The Iraq War was the right war, right time, right place.
On December 15 as Christopher Hitichens, the unrepentant leftist supporter of the gruesome Iraq War, lie dying in a Houston hospital from esophageal cancer Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta was in Baghdad presiding over the ceremony that officially brought the 9 year war to an end. It was the 3193rd* and final day of the war a number strangely and ironically indicating the date when the war began as if December 15 was marked by providence for the war's end-and that from start to finish God's hand was mysteriously guiding the conflict.
For 319 or 3-19 gives us the 19th day of the 3rd month of March, and the final 3 the third year of the 21st century, or 3-19-2003 the date stateside** when George Bush ordered Shock and Awe, the strike on Baghdad that opened the war.
*March 19, 2003 (beginning of Iraq War) to December 15, 2011 (end of war) = 8 years, 8 months and 26 days, or 3193 days.
**Bush initiated the war from the White House on the evening of March 19, 2003 which was March 20 in Baghdad.
Leftist pro-war hawk Christopher Hitchens, his death a sign to the Left that the Iraq War was the right war.
But returning to the deceased Christopher Hitchens, in an essay for Salon written for the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War (see) Hitchens, defiantly defending his pro-war stance against angry critics on the Left who thought him mad after years of carnage, thousands dead, and no WMD, said something that got me thinking about the war in a larger historical context which too few people are doing nowadays. Said Hitchens:
"I am one of those who believes that the global conflict that began in late July 1914 did not conclusively end, despite a series of "fragile truces," until the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union."
Now if Hitchins hadn't stopped with the collapse of the Evil Empire he would have made the connection between World War I and the Iraq War, and the other events now exploding across the Middle East; for nearly a century after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand the first world war still hasn't conclusively ended by a long shot. On the contrary, the consequences of the war that started in the summer of 1914 did not end with the collapse of Soviet Russia but are still terrifyingly reverberating today in the turmoil and mayhem of the so-called Arab Spring (largely inspired by the US liberation of Iraq) which appears to be leading the region into hell. For the events now shaking the region began in 1914 with the war that finally collapsed the decaying Ottoman Empire thus freeing the Arab world from ages of Turkish rule and birthing countries like Palestine, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia.
Moreover, as if indicating that there's a long evolutionary or providential process at work in the region (and that the worst is yet to come before things improve) is Secretary Panneta and his date of birth. For significantly Panneta was born June 28, 1938 on the 24th anniversary of the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand*, the murder that triggered World War I and created a new Middle East. Moreover, Panneta was born in 1938 just three months before Neville Chamberlain tried and failed to appease Adolf Hitler at Munich-the agreement that set the stage for World War II which continued the first great war on a grander and more devastating scale and ended the Age of Colonial Empires.
*June 28, 1914.
Another unmistakable sign (and there are many which I've written about) that the Iraq War (which started on March 19, 2003) is linked to World War I and is part of a lengthy catastrophic evolutionary process (despite appearances that it was a mistake) was the British conquest of Baghdad in 1917. While the British took control of the city on March 11, it wasn't until March 19 (86 years to the date before Shock and Awe) that British General Stanley Maude issued the "Proclamation of Baghdad (see)" proclaiming Great Britain as the friend and liberator of the city and its people.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: a sign that the Iraq War (which she voted for) was no mistake.
Also quite significant and fascinating to note (which I've written about before) is that the British occupation of Iraq (its second occupation*) ended thirty years later on October 26, 1947 (see), the very day and date that Hillary Rodham Clinton was born. This is an astonishing sign prophetically indicating that the Iraq War was FATED to end during the Obama Administration with Mrs. Clinton (WHO VOTED FOR THE WAR AS SENATOR) as Secretary of State.
*British forces occupied Iraq from 1917 to 1930; then reoccupied it during World War II from 1941 to 1947.
Moreover, Mrs. Clinton is the 67th Secretary of State, a number which generates the complete date of Shock and Awe (the start of the Iraq War which she voted for) in two separate figures, hence:
67 x 299 = 20033
67 x 477 = 31959 or 3-19*
*You cannot get the complete date 3-19-2003 in five digit numbers from 66 and 65 denoting Clinton's predecessors Condi Rice and Colon Powell.
But there's more. December 15, the day the Iraq War ended, was the 1058th day that Secretary Clinton was in office* a number that's a factor of a six digit figure that gives us the epic making year 1914 which gave birth to Iraq and all the problems now plaguing the Middle East, hence: 1058 x 181 = 191498.
*She was sworn in as Secretary of State on January 21, 2009.
The death of war hawk Christopher Hitchens on December 15 simultaneous to the US bringing an end to the Iraq War, with Mrs. Clinton (who voted for the war as senator) as Secretary of State, was an extraordinary providential sign that George Bush made the right decision to invade Iraq and oust Saddam and that he would be vindicated by history as he himself believed. Indeed, in George Bush's own inspired words (which Hitchens would abhor): "THERE IS A HIGHER DIVINE PLAN THAT SUPERCEEDS ALL HUMAN PLANS" underlying the seeming chaos of events. And so there is as this article, I believe, amply proves to those who have faith in God's good providence.
I have a great deal more to say on this subject and will be posting new articles in the weeks and months ahead.
Postscript I: 1979
Christopher Hitchens and the Iraq War came to an end on the same day with Hitchens dying at age 62 on the 3192rd and final day of the war. Oddly the multiplication of these two numbers gives us the year when the Arab supremacist Saddam Hussein came to power in Iraq dreaming of becoming the Joseph Stalin of the Middle East, hence:
3192 x 62 = 197904. Saddam became master of Iraq on July 16, 1979.
1979 was also the year that wrecked the Carter presidency with the rise of Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran (and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan) leading to the terrifying Iran-Iraq War the following year where up to one million people died and chemical weapons were used .
2011 has been Barack Obama's 1979 with the fall of Mubarak in Egypt paralleling the events of the Iranian Revolution (see) and America leaving a bitterly divided sectarian Iraq lurching toward chaos and civil war-next door to a Syria in turmoil. Will 2012 be Obama's 1980 with a large scale sectarian war breaking out in the Middle East prefigured by the Iran-Iraq War? Given the proxy war between Sunnis and Shiites over Syria, and Maliki exacerbating sectarian tensions in Iraq (see), the region seems headed toward disaster.
Major websites linking this piece are as follows (click and see):
I4U News.com