DISCLAIMER: We love Michael Snyder and appreciate his well-written and insightful articles, but we have to agree to disagree when it comes to his viewpoints concerning the Rapture and the Tribulation. We want to make it clear that we in no way endorse or approve of his Post Tribulation viewpoint nor his new book, "The Rapture Verdict." We believe that the Bible clearly teaches that the Church will not go through the Great Tribulation, but will be Raptured prior to the beginning of this time of Jacob's Trouble. Furthermore, we believe the Bible teaches that the Tribulation period can't even begin until we are taken out of the way! Some pre-tribulation ministries have completely banned Michael Snyder. For the time being, we will continue to post his very popular articles, but only with this disclaimer included.
--------------------------
Winds of War: Is Russia Conducting a Massive Mobilization of Troops for an Invasion of Ukraine? - By Michael Snyder - http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/winds-of-war-is-russia-conducting-a-massive-mobilization-of-troops-for-an-invasion-of-ukraine
The drumbeats of war are growing louder. Fighting in eastern Ukraine between separatists and pro-government forces has risen to an intensity not seen in well over a year, and the Russians claim that they recently foiled a "Ukrainian plot" to conduct terror attacks in Crimea. As tensions in the region have increased, the Russians have used the cover of "military drills" to move massive amounts of troops and military equipment up to the border with Ukraine. This is something that I wrote about a couple of weeks ago, but things have intensified since then, and a huge military exercise is planned for September. Needless to say, the Ukrainians are quite alarmed by this, and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is warning that a full scale mobilization of the Ukrainian military may be needed. If something is going to happen, it is likely to happen soon. As you will see below, once we get into October it will become much less likely that we would see a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
We aren't hearing much about this conflict in the U.S. media, but over in Europe this is a very big deal. Just consider the following excerpt from an article in the Independent entitled "Russia is teetering on the brink of 'all out war' with Ukraine"...
Ukraine is holding a major military parade in Kiev today to mark its 25th anniversary as an independent state. But, at a time that should otherwise be a moment of national celebration, a serious crisis with Moscow is flaring up. So serious, in fact, that on Tuesday the Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande were forced to hold a three-way phone call to try to de-escalate the situation.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has even warned that there is growing risk of a "full scale Russian invasion along all fronts," ratcheting up what is already the bloodiest European conflict since the wars over the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
And the truth is that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has some very good reasons to be concerned. As the Washington Post has pointed out, the Russians have used military exercises as an excuse to stage forces for military action in the past...
As violence in the east heats up, Ukrainian officials have suggested that Russia may use the upcoming military drills, called Kavkaz (Caucasus) 2016, as cover for military action against Ukraine. The drills are the first to integrate the Crimean Peninsula, which was annexed by Russia in 2014, into the country's military planning, and thousands of Russian troops will be brought in for air, land and sea exercises.
Ukrainian government analysts have recalled that exercises served as staging grounds for troop incursions in 2014, as did Russian military exercises held shortly before the Georgian war of 2008. Ukraine's ambassador to the United Nations suggested that Russia may have "bad intentions," while the West has also said it would like observers to be present.
If there is going to be a Russian invasion of Ukraine in September, Kavkaz 2016 will likely be used as cover for invasion preparations. It is a yearly exercise, but in 2016 it looks like it will be much bigger than ever before, and some analysts have pointed out that the Russians have not conducted a mobilization on this scale since the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Here is more on Kavkaz 2016 from the Daily Signal...
In September, Russia has plans for a large-scale strategic military exercise called Kavkaz-2016. The exercise, which is an annual event, will include units deployed near the borders of Ukraine, Georgia, and Azerbaijan-including two Russian military districts in the Southern and Northern Caucasus, the Russian Black Sea Fleet (headquartered in occupied Crimea), and the Caspian Flotilla.
It is not immediately clear the exact size of this year's exercise, but last year it comprised 95,000 troops, 7,000 vehicles, and 150 aircraft, according to a report by IHS Markit, a U.K.-based intelligence and analysis firm.
If the Russians are going to do something, they need to do it soon, because the weather turns very bad during the month of October. Here is one how one analyst assessed the situation...
"But will there be a war - we'll see, no much time for guessing left... In this situation, the main thing for Russia is to achieve strategic and tactical surprise. And if she does not start now - then it will be too late. One would need to turn off full-scale operations in October because of the rains and the next draft to Russian army (it would mean the demobilization of current wave of conscripts and training the new ones - UT)."
A Russian invasion of Ukraine would mean that Russian relations with the U.S. and with Europe would immediately plunge to Cold War levels. Of course some would argue that we are already there. In any event, a Russian invasion would force the U.S. and NATO to make some very uncomfortable decisions.
Would the U.S. and NATO just stand by and do nothing while Ukraine is overrun by the Russians?
Maybe.
But if the U.S. and NATO responded with military force, that would risk a full scale nuclear confrontation with Russia.
Right now, a war with Russia is about the last thing that most Americans are thinking about, but the truth is that we are not that far away from such a scenario.
Over in Russia, the mindset is totally different. The following is from a Newsweek article entitled "In Europe and Russia, There's Talk of War"...
Recently, I grabbed a taxi in Moscow. When the driver asked me where I was from, I told him the United States. "I went there once," he said, "to Chicago. I really liked it."
"But tell me something," he added. "When are we going to war?"
The question, put so starkly, so honestly, shocked me. "Well, I hope never," I replied. "No one wants war."
At the office, I ask a Russian employee about the mood in his working class Moscow neighborhood. The old people are buying salt, matches and gretchka [buckwheat], he tells me-the time-worn refuge for Russians stocking up on essentials in case of war.
In the past two months, I've traveled to the Baltic region, to Georgia, and to Russia. Talk of war is everywhere.
Most Americans don't realize that Russians already view the United States more negatively than they did even during the height of the Cold War. On Russian television they openly talk about the inevitability of a war between the United States and Russia, and the Russian military has feverishly been preparing for such a future conflict.
If we can get to October, we can probably breathe a bit of a sigh of relief because the Russians are not likely to conduct an invasion once the weather turns bad.
But for now there are very good reasons to be concerned, and we shall see what happens over the coming weeks...
Erdogan tells US: Stop backing the Kurds - http://www.debka.com/article/25637/Erdogan-tells-US-Stop-backing-the-Kurds
US-Turkish discord over the Turkish army's onslaught on the Kurds of northern Syria reached a new low Wednesday, Aug. 30, when the presidential palace spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said in Ankara: "The US must revise its policy of supporting Kurdish forces."
The demand came after a senior US official called on "all the armed actors in the fight against the Islamic State in northern Syria to stand down," in an effort to contain the new conflict dragging northern Syria into further chaos.
The call was addressed equally to Ankara to freeze its military operations in Syria and to the Kurdish PYD-YPG militia to halt the flow of fraternal reinforcements for defending Mabij, the Syrian town the militia wrested from ISIS earlier this month with US assistance.
debkafile's military sources report that the Turkish army and Kurdish forces are already tensely aligned for a decisive battle over Manbij that will determine the outcome of the Turkish invasion of Aug. 24. President Tayyip Erdogan calculates that a Turkish victory will force the Kurds to retreat to the eastern bank of the Euphrates and away from the Turkish border, while Kurdish leaders are determined to halt the Turkish army at the gates of the town, and so brand the invasion a fiasco and carry off an epic victory.
The Obama administration is making a huge effort to avert this confrontation. In the hope of reining in the Turks, Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Ankara on the day their army crossed the Syrian border and met them halfway by issuing an ultimatum to the Kurds to withdraw to east of the Euphrates or else lose US support.
Unheeding of the US warning, the Kurds went forward to build up their fighting strength and engage the Turkish army.
Ankara suspects that the Americans are continuing notwithstanding to give the Kurds weapons and assistance on the quiet
Washington fears that a Turkish-Kurdish showdown in Manbij will further destabilize the military situation such as it is in northern Syria and northern Iraq, and all their efforts to persuade the Kurds to lead the ground forces of the coalition offensives against ISIS will go for nothing.
In an earlier report on Monday, debkafile covered the conflict between Turkey and the Kurds as it unfolded after the Turkish invasion.
An all-out Turkish-Kurdish war has boiled over in northern Syria since the Turkish army crossed the border last Wednesday, Aug. 24 for the avowed aim of fighting the Islamic State and pushing the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia back. Instead of falling back, the Kurds went on the offensive and are taking a hammering. This raging confrontation has stalled the US-led coalition offensive against ISIS and put on indefinite hold any US plans for campaigns to drive the jihadists out of their Syrian and Iraqi capitals of Raqqa and Mosul.
The Kurdish militia ground troops, who were backed by the US and assigned the star role in these campaigns, are now fully engaged in fighting Turkey. And, in another radical turnaround, Iraqi Kurdish leaders (of the Kurdish Regional Republic) have responded by welcoming Iran to their capital, in retaliation for the US decision to join forces with Turkey at the expense of Kurdish aspirations.
The KRG's Peshmerga are moreover pitching in to fight with their Syrian brothers. Together, they plan to expel American presence and influence from both northern Syria and northern Iraq in response to what they perceive as a US sellout of the Kurds.
debkafile's military analysts trace the evolving steps of this escalating complication of the Syrian war and its wider impact:
Since cleansing Jarablus of ISIS, Turkey has thrown large, additional armored and air force into the battle against the 35.000-strong YPG Kurdish fighters. This is no longer just a sizeable military raid, as Ankara has claimed, but a full-fledged war operation. Turkish forces are continuing to advancing in three directions and by Sunday, Aug. 28 had struck 15-17km deep inside northern Syria across a 100km wide strip.
Their targets are clearly defined: the Kurdish enclave of Afrin in northwest Syria and the Kurdish enclave of Qamishli and Hassaka in the east, in order to block the merger of Kurdish enclaves into a contiguous Syrian Kurdish state.
Another goal was Al-Bab north of and within range of Aleppo for a role in a major theater of the Syrian conflict. To reach Al-Bab, the Turkish force would have to fight its way through Kurdish-controlled territory.
The Turks are also using a proxy to fight the Syrian Kurds. Thousands of Syrian Democratic Army (SDF) rebels, whom they trained and supplied to fight Syria's Bashar Assad army and the Islamic State, have been diverted to targeting the Kurds under the command of Turkish officers, to which Turkish elite forces are attached.
A Turkish Engineering Corps combat unit is equipped for crossing the Euphrates River and heading east to push the Kurds further back. Contrary to reports, the Turkish have not yet crossed the river itself or pushed the Kurds back - only forded a small stream just east of Jarablus. The main Kurdish force is deployed to the south not the east of the former ISIS stronghold.
Neither have Turkish-backed Syrian forces captured Manbij, the town 35km south of Jarablus which the Kurds with US support captured from ISIS earlier this month. Contrary to claims by Ankara's spokesmen, those forces are still only 10-15km on the road to Mabij.
Sunday, heavy fighting raged around a cluster of Kurdish villages, Beir Khoussa and Amarneh, where the Turks were forced repeatedly to retreat under Kurdish counter attacks. Some of the villages were razed to the ground by the Turkish air force and tanks. At least 35 villagers were reported killed.
In four days of fierce battles, the Kurds suffered 150 dead and the Turkish side, 60.
debkafile military sources also report preparations Sunday to evacuate US Special Operations Forces and helicopter units from the Rmeilan air base near the Syrian-Kurdish town of Hassaka. If the fighting around the base intensifies, they will be relocated in northern Iraq.
Fighters of the Iraqi-Kurdish Peshmerga were seen removing their uniforms and donning Syrian YPG gear before crossing the border Sunday and heading west to join their Syrian brothers in the battle against Turkey.
The KRG President Masoud Barazani expects to travel to Tehran in the next few days with an SOS for Iranian help against the US and the Turks. On the table for a deal is permission from Irbil for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards to win their first military bases in the Iraqi Kurdish republic, as well as transit for Iranian military forces to reach Syria through Kurdish territory..
All-out Turkish-Kurd war - Kurdistan President Barazani goes to Tehran - http://www.debka.com/article/25637/All-out-Turkish-Kurd-war-Barazani-goes-to-Tehran
An all-out Turkish-Kurdish war has boiled over in northern Syria since the Turkish army crossed the border last Wednesday, Aug. 24 for the avowed aim of fighting the Islamic State and pushing the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia back. Instead of falling back, the Kurds went on the offensive and are taking a hammering. This raging confrontation has stalled the US-led coalition offensive against ISIS and put on indefinite hold any US plans for campaigns to drive the jihadists out of their Syrian and Iraqi capitals of Raqqa and Mosul.
The Kurdish militia ground troops, who were backed by the US and assigned the star role in these campaigns, are now fully engaged in fighting Turkey. And, in another radical turnaround, Iraqi Kurdish leaders (of the Kurdish Regional Republic) have responded by welcoming Iran to their capital, in retaliation for the US decision to join forces with Turkey at the expense of Kurdish aspirations.
The KRG's Peshmerga are moreover pitching in to fight with their Syrian brothers. Together, they plan to expel American presence and influence from both northern Syria and northern Iraq in response to what they perceive as a US sellout of the Kurds.
debkafile's military analysts trace the evolving steps of this escalating complication of the Syrian war and its wider impact:
Since cleansing Jarablus of ISIS, Turkey has thrown large, additional armored and air force into the battle against the 35.000-strong YPG Kurdish fighters. This is no longer just a sizeable military raid, as Ankara has claimed, but a full-fledged war operation. Turkish forces are continuing to advancing in three directions and by Sunday, Aug. 28 had struck 15-17km deep inside northern Syria across a 100km wide strip.
Their targets are clearly defined: the Kurdish enclave of Afrin in northwest Syria and the Kurdish enclave of Qamishli and Hassaka in the east, in order to block the merger of Kurdish enclaves into a contiguous Syrian Kurdish state.
Another goal was Al-Bab north of and within range of Aleppo for a role in a major theater of the Syrian conflict. To reach Al-Bab, the Turkish force would have to fight its way through Kurdish-controlled territory.
The Turks are also using a proxy to fight the Syrian Kurds. Thousands of Syrian Democratic Army (SDF) rebels, whom they trained and supplied to fight Syria's Bashar Assad army and the Islamic State, have been diverted to targeting the Kurds under the command of Turkish officers, to which Turkish elite forces are attached.
A Turkish Engineering Corps combat unit is equipped for crossing the Euphrates River and heading east to push the Kurds further back. Contrary to reports, the Turkish have not yet crossed the river itself or pushed the Kurds back - only forded a small stream just east of Jarablus. The main Kurdish force is deployed to the south not the east of the former ISIS stronghold.
Neither have Turkish-backed Syrian forces captured Manbij, the town 35km south of Jarablus which the Kurds with US support captured from ISIS earlier this month. Contrary to claims by Ankara's spokesmen, those forces are still only 10-15km on the road to Mabij.
Sunday, heavy fighting raged around a cluster of Kurdish villages, Beir Khoussa and Amarneh, where the Turks were forced repeatedly to retreat under Kurdish counter attacks. Some of the villages were razed to the ground by the Turkish air force and tanks. At least 35 villagers were reported killed.
In four days of fierce battles, the Kurds suffered 150 dead and the Turkish side, 60.
debkafile military sources also report preparations Sunday to evacuate US Special Operations Forces and helicopter units from the Rmeilan air base near the Syrian-Kurdish town of Hassaka. If the fighting around the base intensifies, they will be relocated in northern Iraq.
Fighters of the Iraqi-Kurdish Peshmerga were seen removing their uniforms and donning Syrian YPG gear before crossing the border Sunday and heading west to join their Syrian brothers in the battle against Turkey.
The KRG President Masoud Barazani expects to travel to Tehran in the next few days with an SOS for Iranian help against the US and the Turks. On the table for a deal is permission from Irbil for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards to win their first military bases in the Iraqi Kurdish republic, as well as transit for Iranian military forces to reach Syria through Kurdish territory..
Prophecy Clock: Russian missiles at Iran's nuke site - Bill Wilson - www.dailyjot.com
AFP reports that Iran has deployed Russian-supplied S-300 missiles around its nuclear plant near Qom. The system is aimed at the sky to protect the plant from attack. This comes after the revelation that pallets of Euros, Swiss Francs and other currencies totaling some $400 million were delivered by plane to Iran after the current US "president" negotiated a nuclear deal with the terrorist state. The money was ransom paid to Iran for the release of hostages the terrorist-sponsoring nation was holding during the negotiations. While the White House said there was nothing unusual with the ransom, historians are now saying it is unprecedented. The US cash likely made the Russian missile purchase possible.
It has been speculated for decades that Russia is part of the Biblical end time battle found in Ezekiel 38 and 39, but there is no mention of the country in scripture. Ezekiel 38:2-3 says, "Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him, And say, Thus says the Lord God; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal." This prophecy contains only current Islamic-Arab nations as located on modern maps: Magog (Turkey), Meshek (Turkey), Tubal (Turkey), Gomer (Turkey), Togarmah (Turkey), Persia (Iran), Ethiopia/Cush (Sudan), Libya/Put (Libya), Sheba (Egypt and Saudi Arabia), and Dedan (Saudi Arabia).
The United States of America is also not mentioned in the Bible. We know, however, just as Russia has played an anti-Israel role in history, America, until the past decade, has played a positive role in history toward Israel. That changed when President George W Bush politically forced Israel to abandon Gaza to the Palestinian Authority and removed Jewish settlers from their land. But the current "president" has placed America at odds with Israel by assisting the Muslim Brotherhood with Arab Spring, negotiating with the terrorist state of Iran and propping up its nuclear agenda, and many other numerous policy shifts that elevated radical Islam over the only democratic free state in the Middle East-Israel.
Zechariah 12:3 says, "And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it." While we may not be able to stop the march of prophecy, we can determine our place in it. As a nation that will also be judged, Americans need to be just as worried as Russians about where their leaders are placing them in Biblical prophecy. Jesus said in Matthew 25:32, "And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats." These nations will be judged based on how they treated the least of his brethren.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.