2012 ARCHIVED ARTICLES
March 2, 2012 - Koran Burning: Obama's Response
..In Afghanistan, three American soldiers were disposing of various damaged and unusable religious materials at NATO'S Bagram Air Force Base north of Kabul. Included in the items they were burning in the base's burn pit, were several copies of the Koran. These were Korans that the American government had purchased to provide free of charge to the jihadist prisoners held on the base. However, several of these books were damaged and some had been used by prisoners to pass messages and information, so the authorities decided to discard them.
When some Afghans who are employed by the U.S. government as workers on the base discovered that copies of the Koran were being burned, they pulled some of the unburned pages from the ashes and made a beeline for their friends. From there, word quickly spread that the Americans were desecrating the Holy Koran. Of course, the Taliban and al-Qaeda were only too happy to help spread the word and fan the flames, so to speak.
Before long, rioting spread across Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf region. Over the next several days, supposedly "loyal" Afghans turned on their American counterparts and killed them. As of today, six American soldiers are dead. The overall death toll now stands at about 40.
So the Obama Administration quickly got its act together and issued an... apology. In fact, several apologies. The President, the Defense Secretary, the American general leading the coalition forces all apologized. Obama by letter to the treacherous Afghan president Hamid Karzai, the others by television. The President even promised to "hold accountable those responsible."
So, how is that going to work? Unless something is buried deep in the Obamacare bill that former Speaker Pelosi hasn't discovered yet, I don't believe U.S. law forbids the burning of a Koran. On the other hand, some observers say that Afghan law may require the death penalty for desecration by a non-Muslim. American service members are governed by the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), which is predicated on U.S. laws. Afghan law in this case could be translated "Sharia" law.
One can guess that this is going to be quite a headache for President Obama. Should he hand our soldiers over to the Afghanis to be tried in a Sharia court? That would be a sticky wicket for a government that screams about the "wall of separation" between church and state at every opportunity. That would also imply that he honors Sharia law above our own. Or, should he insist on whatever "discipline" -- if any -- that might be called for under the UCMJ. Keeping in mind, of course, that in America you can burn a Bible, a stack of Bibles, a cross, a flag, even a bra!
However, the thing that I find interesting is that the President can dash off a personal apology to an entire country and require his top military people to do the same over the proper (by the way) disposal of some already-desecrated Korans. Yet, all he and the State Department can manage are tepid press statements scolding Iran for sentencing a Christian to die for choosing, as a teenager, Jesus Christ over Mohammed. We should not be apologizing to Afghanistan and Karzai. We should be demanding that Karzai bring to justice those who have taken the lives of six Americans and dozens of Afghans. And, we should be demanding that Iran release Pastor Nadarkhani or suffer the outrage of America and the West.
February 24, 2012 - Gas Prices: Obama's Damaging Policy
By early February, the national average for a gallon of regular unleaded was $3.56. That's not the highest it's ever been, but gasoline prices have never been this high this early in the season. It's interesting, too, that demand for gasoline is also at record levels -- record LOWS and falling! According to MasterCard, demand fell by 3.1% in recent days and is 5% below last year. And even though Europe has had a brutal winter, this has been a rather mild one for the US. Yet, heating fuel prices have not fallen despite the fact that Americans used far less heating oil than expected this year.
Some observers credit the fact that Saudi Arabia has cut production by more than 250,000 barrels per day. Also, Iran decided to punish Europe for threatening to impose fuel sanctions. The Iranians announced they will stop sending more than 300,000 barrels per day to France, England, and Germany.
So, there seems to be no easy answer to the most popular question these days, "Why?" Why are fuel prices rising when demand is falling?
And, it appears the Obama administration is not going to take advantage of a golden opportunity to drive those prices down, put tens of thousands to work, and decrease our dependence on Arab oil.
Canada has more oil reserves than Saudi Arabia. Because of new technologies not available just a few years ago, Canada has been able to begin successfully recovering that crude oil. The Canadians announced that they wanted to sell that oil to their neighbors to the south. That's us! So the private sector got busy and in 2005 began developing and building a pipeline that would move Canadian crude from northeastern Alberta province to refineries throughout the Midwest and on down to the Gulf Coast states.
Talk about a bonanza! The mammoth pipeline project is privately funded. No government stimulus funds needed. It will employ tens of thousands in construction-related jobs and maybe hundreds of thousands in related industries as the project grows and the oil is finally pumping. And there's so much oil available, it will help make us less dependent on Arab oil. And it will help drive down the refined prices because, currently, Saudi oil is selling for $105 a barrel while Canadian oil is going for $33 per barrel. Some analysts speculate that within a few years, by combining our reserves with Canada's, America could become a net oil exporter. We could sell oil to fuel-hungry China and maybe get some of our money back!
Sounds like a no-brainer, right? Wrong! Remember, we are now living in a "progressive" society. There's no such thing as a "no-brainer" anymore. You see, our President is either so ideologically bound or so financially beholden to the environmentalist lobby that he feels obligated to do its bidding. So, on January 18, President Obama announced he was rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline project.
You see, he first tried to "postpone" his final decision until 2013 so he wouldn't have to antagonize the environmentalists going into the 2012 general elections. Congress would have none of that, though. So they passed legislation requiring him to make a decision within 60 days or formally reject the project.
Then, President Obama complained that his government didn't have time to do an effective environmental survey. That excuse brazenly ignored the fact that his own State Department had already issued an environmental impact study in 2010 that gave the project the environmental "green light." So, the so-called "smartest President" in American history caved to the far Left and said "no" to a "no-brainer." Even many in his own party are outraged.
Canada had already declared that they intended to sell the oil. If not to their closest neighbors (that's us), then to someone else. It is now late February and the Canadians have already begun signing agreements with the Chinese to build the pipeline to Canada's west coast and begin shipping the crude to China.
For a more complete discussion on this issue, please play the video below. (This story begins at 10-minutes into the video).
January 27, 2012 - Replacement Theology
Whether you call it 'Preterism' or 'Dominionism' matters not. The underlying dogma is "Replacement Theology." And it espouses just what its name implies: replacement. It presumes to replace the truth of God's irrevocable oath and promises to Abraham and his descendants with an untruth eked out of thin air by doctrinaires who are nothing more than "alchemists of allegory." I call them that because they insist that the promises made to Israel are nothing more than allegory. And they use the elements of allegory to concoct their hypothesis, which is that those covenants and promises now belong, in fact, to the gentile Church. God took them away from the Jews and gave them to the Church when the Jews rejected Jesus as Messiah.
As each day passes, we see events move rapidly toward the isolation and abandonment of Israel by the West. Every day, we learn something new -- and often shocking -- about what's going on behind the scenes in the relationship between the United States and Israel. And if you've watched this program for any length of time, you know that I believe this shunning of our great ally will not end well for our nation.
But this is more than just a political or foreign policy issue. For America, I believe our relationship with Israel is a matter of national life and death. I firmly believe that we have been blessed as a nation because we have blessed and protected God's people, the Jews, and the state of Israel.
But not everyone -- not even every Christian -- believes as I do. In fact, you may be surprised at how many Christians think that the Jews and Israel are no longer a part of God's plan. That implies that we have no obligation to stand by Israel! In fact, even in the daily news there is ongoing and vigorous debate in both civic and religious circles over America's traditional support of the Jewish state.
It is so critically important for the Church to understand this issue in the closing days of this Age, that I'm going to address it again this week. In doing so, I'll debunk the system of theology that threatens the Church and could actually bring our nation under God's curse because of its disregard for His promises and covenants.
And this dangerous doctrine directly affects you, whether you know it or not. Simply put, if God, as the Preterists insist, reneged on His "irrevocable" covenant with Abraham, then what assurance do you have that He'll stand by the promise of eternal life in heaven that He extended to you when you accepted the gift of pardon Christ purchased with His atoning death on the cross?
Fortunately for all believers, though, God is no liar. He stands by His promises and covenants. That is the foundation of our hope in Christ.
[ed. note: these articles may be edited for brevity, but every effort is made to retain 100% of the meaning and to use nothing out of context.]
View The Hal Lindsey reort Report on www.hallindsey.com or www.hischannel.com