In Revelation 6:8, we are told of the opening of the fourth seal and the release of Death and Hades. They will be given dominion over a quarter of the world, bringing with them death through conflict, disease, and hunger. We have argued that they have been already released upon the world, given that a quarter of the world – most of the Middle East and a large part of Africa – is now engulfed in conflict. Though things may seem bad, the prophecies of Revelation indicate that things will only worsen over time.
The mass media paints a picture that all of this turmoil is the fault of Muslim ‘terrorists’, and that they are the cause for all the conflict in this region of the world. However, the mass media has shown a large propensity to merely spout propaganda to support their own agenda.
If we examine America’s military expenditures, its invasions, its drone attacks, and its military support of various groups, we get a very different picture.
US Military Expenditures
The Federal government budge for military expenditures has grown rapidly since the year 2000, despite the fact that we have not declared war on any nation.
Trillions have been spent on building up the greatest peace-time war machine the world have ever seen. To appreciate the enormity of this spending, we need to view it verses different metrics. When compared with the military spending of other nations, America has outspent the next 7 nations combined.
The military budgets seen in the graph above, are annual budgets. America is massively outspending the rest of the world every year.
Perhaps a more dramatic metric is view US military spending as a percentage of discretionary Federal spending.
Every year, the Federal government dedicates half of its discretionary spending on military expenditures – one half! The educational system is a mess, with college graduates being burden with a lifetime of debt — the military budget is over 8 times as large as the entire Federal educational budget. The heath care system is a mess — America is the most costly health care system in the whole world. Obamacare is driving up the cost of health insurance, which is making it ever harder for regular households to stay out of debt. The military budget is 9 times larger than Federal money spend on health care for US citizens. Surely, the Federal government must have a good reason for caring more for its military than the education and health of its citizens?
The media would have us believe that America is ‘at war with terrorism’, but what does that mean in practice? America is spending incredible amount of money on its military because it is very active bombing and killing people around the world – at this point, mostly Muslim civilians (whom the military deem as ‘terrorists’). The mass media would have us believe that America is merely responding to ‘terrorist threats’, however, I would argue that US military action has been a major cause for the chaos in many parts of the Middle East and Africa.
US Military Action and the Dominion of Death and Hades
The US invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein was a major catalyst for the death and suffering that has engulfed that part of the world. The US invaded Iraq in 2003, with the stated purpose ‘to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein’s support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people’ . As it happened after the 9/11 bombing in New York, one might assume that the CIA had linked Saddam to the terrorist act and Bush was only trying to get revenge. However it turns out that not only did Saddam not have any weapons of mass destruction, but that also he did not have any direct links to the 9/11 terrorists – the Saudi government was the country found to have direct links to the terrorists. As far the Iraqi people go, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Iraqis, have died since the US invasion and overthrow of Saddam, and the country is still suffering from civil war and violence.
Whatever might have been Bush’s motivation, the seemingly unprovoked invasion of Iraq and overthrow of Saddam Hussein set off a series of events that has resulted in the chaos we now see in Iraq and Syria with ISIS. The overthrow of Saddam resulted in Sunni-Shiite rivalry morphing into open conflict, as Sunni’s started terrorist bombings of Shiites. The Sunni Kingdoms have been linked to funding of ISIS, just as Turkey has also been funding ISIS via purchase of oil ISIS pumps from its territories – all of whom are supposedly US allies in the region.
The US military was not content with the chaos they caused in Iraq. In 2011, the US moved to destabilize and overthrow the government of Muammar Gaddafi of Libya. The US used air power and naval power to degrade and neutralize government military assets, allowing rebel forces to overcome and defeat Gaddafi’s army. Since his overthrow, the country remains in a perpetual state of civil war, as rival factions fight for control of the nation and its oil. This instability has spread to other the neighboring countries in North Africa, as other Muslim military groups form and struggle to overthrow their current governments.
The US military activity in Africa gets scant attention in the mass media, but active they have been. Below is a rough representation of US military activity on the continent, from drone strikes, to establishment of military bases, to special operations activities.
I would liken the US continual attacks on Muslim civilians, aka terrorists, as an attempt to put out an oil fire with water. If you are frying chicken and somehow it catches on fire, if you attempt to put out that fire with water, all you end up doing is spreading the fire and making things worse. I would argue that the US war machine’s attempts to kill Muslims via drones and bombings and military invasions has only resulted in spreading terrorist groups all across the Middle East and Africa. The trillions of dollars the US is spending on their ‘war on terrorism’ has only exacerbated the situation. Perhaps the ‘collateral damage’ of innocent civilians being bombed by drones (which I find hard to distinguish from a terrorist bombing of civilians in the West) has only caused the radicalization of even more Muslims. Needless to say, the US military efforts will fail, just as they failed to overcome the North Vietnamese in the Vietnam war — Revelations tells us this by inference.
The US military war machine’s reaction to its failure is one of denial. Their solution is the increased use of military force — and an increase in the military budget. Having failed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, the US is now trying to overthrow the Assad regime of Syria. The mass media uses the same propaganda — Assad is a bad person, who uses chemical weapons. America wants to ‘free’ the Syrian people. However, unlike other Muslim nations the US is attacking, the Syrian regime is being protected by the Russians. Undaunted, the US is now looking to pick a fight with the Russians. We will discuss this more in a later post.
Death and Hades have been released and now have established their dominion over a quarter of the world, with much of the Middle East and Africa now caught up in war and civil conflict. The US military has played a role in spreading this turmoil with its overthrow of different Muslim governments and its ongoing drone attacks on Muslim civilians. Revelation tells us that things will only get worse as we head further into the End of Days.
News Links
US Military spending
https://www.nationalpriorities.org/campaigns/military-spending-united-states/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/01/07/everything-chuck-hagel-needs-to-know-about-the-defense-budget-in-charts/
http://www.cfr.org/defense-budget/trends-us-military-spending/p28855
US Military in Africa
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bryan-maygers/nick-turse-tomorrows-battlefield_b_7480360.html
http://www.salon.com/2015/11/21/americas_secret_military_bases_in_africa_partner/
http://mgafrica.com/article/2015-10-15-nigeria-welcomes-us-decision-to-send-300-troops-to-cameroon-to-help-in-boko-haram-fight