A Painful Perspective

There were times when the ancient Hebrew Prophets emphasized that it would be mainly their political and religious leaders whom GOD would hold responsible for wickedness in their own nation. Other times, the Prophets still portrayed the leaders as taking the leadership in doing evil, but they also condemned the majority of the people for their own complicity in their leaders' evil. Consequently, the concerned Prophets consistently warned all of the people that if despicable conditions did not dramatically change, pervasive Judgment would soon visit their entire nation. Significantly, for the ordinary citizens of the U.S., the broad historical judgment which came on the separated Biblical nations of Judah and Israel provide our own guilty nation with an ominous historical precedent of how GOD deals with extensive national sin. This precedent concerns the extent of the impending judgment on our entire nation. This judgment is due to both our passive and active enablement of our leaders unjust, bloody invasion and occupation of an innocent nation. This potential severe punishment also involves our corporate failure to admit our national guilt and to discontinue our crimes against the Iraqi people.

It is common in the U.S. for many of us to naively assume that the elected leaders of our nation are consistently the ones who have taken the moral high ground in our relations with other nations. However, that is an exceptionally dangerous assumption. For the determining factor on whether our leaders are the ones to truly occupy the moral high ground is not what even every person in the U.S. has decided. Rather, the final determination of what is moral is what God, our Creator and Sustainer, decides is moral and just. It is definitely not what any of us may decide is moral and just. So He is the One who is now deciding how pervasive our Judgment must be for the gross injustice we have visited on an innocent, sovereign nation which brought us absolutely no harm before we unilaterally, and violently invaded that nation.

I personally agree with the Jewish theologian, Abraham Hechel's perspective: “Justice is not one of GOD's ways, but Justice is in all His ways.” He also states that: “The infamy of a wicked act is infinitely greater than we are able to imagine.”

Significantly, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, [FDR] called it a day of infamy when the Japanese, with no warning, attacked Pearl Harbor. Yet, whether we will admit it or not, there are things which the U.S. definitely did in our foreign policy previous to the surprise attack which most certainly provoked Japan to attack us. For instance the U.S. purposely cut off much of Japan's access to some vitally needed oil supplies, which were necessary for Japan's expanding economy.

Though we had definitely provoked Japan before their attack on us, in vivid contrast Iraq did not provoke the U.S. before we attacked them. Yet, we are quite comfortable with referring to the Japanese attack on us as a “day of infamy.” But our self-righteous nation is not willing to characterize our own unprovoked attack on Iraq as a day of infamy. Though it is politically incorrect to admit it, under the devious leadership of Dick Cheney and George Bush, the U .S. now consistently occupies the moral low ground in our dealings with the weaker nation of Iraq. But it is not our military men and women who are the moral terrorists in Iraq, as Barbara Walter's personal political commentator allegedly implied. Though it is not so far from the truth when the politically incorrect Rosie O'Donnel holds the U.S. morally responsible for occupying the moral low ground by bringing terrorism to the people of Iraq. But in the sight of GOD it is our leaders who are morally terrorists and it is not our military personnel who have made the evil choices for terrorism in Iraq.

So it is mainly our leaders who GOD is holding responsible for the blood of tens of thousands of Iraqis. It is our leaders who are the ones responsible for manipulating, exploiting, deceiving and even killing our own courageous military men and women, on the streets of Iraq. It has even been inept U.S. political appointees who were most responsible for creating a near total lack of security and hateful competition between Sunni and shia. This largely U.S. instigated chaos has resulted in thousands and thousands of shias and Sunnis needlessly murdering and maiming each other. In order to gain perspective on GOD's view if the evil that the U.S. has needlessly perpetrated in Iraq, please consider this. What do American's think would be GOD's view of Iraqis had come to the U.S. and created the kind of bloody chaos here that we have created in the former relatively stable Iraq?

Without question, from GOD's perspective it was an act of blatant wickedness for two U.S. leaders to deceitfully persuade our entire nation to support the detestable and unnecessary bloodshed in Iraq. The fact that many, many tens of thousands of Iraqis and thousands of persons of many nationalities including Americans have been killed and maimed due to our aggression, violence and arrogance is difficult for us to admit. Nevertheless, before our Just GOD, we are the nation who is responsible for this major tragedy. Therefore, as a guilty nation we are now awaiting our just punishment.

If we think for a minute that our Just GOD considers that the rampant bloodshed the mighty U.S. has brought to the poorer, weaker nation of Iraq, is really no big deal, then we are truly misjudging GOD's standards of moral justice. For He is closely observing the wicked presumption of our leaders. He is not apathetic or indifferent when a mighty nation flagrantly ignores His moral law and ruthlessly crushes a smaller, poorer, weaker nation.

As a precedent regarding His Just ways, we will briefly consider the mighty punishment which He allowed to visit the whole nation of ancient Judah which had the now world famous city of Jerusalem as its capital. Mainly for what many consider were relatively minor acts of injustice mostly inflicted on the insignificant powerless poor of their small nation of Judah, the whole city of Jerusalem was totally destroyed. Furthermore, the entire nation was forced into exile.

This extensive judgment which GOD allowed to happen to the people of Judah was for crimes that their Hebrew leaders did not even consider to be crimes. Consequently, please think about how much worse punishment the entire U.S. deserves for allowing so many more powerless Iraqis to suffer so much more extensively than the relatively insignificant poor of ancient Judah suffered? Or, is it conceivable that the GOD of all Wisdom is making the same wrong assumption that so many Americans appear to be making. That since our nation supposedly has elected leaders who are morally superior persons, that these leaders consistently make righteous, truthful and just decisions in their dealings with weaker nations. Therefore our nation would never be considered as deserving any type of judgment or punishment. We naively reason that when someone who has such pure motives as Carl Rove has, manipulates circumstances in order to get trustworthy persons such as Dick Cheney and George W. Bush elected to office, our Just GOD definitely has no reason to be concerned.

However, whether we are able to admit it, this gang of three along with their devious assistants have used their amorality to immorally wreak havoc in Iraq. Consequently, our entire nation is now heavily implicated in international wickedness. Therefore, our entire nation, by our unjust, immoral activities, is virtually pleading with our Just ALLAH to punish us. It is as though we sub-consciously hope that this punishment may finally restrain us from our own extreme pride, from our international violence, from our presumption, from our manipulation and from our consistent coercion, intimidation and exploitation of weaker nations.

In the sight of ALLAH, when the U.S. decided to begin our war with the innocent people of the sovereign nation of Iraq, it was not only a foreign policy blunder by U.S. officials. Much worse, to Him it was a deliberate act of unbridled wickedness. To make matters even more wicked, our nation has not even admitted that we have both sinned against GOD and against the Iraqi people. Shamelessly, we relentlessly continue to sin against them. Apparently our naive leaders have assumed that the ALMIGHTY GOD is sleeping and cannot not see the blatant evil we have brought to Iraq an ominous reality. But He is not sleeping. So our stubborn, hard hearted leaders must finally realize it is not a particular administration, nor is it Paul Wolfowitz, or Carl Rove, or the Congress, or the U.S. Constitution, or the mighty U.S. military Industrial Complex or U.S. Foreign Policy or Neo Conservatives or the Pentagon which rules over any part of this world including the Middle East.

It is only the ALMIGHTY ALLAH who rules over the affairs of man. Until enough Americans grasp this reality, America, as we now know it, will fade away. Our mighty nation will be stuck in a painful process that involves prolonged humbling and perhaps much hardship and suffering.

Therefore, our now arrogant and prosperous nation will be forced to endure punishment for both for continuing our wickedness and for being stubbornly unwilling to seek cleansing from our guilt. The reason that we do not seek this necessary cleansing is because our nation stubbornly insists that we are not guilty. Justice leaves GOD no other choice but to Judge our nation. As the final Judge, He has found us to be guilty. This is His final verdict no matter how frantically we deny our guilt and steadfastly proclaim our total innocence. But even final verdicts can change when there is sufficient repentance and change of behavior.

Quite relevant to the current U.S. rebellion to GOD, the Prophet Jeremiah was provided insight from GOD to understand the evil circumstances that would bring his beloved nation of Judah down before his very eyes. Significantly, Jeremiah's insights apply to similar sins which will soon bring great punishment to our nation now. It is primarily the stubbornness of evil hearts like George Bush's stubborn heart and Dick Cheney's stubborn heart which refuse to be accountable and to admit guilt. So this stubborn refusal to acknowledge guilt appears to be the final nail in the U.S. coffin which will ultimately bury the U .S.

Jeremiah 2:35. You say, “I am innocent.” You say, “GOD is not angry with me.” But He said, “But I will pass judgment on you because you say, ;I have not sinned.'” Abraham Heschel reveals in his book, “The Prophets” on page 128, that to GOD, wickedness is increased when guilt is denied. “Jeremiah knew that the malady was not primarily in the wickedness of the deeds, but in the 'stubbornness of their evil hearts. There was no sense of guilt, no fueling of shame.”

Must Our President Eat Grass?

“Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise and exalt and glorify the King of Heaven because everything He does is right and all His ways are JUST. And those who walk in PRIDE He is able to HUMBLE.”

Why Did I choose this glorious statement by this former insane wicked, cruel Iraqi King, to place at the conclusion of this paper regarding impending Judgment on the U.S.? Because the wickedness, arrogance, cruelty, presumption and oppressiveness of the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar reminds me so much of our King, George W. Yet, it offers us hope to realize that after King Neb's judgment by GOD, what had previously been ugly in his values, finally became glorious.

Before GOD brought insanity to King Neb., he was a wicked King.

Before GOD caused this King's hair to grow like the feathers of an eagle, he was oppressive to the weak and powerless.

Before his nails became like the claws of a bird, he was presumptuous.

Before King Neb. ate grass like a cow, he was arrogant.

Before GOD visited all this Judgment upon him, he was calloused and so cruel, both to his own people and especially to foreigners, that he counted others' blood as virtually worthless.

But after he experienced this severe judgment, he finally learned that it is only GOD who rules over the affairs of men and of nations. It is neither an elected ruler nor his advisors who rule. Only ALLAH rules.

The crucial question now facing our vulnerable, guilty nation is this. How many of our leaders will eat grass before our nation will discover humility? Or, how many of our leaders will eat grass before we understand that it is only GOD who rules over the nations and it is not the U.S. who rules?

Many, many centuries ago ALLAH's faithful Prophet Daniel futily attempted to warn this stubborn, hard hearted, wicked King Nebuchadnezzar to change his ways before it was too late. But the Prophet's stern warning to Nebuchadnezzar was brushed off like it was dandruff. Today this same Prophet Daniel's recorded Scriptures warn another wicked ruler to change his ways before it is too late. Will his warning be received by a repentant, responsive Bush heart or by a rebellious Bush heart?

A Glimmer of Home

It is full of irony that it is a former insane Babylonian/Iraqi King who provides a faint glimmer of hope for a partially or virtually insane Twenty-First Century U.S. President. I have listed the contemptable faults that this King had before his insanity which are quite similar to the present contemptable faults afflicting our President during his partial insanity. Since with GOD's help King Nebuchadnezzar finally came to realize that it is GOD who rules this world and not a want-to-be world ruler, there is a glimmer of hope for our President. This is because GOD is so Great that He is able to transform a person like George Bush if this stubborn man would honor GOD instead of worshipping his own precious Trinity of Might, Fortresses and Weapons.

Thomas Jefferson, the main author of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, wrote this ominous warning to his beloved nation. “Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that GOD is JUST.” If Thomas Jefferson were alive today to observe the injustice now being visited upon an innocent nation by U.S. President George Bush, V.P. Dick Cheney and a small cadre of amoral, treacherous, bloodthirsty gangsters, thinking of true justice would compel Thomas Jefferson to do far more than tremble. If he tried to relate GOD's Justice to the despicable actions of current U.S. leaders, his entire body would convulse. It would undoubtedly shake so violently that he would temporarily lose his ability to speak because all of his teeth would be broken.

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ALLAH loves every person. When abuse of person’s beloved GOD continues, the MOST HIGH speaks judgment through his prophets.

“The LORD takes his place in court and rises to judge the people. The LORD judges the elders and leaders of his people.

‘It is you who have ruined my vineyard and the plunder from the poor is in your houses. What do you mean by crushing my people and grinding the face of the poor?’ declared the LORD, The LORD ALMIGHTY.” (ISAIAH 3:13-15)