AND THE THIRD ANGEL FOLLOWED THEM, SAYING WITH A LOUD VOICE, IF ANY MAN WORSHIP THE BEAST AND HIS IMAGE, AND RECEIVE HIS MARK IN HIS FOREHEAD, OR IN HIS HAND.
*** REVELATION 14:9
Perhaps more important, The Oregonian's John Snell reminds us not to change the batteries in our smoke detectors, but why it's time to buy a new smoke detector.
"The inward adorning of a meek and quiet spirit is priceless. In the life of the true Christian the outward adorning is always in harmony with the inward peace and holiness. "If any man will come after Me," Christ said, "let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me." Matthew 16:24. Self-denial and sacrifice will mark the Christian's life. Evidence that the taste is converted will be seen in the dress of all who walk in the path cast up for the ransomed of the Lord." A A 523
"We are living in an age represented as being like that before the Flood. All who now plead for souls should in their dress and deportment carry the modesty and marks of the Lord Jesus. They must wait, watch, and pray for the Holy Spirit to be abundantly bestowed. We must take in the idea of Christianity; in conversation and in dress we must represent the truth. A decided guard must be placed upon the human agents in regard to the impressions they are making upon others in deportment and in dress. The Bible is our guide; study its teachings with a purpose to obey, and you need make no mistakes." DG 158
"Our dress should be in strict accordance with the character of our holy faith. [1 Timothy 2:9, 10; 1 Peter 3:3-5 quoted.] There is need of putting more of the Bible precept into the dress, as well as the inward adorning into the character." DG 158 “The work of sanctification is the work of a lifetime…” Many misunderstand these inspired words, because they have not comprehended the rest of the sentence. They assume that God will put up with their stubborn rebellion and failure to overcome year after year, because, after all, they have their entire lifetime to work on getting rid of their sins. Listen to the rest of the statement: “The work of sanctification is the work of a lifetime; it must go on continually; but this work cannot go on in the heart while the light on any part of the truth is rejected or neglected. The sanctified soul will not be content to remain in ignorance, but will desire to walk in the light and to seek for greater light.” 1 SM 317.
In other words, if we are cherishing sins and resisting the Holy Spirit's convictions, we are not even on the narrow path. “God requires the entire surrender of the heart, before justification can take place; and in order for man to retain justification, there must be continual obedience, through active, living faith that works by love and purifies the soul.” FW 100
There is no process of sanctification going on before we have made an entire surrender of our hearts to God. Going through life as a cultural Seventh-day Adventist without the conversion experience is not the lifetime work of sanctification referred to above.
The Modesty Movement addresses an issue that speaks only to the converted. It is part of the sanctification process. It can only be entered into by a converted, surrendered person, because it is a Spirit-led experience. Certainly unconverted ladies can dress modestly. But it is disastrous to endeavor to dress with Remnant Raiment if your heart is not surrendered to God. The reason is, outward modesty without God's inward adorning leads to hypocritical Phariseeism, making oneself and all those around miserable. Please don't do it! Our first work, dear sisters, is to make sure we yield the rulership of our hearts to God, making sure we are crucified with Christ. Only then will we allow God to lay our glory in the dust. Only then will we be willing to walk in the light.
The song of the surrendered soul is, “All to Jesus I surrender, All to Him I freely give!” When we turn the management of our lives over to Jesus, then the process of sanctification becomes a joyful willing surrender, an exciting faith adventure. We can earnestly say, “Lord, what do you want me to do today?” That also includes, “Lord, what would you have me wear today?”
The blessed Lord leads us on step by step, as fast as we are able to keep up. It is not for any human to dictate and schedule the rate of sanctification for another. God works with us individually. For example, some may be able to make the transition from unclean meat to a largely raw vegan diet in short order. Others may take years to grow in understanding and practice. The point is, we are not to manage the lives of others. We have enough to do in making our own decisions.
As we cling to Jesus, He gives us the ability to turn from love of the world, so that love for God motivates every decision. As we choose to surrender, the Spirit speaks to our hearts about this item of clothing, or this practice of adornment. The Holy Spirit is a faithful friend and guide. He won't just strip us of all that makes us feel beautiful as women and leave us feeling ugly and ashamed of our appearance. Oh, no! He will be busy adorning us with inward beauty and building up our confidence in Christ. We will come to know how loved and cherished we are by Jesus. Our self-worth will be based on the value He places on us. He is the lovely One; we are nothing without Him.
With our new heavenly value system, we no longer try to build our worldly self-esteem, which is based on worldly principles of appearance, achievement, possession and status in life. We no longer judge ourselves by the world's standards. We can now appear before the world without the phony props of fashionable clothing, deceitful make-up and degrading decorations, because our confidence is in Christ. We have His promise that His glory is shining through us, so that we may be a blessing to those around us. We are no longer anxious about how we look. We are now focused on Him, and intent on revealing to the world how He looks. We reflect His glory. What a grand and lofty calling God has placed on us as His precious daughters.
Instead of hours standing before our mirrors, primping and preening, we now spend those hours on our knees and in the Word, gazing into the beautiful mirror of His character. As we do this, He is lovingly writing it upon our hearts. Instead of our glory, we now seek His glory until our soul is all aglow. God makes us glow inwardly so we can shine outwardly.
So we become beautiful in God's eyes. The world will notice. It may not approve. It may even despise us. That doesn't matter. The Holy Spirit will never lead us to be unclean or unkempt. We are not to try to look strange or unattractive. Our clothing should clearly declare that we love Jesus, that we are willing to put Him first, and that self is not pampered or exalted in our lives.
Regarding the movement toward modesty, how long will it take the Holy Spirit to remove the outward trappings of the world from you? That is your decision alone. May the Lord help us to respond to His Spirit. So, how fast will the Holy Spirit be able to move you in the modesty movement? Just listen to Him. He knows what is best. Let Him set the schedule.
One thing is sure. The Father has promised to clothe you with physical clothing. He knows what you need. You don't need to become consumed with what you should wear. He will provide. He has ways and means that you know not of. He will make a way when there seems to be no way. Just be obedient to what He tells you today. By faith, trust Him. Lay aside that immodest garment, trusting that He will clothe you. It is a blessed walk of faith.
While you can encourage other like-minded sisters, for those sisters who are not yet open, please leave them alone! Don't say a word. Just be a sweet, radiant example, showing them your joy in Jesus. Let His beauty shine out, and that will speak to their hearts.
The Modesty Movement must be Spirit led. The Spirit is calling, Come, and He is preparing the Bride of Christ for that day: “ And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints .” Revelation 19:8
Israel have been asleep to the pride, and fashion, and worldliness in the very midst of them. It is these things that separate God from his people, that shut the ark away from them. When the truth affects their hearts, it will cause a death to the world. They will then lay aside the outward adorning, and if they are dead they will not be moved by the laugh, jeer, and scorn of unbelievers. They will feel an anxious desire to be separate from the world, like their Master. They will not imitate its pride, fashions, or customs. The noble object will be ever before them, to glorify God, and gain the immortal inheritance. This prospect will swallow up all beside of an earthly nature. God will have a people separate and distinct from the world. And as soon as any indulge a desire to imitate the fashions of the world, just so soon God ceases to acknowledge them as his children. They show that they are strangers to grace, strangers to the meek and lowly Jesus. If they had acquainted themselves with him, they would walk worthy of him. RH, December 12, 1882
It's almost surreal, like something out of a sci-fi flick, but nano-microchips invisible to the naked eye are a reality that are already being hosted in wide-range of applications. The question is, how long will it take governments and big pharma to immerse nano-microchips inside of vaccines to tag and surveil global populations?
Nanotechnology deals with structures smaller than one micrometer (less than 1/30th the width of a human hair), and involves developing materials or devices within that size. To put the size of a nanometer in perspective, it is 100,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair.
More than ten years ago, simple low-cost techniques improved the design and manufacture of nano-microchips. That unlocked a multitude of methodologies for their manufacture in a wide-range of applications including optical, biological, and electronic devices.
The joint use of nanoelectronics, photolithography, and new biomaterials, have enabled the required manufacturing technology towards nanorobots for common medical applications, such as surgical instrumentation, diagnosis and drug delivery.
Japan's Hitachi says it has developed the world's smallest and thinnest microchip, that can be embedded in paper to track down parcels or prove the authenticity of a document. The integrated circuit (IC) chip is as minute as a speck of dust.
Nanoelectrodes implanted in the brain are increasingly being used to manage neurological disorders. Mohammad Reza Abidian, a post-doctoral researcher at the U-M Department of Biomedical Engineering said that polymers in nanotubes "are biocompatible and have both electronic and ionic conductivity." He further stated "therefore, these materials are good candidates for biomedical applications such as neural interfaces, biosensors and drug delivery systems."
Depending on the objectives of such studies, research could theoretically pave the way for smart recording electrodes that can deliver drugs to positively or negatively affect the immune response.
Through nanotechnology, researchers have also been able to create artificial pores able to transmit nanoscale materials through membranes.
A UC biomedical engineering study appearing in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, Sept. 27, 2009, successfully inserted the modified core of a nanomotor, a microscopic biological machine, into a lipid membrane. The resulting channel enabled them to move both single- and double-stranded DNA through the membrane.
Professor Peixuan Guo who led the study said past work with biological channels has been focused on channels large enough to move only single-stranded genetic material.
"Since the genomic DNA of human, animals, plants, fungus and bacteria are double stranded, the development of single pore system that can sequence double-stranded DNA is very important," he says.
Such engineered channels could have applications in nano-sensing, DNA sequencing, drug loading, including innovative techniques to implement DNA packaging mechanisms of viral nanomotors and vaccine delivery.
"The idea that a DNA molecule travels through the nanopore, advancing nucleotide by nucleotide, could lead to the development of a single pore DNA sequencing apparatus, an area of strong national interest," Guo said.
Scientists working at Queen Mary, University of London, have developed micrometer-sized capsules to safely deliver drugs inside living cells. These "micro shuttles" could hypothetically be loaded with a specific microchip controlling the dose of medication to be opened remotely, releasing their contents. Besides monitoring the dosage, the same microchip could be used to surveil the patient in conjunction with various tracking systems.
Scientists in the United Kingdom have recently reported advances towards overcoming key challenges in nanotechnology. They demonstrated how nanoparticles could move quickly in a desired direction without help from outside forces. Their achievement has broad implications, the scientists say, raising the possibility of coaxing cells to move and grow in specific directions.
Doug Dorst, a microbiologist and vaccine critic in South Wales, says these advances have an immense appeal to vaccine makers. "Biotech companies and their researchers have quickly moved most funding initiatives towards nanotechnology to increase the potency of their vaccines," he said. If microorganisms inside of vaccines can be coaxed into targeting or invading specific cells, they could achieve their goal at an accelerated rate over conventional vaccines. "Depending on which side of the vaccine debate you're on, whether pro or con, nanobots inside vaccine preparations could advance their effectiveness exponentially by either dramatically improving or destroying immunity depending on their design," he added.
Dorst claims that present day nanobot technology could just as easily be used to advance biological weapons as they can to advance human health. "For every fear that biotech propaganda proliferates about deadly diseases and how vaccines prevent them, it is one more lie to incrementally convince the masses that vaccines are effective."
The worry for Dorst is that one day vaccines "will do what they've always been intended for...control of the global populace."
Nanoemulsion platforms are already capable of developing vaccines from very diverse materials. Mixtures of soybean oil, alcohol, water and detergents can be emulsified into ultra-small particles smaller than 400 nanometers wide (about 1/200th the width of a human hair). These could be combined with any number of nano-microchips with all or part of disease-causing microbes to trigger the body's immune system.
In 2007 researchers at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) announced in an article in the journal, Nature Biotechnology, that they had developed a “nanoparticle that can deliver vaccines more effectively, with fewer side effects, and at a fraction of the cost of current vaccine technologies.” The article went on to describe the effects of their breakthrough: “At a mere 25 nanometers, these particles are so tiny that once injected, they flow through the skin’s extracellular matrix, making a beeline to the lymph nodes. Within minutes, they’ve reached a concentration of DCs thousands of times greater than in the skin."
Russia has recently announced a new manufacturing plant that will strictly produce nano-vaccines. Project plans include development of two vaccines for human flu and bird flu and three biopharmaceuticals for boosting the immune system and increasing the efficiency of antibacterial and antiviral drugs, among other initiatives.
The human body is very resistant to nanoparticles that attempt to invade human cells. Scientists are intensely investigating methods to disrupt human enzymes that may degrade nanoparticles. Experts at the University of Liverpool found a way around this obstacle that could mean more efficient, topical drugs in the future, which could act a whole lot faster than the ones currently in use.
All these nanotechnological advances raise many issues and concerns about the toxicity and environmental impact of nanomaterials, and their potential effects on medicine, global economics, as well as speculation about government surveillance. These concerns have led to a debate among advocacy groups and governments on whether special regulation of nanotechnology is warranted.
The Environmental Protection Agency issued a news release last week saying that it had “today outlined a new research strategy to better understand how manufactured nanomaterials may harm human health and the environment.” Interesting as that strategy document is, it was hardly hot off the presses.
Indeed, many companies advertise their use of such billionth-of-a-meter-scale constituents as a measure of a product's state-of-the-art status, implying that ultra-small ingredients are an inherently good thing. They aren’t. Nor does size necessarily make these materials worse than others. At this point it's just maddeningly unpredictable what nano things will do.
Proponents of nanotechnology are very critical of regulatory measures that may impeed its progression. Many of these critics have staunchly dismissed concerns as being fear-hyped conspiracy theories based on science fiction.
In the popular video game series Metal Gear Solid, many characters and soldiers in general, have "nanomachines" in their bloodstream, and are used to block pain, allow members of fire teams/patrols to share sensory information, heal bodily damage, as well as manipulating viruses central to video game's plot line.
Through the use of special effects and computer-generated imagery, several blockbusters starring Keanu Reeves including The Matrix Trilogy and The Day the Earth Stood Still, have dramatized how nanobots could effectively take control of their organic and inorganic targets.
Star Trek episodes and their theatrical releases such as Star Trek: First Contact have also depicted how nanoprobes (nanites) could infect an individual's bloodstream through a pair of tubules.
Regardless of the recurring themes of nanobots in video games, sci-fi shows and movies, nanotechnology is a reality, and nano-microchips are well on their way to being utilized in ways which may be detrimental to human health and freedom on a global scale.
The development of nano-microchips are a major thrust of governments and pharmaceutical industries who want the ultimate power and leverage over global populations for more profit and more control.
In December 2000, Former Chief Medical Officer of Finland, Rauni-Leena Luukanen-Kilde, MD stated that it is technically possible for every newborn to be injected with a microchip, which could then function to identify the person for the rest of his or her life. Such plans are secretly being discussed in the U.S. without any public airing of the privacy issues involved.
Today's microchips operate by means of low-frequency radio waves that target them. With the help of satellites, the implanted person can be tracked anywhere on the globe. Such a technique was among a number tested in the Iraq war, according to Dr. Carl Sanders, who invented the intelligence-manned interface (IMI) biotic, which is injected into people. (Earlier during the Vietnam War, soldiers were injected with the Rambo chip, designed to increase adrenaline flow into the bloodstream.) The 20-billion-bit/second supercomputers at the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) could now "see and hear" what soldiers experience in the battlefield with a remote monitoring system (RMS).
When a 5-micromillimeter microchip (the diameter of a strand of hair is 50 micromillimeters) is placed into optical nerve of the eye, it draws neuroimpulses from the brain that embody the experiences, smells, sights, and voice of the implanted person. Once transferred and stored in a computer, these neuroimpulses can be projected back to the person’s brain via the microchip to be reexperienced. Using a RMS, a land-based computer operator can send electromagnetic messages (encoded as signals) to the nervous system, affecting the target's performance. With RMS, healthy persons can be induced to see hallucinations and to hear voices in their heads.
Every thought, reaction, hearing, and visual observation causes a certain neurological potential, spikes, and patterns in the brain and its electromagnetic fields, which can now be decoded into thoughts, pictures, and voices. Electromagnetic stimulation can therefore change a person's brainwaves and affect muscular activity, causing painful muscular cramps experienced as torture.
The NSA's electronic surveillance system can simultaneously follow and handle millions of people. Each of us has a unique bioelectrical resonance frequency in the brain, just as we have unique fingerprints. With electromagnetic frequency (EMF) brain stimulation fully coded, pulsating electromagnetic signals can be sent to the brain, causing the desired voice and visual effects to be experienced by the target. This is a form of electronic warfare. U.S. astronauts were implanted before they were sent into space so their thoughts could be followed and all their emotions could be registered 24 hours a day.
The mass media has not reported that an implanted person's privacy vanishes for the rest of his or her life. S/he can be manipulated in many ways. Using different frequencies, the secret controller of this equipment can even change a person's emotional life. S/he can be made aggressive or lethargic. Sexuality can be artificially influenced. Thought signals and subconscious thinking can be read, dreams affected and even induced, all without the knowledge or consent of the implanted person.
This secret technology has been used by military forces in certain NATO countries since the 1980s without civilian and academic populations having heard anything about it. Thus, little information about such invasive mind-control systems is available in professional and academic journals.
The NSA's Signals Intelligence group can remotely monitor information from human brains by decoding the evoked potentials (3.50HZ, 5 milliwatt) emitted by the brain. Prisoner experimentees in both Gothenburg, Sweden and Vienna, Austria have been found to have evident brain lesions. Diminished blood circulation and lack of oxygen in the right temporal frontal lobes result where brain implants are usually operative. A Finnish experimentee experienced brain atrophy and intermittent attacks of unconsciousness due to lack of oxygen.
Targeting people’s brain functions with electromagnetic fields and beams (from helicopters and airplanes, satellites, from parked vans, neighboring houses, telephone poles, electrical appliances, mobile phones, TV, radio, etc.) is part of the radiation problem that should be addressed by democratically elected governments. However, there is currently no interest by any national government to seriously address this issue.
The timeline for integrating nano-microchips inside of vaccines is speculative. It could be just a few years, months or perhaps it is here and we already unaware of their integration within pharmaceuticals. Regardless, due to the many military and political advantages, their implementation is inevitable.
However fraudulent, it was an imperative for world powers and pharmaceutical cartels to promote the effectiveness of vaccinations and enact national pandemic preparedness policies which mandate vaccinations.
In 2005 the World Health Organization (WHO) developed international health regulations that would bind all 194 member countries to pandemic emergency guidelines which could enforce such a mandate. Without these procedures of public health (and propagandized vaccine campaigns) in place, there would be little or no voluntary cooperation from the public to roll up their sleeves and accept the inoculations. Public participation is an essential tool that will soon allow big pharma to inject the most effective surveillence tool ever designed into billions of people.
Although nanotechnology manufacturing is currently available on a global scale, before biotech companies are able to initiate mass production and testing of nano-microchips inside of vaccines, they will likely sell the idea to the public. Through various "health enhancement scenarios" they will encourage participation and publicly announce regulatory approval from the same policies and regulatory agencies they helped create.
By mid-summer of 2009, the WHO and the Center of Disease Control (CDC) effectively hyped a false flu pandemic and convinced the world to submit to H1N1 vaccines. Additional doses of propaganda and possibly a biological event, may equally convince populations to knowingly accept microchips inside of vaccines under the guise of a "greater good" for humanity.
When our brain functions are already connected to supercomputers by means of radio implants and microchips, it will be too late for protest. This threat can be defeated only by educating the public, using available literature on biotelemetry, nanorobotics and information exchanged at international congresses.
Fox News Channel Oct. 31: Charter bus carrying 42 members of the Morehouse College marching band tipped over after it skidded off Interstate 75.
ATLANTA — Police say a charter bus carrying 42 members of the Morehouse College marching band tipped over after it skidded off Interstate 75, injuring several students on their way to a football game.
Henry County police Capt. Jason Bolton says the bus landed on its side in a ditch around 10 a.m. Saturday. Bolton said the driver lost control while trying to avoid another vehicle that was moving into his lane.
Bolton says 13 band members were taken to area hospitals in ambulances with non-life-threatening injuries. The other 29 were also taken to hospitals as a precaution.
The bus was one of three chartered by Morehouse to go to Albany State University for a football game.
Roads were wet from rainy conditions, and Bolton says weather was likely a contributing factor in the accident.
During the first half of the 17th century, when most of Europe was convulsed by religious wars, Roger Williams brought a powerful new idea into the world and even put it into practice: a wall between church and state. He set up a society in the American woods, the Colony of Rhode Island, where church and state were separated and no one faced persecution. The wall protected "God's garden" (the church) from the impure world and, at the same time, gave religious freedom to all.
Roger Williams was one of those remarkable people who are ready to give to others the freedom that they themselves have been denied. Like the other Puritans in the colony of Massachusetts he had been forced to leave Britain because he opposed the Church of England. But unlike them he refused to turn around and do the same to others. The Puritans of Massachussetts were quite prepared to force their own religious practices on everyone in their colony, including compelling them to attend church. Anyone who thought otherwise got thrown out.
The English Puritans brought this idea of a state church to their colony of Massachussetts. Although they rejected the monopoly of the Catholic Church, the Reformers simply tried to substitute a different state religion. They still accepted the traditional Church doctrine that "error has no rights". Not until the Enlightenment was this replaced by the notion that religious freedom was a human right.
Roger Williams' amazing accomplishment
Roger Williams fled England to avoid coming under the Anglican Church, but he soon separated himself from the Puritan church of his new home in the colonies, as well. He found himself at odds with the government of Massachusetts when he asserted that the Colony had no right to steal Indian lands, deny the vote to the unsaved, or to prosecute civil crimes under religious statutes. In fact, said Williams, "The civil magistrate's power extends only to the bodies and goods, and outward state of men..." Roger Williams was the first to speak of the "wall of separation" between church and state. [1]
In 1635 he was accused of holding "dangerous opinions against the authority of magistrates" and formally banished from Massachusetts. Once more Williams was told: "My way or the highway", and he was determined never to do this to others. The next year he purchased land from the Narragansett tribe to found a haven for dissenters. His Colony of Rhode Island welcomed those who faced persecution elsewhere, such as Jews, Quakers and Deists.
Yet although he had created a haven in the American woods where church and state were separated and no one faced persecution, Roger Williams still tried to give secularism an otherworldy justification. The wall of separation, he maintained, would help to protect the true religion, whichever it might turn out to be.
Williams felt that government is the natural way provided by God to cope with the corrupt nature of man. But since government could not be trusted to know which religion is true, he considered the best hope for true religion the protection of the freedom of all religion, along with nonreligion, from the state. [2]
Like other Reformers of the 17th century, he felt that humans were owned by God and only had duties to their Creator. The concept of rights, which was needed to underpin his secularism, didn't yet exist. It wasn't until the Enlightenment in the next century that the idea of religious freedom was shifted from heaven to earth. Religious freedom came to be seen as a human right.
How did he do it?
Roger Williams had an unusual background which gave him special insight and led him to conclusions that were far ahead of his time. His life taught him three things and when he drew the consequences, a powerful new idea was born: that there should be a wall between church and state.
● He was born about 1603, the year that Queen Elizabeth I died, and grew up in London on the northwest fringes of the city. The Williams family lived beside the open area called Smithfield, near the sheep-pen section on its western edge. This large field was where markets were held (even two centuries later the picture shows the sheep pens) and also where fairs took place and other festivities as well, such as the burning of religious heretics.
Roger Williams was about eight years old when the last person ever burned in London for his religious opinions met his death at Smithfield. This man, Bartholomew Legate, was a preacher in a liberal religious group called the "Seekers". They sought for religious truth on their own and did not feel compelled to accept any dogma simply because any church said it was true.
This was a dangerous position to take. The Church of England court tried Bartholomew Legate on charges of heresy and then handed him over to the state to carry out the death sentence. (Churchmen, of course, never stained their hands with blood.) On the orders of the new king, James I, this Seeker was burned to death at Smithfield, right in front of the Williams home. This must have made a strong impression on the gifted little boy: church and state had colluded in order to deliver a brave man to a horrible death. As Roger Williams wrote later, from that time onwards, he too adopted the position of the Seekers who refused to bow to the state church and insisted on trying to find their own way. [3] His goal became "a Libertie of searching after Gods most holy mind and pleasure." [4]
● Another strand in the thought of Roger Williams was what was known as "Separatism". This was a logical extension of the Protestant Reformation. Like other Protestants, the Anglicans of the English Church had broken away from the Catholic Church which they felt had become corrupted and no longer represented the "pure" form of the early church. Soon the Puritans, in turn, broke away from the Church of England, to purify it, as well.
However, tampering with a state church was a highly political thing to attempt. It was safer to conduct this religious experiment overseas, and a group of Puritans managed to get a charter from King Charles I to found the Colony of Massachusetts a good safe distance away. This allowed them to separate from the English Church in all but name. In the New World they were under no bishop and each congregation ran its own affairs. They had to be quiet about it, of course, since the Church of England was increasingly hostile to Puritanism and what King Charles had given, he could also take away. [5] The last thing the Colony of Massachusetts needed was an open separatist like Roger Williams who advocated a break with the Church of England in public.
Soon the Massachusetts authorities encountered further problems with the young Puritan preacher. Not content to challenge the legitimacy of the English Church, he began to question the purity of the Puritan one, and finally decided he must separate from that, as well.
The impulse of separation was a natural extension of the perception of spiritual stain and impurity, and Puritans saw stain everywhere. Central to Puritan ecclesiology was the line of demarcation between the godly and ungodly, the holy and the profane. [6]
In the 17th century this drive to avoid spiritual impurity led to a series of further separations, as new churches separated from the churches which had themselves separated from Rome.
However, one of the remarkable things about Roger Williams is that unlike others, he did not set himself up as the leader of some new and purer church — even though his status as the founder of a new colony might have let him easily assume that role. Instead, he remained true to his Seeker beliefs, unwilling to impose some new orthodoxy on others, even in the name of spiritual purity. Thus he didn't separate in order to found a new church, but in order to keep any church from impeding the earnest search to learn God's will.
● However, without a third crucial experience, Williams could never have made the bold leap and founded a colony where everyone enjoyed complete religious freedom. In the 17th century it was assumed that a common religion was necessary to ensure social peace. This was the lesson that Europe had drawn from that century's devastating religious wars. Furthermore, to ensure the authority of the state, this common religion should be a state church, in other words, all subjects must follow the religion of their rulers. Otherwise, it was feared, they might try to topple the king and install one of their own faith. This had indeed been attempted when Roger Williams was a baby:theGunpowder Plotwas an attempt to bring back a Catholic king. This plot, though foiled, inspired religious oppression of Catholics and created a vicious circle of suspicion and disaffection that was only ended by the Catholic Emancipation Act in 1829.
However, Roger Williams knew that this tragic cycle of exclusion was totally unnecessary.
People didn't need a common church — or even any church at all — to live in harmony with their neighbours. He had experienced something that his contemporaries believed to be impossible, for he had lived among the Indians of Rhode Island, the Narrangasett, and even written a book about their language. He knew firsthand that people could tell the truth without swearing on the Bible, could help their fellows without any religious duty to do so and could keep the peace without oaths of allegiance to a divinely-appointed ruler.
Roger Williams had gone among the Indians to teach them Christianity but, true to his Seeker beliefs, he had remained open-minded. He let the Indians teach him a lesson that he could learn nowhere else: that church and state could be separated.
When Roger Williams was exiled from Massachusetts in 1636 he and a few companions founded a little settlement. There church and state were completely separate and they underlined their religious motives for doing this by naming it Providence. Overlooking the river they built their timber-framed cottages, the wattle-and-daub walls protected from the rain by the deep eaves of thatched roofs. Behind the cottages, in a field which rose to the foot of the bluffs, they planted their multicoloured Indian corn.
Life in the new settlement proved a struggle. In fact, the next year, when the Governor of Massachusetts paid a visit to the impetuous young preacher, he was so touched by their poverty that he pressed a gold piece into Mrs. Williams' hand. The hamlet was small, mosquito-infested, pig-ridden, dirt-laned, isolated, insecure and poor. Yet at that time it was perhaps the freest place on earth. [7]
3. Ibid., p. 3. 4. Ibid., p. xi. 5. Timothy L. Hall, Separating Church and State: Roger Williams and religious liberty, (University of Illinois Press, 1997), p. 24. 6. Ibid., p. 23. 7. Covey, p. 134.
Rome and Canterbury James Martin, S.J., offers three questions to consider in response to the Vatican's surprise decision to reach out to disaffected Anglicans.
My country, ’tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty, Of thee I sing; Land where my fathers died, Land of the pilgrims’ pride, From every mountainside, Let freedom ring!
My native country, thee, Land of the noble free, Thy name I love; I love thy rocks and rills, Thy woods and templed hills; My heart with rapture thrills, Like that above.
Let music swell the breeze, And ring from all the trees, Sweet freedom’s song; Let mortal tongues awake; Let all that breathe partake; Let rocks their silence break, The sound prolong.
Our fathers’ God, to Thee, Author of liberty, To Thee we sing; Long may our land be bright With freedom’s holy light; Protect us by Thy might, Great God, our King.
Words: Samuel F. Smith, 1832. Music: America, Thesaurus Musicus, 1744
P.S. These shores were a haven for those early settlers seeking religious liberty; Those persecuted brethren fleeing the religious bigotry of Europe; namely the Church of England and the Church or Rome. These same powers, their Kings, popes and princes are united today in many forms; Again, they are intent on returning this freedom loving land to their tyrannical designs. The gunpowder plot was not a myth, friends, but a fact; and a new Guy Fawkes has come to our shores.
Many here now point to the U.K. and to Rome as being more enlightened than our own land. How ridiculous and short sighted. Those that came here fled those same powers that are now seen by some as providing a (the greater good) more equitable solution to the world's ills.
No my brethren, don't allow yourself to be fooled by those over there dictating (to us) their ideals as gospel; Such asCaritas In Veritate,or other papal bulls; Do not be deceived by the socialist medical system of the U.K. Neither of these are based on our principles of each person deciding for themselves what is best for them. Freedom of choice isone of ourProtestant Principles; Never mind those out-moded Old Worlde ideas.
Tyranny is their ultimate goal. No choice, just their voice!
.
Nope, please join me and sing: We need no pope or King (or Queen).
Another six days’ work is done Another Sabbath is begun; Return, my soul, enjoy thy rest, Improve the day that God hath blest.
Come, praise the Lord, whose love assigns So sweet a rest to weary minds; Provides an antepast of Heaven And gives this day the food of seven.
O that our thoughts and thanks may rise As grateful incense to the skies! And draw from Heaven that sweet repose Which none but he who feels it knows.
A heavenly calm pervades the breast Is the dear pledge of glorious rest, Which for the Church of God remains, The end of cares, the end of pains.
With joy, great God, Thy works we view, In various scenes, both old and new; With praise we think on mercies past, With hope we future pleasure taste.
In holy duties let the day, In holy comforts pass away; The Sabbath thus we love to spend, In hope of one which ne’er shall end.
Words: Joseph Stennett, from the 14-stanza poem “On the Sabbath” in his Works, 1732. The second stanza below is anonymous, and was added in Collection of Hymns Adapted to Public Worship, by John Ash and Caleb Evans (Bristol, England: 1769). Music: Retreat, Thomas Hastings, 1842
Page last updated at 03:29 GMT, Friday, 30 October 2009
The world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart, now plans to hold on to customers even after they die - by selling coffins.
Prices range from a "Mom" or "Dad Remembered" steel coffin for $895 (£540), to a bronze model at $2,899.
The retailer is allowing customers to plan ahead by paying for the caskets over 12 months for no interest. They can be dispatched within 48 hours.
Catering for cradle-to-grave needs, Wal-Mart already sells everything from baby wear to engagement rings.
A spokesman for the supermarket giant, Ravi Jariwala, said the new coffin range was "a limited beta test to understand customer response".
The retailer is offering caskets at prices that undercut many funeral homes, say correspondents.
But an industry spokesman said it was not unduly concerned about Wal-Mart's move, because he said the firm could not offer bereaved families the human touch.
Pat Lynch, of the National Funeral Home Directors Association, told AP news agency: "There's no question in my mind as a funeral director for nearly 40 years that the most critical element is the human contact."
We have noted that the ecumenical movement plays a key role in forming the Antichrist's world religion, which will be a paganized Christianity such as was developed under Constantine and became Roman Catholicism. It is therefore not surprising that behind the scenes, the Catholic Church has been pushing ecumenism for years. It is not only drawing the "separated brethren" of Protestantism back into the fold, but uniting all religions under Rome, as Revelation 17 indicates.
Council President Georve Leventhal (at center) joins Maryland's First Lady Kendal Ehrlich at the ribbon-cutting of the new Pediatric In-Patient Facility at the Potomac Ridge Behavioral Health Center, the first facility that includes in-patient children's beds. also in attendance were State Senator Jennie Forehand (at left), Adventist Health Care CEO Bill Robertson (second from left) and Craig S. Juengling (at right), President of the Potomac Ridge Behavioral Center.
News Release New Name and Quality-Driven Enhancements for Largest Mental Health Provider in the County Rockville, MD - Adventist Behavioral Health, formerly Potomac Ridge Behavioral Health, today announced its new name, a partnership with Georgetown University Hospital's Department of Psychiatry and several quality-driven enhancements to its facilities and programming, including renovations and a future geriatric inpatient psychiatry unit. The new Adventist Behavioral Health name marks the organization's commitment to delivering the highest standards of mental health care and becoming the mental health care provider of choice in the community. The enhancements have allowed Adventist Behavioral Health to recruit highly-skilled psychiatrists to complement its dedicated clinical staff and to develop new programs that incorporate evidence-based treatment.
Adventist Behavioral Health partnered with Georgetown University Hospital's Department of Psychiatry to offer a future Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Residency Training Program, which is expected to enroll its first residents in July 2010. The training program will offer an academic-enriched environment for residents in a number of Adventist Behavioral Health's facilities, including Behavioral Health at Washington Adventist Hospital and the Reginald S. Lourie Center for Infants and Young Children.
"Our partnership with Georgetown University Hospital's Department of Psychiatry is a tremendous step forward in our goal to become a leading academic and research-based hospital," said Peter Levine, M.D., MMM, executive medical director of behavioral health services for Adventist Behavioral Health. "The program will provide residents rigorous, hands-on training in the adolescent residential treatment center (RTC) and acute children's treatment environments and, at the same time, help create a culture of excellence, education and ongoing training at our facilities."
Adventist Behavioral Health also plans to open a 10-bed, state-of-the art geriatric inpatient psychiatry unit in January 2010. The unit, which will be the only one of its kind in Montgomery County, will treat individuals 65 years and older who suffer from a variety of major mental illnesses, including severe depression and bipolar disorder.
"According to the Rockville Institute, the geriatric population in Montgomery County is expected to rise 62 percent by 2025," said Sako Maki, President, Adventist Behavioral Health. "Offering geriatric psychiatry services is part of our organization's strategy to address the changing needs of the community and offer customized programs aimed to treat individuals at every stage of life. Our new clinical staff, partnership with Georgetown University Hospital's Department of Psychiatry and our renewed focus on quality and excellent outcomes will strengthen Adventist Behavioral Health's breadth of services to the community."
Adventist Behavioral Health is also working to ensure that its facilities reflect the quality care and compassionate service staff provides. To that end, the Rockville campus is renovating its 60-bed RTC at its Rockville campus. The renovations will include updated patient rooms, larger group therapy areas and modern workstations for the clinical staff.
"We are enhancing our services and investing in renovations that will make our RTC more conducive to successful behavioral therapy," said Maki. "It is important for us to create an environment of care that gives our patients and their families hope."
About Adventist Behavioral Health
Adventist Behavioral Health is a comprehensive behavioral health provider with locations in Anne Arundel, Dorchester and Montgomery counties, including Washington Adventist Hospital's Behavioral Health Unit and the Reginald S. Lourie Center for Infants and Young Children. The organization offers a broad range of behavioral health programs and services for young children, adolescents, adults and senior citizens including therapeutic nursery programs, acute inpatient care, outpatient/dual diagnosis chemical dependency programs, residential treatment, special education and community-based residential services. Adventist Behavioral Health is part of Rockville-based Adventist HealthCare, an integrated health-care delivery system that is one of the largest employers in the State of Maryland.
Oct. 29: Photos and passports seized during military operations against Taliban militants are displayed on a table in South Waziristan
SHERWANGAI, Pakistan — Pakistani soldiers battling their way into a Taliban stronghold along the Afghan border have seized passports that may be linked to 9/11 suspects, as they confront an enemy skilled in operating in a mountainous terrain with endless ways to wage a guerrilla war.
The military on Thursday took foreign and local journalists for a first look inside the largely lawless territory since it launched a ground offensive here in mid-October. The U.S.-backed operation is focused on a section of the tribal region where the Pakistani Taliban are based and are believed to shelter Al Qaeda.
Soldiers displayed passports seized in the operation, among them a German document belonging to a man named Said Bahaji. That matches the name of a man thought to have been a member of the Hamburg cell that conceived the 9/11 attacks. Bahaji is believed to have fled Germany shortly before the attacks in New York and Washington.
The passport included a tourist visa for Pakistan and a stamp indicating he'd arrived in the southern city of Karachi on Sept. 4, 2001.
Another passport, from Spain, bears the name of Raquel Burgos Garcia. Spanish media have reported that a woman with the same name is married to Amer Azizi, an alleged Al Qaeda member from Morocco suspected in both the 9/11 attacks and the Madrid train bombings in 2004.
Her family in Madrid has had no news of her since 2001, according to Spanish media. Her passport included visas to India and Iran, and the army displayed a Moroccan document with Burgos Garcia's photo and other information.
It was impossible to determine whether the passports are genuine, and German and Spanish officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, the army's chief spokesman, said he had not realized the passports matched any prominent names, and declined further comment other than to say European militants were sprinkled throughout the area.
The U.S. has maintained for years that South Waziristan and other parts of the rugged frontier have sheltered Osama bin Laden and his senior lieutenants.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, visiting this country on Thursday, said Pakistan squandered opportunities over the years to kill or capture Al Qaeda leaders responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks.
"I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn't get them if they really wanted to," Clinton said in an interview with Pakistani journalists in Lahore. "Maybe that's the case. Maybe they're not gettable. I don't know."
Although the military spent months using airstrikes to soften up targets in South Waziristan, nearly two weeks into the ground offensive it has captured only a few areas, none with significant strategic value. The army has seized weapons but is still trying to secure the main roads and regularly comes under rocket fire.
"It's a long-drawn haul," Abbas said. "They are offering resistance, and we are also striking them hard."
Pakistan's tribal belt, a semiautonomous stretch of land where the government has long had little influence, is usually off-limits to foreigners. In recent years, as the militants' influence has spread, even many Pakistanis dare not venture here.
The tribal regions are some of the poorest, most underdeveloped areas in the world and have long been guided by traditional codes and councils. The Taliban have slaughtered hundreds of tribal elders in their rise to power.
In Sherwangai, a sparsely populated district along one of the offensive's three major fronts, army commanders said they had killed 82 insurgents and lost six soldiers in their attempt to secure the area, where the hills are covered in brush, rocks and dust and strong winds whip high ridges. Many battle-hardened Uzbek militants are believed to have taken shelter here.
The military is slowly capturing isolated hamlets as it encircles the small town of Kaniguram, its next target in the push forward. But even where the army has taken control, much of the area remains dangerous, filled with land mines and roadside bombs.
After an initial surge of resistance, many militants have been fleeing. Because the army has sealed off the main passes, "they will not be able to go out in a major way," said Maj. Gen. Khalid Rabbani, a top battlefield commander.
Yet, he added, "If somebody chooses even to cross Mount Everest, he will be able to do it. So there are going to be a few, changing their disguise — taking care of their beards and long hair — they will be able to get out."
In addition to the passports, the military displayed papers and dozens of weapons and large amounts of ammunition it said it had recovered from Sherwangai.
Civilians were nowhere to be seen during Thursday's trip — some 155,000 have left the region in the past few months. South Waziristan normally has about 500,000 people.
At one military outpost, in a large mud compound in Sherwangai, smoke could be seen rising in the distance from villages under army fire. Officials assured reporters the civilians had left those areas.
The military previously estimated that the South Waziristan offensive would take at least two to three months, and officials were hesitant Thursday to give a deadline. They also declined to give a time frame for how long troops would have to stay to prevent militants from returning.
It also is unclear whether Islamabad has any plans for how to govern the territory effectively and prevent the insurgency from again taking root.
The army has deployed three divisions — about 30,000 troops — to take on some 5,000 to 8,000 militants, Abbas said, lowering a previous estimate of 10,000 militants. His estimate included up to 1,500 foreign fighters, most of them Uzbeks. Afghan fighters are also reportedly filtering in from across the border.
This is the fourth major offensive the Pakistani army has launched in South Waziristan since 2004, and this time the military has promised a fight to the finish. The previous operations ended in setbacks or peace deals that left the militant groups even stronger.
P.S. What a mystery that these passports show up in all places, Pakistan (the latest venue for the war on terror). Passports were found 8 years after 9/11/01? Gimme a break!
I believe that it was reported that all types of documents were found on 9/11/01; At ground zero, and at other locations. For guys that supposedly executed the greatest terror attack in history, these guys were careless. Hmmm... Now, more passports are found? Yet, no one has ever found Bin Laden, though he continues to transmit sporadic audio/video threats?
Well, they will soon be pounding the caves of Pakistan with the Shock and Awe technique.
SAN FRANCISCO (Oct. 29) -- Billions of dollars from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 are being spent on infrastructure projects across the country, but as this week's closing of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge shows, for every problem that gets addressed, it seems like 10 more are waiting.
Built in 1936, and severely damaged in1989 by the Loma Prieta earthquake, the Bay Bridge closed over Labor Day weekend for retrofitting designed to help it withstand further quakes. In the process of the repairs, an enormous crack was found in an I-bar, requiring further fixes.
On Tuesday, a portion of the second emergency repair gave way, sending steel cables onto the roadway, damaging cars and closing the bridge to traffic once more.
Bridge safety is by no means an isolated issue, however. According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, more than 26 percent of the country's bridges were found to be either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.
Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak has personally witnessed the consequences of putting off infrastructure repair and maintenance. On Aug. 1, 2007, his city's I-35W Bridge over the Mississippi River collapsed, killing 13 people and injuring 145.
Stacy Bengs, AP On Aug. 1, 2007, the I-35W Bridge collapsed in Minneapolis during the evening rush hour, killing 13 people and injuring 145.
That episode briefly galvanized political will, according to the mayor's spokesman, Jeremy Hanson. "Congress was moved to act," Hanson said. And with federal funds, the bridge was rebuilt in just over a year from the time it fell, at a cost of $234 million.
Now Minneapolis is using $10 million in stimulus funding to refurbish Camden Bridge, another of the city's Mississippi River crossings. Built in 1975, the bridge had deteriorated to the point that it was no longer safe for traffic and was shut down. "It's a major bridge," Hanson said. "And without the stimulus funds, we would not be able to do the project."
For Wayne Klotz, president of the American Society of Civil Engineers, any money allocated to updating the country's infrastructure is welcome. But he's also realistic about just how much the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act can do.
"Only 10 percent of the stimulus package went toward infrastructure. The percentage was relatively small. The primary purpose of the stimulus was to create jobs, not to improve infrastructure," he said.
Asked to prioritize which areas of infrastructure he thinks need immediate attention, Klotz laughed.
"It's kind of like if your kid comes home with a report card with straight D's. Which subject do you start with? Take your pick. We've followed a 'patch and pray' method of infrastructure maintenance in this country. We don't have a single category that has a passing grade."
President Barack Obama recently described the Recovery Act as "the largest investment in the nation's infrastructure since President Eisenhower built the Interstate Highway System." The stimulus plan targets "shovel ready" programs, those that don't require new permits or exhaustive planning. As a result, Klotz said, the approach provides much needed maintenance, but still misses the bigger mark.
"Back in the '50s, '60s and even the first part of the 1970s, the percentage of money we used to spend on infrastructure was 5 to 7 percent of the budget," Klotz said. "We built the best infrastructure system in the world. Now, we're lucky if we spend 1 to 2 percent."
California is one state looking to take full advantage of the Recovery Act money. The nation's leading recipient of stimulus dollars, California recently applied for a $4.7 billion allocation to help pay for a high-speed rail system. That money would be in addition to the billions it is already using to rebuild roads, airports, existing rail lines and, yes, bridges.
But Ross McKeown, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the agency charged with planning and financing infrastructure projects in the San Francisco Bay Area, said California's stimulus funds are not sufficient to meet the challenges that drastically falling revenues and neglected infrastructure maintenance have brought.
"The stimulus is a one-time, stop-gap measure that doesn't come close to solving the larger issue," McKeown said. "Really, it's just a drop in the bucket."
As Klotz sees it, such steps are vital if we intend to see our economy thrive in the future. "Transportation is our economy," he said. "If our transportation system doesn't work, our economy doesn't work."
KABUL, Afghanistan — Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president and a suspected player in the country’s booming illegal opium trade, gets regular payments from the Central Intelligence Agency, and has for much of the past eight years, according to current and former American officials.
Banaras Khan/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Ahmed Wali Karzai, right, the brother of President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, at a campaign event in Kandahar in August.
The agency pays Mr. Karzai for a variety of services, including helping to recruit an Afghan paramilitary force that operates at the C.I.A.’s direction in and around the southern city of Kandahar, Mr. Karzai’s home.
The financial ties and close working relationship between the intelligence agency and Mr. Karzai raise significant questions about America’s war strategy, which is currently under review at the White House.
The ties to Mr. Karzai have created deep divisions within the Obama administration. The critics say the ties complicate America’s increasingly tense relationship with President Hamid Karzai, who has struggled to build sustained popularity among Afghans and has long been portrayed by the Taliban as an American puppet. The C.I.A.’s practices also suggest that the United States is not doing everything in its power to stamp out the lucrative Afghan drug trade, a major source of revenue for the Taliban.
More broadly, some American officials argue that the reliance on Ahmed Wali Karzai, the most powerful figure in a large area of southern Afghanistan where the Taliban insurgency is strongest, undermines the American push to develop an effective central government that can maintain law and order and eventually allow the United States to withdraw.
“If we are going to conduct a population-centric strategy in Afghanistan, and we are perceived as backing thugs, then we are just undermining ourselves,” said Maj. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, the senior American military intelligence official in Afghanistan.
Ahmed Wali Karzai said in an interview that he cooperated with American civilian and military officials, but did not engage in the drug trade and did not receive payments from the C.I.A.
The relationship between Mr. Karzai and the C.I.A. is wide ranging, several American officials said. He helps the C.I.A. operate a paramilitary group, the Kandahar Strike Force, that is used for raids against suspected insurgents and terrorists. On at least one occasion, the strike force has been accused of mounting an unauthorized operation against an official of the Afghan government, the officials said.
Mr. Karzai is also paid for allowing the C.I.A. and American Special Operations troops to rent a large compound outside the city — the former home of Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban’s founder. The same compound is also the base of the Kandahar Strike Force. “He’s our landlord,” a senior American official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
Mr. Karzai also helps the C.I.A. communicate with and sometimes meet with Afghans loyal to the Taliban. Mr. Karzai’s role as a go-between between the Americans and the Taliban is now regarded as valuable by those who support working with Mr. Karzai, as the Obama administration is placing a greater focus on encouraging Taliban leaders to change sides.
A C.I.A. spokesman declined to comment for this article.
“No intelligence organization worth the name would ever entertain these kind of allegations,” said Paul Gimigliano, the spokesman.
Some American officials said that the allegations of Mr. Karzai’s role in the drug trade were not conclusive.
“There’s no proof of Ahmed Wali Karzai’s involvement in drug trafficking, certainly nothing that would stand up in court,” said one American official familiar with the intelligence. “And you can’t ignore what the Afghan government has done for American counterterrorism efforts.”
At the start of the Afghan war, just after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States, American officials paid warlords with questionable backgrounds to help topple the Taliban and maintain order with relatively few American troops committed to fight in the country. But as the Taliban has become resurgent and the war has intensified, Americans have increasingly viewed a strong and credible central government as crucial to turning back the Taliban’s advances.
Now, with more American lives on the line, the relationship with Mr. Karzai is setting off anger and frustration among American military officers and other officials in the Obama administration. They say that Mr. Karzai’s suspected role in the drug trade, as well as what they describe as the mafialike way that he lords over southern Afghanistan, makes him a malevolent force.
These military and political officials say the evidence, though largely circumstantial, suggests strongly that Mr. Karzai has enriched himself by helping the illegal trade in poppy and opium to flourish. The assessment of these military and senior officials in the Obama administration dovetails with that of senior officials in the Bush administration.
“Hundreds of millions of dollars in drug money are flowing through the southern region, and nothing happens in southern Afghanistan without the regional leadership knowing about it,” a senior American military officer in Kabul said. Like most of the officials in this article, he spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the secrecy of the information.
“If it looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck,” the American officer said of Mr. Karzai. “Our assumption is that he’s benefiting from the drug trade.”
American officials say that Afghanistan’s opium trade, the largest in the world, directly threatens the stability of the Afghan state, by providing a large percentage of the money the Taliban needs for its operations, and also by corrupting Afghan public officials to help the trade flourish.
The Obama administration has repeatedly vowed to crack down on the drug lords who are believed to permeate the highest levels of President Karzai’s administration. They have pressed him to move his brother out of southern Afghanistan, but he has so far refused to do so.
Other Western officials pointed to evidence that Ahmed Wali Karzai orchestrated the manufacture of hundreds of thousands of phony ballots for his brother’s re-election effort in August. He is also believed to have been responsible for setting up dozens of so-called ghost polling stations — existing only on paper — that were used to manufacture tens of thousands of phony ballots.
“The only way to clean up Chicago is to get rid of Capone,” General Flynn said.
In the interview in which he denied a role in the drug trade or taking money from the C.I.A., Ahmed Wali Karzai said he received regular payments from his brother, the president, for “expenses,” but said he did not know where the money came from. He has, among other things, introduced Americans to insurgents considering changing sides. And he has given the Americans intelligence, he said. But he said he was not compensated for that assistance.
“I don’t know anyone under the name of the C.I.A.,” Mr. Karzai said. “I have never received any money from any organization. I help, definitely. I help other Americans wherever I can. This is my duty as an Afghan.”
Mr. Karzai acknowledged that the C.I.A. and Special Operations troops stayed at Mullah Omar’s old compound. And he acknowledged that the Kandahar Strike Force was based there. But he said he had no involvement with them.
A former C.I.A. officer with experience in Afghanistan said the agency relied heavily on Ahmed Wali Karzai, and often based covert operatives at compounds he owned. Any connections Mr. Karzai might have had to the drug trade mattered little to C.I.A. officers focused on counterterrorism missions, the officer said.
“Virtually every significant Afghan figure has had brushes with the drug trade,” he said. “If you are looking for Mother Teresa, she doesn’t live in Afghanistan.”
The debate over Ahmed Wali Karzai, which began when President Obama took office in January, intensified in June, when the C.I.A.’s local paramilitary group, the Kandahar Strike Force, shot and killed Kandahar’s provincial police chief, Matiullah Qati, in a still-unexplained shootout at the office of a local prosecutor.
The circumstances surrounding Mr. Qati’s death remain shrouded in mystery. It is unclear, for instance, if any agency operatives were present — but officials say the firefight broke out when Mr. Qati tried to block the strike force from freeing the brother of a task force member who was being held in custody.
“Matiullah was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Mr. Karzai said in the interview.
Counternarcotics officials have repeatedly expressed frustration over the unwillingness of senior policy makers in Washington to take action against Mr. Karzai — or even begin a serious investigation of the allegations against him. In fact, they say that while other Afghans accused of drug involvement are investigated and singled out for raids or even rendition to the United States, Mr. Karzai has seemed immune from similar scrutiny.
For years, first the Bush administration and then the Obama administration have said that the Taliban benefits from the drug trade, and the United States military has recently expanded its target list to include drug traffickers with ties to the insurgency. The military has generated a list of 50 top drug traffickers tied to the Taliban who can now be killed or captured.
Senior Afghan investigators say they know plenty about Mr. Karzai’s involvement in the drug business. In an interview in Kabul this year, a top former Afghan Interior Ministry official familiar with Afghan counternarcotics operations said that a major source of Mr. Karzai’s influence over the drug trade was his control over key bridges crossing the Helmand River on the route between the opium growing regions of Helmand Province and Kandahar.
The former Interior Ministry official said that Mr. Karzai was able to charge huge fees to drug traffickers to allow their drug-laden trucks to cross the bridges.
But the former officials said it was impossible for Afghan counternarcotics officials to investigate Mr. Karzai. “This government has become a factory for the production of Talibs because of corruption and injustice,” the former official said.
Some American counternarcotics officials have said they believe that Mr. Karzai has expanded his influence over the drug trade, thanks in part to American efforts to single out other drug lords.
In debriefing notes from Drug Enforcement Administration interviews in 2006 of Afghan informants obtained by The New York Times, one key informant said that Ahmed Wali Karzai had benefited from the American operation that lured Hajji Bashir Noorzai, a major Afghan drug lord during the time that the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, to New York in 2005. Mr. Noorzai was convicted on drug and conspiracy charges in New York in 2008, and was sentenced to life in prison this year.
Habibullah Jan, a local military commander and later a member of Parliament from Kandahar, told the D.E.A. in 2006 that Mr. Karzai had teamed with Haji Juma Khan to take over a portion of the Noorzai drug business after Mr. Noorzai’s arrest.
Dexter Filkins reported from Kabul, and Mark Mazzetti and James Risen from Washington. Helene Cooper contributed reporting from Washington.
