Showing posts with label Joel C. Rosenberg's Blog. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Joel C. Rosenberg's Blog. Show all posts

Friday, February 16, 2018

Joel C. Rosenberg's Blog: Former CIA Director and New York Times best-selling writers praise THE KREMLIN CONSPIRACY, a new political thriller about a Russian Czar...

CIA-logoKremlinConspiracy-coversmall

New post on Joel C. Rosenberg's Blog

Former CIA Director and New York Times best-selling writers praise THE KREMLIN CONSPIRACY, a new political thriller about a Russian Czar plotting to attack the U.S. & the NATO alliance. (Novel set for release on March 6th.)

by joelcrosenberg
As the countdown to the March 6th launch approaches, some early endorsements of The Kremlin Conspiracy are in, and they're encouraging.
“Joel Rosenberg has an uncanny talent for focusing his story-telling on real world hot spots just as they are heating up. He has done it again in The Kremlin Conspiracy. Russia is back in the headlines above the fold as a macro-mischief maker and Joel’s new thriller presents a worst case scenario that must never come to pass. All Americans – especially the President, Members of Congress and our national security team – should be mindful of the threat an out-of-control Moscow poses to peace and freedom.” – Porter Goss, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency
“Marcus Ryker rocks! Breakneck action, political brinksmanship, authentic scenarios, and sharply defined characters make Joel C. Rosenberg’s Kremlin Conspiracy a full throttle and frightening ride through tomorrow’s headlines.” – U.S. Army Brigadier General (retired) A. J. Tata, national bestselling author of Direct Fire
“Joel C. Rosenberg writes taut, intelligent thrillers that are as timely as they are well-written. Pairing a fast-paced plot with an impressive understanding of the inner workings in the corridors of power of the Russian government, The Kremlin Conspiracy is a stellar novel of riveting action and political intrigue.” – Mark Greaney, #1 New York Timesbestselling author of Agent in Place
The Kremlin Conspiracy is my first Joel C. Rosenberg novel, and I am absolutely blown away by how good this guy is. The story moves at a blistering pace, it’s crackling with tension, and you won’t put it down until you reach the end. Guaranteed. Simply masterful.” – Sean Parnell, New York Times bestselling author of Outlaw Platoon
What is THE KREMLIN CONSPIRACY all about?
SEPTEMBER 1999: A series of apartment bombings in Moscow shock the world. The Russian government immediately blames Chechen terrorists, and Oleg Kraskin―a sharp young lawyer in love with the president’s daughter―has no reason to doubt it. Yet when he joins the First Family of Russia, and the president’s personal staff, he has no idea how radically the bombings will one day alter the course of world events. Or what role he himself will play.
SEPTEMBER 2001­: Just after the Twin Towers and the Pentagon are attacked, Marcus Ryker enlists in the Marines and is sent to Afghanistan to defend his country. In time, he joins the United States Secret Service and works his way up to the elite Presidential Protection Detail. It’s his dream job, until a tragic accident causes him to rethink his priorities.
Neither Marcus nor Oleg is aware of just how much they themselves will change history when their paths cross.
Russia’s president is a rising czar determined to restore his country to her former greatness―and he will stop at nothing to do so. Even risk nuclear war.
Now Marcus has to make the most important decision of his life. Would it ever be right to assassinate a single leader if it could prevent a genocide? If it is, then everything he’s learned to protect our president, he’ll need to take out theirs.
KREMLIN-endorsements
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joelcrosenberg | February 15, 2018 at 2:24 pm | Categories: Epicenter | URL: https://wp.me/piWZ7-8Ei

Monday, October 2, 2017

Joel C. Rosenberg's Blog - BREAKING NEWS: “Deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.” 50+ dead, 200+ wounded.

New post on Joel C. Rosenberg's Blog

BREAKING NEWS: “Deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.” 50+ dead, 200+ wounded. Here’s what we know so far from Las Vegas.

by joelcrosenberg
LasVegas-headline
Americans are waking up to horrific news of sheer evil in Las Vegas.
At least 50 people have been murdered, and more than 200 have been wounded.
Here's what we know so far....
  • "Deadliest shooting in U.S. history." (CNN) (ABC News)
  • Warning 45 minutes before the attack: "You're all going to die." (UK Express)
  • "Las Vegas gunman suspect is Stephen Paddock, 64, of Mesquite, Nevada." (CNBC)
  • "[T]he Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said the suspect was shot dead by officers and that authorities were confident there was no longer a threat....police found numerous firearms in the room he occupied and that officers were also at his residence." (Wall Street Journal)
  • "Authorities said law enforcement swarmed the hotel and killed the gunman in a room on the 32nd floor. Responding officers used an explosive device to force the door open into the room to shoot Paddock dead, law enforcement officials told Fox News." (Fox News)
  • "Police don't believe there are any more shooters. 'Right now, we believe it's a sole actor, a lone-wolf-type actor,' the sheriff said." (CNN)
  • "A gunman killed at least 50 people and wounded more than 200 at a country music festival on the Las Vegas Strip on Sunday, raining down rapid fire from the 32nd floor of a hotel for several minutes before he was shot dead by police." (Reuters)
  • "The death toll, which police emphasized was preliminary and tentative, would make the attack the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, eclipsing last year’s massacre of 49 people at an Orlando night club." (Reuters)
  • "Pray for Las Vegas," the city's mayor, Carolyn Goodman, tweeted. "Thank you to all our first responders out there now." (CNN)
Developing....
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joelcrosenberg | October 2, 2017 at 11:56 am | Categories: Epicenter | URL: http://wp.me/piWZ7-8w2

Friday, September 29, 2017

On the eve of Yom Kippur, “Putin in Ankara to forge alliance of Russia, Turkey & Iran.” Here’s why that’s interesting. - Joel C. Rosenberg's Blog

Putin-Erdogan

On the eve of Yom Kippur, “Putin in Ankara to forge alliance of Russia, Turkey & Iran.” Here’s why that’s interesting. 


by joelcrosenberg  Sept. 29, 2017
(Denver, Colorado) -- Readers of my novel, The Ezekiel Option, and non-fiction book, Epicenter, and this blog know how interested I am in the ancient prophecies of Ezekiel 38 and 39 and what is known by rabbis, pastors and Bible scholars as the "War of Gog and Magog."
The Hebrew prophet Ezekiel wrote some 2,500 years ago that in the "last days" of history, the Jewish people will be gathered back to the land of Israel from all the nations where they have been scattered and exiled, they will rebuild the State of Israel, and they will create a nation of ever-increasing security and prosperity.
At that time, Ezekiel indicates an evil dictator identified as "Gog" will rise up in Russia (known in Biblical times as "Magog") who will form an alliance with Iran (known in Biblical times as "Persia"), Turkey (known in Biblical times as "Gomer"), and several other Middle Eastern and North African countries. Together, this alliance will surround and then seek to attack and consume Israel and the Jewish people.
Skeptics of the Bible dismiss all talk of prophecy as uneducated, unsophisticated and downright ridiculous, despite the fact that over the last century we've been seeing one Bible prophecy after another come to pass:
  • Jews from all over the world have been streaming back to live in the Land of Israel (myself included)
  • Israelis have been rebuilding the ancient ruins and building a modern, flourishing, prosperous economy.
  • Israelis have been creating the strongest and most successful military in the entire Middle East, have forged an enduring alliance with the world's only superpower, and feel more secure today than ever in their modern existence.
So some of us find headlines like these particularly interesting:
Keep in mind that tensions between Russia and Turkey (a NATO member) have been running quite high in recent years.
So it's not exactly obvious that Putin and Turkish President Recep Erdogan would be meeting in the Turkish capital to forge an alliance together, much less with Iran.
Yet that's exactly what happened this week.

  • Putin’s visit to Ankara comes a few days prior to the scheduled visit of Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud’s to Moscow on October 5-7, 2017. After patching up an acrimonious row between the countries over the downing of a Russian jetfighter in November 2015 over Syria, both leaders have pledged to restore their political and economic relations to pre-crisis levels....
  • Moscow called for a peace conference in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, which involved Turkey and Iran. The countries formed a diplomatic triad for setting up de-escalation zones in Syria in order to end the war and stop the division of the country. Russia chose Astana as a venue for the talks to send a message to the US that it should not get close to Russian borders through former republics of the Soviet Union....
  • Turkish leadership is seeking strategic relationship with Russia to replace the loss of its Western alliance. In other words, Ankara is effecting a shift toward a more “Eurasian-ist” orientation due to the proximity of the region, the overlapping of interests, common cultural values and language.
  • After winning the war in Syria, Russia is now seeking to ensure its peace – a mission no less difficult than going to war. Initially, Russia used Turkey as a key partner to make the Syrian opposition accept a truce and join peace talks for reaching a political settlement....
  • Russian-Turkish bilateral relations have several common traits: pragmatism, multi-faceted approach, commonalities, reliance on energy resources, geopolitical power, military performance, circumspection toward the West. All of this has fueled the Russian and Turkish pursuit to play a pivotal role at the Eurasian and Middle Eastern landscapes....
  • In 2014, Putin and Erdogan signed several agreements on bilateral trade with the two countries hoping that their annual trade volume would reach $100 billion by 2020. However, the most important achievement of the meeting was the agreement to expand cooperation in natural gas trade. Russia aimed through these agreements to also increase its gas exports to Turkey by more than 3 billion cubic meters because of the latter’s increasing need for energy.
  • Turkey imports 93 percent of its energy needs, 97 percent of which is natural gas. Ankara buy 60 percent of its gas from Russia, which makes it the second largest importer of Russian natural gas after Germany. The value of Turkish exports to Russia does not exceed $6 billion....
  • The recent military rapprochement between Ankara and Moscow with the S-400 deal has upset NATO officials because the Russian system, an anti-air defense system, is incompatible with NATO’s. With this deal, Russia will be the third biggest arms exporter to Turkey after Germany and the US.
  • Erdogan, who plans to visit Iran in October to bolster military cooperation, will also be discussing the repercussions of any independent Kurdish state that might inflame separatist tensions in Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria....
To be clear, I'm not saying that as Yom Kippur begins this year, Israel faces an imminent threat of attack from Russia, Turkey or Iran. Nor am I saying that this week's meeting between Putin and Erdogan necessarily fulfills Biblical prophecy. It's simply too early to say whether the alliances that are forming between have Biblical significance. Likewise, it's also too early to say that Putin is Gog, though he certainly seems "Gog-esque." We simply don't have enough information, so we should not be quick to draw conclusions.
That said, even skeptics of the Bible should find recent events not only troubling geopolitically, but also curiously consistent with the words of the ancient Hebrew prophet Ezekiel. I certainly do.
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joelcrosenberg | September 29, 2017 at 6:12 pm | Categories: Epicenter | URL: http://wp.me/piWZ7-8tP

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Joel C. Rosenberg's Blog: Which, if any, of the presidential candidates understand Apocalyptic Islam?


Joel C. Rosenberg's Blog

Which, if any, of the presidential candidates understand Apocalyptic Islam? My conversation with Todd Starnes of Fox News.

by joelcrosenberg
ToddStarnes-columnonApocalypticIslam(Dallas, Texas) -- The other day, I was interviewed by Todd Starnes of Fox News. He asked me about my family's move as a family to Israel and my experience writing novels that seem to foreshadow future terrorist attacks and wars. He also asked me about my take on the 2016 presidential campaign and whether President Obama or the leading presidential candidates understand the threat of Apocalyptic Islam and are prepared to deal with it.
Todd just finished reading The First Hostage. He very graciously called it "a page-turning political thriller" and "a riveting account of Islamic radicals kidnapping an American president." And as he opened the podcast, he took me aback by saying, "one of my favorite authors on the entire planet is a guy named Joel C. Rosenberg," noting that he was introduced to my novels through Rush Limbaugh talking about them on his programs.
I very much enjoyed our conversation, and it was one of the more thoughtful discussions I've done on the book tour so far. It runs about 30 minutes. Hope you'll take time to listen to the podcast (I've just become a subscriber), and share it with others.
“Once you understand Apocalyptic Islam, you understand just how dangerous it is to give Iran not just one path to nuclear weapons, but two,” he said. “This president doesn’t understand the threat of radical Islam. He won’t even define that – much less Apocalyptic Islam.”
And he doesn’t hold out much hope for the current presidential frontrunners [Secretary Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump] either.
“This is a very challenging year when you have a president and two frontrunners who just don’t understand the most serious foreign policy threat of our time,” he said. “That is not comforting.” Rosenberg has offered counsel to several Republican presidential campaigns including Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.
“Senator Rubio totally gets it,” he said. “He’s been using that language in the debates and in his speeches.”
Among the others who “get it” are Cruz, Jeb Bush and Rick Santorum.
What about Donald Trump?
“It’s clear [Trump] doesn’t understand this,” he said. ‘It’s just all bloviating.
It’s not so much that the world is facing a future threat -- the threat is already here.
“These people are crucifying Christians, they’re beheading people" he said. “They are creating mayhem and really genocidal conditions in Syria and Iraq and our current president is just using half measure to run some sort of public relations war against them."
He [President Obama] doesn’t have a plan.
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joelcrosenberg | January 19, 2016 at 4:14 pm | Categories: Uncategorized | URL:http://wp.me/piWZ7-3Z4

Thursday, January 14, 2016

Joel C. Rosenberg's Blog: “ISIS may be testing chemical weapons as terror group rapidly expands,” reports Fox News

ISIS-baghdadi


Joel C. Rosenberg's Blog

“ISIS may be testing chemical weapons as terror group rapidly expands,” reports Fox News in a headline ripped from #TheThirdTarget & #TheFirstHostage.

by joelcrosenberg
(Washington, D.C.) -- In a chilling story that seems ripped from the pages of The Third Target and The First Hostage, Fox News is reporting that "there is growing evidence that ISIS is experimenting with chemical weapons," and that "the number of foreign fighters [has] hit a new high."
Last year, just 20,000 foreign fighters were operating as part of the ISIS shock troops, Fox reports. Now that number has skyrocketed to 36,000, and they come from 120 countries.
Former deputy CIA director Mike Morrell, testifying before Congress on ISIS's development of chemical weapons capabilities, warned that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and the leaders of ISIS "have made two things very clear publicly in documents that have come out. One is that if they acquire these weapons they would use and they wouldn't care that the vast majority of those killed were civilians. and they have also provided a religious justification very similar to Al Qaeda’s, in fact I think it is identical to Al Qaeda’s justification for using such weapons."
This is not the first report of ISIS pursuing chemical weapons. I first cited a spate of news stories about this last August.
It should not be surprising that the Islamic State is pursuing the development and deployment of chemical weapons. Its leaders and members have apocalyptic, genocidal ambitions. They want to find ways to kill larger and larger numbers of "infidels." They want to bring about the end of the world as we know it, and usher in the coming of the their messiah known as the Mahdi, all to build a global Islamic kingdom or caliphate. Their fervency and urgency and their barbaric savagery is what is attracting so many foreign fighters.
This is the very premise of my latest series of political thrillers. Unfortunately, what I've written about as fiction is not fiction at all -- it's the ISIS game plan and it is extremely dangerous. President Obama and the presidential front-runners give no evidence that they understand the threat of Apocalyptic Islam. But it's time to take their heads out of the proverbial sand. The threat is real, and it's growing.
  • There is growing evidence that ISIS is experimenting with chemical weapons as the number of foreign fighters hits a new high, according to current and former government officials.
  • Photos taken by the Kurds in northern Iraq last summer and fall and reviewed by Fox News show burns and blistering on the skin that a source on the ground there said are consistent with the use of chemical agents. The agents were described as "odorless, colorless and absorbed through the clothing," causing burns or illness hours later.
  • "I think it's, could be a perfect testing ground," former FBI intelligence officer Timothy Gil Sr. said. "They (ISIS) were particularly interested in using these chemicals in confined space environments, soft targets like shopping malls and movie theaters."
  • Gill who is doing his own independent research for an upcoming international conference on weapons of mass destruction said there is a disturbing trend, that ISIS is using safe havens in Syria, Iraq and potentially Libya as laboratories to learn how chemical agents impact the battlefield, with the goal of sharing their expertise via social media with ISIS followers outside the region.
  • "It's enough to use in a crude weapon that could really push the panic button," Gill said. "This now provides an opportunity to say 'this is working, we're now going to push this out to any potential lone wolf, lone actor that may have a background in chemistry.'"
  • A doctor who was in northern Iraq last year and asked not to be identified for security reasons, said he treated Kurdish fighters whom ISIS used as "lab rats for WMD," adding that the variety of burns and illnesses over several weeks suggested to him that "mustard gas, precursors, as well as neurotoxic acids" were being tested....
  • While ISIS tries to broaden its use of unconventional weaponry, the terror group also has broadened its appeal. A US intelligence official confirms to Fox News the number of foreign fighters has hit a new high -- more than 36,000 from 120 countries since the conflict began in 2011, including at least 6,600 from Western countries.
  • A year ago, at the worldwide threat hearing on Capitol Hill, where the U.S. intelligence community publicly presented its global view on terrorism, the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper said that since the conflict began, more than 20,000 foreign fighters from 90 countries had travelled to the region.  A key figure is the number of countries affected, with the extremist ideology now drawing followers from 60 percent of the world's nations.
  • During congressional testimony before the House Armed Services Committee Wednesday, former senior intelligence officials said ISIS is expanding.
  • "ISIS has gained affiliates faster than Al Qaeda ever did -- from nothing a year ago, there are now militant groups in nearly 20 countries that have sworn allegiance to ISIS," former CIA deputy director Mike Morell said.  "They have conducted attacks that have already killed Americans."
  • On the development of unconventional weapons, Morell added, "They have made two things very clear publicly in documents that have come out. One is that if they acquire these weapons they would use and they wouldn't care that the vast majority of those killed were civilians. and they have also provided a religious justification very similar to Al Qaeda’s, in fact I think it is identical to Al Qaeda’s justification for using such weapons."
  • The Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL (ISIS) recently briefed reporters in Washington DC, emphasizing the overall trend line is in the right direction, pointing to progress securing the Turkish border to stem the flow of foreign fighters.
  • "This is a challenge like we've never seen before," Brett McGurk said, "The world has never seen something like this, upwards of 35,000 now foreign fighters from 100 countries all around the world supercharged by social media and Twitter and everything.
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joelcrosenberg | January 13, 2016 at 7:32 pm | Categories: Uncategorized | URL:http://wp.me/piWZ7-3TR