“Therefore behold, I am going to make them know—this time I will make them know My power and My might; and they shall know that My name is Yahweh.” (Jeremiah 16: 21)
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Dennis Ross—How Obama Created a Mideast Vacuum:
Few issues have confronted President Barack Obama with tougher dilemmas than Syria. Over the course of the nearly five years of the war within Syria, Obama has faced choices on how the United States should respond and he consistently decided to do the minimum. From the outset, when Bashar Assad’s response to calls for reform was draconian and turned peaceful demonstrations into an uprising, the president’s first instinct was avoidance. He looked at Syria and he saw entanglement in another ongoing Middle East conflict where our involvement would be costly, lead to nothing, and potentially make things worse. In nearly every meeting on Syria when presented possible options to affect the Syrian civil war, the president would ask “tell me where this ends.”
He was surely right to ask this question. But he failed to ask the corollary question: Tell me what happens if we don’t act? Had he known that not acting would produce a vacuum in which a humanitarian catastrophe, a terrible refugee crisis, a deepening proxy war and the rise of ISIL in Iraq and Syria would occur, his responses might have been different. However, it was hard for him to ask that question because when he looked at Syria, he saw Iraq.
Given the painful legacy of the Iraq War, it was not surprising that he did so. In his eyes, Iraq was a colossal mistake. He had run against it. He had been elected to get us out of Middle East wars not into them. But was Syria really Iraq? As someone who believed (wrongly) that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, I made the mistake of supporting the Iraq War. Surely, other proponents of the war should be willing to acknowledge now that it was wrong to seek regime change and not understand the vacuum that we would create in doing so; it was wrong to go to war without a serious, well-thought out plan for what it would take to create a credible transition, including the forces on the ground—military and police—needed to ensure security and the means to establish governance; it was wrong for us to become the administrator of Iraq, becoming the symbol of occupation, instead of having a United Nations interim administration; it was wrong to go to war without thinking through the consequences of unleashing a Shia-Sunni conflict that might not be limited to Iraq.
But Syria has always been a different issue. This was not an American invasion of a country but an internal uprising against an authoritarian leader. Assad consciously made it a sectarian conflict, believing he could survive only if the Alawites, and other minorities, saw their survival depending on his. Soon, thereafter, it was transformed into a proxy war largely pitting Saudi Arabia and Turkey against Iran. A vacuum was created not by our replacing the Assad regime but by our hesitancy to do more than offer pronouncements—by overlearning the lessons of Iraq, in effect. And, that vacuum was filled by others: Iran, Hezbollah and Iran’s other Shia militia proxies; Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar; Russia; and ISIL. Unless the U.S. does more now to fill this vacuum, the situation will spin further out of control.
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To continue reading, click here.
SnyderTalk Comment: I didn’t watch the president’s State of the Union speech because I am well aware of his penchant for lying. I’m offended when our elected representatives jump up out of their chairs to applaud blatant falsehoods.
If Obama said that ice is hot, Democrats would explode in ecstasy. Then they would tell the world that he is a genius because we thought that ice is cold.
Besides, I knew that I could pick up all I needed to know by reading the transcript. I read it, and it’s full of distortions.
For example, Obama said that the U.S. economy is strong and that he is proud of what he did to bring about that result. He couldn’t be more wrong.
The U.S. economy is anemic, and Obama is responsible for it. Those “shovel ready” programs he implementing in 2009 turned out to be boondoggles for his supporters, especially unions. They cost U.S. taxpayers more than a trillion dollars, and we have almost nothing to show for it except more debt.
Most Americans think we are still in the Great Recession even though it ended in 2010. Thanks to Obama’s mishandling of the economy, we are likely to feel the pinch of another recession very soon. It may have started already.
I will say this for the president: he did less damage economically than he did in domestic and foreign affairs. He will leave office with the world in a state of virtual global war and the U.S. more fragmented than it has been in my lifetime.
Obama has nothing to brag about, but that doesn’t stop him for touting his “accomplishments”. The virtual war I mentioned may become a large scale conflagration soon. I wouldn’t be surprised if it happens before Obama leaves office.
Dennis Ross focused on the vacuum that Obama left in the Middle East. He did the same thing in Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America. No place on the planet is safer today than it was when Obama took office.
The Democrat Party is in lockstep with their man. Democrats are as deluded as Obama is.
See “Failures he forgot to mention” and “Middle East reality: An inconvenient truth for Obama”.
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His Name is Yahweh, the website, is a companion of the book His Name is Yahweh. Both of them explain the importance of God’s Name.
The website is loaded with factual information that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Yahweh is our Savior and that the Messiah is Yahweh.
I hope you will take a few minutes and explore the website. I also hope you will share it with your friends and family.
It’s time for believers to tell the world about our God by His Name—Yahweh.
To see videos that explain the importance of Yahweh’s Name, click here.
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Itamar Marcus—Palestinian Authority Antisemitism: Overview of 2015: The PA presents Jews as possessing inherently evil traits. Jews are said to be treacherous, corrupt, allied with the devil, as well as descendants of apes and pigs. In 2015, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ advisor on Islam and head of PA Shari’ah courts taught on PA TV that Jews throughout history have represented “falsehood… evil… the devils and their supporters… the satans and their supporters.” Accordingly, the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is a conflict of “Allah’s project vs. Satan’s project.”
The Diplomat—Revealed: China’s Blueprint for Building Middle East Relations: On Wednesday, one week before Chinese President Xi Jinping is reportedly scheduled to arrive in Egypt for his first visit to the Middle East, China issued a lengthy explanation of its approach to the region in a document titled “China’s Arab Policy Paper.
Judith Bergman—Is Europe Choosing to Self-Destruct?: After the mass sexual assaults on New Year’s Eve in the European cities of Cologne, Hamburg, Düsseldorf, Bielefeld, Berlin, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Vienna, Salzburg, Zürich, Helsinki and Kalmar, it is clear that something profoundly disturbing has occurred in Europe. By Sunday, in Cologne alone, 516 women had filed criminal charges — around 40% of them relating to sexual assaults. The initial reactions to the sexual assaults from German authorities, the media, as well as feminists and others have not been less disturbing.
SnyderTalk Comment: I think Europe passed the tipping point many years ago. It’s just now becoming apparent to the masses.
I hesitate to say that it’s becoming apparent because liberals and left-leaning politicians still don’t have a clue. When someone puts a gun in their face, they will get it.
I hesitate to say that, too. All the rapes haven’t gotten their attention. Maybe it will take more than a gun in the face to wake them up.
Candidly, I won’t be surprised if they never wake up no matter what happens. That scares me because times like these spawned Hitler’s rise to power.
Could it happen again? Absolutely. Pretending that it can’t happen again almost guarantees that it will happen again.
Washington Post— Britain’s Parliament might be the most LGBT in the world: “New year, new start!” is how a blog post published Wednesday by David Mundell, a senior British politician, begins. And as Mundell goes on to explain, it really is a new start. “I have already set out my political priorities for the year and now I am setting out my personal one,” he writes. “Having taken one of the most important decisions of my life and resolved to come out publicly as gay in 2016, I just want to get on with it, and now, just like that, I have said it.” Mundell’s sudden announcement has made waves in Britain. The 53-year-old Conservative is a member of Prime Minister David Cameron’s cabinet and the most senior politician in charge of Scottish affairs.
Washington Post— Obama ridiculed for saying conflicts in the Middle East “date back millennia.” (Some don’t date back a decade.): In his seventh and final State of the Union address, President Obama played up the state of the economy, played down the threat of the Islamic State, and introduced a new effort to beat cancer. He also found time for several not-so-subtle swipes at the Republican front-runner Donald Trump. But for those versed in international relations, there was one line in particular that jumped out from his hour-long speech. “The Middle East is going through a transformation that will play out for a generation, rooted in conflicts that date back millennia,” Obama said. Thousands of years? Many of the conflicts in the Middle East don’t even date back a decade.
Washington Post— Syrian refugee mothers beg British girls: Please don’t join ISIS: A new video produced by British police seeks to sway those women and girls who might be tempted to travel to Islamic State territory. It uses people who know all too well about the horrors of the group. The women featured in the video are all refugees from Syria and mothers themselves. “Please tell your daughter my story so that she can understand that Syria is a dangerous place to live and no place to bring up children,” said one woman in the video, identified as only as Zakaa. “Any Syrian man or woman would tell you that there is no need for anyone to come to our country to risk their lives to fight or support the fighting.”
Dr. Yvette Alt Miller—Online Incitement: “Poison the Knife before You Stab.” “The Intifada Has Started.” “Slaughtering the Jews.” Since the explosion in violence in Israel in October 2015, scores of terrorist attacks – using knives, using cars as weapons, and guns – have left dozens of Israelis dead and maimed. As the violence has spread, so has online incitement, as extremists cynically manipulate social media to call for ever more attacks against Jews.
Raymond Ibrahim—Islamic State trapped Christians in coffins and set them aflame: According to the recently published testimony of Karam Sa‘ad—a former sergeant in the Iraqi army who was imprisoned and tortured by the Islamic State in June 2014 but recently escaped—ISIS engages in atrocities that the West remains largely ignorant of. Among these and in the words of the escapee: They [ISIS] tormented them [Christians] in horrendous ways and many of them died [from the torture] during their captivity…. They used to put them inside what resembled coffins and then set them on fire from the inside. The Western world was horrified when ISIS set a Jordanian pilot on fire, but as more escapees and former hostages share their experiences, it appears that such savagery is the tip of the iceberg.
Business Insider— Top Israeli Diplomat: “Iran Wants to Turn Syria into a Province of Iran”: Iran is “a country of 80 million seeking to get nuclear weapons,” Israeli diplomat Dore Gold told the Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington on Jan. 11. Gold said that he “firmly believes Iran wants to turn Syria into a province of Iran.” Citing Iranian promotion of Shi’ite Islam in the country, Gold said Iran is “involved in creating a social and political change that incorporates Syria into the Iranian state.” Gold said that Iranian religious outreach in Syria wasn’t just “a question of building Shi’ite mosques. It’s a question of a permanent deployment against Israel from the north. That’s something we cannot accept.”
Jerusalem Post— Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb threatens to attack Rome, Naples and Madrid: The organization continues escalating its rhetoric against France, threatening to commit more terror attacks in Western capitals to force Paris to stop its military intervention in Mali.
CNN—Jakarta attacks: Deadly blasts, shootout in Indonesian capital: Attackers struck in the middle of the day Thursday, in the middle of a busy central Jakarta commercial hub — killing at least two, wounding 19 and raising alarms about terrorism once more, this time in the world’s most populous Muslim country. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the rattle of shots and explosions from at least five attackers. But police believe that they were linked to ISIS, and the Islamic State-affiliated Aamaq News Agency reported people from that terror group were behind the bloodshed.
SnyderTalk Comment: ISIS claimed responsibility for this attack.
Reuters—Truck bomb attack by Kurdish militants kills six in southeast Turkey: Kurdish militants have attacked a police station in southeast Turkey with a truck bomb, killing six people including a baby and two toddlers, in one of the biggest strikes since the conflict reignited in July.
Fox News—Turkey: Nearly 200 ISIS militants killed in retaliation for Istanbul bombing: Turkish tanks and artillery have attacked Islamic State group positions in Iraq and in Syria in retaliation for the suicide bombing in Istanbul which killed 10 tourists, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Thursday. Close to 200 extremists were “rendered ineffective” — the government’s term for “killed” — in the offensive in the past 48 hours, Davutoglu said. It was unclear how Turkey verified the number of dead or their membership in the extremist group.
SnyderTalk Comment: I’m glad Turkey responded, but buying oil from ISIS helped to pay for the Istanbul attack.
Voice of America—Medvedev: Russia’s Economy Must Prepare for Worst-Case Scenario: Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said the Russian economy is looking better than one year ago but must prepare for the worst-case scenario as it continues to suffer from low oil prices and the impact of Western sanctions.
Bismarck Tribune—Federal agent says Iraqi refugee wanted to bomb Texas malls: An Iraqi refugee who is facing charges that he tried to help the Islamic State group wanted to set off bombs at two Houston malls and was learning how to make electronic transmitters that could be used to detonate explosive devices.
SnyderTalk Comment: Don’t worry. Obama has everything under control, and if there is another massacre, he’s ready to tell us yet again that they aren’t Muslims.
I wonder what ISIS thinks when they hear the President of the United States say that Islamists aren’t Muslims. This is my guess: “He’s an idiot.”
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His Name is Yahweh explains why the Name of God, Yahweh, is so important. It’s available in eBook format and in paperback. It’s also available for free in PDF format.
- God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘Yahweh, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’ This [Yahweh] is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation.” (Exodus 3: 15)
- “Therefore behold, I am going to make them know—this time I will make them know My power and My might; and they shall know that My name is Yahweh.” (Jeremiah 16: 21)
- “Behold, the days are coming,” declares Yahweh, “when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch; and He will reign as king and act wisely and do justice and righteousness in the land. In His days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely; and this is His name by which He will be called, ‘Yahweh our righteousness.’” (Jeremiah 23: 5-6)
- Yeshua said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.” (John 8: 58)
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Blessings in the Book of Revelation is a book that you need to read, especially now. There are blessings throughout the Scriptures but Revelation is the only book in the Bible actually containing a specific blessing for reading it. It’s repeated twice, once at the beginning and again at the end. This is the reason that I believe Revelation should be the first step toward studying biblical prophecy. Though not easy to do, Revelation can be broken down and understood by anyone, not just the academic elite. So, Revelation’s blessings are for everyone. Click here to order the eBook. Click here to order the paperback.
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Other Books by Neil Snyder
- Stand! is a suspense novel that exposes the lies, corruption, and greed underlying the theory that man-made CO2 emissions are responsible for global warming. Professor Wes Carlyle and Karen Sterling, his research collaborator, carefully scan the audience for their would-be attacker—a member of the enviro-gestapo who has been following them for days. Wes spots his man in the back of the room leaning against the wall. Suddenly, another man in the audience steps forward and moves toward Karen at a menacing pace. With a vicious stroke, he swings a billy club at her head. Click here to order the eBook. Click here to order the paperback.
- What Will You Do with the Rest of Your Life? deals with a question that every Christian has to consider: what should I do with my life? Click here to order the eBook. Click here to order the paperback.
- Falsely Accused is a true story about a young woman who was accused of committing a double homicide. It’s about a travesty of justice, and it reveals Yahweh intervening in the life of a believer to rescue her from danger in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. Everyone will enjoy the book, but young people in particular need to read it because the mistakes made that led to the problem could have been avoided. They were the kinds of mistakes that young people are prone to make. As they say, forewarned is forearmed. Click here to order the eBook. Click here to order the paperback.
See “His Name is Yahweh”.
