"For The Day Of The Lord Draws Near On All The Nations. As You Have Done, It Will Be Done To You. Your Dealings Will Return On your Own Head" . ‚   Obadiah 1:15

In the book of Obadiah a prophetic curse is place on the Arab nations descended from Esau and on their dwelling in southern Jordan, Edom, so named not only for the redness of Esau"s hair or complexion but for the red color of the mountains of Seir surrounding Petra where he and his descendants dwelt. The inhabitants had always taken a rather nasty disposition towards their Israelite brethren, who only wanted to befriend them and have peaceful trade relations and the right to transit to their own promised land, but the Israelites were not to respond with hostility or touch the land God promised to their brothers-cum-cousins who were also descended from Abraham (Deuteronomy 2:2-4).

Obadiah’s curse had specific meaning to the land of Edom when Edom gloated over and effectively supported the Babylonian captivity of the Jews circa 585 BC. The pattern was typical. God would use a heathen nation with a heathen religion to judge his own people for their sin, but then He would judge and even destroy those heathen nations.

It is the same pattern we witness today. As a lover of America, of Britain, and of Israel " “ it is personally difficult for me to face up to the fact that Islam and its barbaric cruelty is a judgment on the Judeo-Christian world for their rejection of the God of The Judeo-Christian scriptures. Also as one who had a family member murdered by the radical Islamists in the Twin Towers in New York on September 11th, it is not without a deep sense of compassion for those who also lost family and friends in the July Islamic terror attacks in London that I ponder this Scripture. It is not a judgment against individuals, but against nations and godless societies that God allows these murdering savages to infiltrate and rise up against, using senseless violence in the name of their religion. ‚   I cannot as a believer in Jesus incite hatred against Moslems. But it is no less a fact that their religion (Islam) has perpetrated open genocide against Christians in East Timor, the Molukan Islands, the Southern Philippines, Eritrea, Northern Nigeria, Saudi Arabia (which hangs, flogs and beheads Christians), Iran (which is racing to build a nuclear bomb) and Egypt which is supposedly moderate but arrests and persecutes people for becoming Christian, cannot reasonably be described as anything short of satanic by Christian standards. May more Moslems come to know Christ and may the Western world wake up to the reality of Islam (based on the writings of the Koran) and its destructive goals for the West and the world.

Eschatologically however, in verse 15 of its solitary chapter, the Book of Obadiah expands the prophecy to all nations, predicting that as we approach the Last Days, Divine retribution will fall upon other nations in accordance with their maltreatment of Israel. This directly relates to God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis 12:1-3 and reiterated to Jacob to curse those cursing and bless those blessing Abraham’s descendents via the lineage of Isaac and Jacob. It also points ahead to Jesus coming to save the surviving Jews of the Time of Jacob’s Trouble, which occurs during the Great Tribulation in the Book of Zechariah chapters 10-12.

The tragic events that transpired in London in July when British born Moslems became suicide bombers because of their Islamic beliefs must be viewed in this light.

There is a Divine retribution and God is trying to wake up the Western World not only to the reality of Islam’s global persecution of Christians, but to its own sin and indeed blasphemy. It is for sure the BBC would not have dared to broadcast a Jerry Springer Opera at Ramadan with Mohammed saying that he was a little bit gay as they ascribed to Jesus at Christmas. Such dual standards at the BBC accurately portray not only its cowardice but also hypocrisy: BBC = Bias Blasphemy Cowardice.

It is not only the British media, campuses, and church that continually denounces Israel in its struggle to live in a land that the archaeological record proves is historically theirs. It is the government too! No one would dare say Apaches occupy Arizona or Maoris occupy New Zealand or that the Irish occupy Ulster. The rights of others to live in New Zealand, Arizona, or Ulster is not in dispute, but only in Israel do academics, theocrats, politicians, and distorting propagandists, who masquerade as journalists, call the indigenous an occupation.

What drives the political left? Whether it be it the Galloways or Sizers, or Goerings, or Fisks (or even a now failed Islamic aligned Tory politician like David Mellor) it certainly cannot be left wing ideology or a genuine concern for human rights. If that were the case they would be focused not against Israel, a state safeguarding not only the human rights of homosexuals and religious minorities and of Muslims living in Israel and against the Islamic nations who do no protect such human rights.

Galloway once made statements supportive of Sadam Hussein who, like Hitler, used chemical agents against women and children (Kurdish Moslems). Galloway was later forced to withdraw in the face of Hussein's slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Moslems. The Fisks and Goerings seem to expect the world to ignore that the only orchestrated campaigns of genocide against the Palestinian Arabs were carried out not by Israel but rather by Jordan in Black September of 1970 (after Arafat tried on King Hussein what he would later try on Israel), by Kuwait after the Palestinian Arabs supported the Iraqi invasion and rape of Kuwait, and by other Palestinian Arabs in their own civil war in Lebanon. They also expect us to ignore the fact that prior to the intifadas, the World Health Organization determined that in terms of everything from life expectancy to infant mortality to employment, the standard of living of West Bank Arabs improved by 320% under the Israelis and by 370% among Gaza Arabs above what it had been under Islamic rule. Left leaning politicians expect the world to pretend that there were Palestinian Arabs on The west Bank before 1967, when in fact they were called Jordanians and 70% of the population in Jordan today is Palestinian Arab. They expect the world to forget that from 1948 until 1967, the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem were all in the hands of Arab Moslems.

If the Moslem world really wanted a second Palestinian Arab Moslem state in addition to Jordan, why did the Arab Moslem world not simply establish one when they nearly 20 years to do so? Instead of asking the obvious however, we are called to subscribe to the rewriting of history by revisionist liars and unprincipled journalists. Stephen Sizer and his Sabeel movement and the Presbyterian Church of America say little or nothing about the horrific persecution of Arab Christians in Moslem countries but instead gang up on little Israel which protects the rights of Arab Christians, for having the courage to stand up to this same radical Islamic oppression that kills Christians. It is difficult to account for such a conspicuous and willful blindness to fact. But combine this with an irrational response to the issues of human rights in the Middle East and this is simply a case of historical European anti-Semitism and Jew hatred operating under a guise of concern for the downtrodden. It is rather the Christian communities of the Islamic world who are the downtrodden, persecuted, and repressed.

The refusal of the British government, in the opinion of many, to link asylum policy with the terror threat and to link the high rate of Moslems on the dole with the dhemi (an Islamic tax penalty tax on non -Moslems) that even saw terror promoter Al Hamza preaching hatred at the expense of the British tax payer courtesy of the British government is not the only reason for the rise of Islamic terror in the UK. Indeed, the London suicide terrorists were British-born Moslems, like John Walker Lindh in the USA, dispelling the silly myth that Western Moslems do not share the same intolerance as those in Moslem nations but are more civilized; which is plainly not the case. Such attacks also dispel the myth that suicide bombing is the action of uneducated Moslems, when in fact some of these bombers were university graduates. These attacks drive the suspicion into people’s minds that every Moslem, Western born or not, educated or not, is a potential terrorist and may be a fanatical religious killer which indeed may often be the case, but is not necessarily always the case. While I can only consider fundamentalist Islam to be a terrorist religion, and as a Christian must love my enemies and do not condone the hatred of Moslems. But I can only consider fundamentalist Islam to be a terrorist religion, with literally thousand of sections of the Koran and Hadith condoning murder, killing and hatred of Christians and Jews. Because of this I hate the (false) religion of Islam.
Neither is the problem only the result of the failure to crack down on radical Islam after thousands of barbarians took to the streets of London demanding the murder of a British citizen for writing a book they did not like.

The real trigger for the Islamic attacks on London is the "seed faith" principle of reaping as one sows; what happened in London on July 7th was Obadiah 1:15 in action as were the attempted attacks two weeks later, an attack in Sham el Shak Egypt killing British tourists. This is what can be expected. ‚   Cheri Blair, wife of the Prime Minster made a statement sympathetic of Islamic suicide bombers in Israel. ‚   As a barrister she defended the demands of a fundamentalist Moslem to wear a veil over her face in defiance of a school’s dress code. London’s mayor Ken Livingston invited Sheikh Yusuf Al Qaradawi, often called "the Islamic theologian of terror"  who supported suicide bombers in Israel, to London telling him "he was most welcome."  Well Mr. Livingston, you welcomed a supporter of terror to London, so terror itself came to London under your leadership. With a woman like Cheri Blair in Number 10, and with a Livingston in the seat of London’s mayor, combined with a David Galloway in Parliament representing a London constituency, how could such attacks not come to London?

God says: "As You Have Done It Will Be Done To You, Your Dealings Will Return To Your Head" . Churchill was dramatically removed from office a week after turning his back on the Zionist cause of Jews who survived the concentration camps and needed a homeland. When Britain revoked the Balfour declaration and broke its promise to Jewry, allowing Jews to burn in ovens instead of returning to the home the British crown and God had promised them, London, Liverpool, and Coventry also burned. When Britain took the Jews who survived the Nazi concentration camps and placed them in British internment camps on Cyprus, the Empire began to crumble quickly.

When the Mayor of London Livingston made statements akin to those of Omar Bakri Mohammed and Arjem Choudary, blaming British foreign policy for the suicide attacks, he came close to justifying suicide bombing. Livingston also took the occasion to point the finger at Israel falsely accusing them of the indiscriminate slaughter of Moslem women and children, which is of course a lie. To find the indiscriminate slaughter of Moslem women and children one would rather need to look to Islam and the terrorism in Iraq perpetrated by Moslems against Moslem women and children. Livingston also referred to the Israeli soldiers protecting their nation and their families from the same Islamic terror that murdered 57 in London as "Jewish Boys", potentially inciting further anti-Semitic attacks in London by Moslems. Livingston went on to say that Palestinian Moslem youth become suicide bombers because they don’t have a vote, implying that this is Israel’s fault. In fact, Livingston did not speak the truth. Israeli Arabs do have a vote and Gaza Moslems voted for Mahmoud Abbas. It is unlikely such persons will abandon their wickedness and hypocrisy, hence, lest they do, we pray the swift judgment of God on Livingston, Galloway, and Blair and their ilk as well as upon the biased elements of the media. We pray for a Divine judgment. The Divine judgment we yearn for is not for their death (that is the prerogative of God) or physical harm but removal from the corridors of power, least these wicked people bring further retribution on all of us.

The attacks took place during the G-8 summit and eclipsed both the summit and the Live 8 concerts. Yet the very day after the attacks, Tony Blair reacted in precisely the same way that George Bush and his oil interest owned administration reacted to September 11th. These politicians did what politicians seem to do best " “ lie!

Both immediately praised Islam as a religion of peace and tolerance knowing that not a single Islamic country will give Christians and Jews the freedom they receive in Britain, America, Israel, or Australia. The Saudis fund the radicalism that breeds terror and finance the construction of mosques all over America and Britain with the de facto blessings of men like Bush and Blair, (while Bush and Blair remain silent when the same Saudis arrest, beat or execute people for becoming Christians as recent headlines showed). Yet these demonic radical savages will not allow one church to be built in Saudi Arabia. Blair and Bush know these facts. They also know that we are in a conflict of cultures and there are three times as many conflicts involving Islam as all of the other people groups put together. In Islam it is simple " “ Moslems have rights, others do not. Left wing politicians seem to now agree this should also be the case in the UK. Radical Islam sees Western principles of democracy and tolerance as weaknesses in our culture to be exploited.

Blair’s second reaction was to use the event to revote a law "inciting to religious hatred" (That is designed in the admission of his former home secretary for use against evangelical Christians) making it illegal to speak against Islam making religious vilification a hate crime.

Blair’s solution is simple. Since Moslems do not allow freedom of religious expression in Islamic countries, in order to placate the Islamic community we should also not allow it here. Using the Blair government, Islam seeks to deprive British citizens of the freedom denied in Islamic countries. This can affect evangelism to Moslems, and campaigning for the human rights of persecuted Christians in Islamic countries. A case can emerge, where instead of protecting Salman Rushdie; the British police will now be obligated to arrest him if a complaint is made against him.

The Moslem Council of Great Britain however sent a delegation to Mr. Blair demanding that in exchange for their condemnation of the London attacks, public reading and preaching from passages of the Koran and Hadith calling for the murder of Christians and Jews be excluded from the incitement law. The situation is clear. If Christians cite those same passages calling for Moslems to murder Christians and Jews, it is incitement to religious hatred, yet when Moslems read those same passages it somehow becomes religious freedom. This type of action has already been effectively decreed by Judge Michael Higgins in Melbourne, Australia where a similar anti vilification law already exists and is being used to persecute Christians.

We sympathize with those in Australia believing that Higgins should be sent to Saudi Arabia. Those who legislate and adjucate against democracy, do not deserve to live in a democracy. Higgins issued opinions that were not purely legal, but theological and out of his expertise and he did so even though 200 Australians came home from vacation in Bali in coffins courtesy of a "religion of peace and tolerance." It should also be noted in light of his opinion that the militant leader of the Al Jemalia branch of Al Qaeda responsible for the bombing got two years in prison in the Islamic nation of Indonesia, and the leader of the fundamentalist group who bombed the Australian embassy got three years, and a young Australian woman, (whose guilt is questionable) got 20 years for transporting cannabis.

Higgins handed down convictions of two Christian pastors for vilifying Islam while across town an Islamic bookshop was, based on of the verdict, selling Islamic literature calling for "Christians to be trampled under foot" . Indeed, it is reasonable for Higgins to be "transported" to Saudi Arabia. Since he doesn’t believe in the free expression of religious opinion as a matter of democratic values, he should do the honorable thing and live in an Islamic country like Saudi Arabia where he won’t have any religious freedom.

Mr. Blair’s third reaction was the most ludicrous of all. The day after the London bombings, the Palestinian Authority TV (of which Mahmoud Abbas has authority over) broadcast a sermon by an Islamic cleric calling for terror attacks on Britain. Blair’s response was to join with Bush in giving another $3 billion to Abbas and his Palestinian Authority (PA), whose Al Aqsa Brigade faction was continuing its terror war against Israel in violation of a supposed cease fire that the British media blamed Israel for ending when it returned fire in self defense. The billions already stupidly given to the PA by the USA & Europe were stolen, squandered, or used to finance terror and violence. So, Blair decided the day after the London bombings at the G8 summit to give them more money at the same time their TV station broadcast calls for more terror attacks on Britain.

Although Britain and the USA (as well as Germany, Japan France, Russia, and Canada) are facing major budget deficit problems, Saudi oil revenues have doubled. Yet Bush and Blair think it should be the West (throwing good money after bad) helping an Islamic cause that hates America and Britain. This same scenario was seen during the tsunami that hit the Indian Ocean. It was to be the West, not the Saudis or oil rich Gulf States, who flooded Asia with Tsunami aid, despite most of the victims being Moslems. ‚   Somehow, it is the West, instead of the oil rich Islamic countries who are expected to absorb and support Islamic asylum seekers from Somalia and elsewhere.

Such a response was rivaled only when Bush continued to import Saudis under the easy access express visa program for a full year after September 11th, and when his father’s Secretary of State, James Baker (who left Sadam Hussein in power in 1991 to placate the Saudis, leaving Iraq in its present debacle) became defense attorney for the Saudi Arabians against the families of the September 11th victims in a class action litigation.

As Mr. Bush continues to respond to Islamic terror by bullying Israel to bow the knee to Islamic terror and forfeit it’s God given right, and what the archaeological record proves is its historical homeland to Islam, God’s judgment falls on America in Iraq because of Bush and his oil crony administration. While the Judeo Christian scriptures establish that the land (less than 1% of the land the Arab Moslem nations have) belongs to the Jews, Israel can make a legal and historical claim to the land as the archaeologically supported indigenous people. Islam’s claim can not be based on any archaeological evidence, but is based only the terrorist doctrine of jihad, demanding others acquiesce and submit to the dominion of their religion with its culture of human rights violation. It is a demand which the oil controlled American government and Bush family seem to be supporting by their actions and political decisions.

Adding insult to injury, the Australian education minister now wants to force Australian taxpayers to fund the education of Islamic clergy in Australia in order to help prevent radical jihadist preaching in mosques. Australia does not publicly fund the training of Christian or Jewish clergy, but Australian politicians in Canberra want Australian Christians and Jews to pick up the bill for educating Moslem clergy in Australia, supposedly to control terrorist theology. But thinking people can only ask "what kind of barbaric religion has a terrorist theology to begin with"? Australia's highly taxed citizens are already forced to fund the imprisonment of the disproportionately high Islamic criminal population in prisons and the disproportionately high Moslem population on the dole and on public benefit. Now, the Australian taxpayers are to be handed the bill for training their clergy, when a growing number of Australians would prefer to pay for the deportation of radical Moslems. Such madness and injustice continues to be fueled by the lunacy of politicians and biases of the left wing media. The fear of an increasing number of people in Britain, Europe, Australia, and America is that the refusal of elected governments to carry out deportations, stop Islamic immigration and asylum seeking, and close radical mosques and institutions that have had terrorist links such as The Council for American Islamic Relations only alienate working class taxpayers and engender support for racist neo-Nazi and national front type extremist political parties in elections. The Bush administration gave over $50,000 in US tax payer money to Islamic organizations in order to train them how to apply for more federal grants. Like their predecessor Bill Clinton (whose library was funded in large measure by Saudi interests), it is not the Saudis who should fund the Palestinian Authority, whose people danced in the streets celebrating the murder of nearly 3,000 Americans on September 11th, and whose Al Aqsa Brigade continue their campaign of terror and murder. It is the deficit strapped American workingman whose country did Moslems attack on September 11th and whose sons come home in body bags from a new Viet Nam in Iraq because George Bush Sr. left Sadam Hussein in power in 1991 at the behest of his Saudi oil partners in the Carlyle enterprise who did not want regime change. It is not Republican rich kids who usually come home in body bags (neither Bush and Cheney served in Viet Nam nor opposed it). It is the workingman and woman getting stabbed in the back, whose kids get killed, and who are then expected to finance those wishing to kill them.

Our purposes as a ministry are theological not political, but theologically we must examine world events in light of biblical prophecy (despite the dangerous and false assertions of Rick Warren that we should not).
When Americans died in Viet Nam, it was a corrupt Republican Watergate administration elected with the backing of Billy Graham and Evangelical Christians that traded with the Soviets under d ƒ ©tente while the Soviets supplied the North Vietnamese with the hardware to kill Americans. Now they are at it again as another Republican administration, once more engrossed in scandal and elected with the support of Evangelical Christians, is in bed with the same Saudis who fund the fundamentalism that breeds support for terror. The Republicans lost Viet Nam and now they are losing the warn terror for the same reasons of corruption and betrayal. I have little doubt; this is a judgment on a backslidden America and on its backslidden church.

On top of this, America's placation of evil Islam at the expense of Israel is bringing the curse of Obadiah 1:15 upon the United States. Just as in Billy Graham's now revealed anti-Jewish dialogue with Nixon, we have another so-called Christian Republican engaged in anti-Jewish dialogue, demanding the forfeiture of Jewish land to Islam. Despite the majority of the 9/11 suicide hijackers being Saudi, the Bush administration continued to import Saudi fundamentalists into the USA as the easy entry express visa program for Saudis was continued for over one year. Such a policy of madness in itself is part of God's judgment. Politicians in America, Britain, and Australia open the gates to our enemies because these fundamentalists are agents of God's wrath just as Babylon was to ancient Judah, but the basis of guilt and blame is not with political parties or conniving politicians but with a church that is no longer salt and light.

We have the money grabbing tele-evangelists and the ecumenical treason of Chuck Colson. We have the market driven, psychology, and New Age drivel of Rick Warren and Purpose Driven, 40 Days of Purpose, and similar escapades of Bill Hybels, Robert Schuller, and the "emergent church" of Brian MacLaren, as well as Ken Blanchard's hybrid of New Age and the Gospel. What we do not have is a church that is being salt and ‚   light that Jesus commanded, but rather darkness and vomit. With such delusion abundant in the church, what can be expected from mere politicians in the White House or in Number 10? When ancient Israel and Judah had corrupt clergy among the Levites, it had corrupt kings and God brought judgment from nations like Babylon (Iraq) and Edom (proto-Arabs). Now the Christian church has a twisted clergy and hence twisted political leaders and judgment once more arises from those same nations, evil as they are, as agents of reproof against the stiff necked Judeo-Christian world.

Unless America, Britain, and Australia wake up they will not be immune and indeed the virus seems to already be at work among us. Yet we know that the Christians will not wake up unless their churches do, but their churches won't unless the church leaders do. But that just isn't happening.

We have asked for prayer that God’s wrath would rather fall on the Bush administration than fall on America because of the Bush administration decisions and actions against Israel and the Lord is moving. Along with Grover Norquist, Carl Rove is a political kingpin in the Bush administration who is often seen as an arch Saudi bootlicker and political manipulator representing oil interests inside The White House, and yet it has been Rove who has most pushed Bush to distance himself from the Evangelical right once the elections are over when they no longer need them for electoral reasons. Now, Rove is at the center of a scandal exposing the identity of a secret intelligence agent that would, if proven, constitute a criminal breach of federal law.

Lest he turn from his sell out to Islam and his betrayal of Israel for the price of a no longer cheap barrel of Saudi oil, may the judgment of God continue to fall on the Bush administration and on Rove.
Meanwhile, two weeks later, a further series of Islamic attacks took place in London while Islamic scholars in Britain debated if or not suicide bombing was permitted in the Koran. Just as Islamic postgraduate students in Atlanta were seen cheering on September 11th when the Twin Towers came down, there is far more sympathy for Islamic terror among British, American, and Australian Moslems than the politicians want to admit or the media wants to report. Despite September 11th, the Bali bombings, the Lockerbie bombings etc. all taking place long before the Anglo American invasion of Iraq, some in the biased media and Islamic community are proposing the illogical and ludicrous assertion that the invasion has caused the avalanche of Islamic terror that has preceded it!

Yet, what we are seeing is political hypocrisy, judicial hypocrisy, academic hypocrisy, and journalistic hypocrisy. Add to this ecclesiastical hypocrisy on a level that would have been unimaginable a generation ago. It then produces what we are see Obadiah 1:15 warning us about.

The predictive promise of God in Obadiah 1:15 is literal and will continue. In any climate of heightened anxiety induced by the climate of fear terror engenders, mistakes can happen. While the British media and politicians linked with Islamic interests blame Israel for its self defensive actions in killing terrorists before the terrorists kill them, now the British have realized that Islamic terrorists must be shot dead in the streets of London as they have had to be shot dead on the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Only they fault Israel for shooting terrorists. On a London subway the British police accidentally shot dead a completely innocent man in a small taste of the atmosphere of continual tension Israelis have had to live with for years, only to be unfairly condemned.

A time will come when the western media will not be denouncing Israel for sending tanks into Jenin or Gaza in response to Islamic terror because the British government will be forced to send tanks into Bradford and Birmingham for the same reasons. It is also with little doubt that Canada will reap what it has sowed in its giving abode to Islamic radicals and pandering to them in its media such as the CBC. What they have condemned Israel for doing; such nations will be forced to do themselves. They will now see just how peaceful and tolerant Islam is, again a religion they have repeatedly preached is peaceful and tolerant. Yet the proven action of Islamic nations says otherwise as Western politicians lie in support of them. They know that from September 11th to the murder of Theo Van Gough in Holland to the Islamic gangs of Sydney and Malmo, Sweden, hardly a single civilized country that has allowed Islamic immigration has not reaped violent consequences and threats to their freedom because of the sizeable radical elements.

They will now see just how peaceful and tolerant Islam is; again a religion they have preached is peaceful and tolerant. As has come upon Israel, now comes upon Israel’s critics. If western societies and their churches will turn their backs on cries of the martyrs, persecuted for the Name of Jesus in Islamic countries in order to befriend the faith of their persecutors, they will suffer at the hands of Islam themselves. The media and the politicians in Washington and Whitehall will tell the public everything but the truth. The Word of God however does tell us the truth, and the truth is again Obadiah 1:15.

Our sincere condolences to all who lost loved ones on July 7th and we assure our Moslem friends that we do not hate them; we only despise their wicked evil terrorist religion (again we make this last statement based on the authoritative teachings of the Koran and the Hadith) that is leading them to eternal hell and we pray that they will come to know the true faith of the God of Israel through Jesus. Our purpose is not to editorialize along political lines, but to examine these prophetically significant events biblically. We also urge prayers for Mr. Blair, Mr. Bush, Mr. Sharon, and Mr. Howard in accordance with the teachings of scripture. Above all we pray that, in the mercy of God, Tony Blair’s war on religious freedom and democracy in placation of Islamic pressure will again be stopped in The House of Lords and that he will not be able to misuse the Parliament Act to force his ban on free religious speech into law. May the speedy wrath of God come upon this Christian persecuting, Jew hating, religious culture of Islamic fundamentalism and may God deal with its defenders in the media and in the governments of free nations.