By John Hogue

Friends,
Chinese criticism about my last bulletin “Olympian Smog” will have to wait until next week.

A new Cold War between the West and Russia may have started six days ago, because the Georgian President Saakashvilli attacked the breakaway province of South Ossetia, reaping a military whirlwind of a Russian air, land and sea invasion.

Russian forces occupy central Georgia, cutting the country in half.
Russian tanks now stand watch alongside the strategic Caspian pipeline passing crude oil exports west from Azerbaijan through Georgia to fuel Europe and many Western nations.

Things are so bad in Georgia that it took two days for the American president to pull himself away to make a public comment after having a thoroughly enjoyable time on bleachers whooping it up for US athletes at the Beijing Olympics.

The man who unilaterally invaded Iraq in 2003, hummed and hawed, laboring to brick and mortar a jumble of words together in “deep”
reflection that would not collapse under the pressure of his legendary syntax-tacky delivery. Translated into English, President Bush tried to say something like: when the world comes together in peace to have an Olympics it is not the time to invade another country.

At the very least, the Russian counter-attack caught US and Western politicians with their “rants” down.

You know when a crisis is bad when Bush delays his customary month-long summer vacation in August to stay a few more days in Washington DC after partying at the Olympics to monitor events in Georgia. He is in a hurry to get to his Texas dude ranch so today he tossed threats at Russian Prime Minister Putin and President Medvedev, such as seeking Russias expulsion from the World Trade Organization and membership in the Western economic superpower club, the G8, for spooking up another Cold War.

I predict he cannot make good that threat, because a Russian combat boot presses the pipeline fueling enough G8 members who will vote otherwise.

This crisis gives Nostradamus watchers the first clear and present chance to start the clock ticking on Nostradamusforeseen countdown to thermonuclear war between America and Russia.

Here in brief review are the prophecies. I have inserted my comments in brackets to swiftly introduce my interpretation.

“One day the two great leaders will become (divided) friends. Their great power will be seen to increase. The new land [America?] will be at the height of its power.” ([Century-Volume] 2 Q 89)

“And when shall the lords be two in number, victorious in the north against the Eastern ones [Islamic terrorists?], there shall be a great noise and warlike tumult that all the East shall quake for fear of those two brothers of the North who are not yet brothers…they will be victorious against the Easterners.” (Epistle to Henry II)

“Great disagreement and discord in order to obtain lands [i.e., the Balkans, Central Asian and Arab oil fields, and Israeli-Palestinian disputes over the Holy Land and now Georgia]. Kingdoms given to men incapable of prudence. Then for the great brothers [US and Russia?] death and dissention.” (2 Q94)

“The rule left to two [Russian and America?]. They will hold it for a very short time. Three years and seven months having passed, they will go to war. Their two vassals rebel against them. The victor is born on American soil.” (4 Q95)

“The two will not remain allied for long: within 13 years they will give in to Barbary [Libyan-Arab/Middle Eastern terrorist] power.
There will be such a loss on both sides, that one [perhaps America in this case] will bless the bark of Peter and the cape of the pope.” (5
Q78)

Nostradamus in the 16th century wrote riddles that implied the US and Soviet Union would end their Cold War in peace. He said they would become “friends” that are “halved” or “divided.” Thus, they are friendly brothers who are “not yet brothers.”

It is implied that a Middle Eastern source will undermine this embryonic friendship of America and the Russian Federation that emerged after the fall of the Soviet Union. Either within three years and seven months or in 13 years after the pseudo-friendship breaks up, they would go to war, perhaps have that dreaded nuclear exchange; yet, “Americh” — the word Nostradamus uses in 4 Q95 for America — would be victorious.

The peace that would follow would be that of a cemetery. Nostradamus in his Epistle writings describes a world depopulated by two-thirds.

Nostradamus gives us the length of two possible countdowns to Russo-American Armageddon but no apparent hint as to when we should start counting.

Has events in Georgia started that countdown, or did it start a few days before hostilities in the Caucasus began?

It has gone almost unnoticed by the mainstream US press that the largest buildup of US Navy ships since the Persian Gulf War (1991) now converges on the Persian Gulf. It includes two supercarrier strike groups and several Marine expeditionary battle groups. It would seem that an attack either by Israeli or US forces on Iran, a Russian ally, is imminent. That is why the Russians made a move a few days after the US fleet sailed for the Persian Gulf, capitalizing on sufferin’ Saakashvillis blunder, to occupy a US ally, Georgia.

The chess table is set. Is this just a war “game” or the real show?
Time and events will tell if the game clock is running.

John Hogue (13 August 2008)