A Review of Michael Savage's 'A Time for War'
By Sabin Geyman
In 'A Time for War', Michael Savage’s wake-up call about the Communist Chinese threat to America, the ethno-botanist-turned-radio-host serves up an absorbing story of civilization-butting intrigue. In a nutshell, the point of the story, based largely in fact, is that the Chinese Communists (Chicoms) are not so much a potential threat as they are a real, military-grade enemy that is operating now, real-time, and in the present moment.
The plot moves well and the writing is deft, though unfortunately marred by instances in which the characters use the Lord Jesus’ Name in vain. Nevertheless, as a vehicle for recommending better US national security, 'A Time for War' hits the mark.
Jack Hatfield (the main character in the book) has a token liberal friend, Abe Cohen, that is slow to catch on to the necessities of national security. Abe is shot by a Communist Chinese (“Comchi”) terrorist while boating around the Farallon Islands. Even when the Communist attacker approaches, with weapon in hand, Abe thinks he’s there to help him! The Communist hoists the dying liberal up against the boat’s railing, and still Abe thinks the Commie is going to take him below deck to tend to his wounds! Then, just when the hippie could not have gotten things any more backward, he is thrown head-first into the sea, whereupon he is devoured by sharks and his boat is exploded with C-4. This ghoulish scene provides a less-than-dainty metaphor for what could happen to liberal, globalist Americans who cannot be shaken from their love affair with the fantasy version of Communist China.
While Boeing hosted Chinese dictator Jiang Zemin at its airplane manufacturing facility in 1993 (as part of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) and Microsoft boss Bill Gates hosted Chinese dictator Hu Jintao at his Bellevue, Washington, home in April 2006, Chinese brutes and elites alike were callously enjoying the ivory tusks of slaughtered African elephants, the supposedly aphrodisiac qualities of tiger penises, and the bile from bear gall bladders. As Savage notes in 'A Time for War', “[I]n China there are farms where bears are caged, lying on their backs with no room to move, with tubes in their abdomens to collect bile for so-called medicines. Some of the bears have actually committed suicide by starving themselves to death. And multiple smuggling operations are carrying the bear bile along with body parts from tigers and other endangered animals out of China to the rest of the world.”
There is one sentence in 'A Time for War' that the reader should note: “Distraction—followed by an attack that would collapse a nation.” That well sums up what the Communists may have in mind, and it is a principle in keeping with basic warfighting tactics as laid out in Sun Tzu’s 'The Art of War' and Shi Nai’an’s (or Luo Guanzhong’s) 'Outlaws of the Marsh' (a Ming-dynasty tale of deception and bloodlust involving 108 outlaws or hao han).
In the book, Savage refers to the Communist Chinese as an “unstoppable mass” and I think this perspective is helpful, especially given the disease of complacency and godless materialism that has beset the thinking of many Americans. Turning to the Bible for instruction on the question of whether there could be such an unstoppable mass, it would appear there could indeed be such a thing on the horizon, yes. There is a 200-million-man army prophesied in the Sixth Trumpet Judgment of Revelation 9, an army that arguably only Communist China could field: “And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them. And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone. By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths” (Revelation 9:16-18 KJV). Fortunately, Daniel 2 and Revelation 19 show that the Lord Jesus will destroy the godless powers of the world, so the Chinese "mass," while devastating, will not be the end of the story. It is good to have a town crier such as Michael Savage, and Americans would do well to heed his warning.
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A former journalist and defense analyst, Sabin Geyman is the author of a Christian book--'Testing the Spirits: Exposing Dark Sayings & Embracing the Light of Jesus'--that has good discussions on national security, Bible prophecy, China, and Israel.