We’ve Been Here Before... October 7 was an Auspicious Day to Strike

Front Page Magazine ^ | 10/10/01 | Duncan Maxwell Anderson

[Pyro7480]

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We’ve Been Here Before
October 7 was an Auspicious Day to Strike
By Duncan Maxwell Anderson
FrontPageMagazine.com | October 10, 2001

"A senior Pentagon official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Tomahawk cruise missiles were launched from American and British vessels, including American submarines, in the Arabian Sea.

"This official said targets included air defenses, military communications sites and terrorist training camps inside Afghanistan. ‘This is going to be a prolonged, sustained effort over several days,’ the official said."

The Associated Press

Sunday, Oct. 7, 2001; 2:08 p.m. EDT

 

THE SHOOTING has begun. We've seen little, and heard a lot of words since the attacks of Sept. 11, and some commentators have suggested that there have been no American strikes until this past Sunday because President Bush hasn't really known what to do next, against an invisible, perhaps omnipotent enemy.

But listening to the news every hour can be deceptive. In a real military campaign, much of the time, words are issued to mask action. The reality is that Delta Force and British SAS commandos infiltrated Afghanistan within days of Sept. 11 to pinpoint the air strikes that have just begun. The purpose is not to destroy aspirin factories, but to "take out the enemy’s eyes and ears" in preparation for a ground attack. U.S. Army Rangers and 10th Mountain Division troops are ringing the country preparing to roust detachments of Taliban troops from their tunnels.

No doubt the Talibans and their Arab mercenaries are tough. On the other hand, to make Ranger, you have to run a 5:30 mile carrying a 60-lb. pack on your back, followed immediately by a second mile at a 5:50 pace — and be one of the first 50 men to finish the race. Those who qualify get a year's pressure-cooker instruction in weapons, tactics, and hand-to-hand fighting, if they last.

Mountain Division troops can do all that on skis, and live outdoors in any weather for two weeks (or more) without re-supply.

Technology will probably be more important to this conflict than we can now imagine. Satellites and Northern Alliance scouts have probably been mapping the movements of individual donkeys. In short, the experiences of the British and the Soviets in this country may or may not be relevant. This will be an American war.

I'm reminded of the closing of John Keegan's brilliant book Warpaths—Travels of a Military Historian in North America:

There is, I have said, an American mystery, the nature of which I only begin to perceive. If I were obliged to define it, I would say it is the ethos—masculine, pervasive, unrelenting—of work as an end in itself. War is a form of work, and America makes war, however reluctantly, however unwillingly, in a particularly workmanlike way.

Once they have been forced to take up the task of war, Keegan observes, "Americans shoulder the burden with intimidating purpose."

Meanwhile, Osama bin Laden, the Yuppie murderer and drug dealer, seems to have lost a little of his swagger. Trapped in a darkened Afghanistan of his own making, he is no longer declaring that the Americans will not dare come after him, and that the descendants of the Crusaders are soft and impotent. Instead, he is calling on Muslims around the world to come to his assistance. Please. Now.

Like most men from the East, bin Laden is acutely aware of history in a way that puts our ignorance of it to shame. Four hundred and thirty years ago, the Ottoman emperor Selim II pursued the same Islamic imperialism to which bin Laden lays claim today. The Ottoman Turks controlled an army and navy that had conquered Turkey, the Middle East, North Africa, Eastern Europe, and Greece, and were poised to take Italy. Ali Pasha, commander of the Muslim fleet, announced that he would pull down the cross atop St. Peter's Basilica in Rome and replace it with the crescent moon. It was a similar gesture to destroying the World Trade Center.

But before Ali Pasha could carry out his threat, Pope Pius V, an astute diplomat, united squabbling factions from Spain, Venice, and the Papal States to mount a last-ditch resistance—headed by Don John of Austria, the 25-year-old, illegitimate son of the Austrian emperor. On September 17, 1571, although badly outnumbered, Don John led a fleet of ships in search of the Muslim navy and finally met them on October 7 in the Gulf of Lepanto, off the western coast of Greece.

Back in Rome, Pope Pius led processions of the faithful, praying the Rosary for a Christian victory.

Four hours after hostilities commenced, the Ottoman fleet had been destroyed. The Battle of Lepanto – memorialized in G.K. Chesterton’s poem "Lepanto" – was the turning point in the long war to save Europe from the steady march of Islamic conquest.

In thanksgiving, the Pope fixed the date of the naval victory at Lepanto as the Feast of the Holy Rosary. That feast is October 7, the commenced air strikes on Afghanistan.

The campaign against Islamic terrorists may be long. But as the terrorists themselves are well aware, it has begun on an auspicious day for the West.

Duncan Maxwell Anderson is editorial director of Faith and Family. E-mail him at dmaxanderson@hotmail.com.

[Pyro7480]

Call me the "eternal skeptic" of the existence of the NWO. The elites can be really dumb. I don't give them that much credit. They can barely keep each other from being at each other's throats. Yes, they are power hungry, but that's why we have the Second and First Amendments.

[Dominus Vobiscum]

Beginning of the ground war? or something worse?

Beats me. As long as we're tying dates and events together, I thought October 13 might be a significant date to look at.

I'm not a BIG believer in these date-event theories, but enough so to kind of keep my ears to the ground.

Just thought I'd ask the question....

[pax_et_bonum]

Bump!

[Pyro7480]

I'm not really a believer in the date-event theory either. The coincidence is a bit creepy though. My mother once said the coincidence is another name for God. Who knows...

[Coyote]

Thanks for that link. I enjoyed the piece.

While I'm so rusty these days, I did at one time pay attention. I've read Ouspensky, Blavatsky, and the rest of the Theosophists, but far more importantly, only as an aside, along with ALL the much more important traditionals of the East and the West.

The thing that changed me most, however, was the day I finally read Proverbs with an open eye. When I realized that that wisdom had been in a little white book in my mother's bedroom drawer all those years I was chasing my sad little tail around this planet in search of truth, I was humbled beyond words. Not that she ever took it out, but that it was THERE, representing my heritage and link to the West. One thing led to another, and....well, you've read Original Sin.

Don't know if that means much, but it's genuine.

[Revel]

Have you tried to view this post with the new beta format. YUK! I had to force myself to even read your posts...which is not a normal thing I can assure you. Besides the color scheme the index info is all over the page. And you can't tell where things begin and end because they all blend to gether. We just recieved another shot of in-effectiveness.

[Dominus Vobiscum]

My mother once said that coincidence is another name for God.

NOW you're talking. I do believe that God works in these types of ways (can't say I have tons of evidence for it), but not predictably so.

Just ask Pat Robertson or Hal Lindsey...

[Askel5]

I don't buy this conspiracy theory of yours

Well SOMEONE's got to be picking the right dates for the right reasons and I don't think it's the Holy Father although -- were I a bona fide conspiracy theorist -- I'd find it passing strange he just happened to be in Kazakhstan to speak to a crowd of 90% Muslims immediately after the tragedy as he continues closing in on Moscow with a string of extraordinary Papal visits to the former Soviet republics.

I'm just very wary of those who can pervert the self-evident truths of our Declaration, hound Christianity from the public square even as they seek to fund what "faith-based" programs they find suitably secular and devoid of faith. I find it strange it's exactly these who seek to confront as "EVIL" so-called fundamental Islam (and proceed to eradicate them like a bunch of Branch Davidians) when it's faithful Muslims and faithful Christians who alone stand firm to impede worldwide what seems the inexorable embrace of the West's Culture of Death.

You want "evil" ... look in the mirror as you use Scripture to rationalize the use of Already-Been-Killed embryos like shills to attract the "best and the brightest" to the ESCR your federal dollars will perpetuate until it hits Paydirt.

[Askel5]

The coincidence is a bit creepy though. My mother once said the coincidence is another name for God. Who knows...

Perhaps. It's certainly made for some good sermons of late but when same are followed up by mention of the fact that a few Pole dockworkers and the power of prayer brought down the Evil Empire without a shot, I begin to despair ...

With any luck, I'm DEAD WRONG and perestroika was every bit as genuine as this so-called "Holy War" of "radical Islam".

[Askel5]

I went a great deal out of the way to go a short distance correctly myself.

Best regards, Coyote.

[Coyote]

Well, I use that NWO term loosely, understanding that power seeks power, and that there are clearly interests in this world constantly working toward their own ends. I'm not implying excessive conspiracy, much less embracing it, but if anyone just get's a grip long enough to listen, the power brokers of the modern world have been using that term to describe their own efforts on both side of "New Atlantis" for the past century. They don't have to take secret orders from mystical descendants of Adam Weisphalt. They just do much of the world's business together.

And while the Skull and Bones may not necessarily be the work of Satan, or the so called NWO have to represent a simple 'sinister plot to take over the world', they do represent the kind of kindred that helps to link power brokers and their natural dynasties together, as with ANY fraternal orders. If anyone doesn't think they have power, at least to discriminate, I suggest they attend Yale and attempt to join. You don't have to believe in chemical contrails to get the picture that power begets power, and as with any orgainzations, related groups leave an open trail for each other to follow. And if anyone accepts that basic street thugs like La Cosa Nostra represented power thrugh organized crime, it's not a great leap of faith to imagine highly educated, highly placed, highly wealthy power brokers in the world of finance and resources doing what they do best as well.

So you don't have to look too far to find their 'conspiracies'. The truth is that they don't really bother too much to hide them. It's just that most people don't bother to look beyond their daily lives in any attempt to understand the power policies of the planet.

As far as them being powerful, compared to me (and I assume you too), they're MUCH more powerful acting in concert toward what they want, than I am acting toward what I want. I think that should be axiomatic. But given this last little 911 hit, I think it shows just how human and fallible they really are. They make mistakes, just like the rest of us.

[Coyote]

Askel5, you know, I'm really beginning to look forward to your posts. That GIF in #28 just about says it all, doesn't it? God, my often heavy heart. Were it only big enough to turn around and bust that viscious hound in the chops once and for all.

In the spirit of this thread, what soul of any hopeful magnitude can lay claim to the right to really exist until they've pulled those slimmy paws away from around their waist and formally challenged the sleazy spirit of that demon, who's haunted and devoured the blood of our lost innocence, ever since the fall?

[Askel5]

That GIF in #28 just about says it all, doesn't it?

Well ... if you click it, you may find it says more.

To be honest, I'm not a big fiction fan ... very picky and (as with films) generally only pick up books on trusted recommendations (from the alive and dead =).

You can't go wrong, however, with Father Elijah and the rest of Michael O'Brien's "Children of the Last Days" series, Coyote. (You should maybe start with "Plague Journal" if you've not read any of them.) Father Elijah's some 500+ plus pages and I put it down only to rest my eyes a minute and maybe get a drink of water.

[father_elijah]

As an enormous fan of Father Elijah I can whole-heartedly recommend it to one and all.

DID YOU KNOW:
The Anglo-American bombing in Afghanistan began at the exact moment that the Jewish Feast of Hoshanah Rabba began in the Holy Land. So not only was it the Feast of the Holy Rosary, it was also Hoshanah Rabba.

This Feast concerns God's final judgment of the nations.

In Jewish worship on the feast of Hoshanah Rabba, willow branches are waved before the Lord as the faithful march seven times around the Bema (where the Torah is openend), then they beat the willow branches on the ground. Willow in Hebrew is ARAVA. This word ARAVA also means wilderness, desert, the Plains of Moab, and ARAVA is used particularly in mystical literature to signify the whole world outside of the Holy Land.

In the Zohar, a holy book of the Jewish mystics called Kabbalists, the Zohar says that the great war between Esau and Ishmael will begin on Hoshanah Rabba. In Kabbalist literature Esau represents Christianity and Ishmael stands for Islam.

[Askel5]

Thanks for that post.

I do understand it's being -- technically, I guess -- a war between "Islamics" and a "Christian nation" (ably assisted, I guess, by the newly-reminted Orthodox East).

I still have a hard time stomaching this as a real war between Christianity and Islam when the U.S. Government is about as Christian as Osama is a faithful Muslim.

For now, I'll compromise on the grounds that our Promethean vision is not quite as clear as our Epimethean:

Cars have windshields as well as rearview mirrors. So do civilizations. However, our rearward, Epimethean vision is far stronger than our forward, Promethean one. We have more archivists than prophets. For archivists see through a microscope, sharply, but prophets see through a glass, darkly.

Yet even the little the prophets see is of great importance to us. It is like the little but all-important view that a driver sees when peering through a tiny hole of light in a muddy windshield when the car is accelerating through thick fog over rocks and between abysses-in other words, when the situation is like that of our civilization.

The gift of prophecy, confined to a small number in Old Testament times, was offered to all Christians once the Holy Spirit, the One who makes and inspires prophets, was spread through the Church and into the world in the New Covenant. It is possible therefore without absurdity to call C. S. Lewis a prophet. Let us consult the writings of this most popular Christian author of our age with that hope in mind and look for some Lewis-light on our civilizational teeter, we who stand poised at the brink of spiritual suicide.

Peter Kreeft -- How to Save Western Civilization (Part I: A Philosophy of History)

[father_elijah]

I did not see your 9/11/1683 thread. Were you noting the victory of the Christian King of Poland over the Muslims when he led the army that saved Vienna?

[father_elijah]

Excellent quote from Peter, Askel5.

My view is that from a future perspective October 7th will be seen as the beginning of a great war. I believe my vantage point now can only see the opening skirmishes. I do not believe it is strictly speaking a war between Christians and Muslims -- yet. But I can envision acts of terror that could turn this into such a war.

However, we must keep watch and stand on guard not just for this current crop of visible enemies -- we must watch China, and we must look within.

[father_elijah]

Borrowed from a website:
Exactly 33 years to the day prior to the miracle of the sun, on October 13, 1884, Pope Leo XIII had a vision. Here follows an account of that vision:

According to the most widely accepted version of what happened, On October 13, 1884, after Pope Leo XIII had finished celebrating Mass in the Vatican Chapel, attended by a few Cardinals and members of the Vatican staff, he suddenly stopped at the foot of the altar. He stood there for about 10 minutes, as if in a trance, his face ashen white. Then, going immediately from the Chapel to his office, he composed the prayer to St. Michael, with instructions it be said after all Low Masses everywhere.

Some were expecting this October 13th to be a day of great evil long before the attrocities on 9/11. Others have been talking about October 31st. As far as I am concerned every day holds its own opportunity and its own danger, so I will watch and pray, watch and pray.

[Askel5]

Where did you get that Belloc excerpt? Perhaps we can slip it in here unnoticed.

[Romulus]

The pared-down version I sent you is on my office computer. I'll slip it in tomorrow.

In the mean time, here's a link to the unabridged text of The Great and Enduring Heresy of Mohammed, a chapter from Hilaire Belloc's The Great Heresies.