Imagine if an Antiwar Candidate Wins in 2008!

Yesterday my left-turn signal fritzed out, so I had to go to a service station (it just needed a new bulb). While I was waiting for the repair, I had the chance to peruse some of the magazines in their lobby area, including The Philadelphia Trumpet, which "seeks to show how current events are fulfilling the biblically prophesied description of the prevailing state of affairs just before the Second Coming of Jesus Christ." (Oh, goody.) I was intrigued by the cover story: "Democratic Victory: Dangerous Turn for America?"

I can't quite figure these folks out. They want Jesus to come back, so in their understanding (if one can call it that) of Scripture, global chaos including war, terrorism, disease, natural disasters and climate change are auspicious signs. They claim that world history is unfolding exactly as it was foretold thousands of years ago; yet they are furious with the American government for failing to stop it. Huh?

In this essay, the Trumpet's Editor-in-Chief Gerald Flurry asserts that "[s]uddenly the top Democratic candidates for the 2008 presidency are insisting that the United States pull out of Iraq very quickly." Conceding that "polls show a majority of Americans agree," Flurry argues that we are "ignoring the larger implications of this war," which can only be understood by "go[ing] back in history to see terrorism's roots."

As Flurry sees it, terrorism began in Iran in 1979, after "liberals" and "the media" helped overthrow the Shah because they thought he was too undemocratic. Ayatollah Khomeini seized power, and it's been all downhill from there. (Never mind that President Bush overthrew Saddam Hussein because he was "too undemocratic" and...well, you know.)

Then in 1981, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat (who had dramatically improved diplomatic relations with Israel) was assassinated "almost immediately afterward, in just days" following a 60 Minutes interview when Mike Wallace (aka, "the liberal media") told the Ayatollah "that Sadat had called him a 'lunatic'."

Flurry worries that the current Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, "could be assassinated just as Anwar el-Sadat was, or taken out of the picture some other way," which might open the door for a radical Islamist government which would form an alliance with Iran.

This, according to Flurry, is foretold by Daniel 11:42. You see, Flurry has identified President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as "the King of the South" who Daniel says will be victorious in a predicted Persian power-struggle. (Nevermind that technically Ahmadinejad is not a king, and he's from northern Iran. Nevermind also that Ahmadinejad and the majority of Iranians are Shiites, and Egypt, like almost the entire rest of the Muslim world, is Sunni. To see how well Shiites and Sunnis form alliances, please refer to Iraq, Federal Catastrofuck of.)

So Daniel foretold an evil alliance between Persia (read: Iran) and Egypt as one of the signs of the End Times. Now all we have to do, says Flurry, is stop it. "President Bush labeled Iran, Iraq and North Korea the 'axis of evil.' Iraq’s government has been toppled. However, America can’t win this war unless it also removes Iran’s leadership. But American (and British) leaders are overwhelmingly liberal, and the press is dangerously pacifist. Our peoples lack the will to win this war against terrorism."

Because that's what's going wrong in Iraq, you know. You and I don't want victory bad enough. We're too easily discouraged by the more than 3,500 American deaths, the tens of thousands of Iraqi deaths, the total absence of political stability, the lack of planning, the ignorance of regional culture and history, the incompetence, the $1.2 trillion wasted and perhaps even the lies that got us to this point. Biblical prophecy is being fulfilled all around us, and we liberals are apparently just letting it happen. Shame on us. Jesus would be so disappointed that we just don't have the willpower to sustain a long, bloody war. He wants to come back, He really does, but we just can't get it together to blow up enough people and destabilize the planet to the point where it's foretold that He can. Or something.

"If Iraq falls to this terrorist nation, which seems close to happening," warns Flurry, "then Iran could control an enormous area that contains a gigantic share of the world’s oil!" (Remember, Jesus had his head anointed with oil, not ethanol, you global-warming hoax pushers!)

From where Flurry stands, things don't look good. "Imagine what will happen in Iraq if an antiwar candidate wins the 2008 election!"