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Fighting Terrorism: 500 deaths per day
Five hundred deaths per day is the ball park figure when you divide the number of Iraqis who have died since the US led invasion started on 18 March 2003. How would US citizens react if 500 of its 300 million people died each day? Especially when Iraq's population was estimated at 26 million. A per capita equivalent figure would be 5770 US citizens dying per day. Then CNN announces that their tally for the death toll for coalition milary forces in Iraq hit 3,000 on Monday. There is something bizarre about having gone to war to stop terrorism because 3,000 people died in the 9-11 World Trade Centre. Yet the US has managed to kill that many of its own people since 18 March 2003. Plus is involved a daily per capita equivalent of nearly double that figure in Iraq. It begs the question of who are the real terrorists? It is no wonder that Iraq has become a rallying point for people tired of being bullied into submission. It is no wonder that nations are resorting to nuclear weapons as it seems to be the only effective deterrent to prevent their country from being intimidated or invaded by rogue states. One can not help but contemplate the lesson of the Romans and the Scottish Celts. They finally hit a people too ferocious to be intimidated and the only solution was to build a wall to keep them out. But this is also biblical, when an empire loses the ability to form and respect boundaries, God will eventually raise up a people capable of halting the rapacious expansionism. But even then, God promises to bring peace and abundance to those who surrender their pride and idolatry. The following passages might be of assistance:
Isaiah 30:8-17, which includes "In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it." Isaiah 37:22-29 ..."The Virgin Daughter of Zion despises and mocks you. The Daughter of Jerusalem tosses her head as you flee. Who is it you have insulted and blasphemed? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes in pride?Against the Holy One of Israel! By your messengers you have heaped insults on the Lord. And you have said, ‘With my many chariots I have ascended the heights of the mountains, the utmost heights of Lebanon. I have cut down its tallest cedars, the choicest of its pines.I have reached its remotest heights, the finest of its forests. I have dug wells in foreign lands and drunk the water there. With the soles of my feet I have dried up all the streams of Egypt.’ "Have you not heard? Long ago I ordained it. In days of old I planned it; now I have brought it to pass, that you have turned fortified cities into piles of stone. Their people, drained of power, are dismayed and put to shame. They are like plants in the field, like tender green shoots, like grass sprouting on the roof,scorched before it grows up. "But I know where you stay and when you come and go and how you rage against me. Because you rage against me and because your insolence has reached my ears, I will put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth, and I will make you return by the way you came." Isaiah 45:11-25 is also inspirational. It reminds us that it is God ...who made the earth and created mankind upon it. It is God who promises to make all our ways straight and rebuild our cities and set our exiles free. The God who made the earth to be inhabited does not speak in secret or from somewhere in a land of darkness. That God has says "I, the LORD, speak the truth; I declare what is right. "Gather together and come; assemble, you fugitives from the nations. Ignorant are those who carry about idols of wood, who pray to gods that cannot save. ...there is no God apart from me,a righteous God and a Savior; there is none but me. "Turn to me and be saved,all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other. By myself I have sworn, my mouth has uttered in all integrity a word that will not be revoked: Before me every knee will bow;by me every tongue will swear. They will say of me, ‘In the LORD alone are righteousness and strength.’ " All who have raged against him will come to him and be put to shame. But in the LORD all the descendants of Israel will be found righteous and will exult. And remember that Israel refers to any and all of humanity who bow and acknowledge the Ultimate Creator. God is not limited to a people living within longitude or latitude, or confined to just this planet, or choosing only one one geneology or one form of faith. God is abundant, manifest, and not bound by our terms of space and time. Links: CIA US Census Popclock Google |
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