SUDDENLY, out of the blues, the decision to enter the fighting was made for America, not by Washington, but, ironically, by Tokyo. The Japanese air force, without any provocation or justification, bombed to ashes America's naval base at Pearl Harbour, with staggering losses in human and equipment to the Americans. That was how the United States entered World War II, as Japan was an ally of Germany. The British could not have wished for anything better. Before then, just at the moment Hitler was to commence his operation 'Sea Lion,' which was calculated to finish off the headquarters of the British Empire, and the outlook was, in human calculations, certainly most grim for Britain, notwithstanding Churchill's moving and powerful words (against Hitler's swords) - the Nazi warlord changed his mind, a decision that altered the whole course of the war, for the better, for the Allied forces.In making that historical switch, Hitler instead took on the Russians, thereby bringing Russia into the war, pitched against the Nazi war machine, which they boasted would keep the world at the Nazis' feet, for one thousand years. 'Operation Barbarossa,' the Nazi code name for their treacherous invasion of the USSR was in fact the major cause of the destruction of Hitler and his fascist world-domination plan. Without a formal declaration of war on the USSR, with whom Germany had signed a non-aggression pact in 1939, Hitler, in the early morning of June 22, 1941, poured large numbers of troops from crack units of his Wehrmact into the vast Russian territory, with the most massive and up-to-date weaponry the Nazis ever deployed throughout World War II.Hitler had vowed 'to wipe off the USSR from the face of the earth' and to this end, their deployment of troops and armour to the Eastern front made the Western from seem a 'phony war.' Although difference statistics in relation to the ratio of Nazi troop deployments between the Eastern and Western fronts vary, there is a general agreement that no less than four-fifths of the entire German military, armour, and fighting resources, together with their satellite armies, were thrown against the Soviet Union.The Nazi command planned to rout the USSR by a lightning war, 'the blitzkrieg,' for which they worked out a formidable strategy for an offensive along three main lines. The first ran from East Prussia to Pskov and Leningrad across the Baltic region; the second was spearhead from the area of Warsaw toward Minsk, Smolensk, and, eventually, Moscow; and the third extended from the area of Lublin in the direction of Zhitomir and Kiev. Secondary blows were to be delivered from Finland at Leningrad and Murmansk and from Romania, at Kishinev. Three army groups were thus formed by the Nazis to carry out the tasks: Army Group North, Army Group Centre, and Army Group South. The Finnish forces were to mount an offensive in the Karelian Isthmus, between Lakes Ladoga and Onega, and to link up in the area of Leningrad with Army Group North commanded by field Marshal von Leeb.All told, there were 190 German and satellite divisions massed on the Soviet Union's western borders by June 22, 1941. They totalled 5.5 million troops, 3,950 warplanes, 2,800 tanks, and over 48,000 guns and mortars. By comparison, only 23 Nazi divisions were deployed at that time on the German/Western front. The German forces on Soviet soil were by far the largest ever deployed in the whole of the fighting. Their superiority was even more overwhelming in the main zone of advance.The Soviet forces had not been placed on the alert in time (there was a non-aggression pact between the USSR and Germany) and had not completed their strategic deployment. Furthermore, military sources stated that they were stationed along a broad front stretching from the Barents Sea to the Black Sea and for more than 400 kilometres in depth. Many units were in the process of being formed, reorganised, or redeployed. It is said that only 83 divisions were able to enter into battle on the Soviet side on that June 22. They had about 900,000 troops, 1,000 tanks, 17,000 guns and mortars, and 1,300 planes. They were so outnumbered, outgunned, and out-foxed!The powerful German forces destroyed Russian cities, towns, and villages in their hundreds, killing millions of Soviet citizens just as they had done in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, etc. Nonetheless, the fighting was most fierce in Russia, for the Russians put up such epic resistance and defence of their homeland, unsurpassed in the history of warfare by mankind. Hitler's armies penetrated Soviet territory to the extent of reaching the outskirts of Moscow and by September 1941, had thrown a siege around the cultural and historical city of Leningrad - a symbolic city for the Russians, named after their leader of the Great October Revolution (1917) for the city's heroic role in the revolution.The ruthless German offensive was met with a most formidable defence; the situation was grave in the whole of Russia, but her armies and people fought back. Every kilometre covered by the invaders was contested with street fighting, house-to-house fighting, and combat operations on a more colossal scale than anticipated, thus thwarting the Nazi's plan of a blitzkrieg over the Soviet Union. Instead of a campaign schemed by Hitler for two to two and a half months in the summer of 1941, the Nazis were bogged down in Russia for another two and a half years, during which the bulk of their armies plus reinforcements were destroyed.Meanwhile, the 'written-off England,' fighting alone (with forces from the British Commonwealth) at that time and in mortal danger from Hitler's vastly superior forces, got the breather she needed. In fact, the Nazi's sudden switch to the USSR was hailed by the British public and their government as 'God-sent' for its unexpected diversion of pressure from them and its drain of the fascists' energy and blood. Thus the Soviet-German theatre played the main, crucial role in the whole of World War II. It accounted for over 80 per cent of the losses sustained by the German Wehrmact. And after the breakthrough by the Russians of the German blockade in Leningrad and other places, the Soviet forces steadily continued to destroy the German armies, now on the defensive, all the way to Berlin, their capital. By the time the Western Allies launched their invasion on the Nazis from Normandy in June 1944, it was obvious that the collapse of Hitler's Third Reich, boasted to last 1000 years, was imminent, all within five to six years, though they were the most horrible carnage in history. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki carnage by the Americans' atomic bomb dropped on those Japanese cities was no less horrible.The combined strikes of Soviet and Anglo-American troops and the operations of resistance movements in many countries led to the final disintegration of the fascist bloc in Europe. Italy, Finland, Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary were compelled to stop fighting on Germany's side and declared war on Germany. It was becoming increasingly clear that the Nazi leaders' desperate attempts to prevent a complete defeat of Germany were doomed to failure. With the successful offensives of the Allies in the Pacific Ocean, Japan's position, too, worsened; hostilities were breaking out closer and closer to Japan itself.Throughout that war, there were quite a lot of mysterious outcomes of battles in several theatres. Hitler, who was by no means 'the crazy, uneducated upstart,' as he was derisively referred to by Western political analysts, astounded and baffled military geniuses by his sometimes superior military calculations. There was, for example one of his last-minute offensive on the Anglo-American forces. In the second half of 1944, Hitler began to prepare for a massive offensive on the Western Front, aiming to strike such a blow at the Anglo-American troops that the British and the U.S. governments would have to agree to separate peace talks with Berlin.Four days before the start of the offensive, Hitler was reported to have addressed a meeting of his commanders of the Western Front troops: 'There has never been in world history a coalition of such alien elements pursuing such diverse aims as the one created by our enemies.' He was obviously driving for a collapse of the anti-Nazi coalition and a realignment of world forces.Only a day earlier, the British field marshal, Viscount Montgomery, had written in his directive: 'His (the enemy's) situation is such that he cannot now stage major offensive operations.'However on December 16, 1944, the Germans launched the offensive, which overwhelmed the Allies and threw into confusion all their military plans, leaving no option except to count on a speedy counter offensive by the Soviet Army.On January 6, 1945, Churchill was reported to have telegraphed Stalin, describing the situation as 'alarming' and asking whether the British and Americans could 'count on a major Russian offensive' during January (1945).' The answer from Stalin to Churchill reportedly was prompt and precise, the 'Soviet Union would mount an offensive against the Germans not later than the second half of January 1945.''I am most grateful to you for your thrilling message'' Churchill wrote to Stalin on January 9, 'the news you give me will be a great encouragement to General Eisenhower because it gives him the assurance that German reinforcements will have to be split between both our flaming fronts.'Hitler's 'Barbarossa Plan' in draining the substantial part of the whole of the Nazis' military, though at a staggering loss to the Russians - 20 million Russians died in World War II - was the major cause of the destruction of the Nazis and their world-domination dream. The courage, staunchness, and the efficient mobilising skill of the Soviet Union in what they styled as the 'Great Patriotic War' has become legendary, but in addition to this great human will and strength was a heavenly factor - the weather over the Soviet Union. The winter months of the war brought such severe cold, ice, and frost, which in itself, constituted an additional battle, albeit for both sides in the war.Let us briefly note the mystery of operation 'Case Yellow,' the code name for the invasion of France. Hitler had decided, against the well-considered collective opinion of the leaders of the German military - sound and competent professional generals - to overrun France in November, 1939; the generals disagreed with his timing. The weather and military logistics were among strong reasons put forward by the generals for why November was unfavourable for the attack. Although the invasion finally took place in May 1940, yet it was still on the insistence of Hitler. However, the big mystery of Case Yellow was the capitulation of France with little or no fighting, thereby vindicating and confirming the vision of an 'uneducated army corporal' against the best judgment of highly trained military experts and scientists. Hitler was no madman in that sense; 'antichrist'' Perhaps, yes.There remain yet some crucial questions: why and how was he able to exterminate six million Jews, including infants, and deliberately cause the deaths of several million more human beings around the world (the death toll of World War II on all sides is estimated at 50 million). Why, for instance, did all the carefully laid-out plans to get rid of him of some of his brave compatriots, which would have saved millions of lives, fail to achieve just that' Or why did he not simply suffer a heart attack, heart failure, or some massive cerebral hemorrhage and just die off before he could wreak such an extensive, ghastly havoc' Or why was he born at all' There can be a million questions to ponder. They would only succeed in empirically demonstrating that there are a lot more situations beyond the control of humans than under our control, because the government is not here!After World War II, there was the humiliation of the U.S. military machine in Vietnam before the relatively 'small' North Vietnamese army. Historians would say of that American debacle that the Americans' own anti-war movements in the U.S. contributed largely to that calamity. The fact still remains that the U.S. government's military objective failed, notwithstanding its vast firepower. Perhaps, one of the more dramatic of the military freak accidents of contemporary times was the United States' President Carter's rescue force dispatched to Iran in 1979, code-named, 'Operation Rice Bowl,' which was intended, quite legitimately, to rescue 53 American hostages held in the U.S. embassy in Teheran, Iran, in the aftermath of the 1979 Iranian Revolution.After some diplomatic and economic pressures on Iran, which did not yield any fruit of success, President Carter decided and did send the rescue mission, using giant helicopters and large transport planes. Oddly enough, without the involvement of the Iranians (who did not have the faintest idea of the mission) or any opposing forces whatsoever, the entire American mission came to grief in the dead of night at 'Desert One' in Iran, with U.S. helicopters and planes colliding, killing a number of the rescuers. No second or third party had been involved in the 'accident.'The Russians' own experience in Afghanistan is one of a failure and regret in their projected 'easy run-over' of the ill-equipped Afghan 'rebels.' In spite of massive armor and several divisions of Russian troops to execute the plan, the Russians were not able to win Afghanistan.The foregoing instances are taken at random and are by no means exhaustive of diverse human experiences on earth, reminding us that the sky sets the scene. The reader may want to know if the writer is implying that man is powerless, that regardless of his exertions and activities, he cannot achieve out of his predetermined limits. This then is the answer. Man is neither powerless nor hopeless. We have seen that the Creator endows him with reason and intellect, by which man is able to determine 'good' and 'evil.' Man also possess a will. Through man's possession of the insight into good and bad, he thus has a choice of developing in either direction: good or bad. As the sky sets the scene for the earth, so is the sky the limit for man, as far as he intends to exercise his choice, subject always to the Oracles.'Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse; the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you this day and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God.'My proposition is that the Oracles will cut you down, sooner or later, if you completely ignore them. The Oracles will employ human agency to carry out their sanctions, and you cannot escape them wherever you may be. Should the Oracles adjudge you 'fair' or as making honest efforts, even if you are completely oblivious of their existence, let alone consciously accepting their jurisdiction (as if you have a choice), you will be assisted to the sky. This is the position for man in his individuality.World population is now currently estimated at seven billion, distributed among different races and peoples but under one heaven. Few people will argue that the social and economic condition of the citizenry of any given nation is inseparable from the national economic and political pulse of that nation. Despite the temptation to extend the linkage of military strength and arsenals as well, the central theme of this work does not admit of such considerations ranking in status to the determinant factor of the well-being of a people.The corporate and national interests of a people are, however, differently affected from that of the individual person's. In the case of national interests, aggregation of the people's performance and their collective morality, measured within the parameter of the Oracles, would be decisive, in the 'Wheel of Providence' for that nation.The celestial supreme authority over the earth is underscored by Shakespeare, in a famous passage in King Lear.These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to us: though the wisdom of nature can reason it thus and thus, yet nature finds itself scourg'd by the sequent effects. Love cools, friendship falls off, brothers divide: in cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in palaces, treason; and the bond crack'd twixt son and father.Handel's beautiful Messiah majestically intones the strains:'For unto us a child is born' the Government will be upon His shoulder' and His name, Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father.'You only need to compare artificial light with the incomparable light of daybreak in tropical zones or in spring and summer of the temperate and arctic zones of the earth to begin to see and realize that light and life on earth comes from above. You need not be a spaceman to carry out this simple observation, though you might require interpretation, the aid for which, really, is in you, if you understand that the government is not here!Chapter Twelve: The AssemblyIf there still lingers any doubt that mankind - and indeed all dwellers on earth - are subject to the jurisprudence of the Living Oracles, let us examine the history, charter, and some fundamental declarations of the world body, the United Nations. The United Nations Charter was signed on June 26, 1945, in San Francisco, U.S., at the conclusion of a conference on international organisation. The charter came into force on October 24, 1945. Before the United Nations was formed, there had been a previous spirited attempt at one-voice harmonious world in the League of Nations, formed after the First World War (AD 1914-1918), through the Treaty of Versailles in 1919-1920. Despite its formation being promoted by Woodrow Wilson, the United States did not join the organisation, which at formation, had 42 countries and at its height a membership of 58 nations.The failure of the United States to ratify the Versailles Treaty and the decision not to allow Germany to join the League of Nations until later was a crucial setback in the effective operation of the organisation. Additionally, unlike the present-day United Nations, the League of Nations did not have the ability to call on its own armed forces or power to require members to supply their forces in furtherance of its lofty ambition to prevent a repeat of World War I. The organisation solely relied on economic sanctions to threaten aggressors and, most important, the support of its key members, France and Great Britain, to act only through their own volition and not by virtue of any treaty obligations. Still, the League of Nations averted a few conflicts and successfully restored peace after others that had flared up in the aftermath of World War I (such a settling the war between Greece and Bulgaria and Finland and Sweden and the Saar territorial issue between France and Germany, assisting Liberia in its slavery claims against the United States, and providing humanitarian aid in the aftermath of the Turkish civil crisis).The setbacks at its inception, however, afflicted the whole existence of the League of Nations. With Britain and France sitting on the fence, the organisation could not quell the insatiable appetite of German, Italian, and Japanese expansionism. It ignored Italy's capture of the Port of Fiume at the expense of what was then Yugoslavia and subsequently watched helplessly as Mussolini marched on to Abbysinnia (Ethiopia) in Africa and the Japanese descended on Manchuria. As it did little on its doorstep to restrain Italy and Germany from assisting fascists to succeed in the Spanish Civil War, it wasn't expected that it would have stretched its muscles to bother with the Chaco war between Bolivia and Paraguay. Thus, it was not long before countries withdrew in droves from the League of Nations, and its end was inevitable.The United Nations became the second attempt at a 'one voice' platform for the whole earth, perhaps just as in Babel times. The history of the United Nations did not begin in June 1945 at the signing of its charter. Rather, San Francisco, 1945, was the culmination of a series of moves and talks between the 'Three Great Powers' (Great Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union) of the anti-Nazi Allies to ensure world peace and prevent the breaking out of another world war.The formation of the United Nations was first agreed upon at the Tehran Conference in 1945 between Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin (although the name 'United Nations' was actually used in the signing of the Atlantic Charter on January 1, 1942, by the 26 nations involved). The Tehran Conference was the first of three scheduled 'big meetings' between the 'great powers' to put in place plans for a post-war restructuring of global governance. Tehran was followed by the Yalta Conference from February 1 to 11, 1945, where the 'Three Great Powers' consolidated talks on the reorganisation of the world after World War II. The series was completed by the Potsdam Conference (July 17 to August 2, 1945), with a different composition as Truman had taken over the U.S. presidency following the death of Roosevelt and Clement Atlee accompanied Churchill (there was an election in the United Kingdom), with both aware and finding out officially during the conference whom their country wanted as its next leader (Atlee).As shown above, as a matter of historical fact, the Three Great Powers conceived the idea of the United Nations in the thick of the war against Nazi fascism, and the principles on which the organisation would be established were first discussed openly with delegates of other nations at the Allied conference held at Dumbarton Oaks, United States (August 21 to September 28, 1944). At Dumbarton Oaks, an agreement was reached on many but not all issues. Those pertaining to voting procedure in the Security Council, to the composition of the 'original members' of the future oganisations, and some other matters remained unresolved.The Soviet Union was reported to have put forward the principle of universality for the new organisation, while the United States was said to have preferred the principle of selectivity. John Foster Dulles, who later became the U.S. Secretary of State under Eisenhower doubted, 'that it was wise to permit all of the small nations to express their opinion on all matters of international relationship,' adding that 'the holding of meetings between the three nations that now exercise power - Russia, Britain and America - was highly desirable; that the three could' provide the umbrella under which the other nations of the world could come in and between all hands try to work out a lasting peace.'However, the desire for a post-war lasting peace in the world, possible only on the basis of the equality of states and the strict adherence to the ideals of peaceful coexistence among all nations surpassed all self-seeking and hegemonic sentiments. The Yalta Conference thus endorsed the proposal for the establishment of the United Nations Organisations, based on the principles of the sovereignty and equality of all member states of the oragnisation, contrary to the 'selectivity' position of the United States.The question of voting procedure in the Security Council was still to be settled. The task was to ensure that the procedure adopted would prevent this organ from being used by any power or group of powers in their selfish interests against other states or as a means of one group of states dominating other states. Five nations: Great Britain, the United States of America, Russia (which replaced the Soviet Union), France, and China were to become the permanent members of the Security Council. There was general agreement between the 'Three Great Powers' on this question even before Yalta. Another six members of the Security Council were to be elected by rotation from among the member states of the United Nations. (This was later increased to 10 by an amendment to Article 23) by the General Assembly.The U.S.-proposed right of veto in the Security Council, based on the principle of unanimity among the five permanent members, met with no objection since it was clear that only such unanimity could ensure the effectiveness of council decisions. However, the Soviet Union objected to the American proposal that if any of the permanent members of the Security Council were involved in a dispute, its voice should not be heeded. This proposal was fraught with the danger that the powers possessing a majority of votes in the council at a certain stage could, instead of searching patiently for mutually acceptable decisions, resort to force in contravention of the principles and aims of the United Nations. The San Francisco Conference of June 1945 was therefore a streamlining operation, resolving outstanding issues of the Yalta decision on the establishment of the United Nations organisation.The checkered history of the United Nations and the series of international conflicts and wars that have been fought since its inception, the invidious maneuverings of member states, and the hypocrisy and double standards, particularly of the individual five members of its security council characterising its decisions and actions have already indicated the signposts to the destinations of the United Nations. But its ultimate end is not the main purpose of its reference here; rather its relevance is seen in the indisputable jurisdiction of the Living Oracles over the world, even if there are some that would deny the oracular jurisdiction.The scourge of war, which 'twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind,' was the rationale declared by the founding member states (i.e., the countries that combined to resist Nazi aggression in the First and Second World Wars, notably, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, the United States, France, China, Denmark, the Commonwealth Nations, Norway, Yugoslavia, etc). They quickly organised themselves into the United Nations in 1945, following their conquest of the Axis (Germany, Italy, and Japan). Probably due to the highly inflamed emotion of the time, the charter of the United Nations, in its preamble of 'war which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind'' is surprisingly poor on the history of devastating wars since the inception of mankind. It is true the preamble is concerned with contemporary anguish and horrors of war, but mankind is not contemporary.There have been wars as long as there has been mankind. The inherent negative passions in man, unless tamed, 'guarantee' there will be wars and conflicts for mankind from age to age until the end comes. James, writing in AD 31, says the causes of war 'are your passions that are at war in your members
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