As laid out in our popular article, The Daniel Project:

Biblical Prediction # 18~ The Kings of the East cross the Euphrates River for a great war  

“The Bible foretells in Revelation that the kings of the East, who many believe is the nation of China and or Russia along with her ancillary nations, will cross the Euphrates in an invasion of the Mideast and in preparation for war against Israel and perhaps Israel’s western allies. 

The scriptures, in anticipation of this event, speak to the “angels bound at the River Euphrates” to lead 2oo million men in battle. The remarkable thing here is the fact that going back through ancient history, at no time was there ever a population capable of producing, arming, and supporting such a massive army of men. Yet, in the modern day, the Chinese army currently lists an active duty capacity of about 318 million men fit for military service, which is about the size of the current US population, if we include illegals. 

Interestingly, and at the time of this prophecy of over 1,900 years ago, the population of planet Earth has been estimated at about 100 million people. So, how could an ancient prophet understand that the Earth would be heavily populated [enough] to support this massive of an army?”

~ Refocus Notes

Zerohedge

By Tyler Durden

Days after U.S. warships made a provocative passage through the Taiwan Strait on Monday, further making already strained tensions between the Washington and Beijing  — currently in the midst of a trade war — even hotter, the former top commander of the US Army in Europe has predicted the United States and China will likely be at war in 15 years. 

Retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges made the bombshell and alarming comments at a Warsaw security forum on Wednesday where he urged European allies to do more in preparing their own defenses against Russia while Americans focus more on the Pacific. 

Gen. Hodges said, according to the Military Times:

I think in 15 years — it’s not inevitable, but it is a very strong likelihood — that we will be at war with China. The United States does not have the capacity to do everything it has to do in Europe and in the Pacific to deal with the Chinese threat.

This statement is hugely remarkable in that it signifies the thesis has just left the domain of academic international relations theoreticians and has now become a guiding assumption of military commanders with years of experience on the ground.

Hodges served as US Army commander in Europe during 2014-17, which makes his warning especially noteworthy, and he’s now an analyst with the Center for European Policy Analysis.

He addressed an ongoing policy debate among policy and defense official circles over whether it’s a mistake for Washington to focus its defensive efforts on “threats” like Russian and Iran. 

Meanwhile, international relations theorist John Mearsheimer recently drew controversy by expressing publicly at a policy conference that the United States should cool its rhetoric on Russian and Iran — and even work with the two countries — in order to focus on curtailing the true long-term threat of China. 

And interestingly, Steve LeVine writing at Axios early this week posed the question long on the Western public’s mind: what are the chances of a US-China war?

While both Gen. Hodges and John Mearsheimer shocked audiences by saying war is almost inevitable on the current trajectory of soaring US-China tensions, Harvard professor and the author agrees with them, and further explains just how this scenario would come about. 

LeVine recently crossed paths with Graham Allison, who published his explosive “Destined For War: Can America And China Escape Thucydides Trap?” a year ago which detailed the reasons for a coming major war is all but inevitable, sparking a global debate about the Harvard professor’s controversial thesis. LeVine followed up with Allison in relation to the recent uptick in tensions in the region of the South China Sea: 

He said, if history holds, the U.S. and China appeared headed toward war.

Over the weekend, I asked him for an update — specifically whether the danger of the two going to war seems to have risen.

“Yes,” he responded. The chance of war is still less than 50%, but “is real — and much more likely than is generally recognized.”

LeVine comments of Graham Allison’s central thesis, “Glued to a 2,400-year-old script, the U.S. and China seem to be on the same war-bound path that great powers have taken since Sparta fought upstart Athens.”

LeVine summarizes, based on Allison’s latest comments, that now more than ever the two great powers are inching toward that trap in their brinkmanship based on an “inexorable, invisible force prodding them to almost inevitable war”. Per the Axios report:

The U.S. has slapped increasing tariffs on Beijing, cordoned off U.S. tech, and jailed a Chinese spy, while Beijing has continued to build its military footprint in the disputed South China Sea, demanded tech secrets from Western companies, and more.

But would the current trade war alone or even wide scale tech theft and a few encounters on the open seas be enough to trigger escalation and actual war?

 NATO after its latest summit is strengthened military but weakened politically while Gen. Ben Hodges predicts war between US and China  

Likely not, says Allison, but instead a WWI type scenario of an unintended domino effect of one-upmanship in which, for example, the simple assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand triggered massive escalation leading to world war. By a similar scenario, writes LeVine of Allison’s comments, “the two countries will be pulled into conflict by miscalculation involving a third party, such as Taiwan.”

Says Professor Graham Allison:

“What happens is that a third-party provocation, an accident, becomes a trigger to which one of the two feels obliged to respond. and they find themselves in a war that neither wanted.”

We saw precisely this almost happen between the US and Russia over Syria on multiple occasions over the past two years — especially with the September accidental downing of the Russian IL-20 surveillance plane with 15 crew members on board after US ally Israel launched a wide scale missile assault on Syrian government facilities. 

But with the former commander of US Army forces in Europe now saying “in 15 years we will be at war with China” the thesis has just left the domain of academic international relations theoreticians and has now become a guiding assumption of top military commanders. 

ZeroHedge

by Tyler Durden

The FBI has refused to declassify 37 pages of materials related to the Uranium One deal, citing national security and the privacy issues, reports The Hill's, John Solomon. The documents are thought to contain information regarding then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's involvement, as well as the Obama administration's knowledge of the controversial deal. 

The existence of the documents became known after a recent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) release of related material contained an entry entitled "Uranium One Transaction." The publicly available portion includes benign material, such as public letters from members of Congress who demanded information on the Uranium One approval. 

Perhaps the FBI’s unexpected “release” — and I use that word loosely, since they gave up no public information of importance — in the FOIA vault was a warning flare designed to remind America there might be evidence worth looking at.

One former U.S. official, who had access to the evidence shared with CFIUS during the Uranium One deal, said this to me: “There is definitely material that would be illuminating to the issues that have been raised. Somebody should fight to make it public.”

That somebody could be President Trump, who could add these 37 pages of now-secret documents to his declassification order he is considering in the Russia case. -The Hill

William Campbell and the FBI 

In October of 2017, John Solomon and Alison Spann broke the story of former CIA and FBI undercover agent, William D Campbell - who remained unnamed until this year. Campbell was deeply embedded in the Russian nuclear industry while Robert Mueller was the Director of the FBI - which paid him a $51,000 "thank you" award for his service.

“For several years my relationship with the CIA consisted of being debriefed after foreign travel,” Campbell noted in his testimony, which was obtained by this reporter. “Gradually, the relationship evolved into the CIA tasking me to travel to specific countries to obtain specific information. In the 1990’s I developed a working relationship with Kazakhstan and Russia in their nuclear energy industries. When I told the CIA of this development, I was turned over to FBI counterintelligence agents.” -saracarter.com 

While undercover, Campbell was forced by the Russians (with the FBI's blessing) to launder large sums of money - which allowed the FBI to uncover a massive Russian "nuclear money-laundering apparatus." Campbell claims to have collected over 5,000 documents along with video evidence of money being stuffed into suitcases, Russians bragging about bribing the West, and millions of dollars routed to the Clinton Foundation. 

The evidence was compiled as Secretary Clinton courted Russia for better relations, as her husband former President Clinton collected a $500,000 speech payday in Moscow, and as the Obama administration approved the sale of a U.S. mining company, Uranium One, to Rosatom. -The Hill

Campbell initially discovered that Moscow had compromised a Maryland-based uranium trucking firm, Transport Logistics International (TLI) in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act – which bribed a Russian nuclear official in exchange for a contract transport Russian-mined U.S. uranium, including "yellowcake" uranium secured in the Uranium One deal.

He delivered bribes from TLI in $50,000 increments to Russian nuclear official Vadim Mikerin of Tenex. Under orders from the FBI in order to maintain his cover, Campbell fronted hundreds of thousands of dollars he says he was never reimbursed for. As a result of Campbell's work, TLI co-president Mark Lambert was charged in an 11-count indictment in connection with the scheme, while Vadim Mikerin, who resides in Maryland, was prosecuted in 2015 and handed a four-year sentence.

Second, Campbell says that Russian nuclear officials revealed a scheme to route millions of dollars to the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) through lobbying firm ARPCO, which was expected to funnel a portion of its annual $3 million lobbying fee to the charity. 

“The contract called for four payments of $750,000 over twelve months. APCO was expected to give assistance free of charge to the Clinton Global Initiative as part of their effort to create a favorable environment to ensure the Obama administration made affirmative decisions on everything from Uranium One to the U.S.-Russia Civilian Nuclear Cooperation agreement.“ -William Campbell

Campbell told Congressional investigators that the Uranium One deal along with billions in other uranium contracts inside the United States during the Obama administration was part of a "Russian uranium dominance strategy" involving Tenex and its American arm Tenem - both subsidiaries of state-owned Russian energy company Rosatom. 

“The emails and documents I intercepted during 2010 made clear that Rosatom’s purchase of Uranium One – for both its Kazakh and American assets – was part of Russia’s geopolitical strategy to gain leverage in global energy markets,” he testified.  “I obtained documentary proof that Tenex was helping Rosatom win CFIUS approval, including an October 6, 2010 email …  asking me specifically to help overcome opposition to the Uranium One deal.” 

“Rosatom/Tenex threw a party to celebrate, which was widely attended by American nuclear industry officials. At the request of the FBI, I attended and recorded video footage of Tenma's new offices,” he added.

Officials with APCO - the lobbying firm accused of funneling the money to the Clinton Global Initiative, told The Hill that its support for CGI and its work for Russia were not connected in any way, and involved different divisions of the firm. 

What did Obama know?

As Solomon notes, a giant question remains that may be solved by the release of the 37-pages of classified information; what did the Obama administration know about this? 

Did the FBI notify then-President Obama, Hillary Clinton and other leaders on the CFIUS board about Rosatom’s dark deeds before the Uranium One sale was approved, or did the bureau drop the ball and fail to alert policymakers?

Neither outcome is particularly comforting. Either the United States, eyes wide open, approved giving uranium assets to a corrupt Russia, or the FBI failed to give the evidence of criminality to the policymakers before such a momentous decision. -The Hill

Campbell says that his FBI handlers assured him that Obama had been briefed by then-FBI Director Mueller on Rosatom's criminal activities as part of the president's daily briefing, however, "politics" was the reason that the sale was approved anyway. 

Continue Reading:  Smearing Campbell

nzherald.co.nz

At a small solar observatory tucked away in the woods of a national forest here, scientists and other personnel were commanded last week to leave at once.

A week later, the facility remains vacant, and no one is willing to say why.

The mysterious and lengthy evacuation, in a state known for secretive military testing and a suspected UFO crash, has spawned a wealth of speculation. Did the researchers spot something extraterrestrial? Was the solar telescope hacked by a foreign power and deployed to spy on, say, the state’s missile testing range? Or is there an innocuous explanation, suppressed only because of corporate and government resistance to transparency?

On Friday, the entrance to the National Solar Observatory was blocked by yellow crime scene tape and two security guards, who said even they had been kept in the dark. The guards, from Red Rock Security & Patrol in Las Cruces, New Mexico, didn’t give their names but said it was the first day the company was guarding the entrance and only the “director and an assistant” were allowed in. There was no obvious sign of law enforcement activity.

We don’t know anything. We’re just as curious as anyone else,” one guard said. A spokeswoman for the nonprofit group that runs the facility said the organization was addressing a “security issue,” but would offer no additional information, other than, “I can tell you it definitely wasn’t aliens.”

She said Friday the facility “will remain closed until further notice.” Neither the FBI - which was spotted on the premises around the time of the evacuation - nor those who worked at the facility would tell local law enforcement what had happened, said Otero County Sheriff Benny House.

They wouldn’t give us any details,” House said. “I’ve got ideas, but I don’t want to put them out there. That’s how bad press or rumors get started, and it’ll cause paranoia, or I might satisfy everybody’s mind and I might be totally off base."Unlike some of New Mexico’s other research facilities, the solar observatory in Sunspot is not usually shrouded in such secrecy.

The facility - in the Lincoln National Forest in the southern part of the state - is open to the public, and the scientists who work there offer guided tours of the site, said James McAteer, a professor at New Mexico State University and director of the Sunspot Solar Observatory consortium.

When they’re not doing that, they use a special telescope and other instruments to study the sun. There are homes on the site where staff members live.

The Sunspot observatory sits at more than 9,000 feet and is part of a larger astronomy research facility on the site. The adjacent Apache Point Observatory, a collection of telescopes about a half-mile away, was operating as normal on Friday, with about a dozen cars parked outside.

House, the sheriff, said that just before 10 a.m. on Sept. 6, the staff at the Sunspot facility called to report they were “evacuating the building,” and asked if deputies could assist. He said a sergeant and a deputy were dispatched and told upon arrival that the FBI had been there earlier. But neither staff nor the bureau would explain why the facility had to be vacated, House said. He said a volunteer fire chief claimed the FBI had told him there had been a “credible threat” but would provide no details. The sheriff’s office, House said, saw no evidence of a threat, and left after a few hours.

“We tried to find out the threat and what their concerns were,” House said. “They wouldn’t identify anything. They were pretty hush mouthed about it.”

McAteer said his consortium assigns four researchers to the facility, although the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), another consortium, manages the buildings and other infrastructure with another four or five people.

My people, we didn’t do the evacuation, and we do the science,” McAteer said.

The property manager also came into the post office on the facility and asked the woman working there to leave, but gave no indication why that was necessary, said Rod Spurgeon, a Postal Service spokesman. Spurgeon said post office operations have continued at the nearby Cloudcroft facility.

Kinsey Featherston, a spokeswoman for Rep. Stevan Pearce, R-N.M., said the congressman’s office had reached out to the FBI and were told “it is an ongoing investigation.”

“We will continue monitoring the situation, but at this time, we have no information,” she said. An FBI spokeswoman declined to comment, referring questions about the matter to the consortium that manages the buildings. Shari Lifson, an AURA spokeswoman, said in a statement that her group was “addressing a security issue” and had “decided to temporarily vacate the facility as a precautionary measure.”

She said they were “working with the proper authorities on this issue,” although she declined to specify who those authorities were. Lifson also declined to specify the security issue, other than to dispute the idea aliens were involved. The solar observatory is about a 2 1/2-hour drive from Roswell, New Mexico, the site of a now infamous crash in 1947 that the Air Force later claimed was an experiment designed to detect Soviet nuclear activity by monitoring sound waves. The incident sparked so much interest that there is now a UFO museum in the city.

House said his deputies spotted a Black Hawk helicopter in the area around the time the building was evacuated - although he noted that is not uncommon.

Sunspot and Apache Point offer scenic views of the Tularosa Basin, which includes two sensitive military sites, including Holloman Air Force Base and White Sands Missile Range. A public affairs officer at White Sands said there was no testing or other activity at the range that would have prompted the evacuation in Sunspot. As of Friday, the observatory was still shuttered, although McAteer said the researchers were ready to return “as soon as possible.”

The observatory even seemed to embrace the interest in the mysterious evacuation, writing on its website, “With the excitement this closure has generated, we hope you will come and visit us when we do reopen, and see for yourself the services we provide for science and public outreach in heliophysics.”