Posted on 08/23/2007 10:34:41 PM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
It's evidence that they felt it was cheaper to park the old equipment than to clean it up. They have lots of spare hardware.
Looters? Given the advanced state of russian security over such sites (/s) it is possible, perhaps probable.
I personally take R.C. Sproul, Gary DeMar, Hank Hanegraaff, David Chilton, and the like to be credible Bible scholars. Many believe it was fulfilled with the Maccabees’ defeat of the Syrians. None of them believe Ezekiel is describing a future battle.
Here’s DeMar’ take regarding Esther:
“Ezekiel 34 states that God will act as Good Shepherd to Israel, and will bring them back into the land. He continues this theme in Ezekiel 36, saying that God will make a new covenant with Israel. The inauguration of this new covenant, which we can call the Restoration Covenant, is described in Zechariah 3, where God removes the filth from Joshua the High Priest and restores the Temple and Priesthood. . . . Ezekiel continues in Ezekiel 37 with the vision of the valley of dry bones. The Spirit of God would be given a greater measure than before (though of course not as great as at Pentecost in Acts 2), and the result would be restoration of the people. No longer would there be a cultural division between Judah and Ephraim, but all would be together as a new people. . . . At this point, Ezekiel describes the attack of Gog, Prince of Magog, and his confederates. Ezekiel states that people from all over the world attack God’s people, who are pictured dwelling at peace in the land. God’s people will completely defeat them, however, and the spoils will be immense. The result is that all nations will see the victory, and ‘the house of Israel will know that I am the Lord their God from that day onward’ (Ezek. 39:21-23). . . . Chronologically this all fits very nicely. The events of Esther took place during the reign of Darius, after the initial rebuilding of the Temple under Joshua [the High Priest] and Zerubbabel and shortly before rebuilding of the walls by Nehemiah. . . . Thus, the interpretive hypothesis I am suggesting (until someone shoots it down) is this: Ezekiel 34-37 describes the first return of the exiles under Zerubbabel, and implies the initial rebuilding of the physical Temple. Ezekiel 38-39 describes the attack of Gog (Haman) and his confederates against the Jews. Finally, Ezekiel 40-48 describes in figurative language the situation as a result of the work of Nehemiah.
“The slaughter of Israel’s enemies in Ezekiel 39 fits with the number of deaths listed in Esther 9:16 (75,000). In Esther 9:5 we read that ‘the Jews struck all their enemies with the sword, killing and destroying.’ Ezekiel 38:5-6 tells us that Israel’s enemies come from ‘Persia, Ethiopia [lit., Cush], and . . . from the remote parts of the north . . . ,’ all within the boundaries of the Persian Empire of Esther’s day. From Esther we learn that the Persian Empire ‘extended from India to Ethiopia [lit., Cush], provinces . . .’ in all (Esther 8:9). ‘In other words, the explicit idea that the Jews were attacked by people from all the provinces of Persia is in both passages. The parallels are unmistakable.”
Regardless, Ezekiel is clearly describing an ancient battle fought with ancient weapons and the reason for the invasion was to plunder silver, gold, and CATTLE.
War is almost always theft writ large, at its root.
Suffice it to say that I disagree with DeMar about Ezekiel.
IIRC, the USSR also planned but did not execute a nuke first strike on the USA in 1967. In the 1980s I was briefed that the Politburo was effectively deterred by Israel’s nuke capability. The Russkies knew that Israel had a plan to deliver a nuclear second strike to Russia using F-16s if required.
I don’t know about the F-16s.The range of the initial variants would have been very poor to even get to Armenia or Azerbaijan,which were the nearest Republics.The F-4 could do that(Israel had them in the 70s itself) with a small payload,one way -the F-15 could as well.Ballistic missiles are another issue.
My briefer said it was one way. I may be mistaken about the F-16.
They might have had a little problem, though, convincing people that the Egyptian and Syrian pilots had suddenly become as skilled as Russian pilots. It's been reported that Russian military advisers used to (figuratively) pull their hair out training their Arab pilots, because the Arabs would hit the eject button so often and easily. And of course, that's why they were going to have to use Russian pilots to get the job done.
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