their marriages recognized.
Thus the legal and moral chaos is likely to quickly spread throughout the nation. (Sources: Associated Press, Cybercast News Service, WorldNetDaily, ACLU Web site.)
The British government failed to keep its promise to its citizens to have a referendum to either approve or disapprove the Lisbon Treaty-which in reality is just a papering over of the already rejected European Constitution, since the actual contents are about 98 percent the same. But to give the Irish citizens their due, the Republic of Ireland conducted a public referendum on the Lisbon Treaty as required by its constitution-and they rejected it.
All 27 member states have to ratify the treaty. Only the Irish Republic has democratically held a referendum of its citizens. This Irish rejection is in spite of strong verbal pressure brought by Brussels and Irish politicians on the electorate.
One commentator had stated that "the prospect of a no vote in the Irish referendum next month on the European Union's Lisbon Treaty is something too dreadful to contemplate in Brussels and most other capitals of the EU member states"
(Financial Times, May 30, 2008). Yet leading up to the vote, Irish newspapers were full of protests by a few courageous politicians and journalists pointing out the flaws in the treaty.
The Irish citizenry took the matter much more seriously than most Europeans. In fact, most European citizens know little about the terms of the Lisbon Treaty and what it portends for the future. An article by Jamie Smyth, European correspondent for The Irish Times, bore this title: "Citizens of Europe United in Ignorance of the Treaty" (June 6, 2008).
As he noted later in the text, "The gap between Europe's citizens and what they know about the Lisbon Treaty is a big one." This ignorance enables the European Union to slowly take national sovereignty by stealth.
Yet citizens in the Irish Republic have stood in the gap. One observer stated, "The people of Ireland have shown enormous courage and wisdom in analyzing the facts presented to them and making the decision they have" (BBC News).
Some opposed the treaty because it could threaten Ireland's traditional military neutrality. "This treaty will increase militarization and neoconservatism of Europe," said Treasa O'Brien, who voted in Cork. "I'm pro-European, but the EU started as an economic system. The treaty will turn the EU into a super-state, and that was not its original intention" (The Los Angeles Times, June 13, 2008).
As explained in our free booklet , Europe is destined to become exactly that-the heart of a new economic and military superstate.
What happens next remains to be seen, since the treaty requires approval by all 27 EU nations to take effect. Presumably the treaty will be slightly reworked and put to another vote. Indeed, the treaty is already a largely cosmetic revision of the EU constitution rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005. Some are calling for a "two-speed Europe," wherein ratifying countries can start implementing the treaty. Of course, that violates the requirement of unanimity. In any case, despite the temporary setback, be sure that Europe's leaders will find a way to continue the process of political union. (Sources: Financial Times, The Irish Times, The Los Angeles Times, BBC News.)
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Keywords: European army Iran Israel nuclear war gay marriage Ireland
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