Despite the recent Trump’s call to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan, Pentagon and CIA are interested in further presence in the Islamic Republic.
One of the pillars to hold U.S. military in the region is the financial benefits from luring government contracts aimed at financial support of Afghanistan. For almost over 2 decades Washington has been providing financial aid not only for security issues in Afghanistan, but also for an economic and social development of the country. Since 2001, the U.S. spent over 130 billion dollars on Afghanistan, however not all the money was spent as intended. A huge part of it was “laundered” and used as payoffs. John F. Sopko, U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Restoration has been consistently providing the evidence for it in his reports to the U.S. Congress. Corruption schemes, according to Sopko, have intensified the U.S economic crisis. The U.S. government is using a multilevel contract system that involves a huge number of contractors on sites. The key role in this process is played by USAID as it is responsible for allocation of funds, while Afghanistan does not get a half of it.
The recent reform to alter the Ministry of finances introduced by Afghanistan’s President A. Ghani testifies on the Afghanistan’s leader attempt to corner the foreign financial aid. However, the U.S government has criticized this reform and said the decision a «corrupt scheme». Soon after the statemen Ghani cancelled the reform, a move that proves the Afghanistan political dependence on Washington.
The U.S. Defense Industry officials are interested in financial aid provided by the U.S. government to Afghanistan. Procurement purchases for the needs of the U.S and Afghan troops and NATO are often made at higher prices. For instance, Washington continues buying rifles M-4 and M-6 for 57 cents per item. Instead, the U.S. government could have built a military plant in Afghanistan that would produce the rifles for 12 cents per item. The United States have also refused to buy kerosene from Russia for as much as 94 cents per liter and preferred to use the complicated scheme with Greece and wire the purchase at $1,4 per liter. The United States are supporting Afghan military by its own structures that allow them to avoid transparent schemes in international organizations and unnecessary control. The same scheme is used by U.S contractors in its civil projects where the key role is again played by the USAID. For instance, Afghanistan has issued 10K COVID-19 tests at $48 per item while the real price for 1 test is $5 per item.
Obviously, the most luring contracts are those that relate to oil and gas sector, military provision for the Afghan troops and the NATO. They are being lobbied by U.S. Congressmen that appoint their relatives as CEOs of contracting companies. It’s no surprise that huge U.S. military aid to Afghanistan has gone far beyond the planned budget that was proposed by the Marshall plan. Besides, money acquisitions by U.S. contractors rank from 50% to 90%.
The scale of the U.S. financial aid is also impressive. In February, 2020, John Sopko in his report to the U.S. Congress mentioned the amounts of the funds provided to Afghanistan are far beyond the capability of the Afghan economy. According to John F. Sopko, the U.S. investments to Afghanistan should be from 15% to 45% of the country’s GDP, while in 2007 and in 2010 they were estimated of over 100% of Afghanistan’s GDP. Such schemes create enormous opportunities for stripping. Besides, the U.S government attempts to stop funding Afghanistan are opposed by the U.S. military as they are interested in keeping the «income». On March, 23 Mike Pompeo claimed the U.S. would better decrease money infusions to Afghanistan by $1 billion due to the internal political crisis in Afghanistan. However, the decision was not proceeded.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is increasing investments and support of the economy and social sphere in Uzbekistan through various economic, trade, healthcare and social projects. Only for the year of 2019 USAID invested over $10 million in Uzbekistan’s private sector for establishment of new orchards, installation of water saving technologies marketing, and branding to meet international standards. According to the Agency, USAID investment strategy in Uzbekistan involves large-scale and ambitious projects for the next 3-4 years that aim to increase the living standard in the country.
As part of its global campaign against the COVID-19 pandemic, the USAID in partnership with the Uzbekistan Ministry of Health has identified priority areas to provide support for the needs of Uzbekistan’s citizens, health professionals, and the government.
However, nurturing relations with the US may have a negative side effect for Uzbekistan. By tightening economic and political relations with Tashkent, the United States might take advantage of the Uzbekistan’s geopolitical location and its border with Afghanistan and start lobbying its interests in Kabul heating up complicated relations between the two countries.
Moreover, fostering the Washington’s idea to create a transparent economy in the country and the accountability of the Uzbek state to civil society may cause potential leaks of tax and financial information to the US tax authorities. Considering that the American side relies on the principle of the supremacy of the national law over the international law, this might trigger a threat to the economic security of Uzbekistan and create a ground for pressure on the Uzbekistan authorities by the United States.
Like in the case with Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, a small country in the Central, could become a perfect potential target for the US so-called democratization policy. Positive social and economic changes integrated by the United States in Uzbekistan are building up a solid ground for lobbying Washington political ambitions in the country. History has already proved the United States could be unreliable business partners. The US-China trade relations scenario is a great example of it: when contradictions arose, the US changed their policy from building partnership into the policy of trade wars.
Trump to suspend immigration to U.S. for 60 days, citing coronavirus crisis and jobs shortage, but will allow some workers
President Trump on April 21 said he planned to suspend immigration for people seeking permanent residency for the next 60 days amid the coronavirus pandemic. (The Washington Post)
By Nick Miroff, Maria Sacchetti and Tracy Jan April 22, 2020 at 12:01 a.m. GMT+3
President Trump said Tuesday he will halt immigration to the United States for 60 days, a freeze that will block green card recipients from moving to the country but will continue to allow temporary workers on nonimmigrant visas to enter. The president provided a rationale for the unprecedented decision that was primarily economic, arguing that he wants Americans to have access to work as millions of people have lost their jobs amid the coronavirus crisis.
“I will be issuing a temporary suspension of immigration into the United States,” Trump said during a White House briefing Tuesday. “By pausing, we’ll help put unemployed Americans first in line for jobs. It would be wrong to be replacing them with new immigrant labor flown in from abroad.”
Senior White House officials and lawyers met Tuesday to sort out the logistics and legal implications of President Trump’s late-night Twitter proclamation that he would stop immigration to the United States, a move that came with little indication of whom the U.S. government would bar from entry amid the coronavirus outbreak. Trump said the executive order was still being written as of Tuesday night.
“It’s being written now,” Trump said, noting that lawyers were still working through the final details. “We’ll most likely sign it tomorrow.”
After 60 days, the need for modification will be evaluated “based on economic conditions” in the country, Trump said, conditions that he would personally assess.
“We want to protect U.S. workers as we move forward,” Trump said. He noted that “some people will be able to get in. There will be some people coming in. But it’s a strong order.”
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The president also said that seasonal farm laborers would not be affected by the measures and that the suspension “will help to conserve vital medical resources.”
Trump said late Monday that he wanted to protect the country from the threat of foreigners bringing the virus into the country and to stem the economic damage the pandemic has triggered — and he retweeted the same post Tuesday, a sign of his enthusiasm for the plan. Yet senior officials at the Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies could not respond to basic questions about the scope of the order.
Trump says he will issue order to suspend immigration during coronavirus crisis
Other aides said privately that the president had once more announced a sweeping policy that was not yet ready for implementation, and his administration was trying to piece together an executive order for him to sign that would catch up to his whim.
The president has broad authority to restrict entry into the United States — a point the Supreme Court affirmed in upholding his controversial entry ban in 2018 — and that power is perhaps no greater than during a public health emergency. State Department officials said they are still waiting for guidance from the White House regarding what types of immigrant visas will be suspended.
Immigrant visas are issued for those who have been approved to move permanently to the United States. The majority are family members of U.S. citizens or permanent residents.
Some immigrant visas also are granted to those who have jobs waiting for them, including nurses planning to work at hospitals. A smaller number of special immigrant visas are granted for a variety of foreigners, including religious ministers, and Iraqis and Afghans who worked for the U.S. government.
The United States already has suspended routine visa services overseas, so that very few would-be immigrants are likely to be stopped just before they board planes.
Though the policy move has been presented as a way to protect the United States from imported cases of the coronavirus, the outbreak is well-established across the country and has been for more than a month. The United States has more confirmed coronavirus cases, by far, than any other country, with nearly 800,000 as of Tuesday afternoon. The next highest national total is Spain’s, at 204,000 cases. The United States also has far more confirmed virus-related deaths — nearly 45,000 — than any other nation and about the same number as the next two countries — Spain and Italy — combined.
Intended immigrants from countries such as Britain, Ireland, Mexico, South Korea and Canada deluged their lawyers with panicked emails Tuesday, worrying that Trump’s tweet would upend their jobs, college studies or efforts to bring their loved ones to the United States. Some have paid tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees to secure their legal papers and have waited years for their approvals.
Juan Ramirez, 41, a restaurant cook in Virginia, said he was planning to visit the U.S. Consulate in his native Mexico soon for a final interview and background checks required to obtain a green card. His wife, a U.S. citizen, is sponsoring him. But now the consulates are closed and he is afraid that if he leaves the country, the United States will not let him back in.
He has a college degree in information technology from Mexico and dreamed of building a career, buying a house and starting a family this year.
“I’m scared of this,” Ramirez said. “I don’t know how it’s going to affect me.”
Greg Siskind, a Memphis immigration lawyer, said Trump’s plans could derail efforts to restart the economy by alienating foreign students, who often pay full tuition at colleges and universities, as well as foreign investors. But he said a 60-day pause “is not a lot” in the grand scheme of things for those seeking green cards and represents what some might experience as a normal delay in the process.
Siskind said he suspects that Trump’s Monday-night tweet spooked authorities in states such as Florida that rely on temporary workers for their tourism and farming industries.
“Can you imagine what would happen to the Florida economy if you turned off tourism for an extended period of time?” he said.
Harvard Business School professor William Kerr, whose research focuses on how high-skilled immigrant labor has reshaped the U.S. economy, said closing off the pipeline for foreign talent could create barriers to economic success.
Immigrants represent more than a quarter of U.S. entrepreneurs and a quarter of inventors, Kerr said. “These are contributions that are very valuable to economic growth,” he said. “We are going to need to restore large parts of our economy, and immigrants could be very helpful in that role.”
Kerr said that the argument that unemployed Americans should be ahead of foreign workers for job vacancies might sound good in principle but that in reality, the people looking for work might not match available jobs in terms of location or skills required.
“To think that shutting down all immigration into the country is the right strategy is quite foolish,” Kerr said. “It is not one that is economically sound and certainly is not motivated by containing the crisis itself. It’s more of an effort to cast suspicion and blame toward immigrant groups.”
Polls show that the president is facing a difficult reelection contest and that a growing number of Americans disapprove of his handling of the coronavirus crisis. Trump has defended his record by pointing to restrictions he ordered on travelers from China, and he has a well-known penchant for ordering closures, shutdowns and bans on international forces he regards as threats, though nothing as extreme as a total freeze on U.S. immigration.
There is no precedent for such a move by a U.S. leader, said Andrew Selee, president of the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute in Washington.
“I can’t think of any parallels to this in any other democratic country in the modern era,” he said. “We’re essentially telling citizens, companies, innovators, educational institutions to put their plans on hold. Can a president do that? I guess they’re finding whether they have legal authority.”
A draft of the executive order was under review Tuesday at the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, because that office reviews all executive orders, a Justice Department spokeswoman said. It was unclear whether the office’s legal opinion on the matter would be released publicly.
Trump made his announcement in a tweet at 10:06 p.m. Monday, saying the move to suspend immigration would shore up American employment and shield the country from the pandemic, calling coronavirus “the Invisible Enemy.”
Selee, of the Migration Policy Institute, said governments have good reasons for reducing immigration during times of economic crisis and high unemployment, or easing restrictions during boom times to extend periods of growth.
“Governments typically try to find nuanced solutions to limit or expand immigration,” he said. “What you don’t see is governments doing blanket stops.”
Much of the U.S. immigration system is driven by domestic demand, experts note: U.S. citizens and residents marry foreigners, or they seek to bring parents, children and other relatives into the country. Companies hire employees to staff hard-to-fill and high-skill jobs. Universities bring in students, professors and athletes.
All of those migration categories would be affected by the type of sweeping order the president has teased.
On Tuesday, the president’s reelection campaign sent out a snap poll to supporters asking whether they approved of his executive order, even suggesting that Trump would be influenced by their degree of support as the policy was being crafted. “Your input is crucial to the President’s next steps,” the message read.
Trump has remained focused on immigration, the border with Mexico and his push to build a border wall there, inserting, unprompted, updates on construction into the daily coronavirus task force briefings.
On Monday, as the head of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite, finished briefing reporters on efforts to build temporary hospital facilities, Trump urged the military commander to tell reporters about his border wall project. When the general finished, reporters resumed asking questions about the pandemic.
The Trump administration is preparing in coming days to debut a “border wall cam,” an initiative of Jared Kushner’s, that will stream images of construction crews building the structure, according to two administration officials involved in the project.
The camera feed will be carried on the website of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the officials said, and could include footage from multiple locations. One official involved in the planning said the feed will have a time delay to avoid tipping off smuggling organizations to the whereabouts of U.S. Border Patrol agents or their absence.
Josh Dawsey, Arelis R. Hernández, Carol Morello and Matt Zapotosky contributed to this report.
On 8 January 2020, in a military operation code named Operation Martyr Soleimani (Persian: عملیات شهید سلیمانی),[3] Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) launched at least 15 ballistic missiles at the Ayn al-Asad airbase in Al Anbar Governorate, Western Iraq, as well as another airbase in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan in response to the assassination of Major General Qasem Soleimani by United States forces.[4][5][6]
Iran had informed the Iraqi government regarding the attack. No Iraqi or American casualties were reported.[7]
Background
Main article: 2020 Baghdad International Airport airstrike
In the lead up to the attacks, Iranian officials had stated that Iran would retaliate against U.S. forces for the killing of general Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad on 3 January 2020.[8] Reportedly, following the Baghdad strike, U.S. spy agencies detected that Iran’s ballistic missile regiments were at a heightened readiness but it was unclear at the time if they were defensive measures or an indication of a future attack on U.S. forces.[9] U.S. President Donald Trump warned Tehran that any retaliation would result in the U.S. targeting 52 Iranian significant sites, including cultural sites.[10]
Weeks earlier[clarification needed], on 3 December 2019, five rockets had landed on the Ayn al-Asad airbase and there were no injuries.[11] A “security source” inside Ayn al-Asad airbase and a “local official at a nearby town” said that the reports that the Ayn al-Asad airbase were under attack at that time were false.[12] These reports on Twitter temporarily caused a rally of U.S. and Brent crude oil futures.[12]
According to the PM’s spokesman, on 8 January shortly after the midnight, the Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi had received a message from Iran, that the response to the killing of General Soleimani had “started or was about to start”. Iran also informed the PM that only those locations where the US troops are stationed would be targeted. The exact locations of the bases were not disclosed. [7]
Attacks
According to the Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA), the country’s state-run news outlet, Iran fired “tens of ground-to-ground missiles” at the base and claimed responsibility for the attacks.[3] ISNA stated that the code used to launch the missiles was ‘Oh Zahra.’[13][3] The attacks unfolded in two waves, each about an hour apart.[14] The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed responsibility for the attack and announced that it was carried out in response to the killing of Suleimani. The IRGC added that if the United States responded with a retaliatory strike, the IRGC would respond in kind. The IRGC further declared that their statement was intended as a warning and applied to all of the United States’ partners who provided their bases to its military.[15]
Although the Pentagon disputes the number launched, it has confirmed that both the Ayn al-Asad and the Erbil airbases in Iraq were hit.[16][17] A U.S. military spokesman for United States Central Command stated a total of fifteen missiles were fired. Ten hit the Ayn al-Asad airbase, one hit the Erbil base, and four missiles failed.[14] Other sources confirmed that two ballistic missiles targeted Erbil: one hit Erbil International Airport and did not explode, the other landed about 20 miles west of Erbil.[18]
According to the Iraqi military 22 ballistic missiles were fired on the two sites between 1:45 am and 2:15 am at the al-Asad and Erbil facilities. They said 17 missiles have launched on Ayn al-Asad base and five missiles on Erbil.[19][20]
Fars News Agency released video of what it claims is the attack on U.S. military forces in Iraq.[21][22]
Casualties
Neither missile targeted at the Erbil base caused any casualties.[18] No casualties were immediately reported at Ayn al-Asad airbase.[14]
U.S. officials stated that bomb damage assessment was ongoing in the hours after the attack. U.S. President Donald Trump later stated that an assessment of casualties and damages was taking place.[4][23] The initial assessment was that there were “no U.S. casualties”[14] and that the missiles struck areas of the Ayn al-Asad airbase not populated by Americans.[24] An Iraqi security source said there were Iraqi casualties at the base.[24] However, the Iraqi military later reported no casualties among its forces.[19][20][25] Senior Iraqi officials have added on their statements on that there were neither American nor Iraqi casualties resulting from the strikes.[26]
A spokesperson for the Norwegian Armed Forces stated there were no injuries reported for the approximately seventy Norwegian troops stationed at Ayn al-Asad airbase.[13] Scott Morrison, the Australian prime minister, confirmed that no Australians were injured in the attack. During the attack, the Australian PM reportedly told Angus Campbell, chief of the Australian Defence Force, to “take whatever actions are necessary to protect and defend” Australian troops and diplomats in Iraq.[4][27] Jonathan Vance, chief of the Canadian Armed Forces, confirmed that no Canadians were killed in the attack.[4][28] The Danish Defense confirmed that no Danish soldiers were harmed.[29] Poland’s Defence Minister declared no Polish troops stationed in Iraq were injured.[30][31] OPEC’s Secretary-General Mohammed Barkindo on conference in Abu Dhabi announced Iraqi oil facilities secure.[31]
Iranian Television claim 80 US deaths and damage to US helicopters.[32][33]
Aftermath
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration issued a notice to airmen prohibiting U.S. civil aviation operators from operating in the airspace over Iraq, Iran, and the waters of the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.[4][34][35] Singapore Airlines diverted its air flights from Iran airspace following the attacks.[36]
Oil prices surged by 4% on news of the attack, with analysts noting that traders had underestimated Iran’s expected response to Soleimani’s death.[37]Reuters reported of impacts to financial market and oil prices.[38]
Reactions
On 8 January 2020, Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, said that military actions are not enough and that the “corruptive presence” of the United States in the Middle East must be ended.[39]
After the attack, Iran’s foreign minister Javad Zarif stated on Twitter that “Iran took & concluded proportionate measures in self-defense under Article 51 of UN Charter targeting base from which cowardly armed attack against our citizens & senior officials were launched. We do not seek escalation or war, but will defend ourselves against any aggression.”[4][40][41]
In his first public comments on the attack, U.S. President Trump stated on Twitter that “All is well!”. He added that damage assessments were ongoing and that he would make a statement on the attack the following morning.[4][23]
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson denounced Iran’s missile attacks on U.S. military bases in Iraq, urging Tehran to avoid further “reckless and dangerous” strikes.[42]
See also
2020 in Iran
2020 in Iraq
References
“بیانیه رسمی سپاه درباره حملات موشکی سنگین به پایگاه آمریکایی عین الاسد | نام عملیات: شهید سلیمانی”. همشهری آنلاین. 7 January 2020.
“Iran claims 80 American troops killed in missile barrage; US says no casualties”. www.timesofisrael.com.
“Iran launches missiles into US air bases in Iraq: US official”. ABC News. Retrieved 7 January 2020.
Washington (earlier), Maanvi Singh Joan E. Greve in; Doherty, Ben; Butler, Ben; Safi, Michael; Safi, Michael; Borger, Julian (8 January 2020). “Iran launches missiles at US forces in Iraq at al-Asad and Erbil—live updates”. The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 8 January 2020.
Eqbali, Aresu; Malsin, Jared; Leary, Alex (7 January 2020), “Iran Fires Missiles at U.S. Forces in Iraq”, Wall Street Journal, retrieved 7 January 2020
“Iran Fires Missiles at Two U.S. Bases in Iraq: Live Updates”. The New York Times. 8 January 2020. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 8 January 2020.
“Iraqi PM received word from Iran about missile attack”. Reuters. 8 January 2020. Retrieved 8 January 2020.
U.S.–Iran tensions after Soleimani killing: All the latest updates Al Jazeera, January 5, 2020
“US spies detected Iranian ballistic missiles at a heightened state of readiness following the assassination of Qassem Soleimani”. Business Insider. 5 January 2020. Retrieved 6 January 2020.
Suleimani killing: Donald Trump defends threat to target cultural sites in Iran The Guardian, January 6, 2020
Rasheed, Ahmed; Hassan, Samar (3 December 2019). “Rockets hit base hosting U.S. forces in western Iraq”. Reuters. Cairo. Retrieved 7 January 2020.
“Reports of attacks on U.S. military base in Iraq are false: two sources”. Reuters. 3 January 2020. Retrieved 7 January 2020.
“Iran warns US not retaliate over missile attack in Iraq”. AP NEWS. 7 January 2020. Retrieved 7 January 2020.
Miles, Frank (7 January 2020). “Iran launches 15 ballistic missiles into Iraq targeting US, coalition forces, officials say”. Fox News. Retrieved 8 January 2020.
“Iran ‘Concludes’ Attacks, Foreign Minister Says”. 7 January 2020 – via NYTimes.com.
Borger, Julian; Wintour, Patrick (8 January 2020). “Iran crisis: missiles launched against US airbases in Iraq”. The Guardian. London. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 7 January 2020.
Alkhshali, Hamdi; Browne, Ryan; Starr, Barbara. “Pentagon says Iran attacked two Iraqi bases housing US forces”. CNN. Retrieved 8 January 2020.
Alkhshali, Hamdi (7 January 2020). “Two ballistic missiles hit Erbil, sources say”. CNN. Archived from the original on 8 January 2020. Retrieved 8 January 2020.
“Iran missile strike: Two US-Iraq bases hit by 22 projectiles, officials say, as crisis escalates”. independent.
“Iran launches missile attacks on US facilities in Iraq”. aljazeera.
Agency, Source: Fars News (8 January 2020). “Iran releases footage of missile attack on US airbases in Iraq—video”. The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 8 January 2020.
“Iran launches missile attack against US forces inside Iraq in ‘revenge’ for Qassem Soleimani assassination”. ABC News. 8 January 2020. Retrieved 8 January 2020.
Trump, Donald J. [@realDonaldTrump] (7 January 2020). “All is well! Missiles launched from Iran at two military bases located in Iraq. Assessment of casualties & damages taking place now. So far, so good! We have the most powerful and well equipped military anywhere in the world, by far! I will be making a statement tomorrow morning” (Tweet). Retrieved 8 January 2020 – via Twitter.
Browne, Ryan; Brown, Pamela (7 January 2020). “Missiles hit areas of al-Asad base not populated by Americans”. CNN. Archived from the original on 8 January 2020. Retrieved 8 January 2020.
Politics, P. M. N. (8 January 2020). “No Iraqi casualties in 22-missile Iranian attack overnight -military | National Post”. Retrieved 8 January 2020.
Rubin, Alissa J.; Fassihi, Farnaz; Schmitt, Eric; Yee, Vivian (7 January 2020). “Iran Fires on U.S. Forces at 2 Bases in Iraq, Calling It ‘Fierce Revenge’”. The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 8 January 2020.
“No Australian troops, staff hurt in Iran missile attacks on US airbases in Iraq”. SBS News. Retrieved 8 January 2020.
Vance, General Jonathan [@CDS_Canada_CEMD] (7 January 2020). “CAF families: I can assure you that all deployed CAF personnel are safe & accounted for following missile attacks in Iraq. We remain vigilant” (Tweet). Retrieved 8 January 2020 – via Twitter.
Prakash, Thomas; Olsen, Theis Lange (8 January 2020). “Militærbase med danske soldater ramt af iranske missiler – meldes i god behold” [Military base with Danish soldiers hit by Iranian missiles—declared safe and sound]. DR (in Danish). Retrieved 8 January 2020.
Charlish, Alan. “No Polish troops in Iraq hurt in Iranian missile attacks: minister”.
“Iran fires missiles at US targets in Iraq: All the latest updates”. aljazeera.
Stewart, Ahmed Aboulenein and Phil (8 January 2020). “‘We slapped them on the face’: Ayatollah tells Iranians”. The Sydney Morning Herald.
“Iran missiles target U.S. forces in Iraq; Trump says ‘All well’”. 8 January 2020 – via www.reuters.com.
“US bans airlines from flying over Iraq and Iran after attacks on military”. The Guardian. 8 January 2020.
FAA, The [@FAANews] (7 January 2020). “#FAA Statement: #NOTAMs issued outlining flight restrictions that prohibit U.S. civil aviation operators from operating in the airspace over Iraq, Iran, and the waters of the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.pic.twitter.com/kJEbpPddp3” (Tweet). Retrieved 8 January 2020 – via Twitter.
“Singapore Air Diverts Flights From Iran Airspace After Attacks”. Bloomberg. 8 January 2020.
Stevens, Pippa (7 January 2020). “Oil prices surge 4% at high following attacks on Iraq bases”. CNBC. Retrieved 8 January 2020.
“GLOBAL MARKETS-Stocks, gold and oil whipsawed as Iran strikes spark fears of wider Mideast war – Reuters”. Reuters. 7 January 2020.
“Iran attack: US troops targeted with ballistic missiles”. bbc.
“Iran does not seek escalation or war, but will defend itself – foreign minister tweets”. Reuters. 8 January 2020.
Zarif, Javad [@JZarif] (7 January 2020). “Iran took & concluded proportionate measures in self-defense under Article 51 of UN Charter targeting base from which cowardly armed attack against our citizens & senior officials were launched. We do not seek escalation or war, but will defend ourselves against any aggression” (Tweet). Retrieved 8 January 2020 – via Twitter.
“British PM condemns Iranian missile attack; Iranian President pledges US forces wil be ejected”. Breaking News. 8 January 2020. Retrieved 8 January 2020.
Iranian missile attack on U.S.-led coalition forces in Iraq
Part of the Persian Gulf crisis and the Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict
Operational scope
Multiple-sites targeted military strike
Location
Ayn al-Asad Airbase, Al Anbar Governorate, Iraq Erbil International Airport, Erbil Governorate, Kurdistan Region, Iraq 33°48′N 42°26′ECoordinates: 33°48′N 42°26′E
Planned by
Iran
Commanded by
Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami
Target
Al Asad Airbase Erbil International Airport
Date
8 January 2020 (UTC+03:00)
Executed by
Aerospace Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps[1]
Outcome
6 to 10 Fateh-313 missiles hit Ayn al-Asad Airbase 1 Qiam 1 missile hits 20 miles from Erbil International Airport (alleged) 1 Qiam 1 missile reaches Erbil International Airport and does not explode (alleged) 3 Qiam 1 missiles fail in the air (alleged)
Casualties
No Iraqi or American casualties officially reported; More than 80 soldiers killed and 200 injured (according to Iranian media)[2]
Ayn al-Asad AirbaseLocation of Ayn al-Asad Airbase in Iraq
As you’ve probably noticed, we love reporting posting about Trump’s adventures on this site. Currently he’s visiting UK, so here are the funniest protest signs made by some brilliant UK citizens…
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If you enjoyed this gallery, you will probably also like Trump With an Extremely Long Tie, Trump Toilet Paper, and Frog-Chinned Trump.
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Anonymous June 3, 2019Love these. Gonna save this as inspiration for 2020 signs!
Frann June 3, 2019This made my morning so much brighter,Thanks!
cecile June 3, 2019ha ha ha….
Dense Pence June 3, 2019He’s a “Looney Tune” that ISN’T funny!
MC/DC June 3, 2019Just Brilliant!
Mike P. June 3, 2019Shoot him and I’ll be president!
Roger Collins June 3, 2019Brilliant- our sense of humour is one of the last good things in the UK?
Anonymous June 3, 2019This made my morning
Jeanne June 3, 2019Well done, you Brits!!
Anonymous June 3, 2019Useful idiots gonna useful idiot…
DP June 3, 2019Love it UK 🇬🇧. Thanks for the laugh, we need it here in the US 🇺🇸. It’s embarrassing to admit I’m from here these dark days. 😪
Patti June 3, 2019Thanks for all the giggles, UK! These are wonderfully amusing. I needed a laugh today.
Antoinette June 3, 2019Love your signs and your enthusiasm. We hate him in the United States as much as you do. Your cousin across the pond,
maura June 3, 2019These are just great! Speaking as a U.S. citizen!
Anonymous June 3, 2019From this Californian….THANK YOU!These are absolutely golden!
Anonymous June 3, 2019These are great! Gave me smiles and giggles and we’ve had few of those since Trump was elected.
Jenny June 3, 2019LOVE IT!!! And I’m glad that the comments I’ve read here aren’t from any trumper humpers. I pray and pray that there are enough of us that will stop a revolution if it happens. These people really do scare me even more than rump because they give him the power, lie for him by passing around HIS fake news, feed his ego and ones that I’ve talked to (which I avoid at all costs) are downright hostile He really is doing almost exactly what adolph hitler did in Germany,
Harvey June 3, 2019Most of the people here in the U.S. can’t believe he hasn’t been impeached ! I can’t gut him , he makes me sick to my stomach !
Sher Holtz June 3, 2019WE LOVE THE BRITS. WE HATE THE SOB TOO BUT IT’S NICE TO KNOW WE HAVE COMPANY!! THANKS GUYS!
Cherilyn June 3, 2019Sooooo awesome! So glad someone can do this! Please continue!
Patriot June 3, 2019Ignorant brainwashed leftys.. Traitorus propaganda media… If you understand anything about politics and the world stage then you would not be slandering this man you would be showering him with respect and thankfulness.
Tootie June 3, 2019I almost spewed my coffee across the room when a friend shared and I saw the cover photo. Thank you Brit’s, you didn’t let us down AND your cleverness will appear on our signs on this side of the pond. Come visit Montana and will show you around
Anonymous June 3, 2019These are great. And they made my day. I wish we could do this. I’d be first in line.
Rose M. June 3, 2019This made my day also. The right is crying. 😁
Glenn June 3, 2019No Respect for the US president. These people would be speaking German if it weren’t for the US
rseimone June 3, 2019Bless the Brits, we can always count on them! This made my morning 100% better!
Anonymous June 3, 2019Love all the signs. I don’t understand why the Queen even invited him- lost respect for her! Sad
Anonymous June 3, 2019No Glenn, in case you didn’t know, the Brits held their own in WW2 and the Canadians{ also the UK} helped defeat the enemy. Heck, even the Russians did their share.Typically American to think anybody owes you anything.
Anonymous June 3, 2019Glenn – many Brits are very grateful to the US for their part (along with many others, and slow as it was in coming) in WWII. Remind again how Trump contributed to that? Or anything about his honorable military service…?
[tumbleweed]
Janet June 3, 2019
Love the signs Hate TRUMP too
Anonymous June 3, 2019
Thank you Brits for making my day!! So hilarious and enlightening. Most of my friends can’t stand him either! 😀
Anonymous June 3, 2019
The signs were AWESOME!! The UK rocks!!! Btw, if the orange infant gets re-elected (God forbid) can I come back (2 lines were English who came to the US way back)? PLEASE???????????
iamcart June 3, 2019
FANTASTIC! Thanks England!
Pam June 3, 2019
Wow! I was hoping my blood was not that stupid. Thankful my branch of the family left your island, worked hard and created a country that would elect President Trump. And you have Khan. LMAO!
Anonymous June 3, 2019
Let him have it! Thank you UK from your friends in San Francisco!
Dorcas Smith June 3, 2019
Love these signs! Go Brits!
Faith June 3, 2019
Thanks so much made my day… We promise to get rid of him, trying hard. Maybe since he doesn’t read he can sell the first edition and buy gum in jail. jus sayin….
Tony June 3, 2019
And of course our illustrious British prime minister (not) and her boy’s club are so much better than Trump? More honest, caring when it comes to the electorate, really listen to the people, fulfil their promises and give the people what they vote for!!! I don’t think so! I’ll take a leader with guts over the yellow bellied lot here any day.
President Trump got a lot of cheers when he said the following during his State of the Union address:
There could be no greater contrast to the beautiful image of a mother holding her infant child than the chilling displays our nation saw in recent days. Lawmakers in New York cheered with delight upon the passage of legislation that would allow a baby to be ripped from the mother’s womb moments before birth.
These are living, feeling, beautiful babies who will never get the chance to share their love and dreams with the world. And then, we had the case of the governor of Virginia where he stated he would execute a baby after birth. To defend the dignity of every person, I am asking the Congress to pass legislation to prohibit the late-term abortion of children who can feel pain in the mother’s womb. Let us work together to build a culture that cherishes innocent life.
And let us reaffirm a fundamental truth — all children — born and unborn — are made in the holy image of God.
But are the sentiments expressed here about protecting innocent life, about affirming the truth that man is made in the image of God, consistent with the aspirations and history of the American project, or with non-Orthodox Western civilization in general? Unfortunately, they are not.
Charles in Charge of the West
No, not that Charles:
This one:
Since Western Europe first began to conceive of herself in the eighth century as an entity apart from the worldwide Orthodox Christian Empire, the innocent have suffered greatly. This process began when Charlemagne (742-814) set up his heretical version of the Christian Empire in Aachen, heretical because he denied the validity of the Seventh Ecumenical Council’s teachings on the necessity to venerate the holy icons of the Lord Jesus Christ, His Most Pure Mother, and the other saints and angels; and because of his addition of the Filioque to the Nicene Creed. Given this auspicious beginning, it is unsurprising to find in the history of his reign that he caused much blood to flow in the expansion of his ‘Holy Roman Empire’, including the 4,500 Saxons slaughtered at Verden:
Yet this is the same Charlemagne whom Pope Benedict XIV saw fit to beatify in the 18th century. The Roman Catholic faithful are to address him as ‘Blessed Charlemagne’:
—https://catholicsaints.info/blessed-charlemagne/
Roman Catholic West
That beatification by the Pope is quite fitting, however. For with Charlemagne’s death in 814, his false empire collapsed, and the next attempt at Western self-exaltation, at setting up a false Christian Empire in opposition to the Orthodox Empire, came from the bishops of Rome themselves, beginning officially in 1054 and lasting to this very day. Following this sundering came, predictably, more needless bloodshed. The Roman Catholic Norman Invasion of the Orthodox kingdom of England took place in short order (1066) with the blessing of Pope Alexander II. William the Conqueror’s own words tell how grisly this early attempt at papal conquest was:
I have persecuted the natives of England beyond all reason. Whether gentle or simple I have cruelly oppressed them; many I unjustly disinherited; innumerable multitudes perished through me by famine or the sword … I fell on the English of the northern shires like a ravening lion. I commanded their houses and corn, with all their implements and chattels, to be burnt without distinction, and great herds of cattle and beasts of burden to be butchered wherever they are found. In this way I took revenge on multitudes of both sexes by subjecting them to the calamity of a cruel famine, and so became the barbarous murderer of many thousands, both young and old, of that fine race of people.
William’s death-bed confession, according to Ordericus Vitalis, c. AD 1130
—Quoted in Fr Andrew Phillips, Orthodox Christianity and the Old English Church, p. 23 of PDF,
Fr Andrew continues,
It has been estimated that during William I’s reign up to one in five of the English population died by the sword or in famineslxii. This does not include the deaths of the non-English population in Wales or Scotland, nor the civil war deaths in the reign of Stephen, nor the deaths resulting from the Papally-sponsored Norman invasion of Ireland, nor those of the One Hundred Years War which was provoked by the territorial claims to France of the Anglo-Norman kings. Even if the figure of one in five is exaggerated and it can be halved, one in ten is equivalent today to over five million deaths – fifteen times the number of British deaths resulting from the Second World War. The account of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is unambiguous: ‘And they built castles far and wide throughout the land, oppressing the unhappy people, and things went ever from bad to worse’. ‘Only amongst the monks, where they lived virtuously was righteousness to be found in the land.’ Of William ‘the Bastard’, the Chronicle says the following: ‘Assuredly in his time men suffered grievous oppression and manifold injuries … he was sunk in greed and utterly given up to avarice. He was too relentless to care even though all might hate him … Alas! That any man should bear himself so proudly and deem himself exalted above all other men.lxiii’ Of the tortures inflicted on captives and the gruesome account of William’s funeral, when his stomach burst open in stinking putrefaction, one can read elsewhere (pgs. 25-6).
Not too long after the Norman Invasion, the Crusades were launched by Pope Urban II in 1095. Bernard of Clairvaux (d. 1153) justified the killing this way in his work In Praise of the New Knighthood:
To be sure, precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his holy ones, whether they die in battle or in bed, but death in battle is more precious as it is the more glorious (Ch. I, section 2). . . .
BUT THE KNIGHTS OF CHRIST may safely fight the battles of their Lord, fearing neither sin if they smite the enemy, nor danger at their own death; since to inflict death or to die for Christ is no sin, but rather, an abundant claim to glory. In the first case one gains for Christ, and in the second one gains Christ himself. The Lord freely accepts the death of the foe who has offended him, and yet more freely gives himself for the consolation of his fallen knight.
The knight of Christ, I say, may strike with confidence and die yet more confidently, for he serves Christ when he strikes, and serves himself when he falls. Neither does he bear the sword in vain, for he is God’s minister, for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of the good. If he kills an evildoer, he is not a mankiller, but, if I may so put it, a killer of evil. He is evidently the avenger of Christ towards evildoers and he is rightly considered a defender of Christians. Should he be killed himself, we know that he has not perished, but has come safely into port. When he inflicts death it is to Christ’s profit, and when he suffers death, it is for his own gain. The Christian glories in the death of the pagan, because Christ is glorified; while the death of the Christian gives occasion for the King to show his liberality in the rewarding of his knight. In the one case the just shall rejoice when he sees justice done, and in the other man shall say, truly there is a reward for the just; truly it is God who judges the earth.
I do not mean to say that the pagans are to be slaughtered when there is any other way to prevent them from harassing and persecuting the faithful, but only that it now seems better to destroy them than that the rod of sinners be lifted over the lot of the just, and the righteous perhaps put forth their hands unto iniquity (Ch. 3). . . .
Note the utter dehumanization by Bernard of the Muslims. They are no longer men but simply ‘evil’ itself, confounding person and attribute. No wonder that upwards of 1,000,000 are estimated to have died in the Crusades ). This sort of mindset has remained typical of the post-Schism West in her wars of righteousness against those she believes to be ‘evildoers’. And let us also recall that Bernard has been not simply beatified like Charlemagne but fully canonized as a saint of the Roman Catholic congregation.
When the peoples of Western Europe democratized the papist principle (that one man, instead of a council of bishops guided by the Holy Ghost, can determine what is and is not the True Faith), applying it to themselves one and all, then the Protestant Reformation was born, and the shadow which lay across that part of the Eurasian land grew darker. Delusional apocalyptic fervor grew, and along with it the flow of blood. A couple of ensamples will suffice.
The actions of Martin Luther, who began the Reformation in earnest in 1517, during the Peasants’ War in Germany is the first. He wrote,
I will not oppose a ruler who, even though he does not tolerate the gospel, will smite and punish these peasants without first offering to submit the case to judgment (quoted in Archpriest Josiah Trenham, Rock and Sand, Newrome Press, 2015, p. 98).
Fr Josiah goes on to relate the consequences of such statements:
On May 15, Müntzer’s forces were slaughtered by the nobility at Frankenhausen. Some 6000 peasants were killed, with only some six casualties on the side of the princes. Müntzer was captured and beheaded twelve days later. In upper Germany alone, it is estimated that some 130,000 peasants were slaughtered. . . . Luther was sharply criticized by many for his position, and was called “the hammer of the poor” by Hermann Mühlpfort, the mayor of Zwickau (Ibid.).
The next, which would decisively cripple what was left of Christianity in Western Europe, is the Thirty Years’ War (1618-48), which was fought between various Roman Catholic and Protestant countries for the supremacy of their creeds over Western Europe. There were upwards of 8,000,000 casualties due to the fighting of these ‘Christian nations’, which included death by hunger and disease of many civilians ).
During the Thirty Years’ War, many of the contending armies were mercenaries, many of whom could not collect their pay. This threw them on the countryside for their supplies, and thus began the “wolf-strategy” that typified this war. The armies of both sides plundered as they marched, leaving cities, towns, villages, and farms ravaged.
From here onwards, Western Europe and her children became the breeding ground for all manner of utopian (i.e., demonic) ideologies meant to replace the simulacrums of Christianity they had experienced, but sometimes still masquerading in the costume of Christianity. But this would not end the bloodletting in the West, but only increase it exponentially. From the French Revolution to the Russian Revolution, from the War of Northern Aggression against Dixie to the War on Terror, Western wars of ideology have resulted in the deaths of tens of millions, with millions more suffering besides.
Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s famous quote about sanctions on Iraq from 1996 show that the Western soul hasn’t much changed since Bernard’s propaganda of the 12th century:
Correspondent Leslie Stahl said to Albright, “We have heard that a half-million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And — and, you know, is the price worth it?”
Madeleine Albright replied, “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price — we think the price is worth it.”
The U.S./NATO bombing of Serbia during the holy seasons of Easter and Pentecost in 1999 shows the same:
According to the estimates of the government of Serbia, at least 2,500 people, of whom 89 children, were killed during the attacks (according to some sources, the total death toll was nearly 4,000), while more than 12,500 people were wounded and injured.
. . .
Almost every town in Serbia had been targeted during the 11 weeks of the air strikes.
The bombing destroyed and damaged 25,000 housing units, 470 km of roads and 595 kilometers of railways.
The attacks also damaged 14 airports, 19 hospitals, 20 health centers, 18 kindergartens, 69 schools, 176 cultural monuments and 44 bridges, while 38 were destroyed.
During the aggression NATO carried out a total of 2,300 airs trikes on 995 facilities across the country, while 1,150 combat aircraft launched nearly 420,000 missiles.
NATO also launched 1,300 cruise missiles, dropped over 37,000 cluster bombs, which killed some 200 people and wounded hundreds, and used prohibited ammunition with depleted uranium.
A third of the electrical power capacity of the country was destroyed, two oil refineries, in Pancevo and Novi Sad bombed, while NATO forces used the opportunity to for the first time deploy the so-called graphite bombs to disable the power system.
This same grisly barbarity is still on display by the Most Christian Country, The Holy Republic of America, the greatest country that ever was, is, or is to come. Venezuela is a telling example:
This is unprecedented—Bolton publicly announcing a military coup (usually with hundreds if not thousands of deaths). He deliberately showed off his notebook with scribbled invasion plans, so there would be no question about the agenda.
But that’s how the neocons operate. Lies, falsifications, grandiose claims, and invasions to forcibly install “democracy,” which is nothing of the sort.
Bolton’s “democracy” is doublespeak in action. It’s a thinly disguised euphemism used to obscure the actual objective—the destruction of entire nations, cultures, and societies at the cost of hundreds of thousands if not millions of lives. Untold millions of lives have been destroyed by the sort of “democracy” Bolton is talking about. It was put into action when Bolton was a toddler.
Let’s get real. Bolton doesn’t care about the people of Venezuela. If he did the US would not be imposing harsh sanctions that are resulting in malnutrition and starvation. Bolton is using the age-old technique of starving and depriving people so they will overthrow the government (this tactic rarely works—leading me to believe it is inflicted out of pure sadism—leading to the exact opposite reaction).
One could substitute ‘Iran’ or ‘Yemen’ for ‘Venezuela’ and have largely the same essay.
All of this seems to sit just fine with the Evangelicals in the States (just listen to Frank Gaffney sometime, ; Thomas DiLorenzo offers this description of them, together with some of their backstory:
These are the people whose churches are littered with gigantic American flags that dwarf any Christian icons; who routinely ask anyone who owns a military uniform to wear it to church; who sing the state’s war anthems at their services; who divert their Sunday offerings away from the poor and needy in their communities so that the money can be sent to grossly-overpaid military bureaucrats; and who can never stop thanking, thanking, thanking, and thanking “soldiers” for their “service” in murdering foreigners and bombing and destroying their cities – if not their entire societies – in the state’s aggressive, non-defensive, foreign wars.
Where did this very un-Christian “religion” of violence come from? The answer to this question is that it first developed as a part of New England’s neo-Puritanical “Yankees” in the early and mid-nineteenth century. It reached its zenith in the 1860s when, finally in control of the entire federal government, the New England Yankees waged total war on the civilian population of a large part of their own country, mass murdering fellow Americans by the hundreds of thousands, and then singing a “religious” song that described it all as “the glory of the coming of the Lord.”
As Murray Rothbard described them in his essay, “Just War”:
The North’s driving force, the ‘Yankees’ – that ethnocultural group who either lived in New England or migrated from there to upstate New York, northern and eastern Ohio, northern Indiana, and northern Illinois – had been swept by . . . a fanatical and emotional neo-Puritanism driven by a fervent ‘postmillenialism’ which held that as a precondition of the Second Advent of Jesus Christ, man must set up a thousand-year-Kingdom of God on Earth. The Kingdom is to be a perfect society. In order to be perfect, of course, this Kingdom must be free of sin . . . . If you didn’t stamp out sin by force you yourself would not be saved.
This is why “the Northern war against slavery partook of a fanatical millenialist fervor, of a cheerful willingness to uproot institutions, to commit mayhem and mass murder, to plunder and loot and destroy, all in the name of high moral principle,” wrote Rothbard. They were “humanitarians with the guillotine,” the “Jacobins, the Bolsheviks of their era.”
Clyde Wilson described these neo-Puritanical zealots in a similar manner in his essay, “The Yankee Problem in America”:
Abolitionism, despite what has been said later, was not based on sympathy for the black people nor on an ideal of natural rights. It was based on the hysterical conviction that Southern slaveholders were evil sinners who stood in the way of fulfillment of America’s driving mission to establish Heaven on Earth . . . . [M]any abolitionists expected that evil Southern whites and Blacks would disappear and the land repopulated by virtuous Yankees” (emphasis added).
And here we are, awaiting still the final grand unveiling of the Yankee/Western Millennium.
The Genocide of the Saints
As horrendous as the foregoing has been, there is still a crime of the apostate post-Schism West that we have not yet spoken of which we consider more hideous than all of that: the desecration of the saints, whether their bodily relics, representations, or shrines. More depraved than the slaughter of innocent children? Yes. A little child does indeed bear the image of God and is innocent of any purposeful wrongdoing, has not yet known the fall into the knowledge of evil. The saint, on the other hand, while retaining the image of God, has nevertheless cooperated with the Grace of God to such a degree that he has attained the likeness of God as well (see Gen. 1:26), overcoming his fallen, sinful nature and uniting with the Holy Ghost. Therefore, the saints are the most innocent, the most guileless, moreso than even children.
But this did not matter to the West. In her self-righteous zeal she sought to brutalize the saints as well. We have already mentioned very briefly Charlemagne’s effort at this. His rejection of the Seventh Ecumenical Council’s command to venerate images of the saints is already a rejection by the West of the Holy Ghost, Who resides in the images and shrines of the saints, and also especially in their incorrupt relics, with which He remains united as a foretelling to man of the Resurrection to come.
The Roman Catholic Normans who invaded Orthodox England in 1066 went further. Fr Andrew Phillips writes,
The record of the losses of Old English art and architecture is heart-rending. Today we have little more than fragments of Old English architecture. Of course much was built of wood and could not have lasted, but nevertheless the story of the Norman destruction of Old English church buildings is too much like barbarian vandalism to be excused. When they came to demolish the Cathedral in Worcester in 1086, the saintly Bishop Wulfstan remarked: ‘The men of old may not have had stately edifices, but they were themselves a sacrifice to God, whereas now they pile up stones, but forget the soul’lxiv. It is more distressing to read of the destruction of the European treasurehouse of church art which Old England was. If the churches were razed, leaving us with a pitiful idea of what the former architecture was really like, then, what can we say of Old English Art?
‘Nowhere in Europe, even in Byzantium itself, was there a more advanced conception of manuscript illustration and decoration than in Britain. Nowhere, even in Persia, were finer textiles embroidered; nowhere was finer sculpture in stone executed nowhere were finer ivories carved … they are all quite easy to distinguish as English. They stand out, moreover, by virtue of their quality.’ So speaks the art historian, Talbot-Ricelxv. Indeed the English were renowned for the quality of their embroidery and we know of a school of embroidery at Ely, though doubtless there were many others. The Winchester School of manuscript illumination was widely known and represented the spiritual and artistic flowering of the tenth century English Renaissance.
The destruction of nearly all of this heritage makes lugubrious reading. ‘In the spring of the year (1070), the King had all the monasteries in England plunderedlxvi’. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries there are unending lists of gold crucifixes, vestments of woven gold, silver and gold sacred vessels and censers, chalices and patens, shrines and altars with their embroidered hangings, silver and gilt ewers of Byzantine work, Gospel-books adorned with precious stones, gold reliquaries and the holy relics contained within, silks and precious hangings, ornaments which in the words of William of Poitiers, ‘Byzantium would hold very dear.’ In the twelfth century he wrote: ‘A Greek or Arab visitor would have been carried away by delight’ at the sight of the treasures melted down or sent to France by William. From one church alone he stole treasures worth £6,000, a colossal sum in modern termslxvii.
All this was pillaged; the Old English Church was raped and ravaged. The depths of blasphemy and sacrilege were reached when the Norman clergy began burning the relics of the Old English saints to see if they were authentic; their doubts sometimes seem to have been founded merely on the Norman inability to pronounce the Old English names. Such barbarian acts were not to be seen again until the sack of Christian Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade in 1204. Later we shall see the Old English connection even here. The accounts of the sack of Old English art are among the most shameful in Western history. After William and his descendants, then the fires of the Middle Ages, followed by the syphilitic frenzy of greed of Henry VIII and the outbursts of the Puritans, then the vandalism of the Victorians, it comes as no surprise when we realise that what we possess of a half-millennium of Old English Art and Architecture is nothing but a single crumb from a huge but ever lost royal banquet. It is an immensely sobering but nonetheless true fact that there is a part of human nature that delights in the destruction of everything beautiful, be it the creation of God or of man.
—Orthodox Christianity and the Old English Church, pgs. 26-7
As Fr Andrew indicates, the Protestants too would take part in this genocide against the holy saints and their memory.
Motadel writes that,
“The prototype of all modern forms of iconoclasm [Noyes] found in Calvin’s Geneva and Ibn Abd al-Wahhab’s Mecca. Sixteenth-century Geneva witnessed one of the most devastating waves of religious image-breaking in history. Incited by a group of charismatic theologians – among them John Calvin himself – mobs raged against objects associated with miracles, magic and the supernatural, destroying some of the city’s most precious pieces of Christian art. Invoking the Second Commandment, they denounced these works as idols, and as remnants of a rural, feudal and superstitious world, a world corrupted by Satan.” The Western Assault on Innocent Life
Nor was Geneva unusual. In Basel in 1529, widespread iconoclastic riots destroyed virtually all the material tokens of traditional Catholic worship and devotion in the cathedral and the city’s leading churches. Even these German and Swiss manifestations were dwarfed by the devastating Storm of Images (Beeldenstorm) that swept over the Netherlands in 1566.
This movement was directed against any and all Catholic material symbols — against stained glass windows, statues of the Virgin and saints, holy medals and tokens.
Such stories of image-breaking (iconoclasm) are familiar enough to anyone who knows about the Reformation, and there are plenty of scholarly studies.
Recent works, though, highlight two features of the movement that often get underplayed:
1. Iconoclasm was central to the Reformation experience, not marginal, and not just a regrettable extravagance.
Historians of the Reformation tend to be bookish people interested in books, so they focus on aspects of literacy and translation, with the spread of the vernacular Bible as the centerpiece of the story. The idea of the Reformation as a “media revolution” is common enough.
Yes, we do read of outbreaks of destructive violence and iconoclasm, but these are usually presented as marginal excesses, or understandable instances of popular fury against church abuses. Once we get those unfortunate riots out of the way, we can get back to the main story of tracing the process of Bible translation.
That’s very misleading. For anyone living at the time, including educated elites, the iconoclasm was not just an incidental breakdown of law and order, it was the core of the whole movement, the necessary other side of the coin to the growth of literacy. Those visual and symbolic representations of the Christian story had to decrease, in order for the world of the published Bible to increase. The Western Assault on Innocent Life
In terms of the lived experience of people at the time, the image-breaking is the key component of the Reformation. In the rioting and mayhem, a millennium-old religious order was visibly and comprehensively smashed.
In words adapted from the Vulgate version of Job, the Calvinist motto proclaimed, Post Tenebras Lux: After darkness, Light. (And that is still Geneva’s motto).
One would think such crimes as these might cause Protestants to have some hesitation about judging the sins of others, but it has not. Regarding China, for example, they say,
WASHINGTON — The Chinese government is supervising a five-year plan to make Christianity more compatible with socialism in which there will be a “rewrite” of the Bible, a prominent religious freedom activist has told Congress.
The Rev. Bob Fu, a former Chinese house church leader who immigrated to the United States in 1997 and founded the persecution watchdog organization China Aid, provided great detail during a House hearing Thursday about a plan enacted by leading state-sanctioned denominations in China to “Sincize” Christianity.
As China’s crackdown on religion has seen many house churches demolished and thousands of crosses removed from churches nationwide, Fu warned upfront that what is happening right now in China represents the highest degree of persecution for independent faith groups the country has seen in decades.
Yet in all three areas they raise in criticism of China – rewriting the Bible, tearing down churches, and destroying Crosses – Protestants are guilty themselves. The Protestants removed several books from the Old Testament canon of the Bible, and Martin Luther himself added ‘alone’ to his translation of Romans 3:28 (‘man is justified by faith alone’) and also wanted to throw out the Book of James because it contradicted the theological system he created. See, e. g.,
Of the other two, it is enough to recall Mr Jenkins’s article just above as well as the quote of Bishop Joseph Hall shown in the linked section of this article:
This in no way excuses China’s repressive measures, but the Protestant hypocrisy is extraordinary. For these children of the Chinese Communist revolutionaries (and their forebears in France, Russia, etc.) are, in the end, only carrying on the legacy of the Protestants (and the Roman Catholic popes) by overturning the received traditions and replacing them with new, self-created ones.
The Future of the West
How does one even begin to close an essay like this, cataloguing such inhuman evil in the West? Only one word seems appropriate: Repent.
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