Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin
Well, I’ve been driven indoors by “Let’s get it on, baby, eeee-yow!” or some such thing on my neighbor’s car radio. I was out there reading Alone–the horror story of the run-up to World War II.
It’s a horror story because we can see the same things shaping up today. Led by Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, opposed by Winston Churchill standing all alone, the entire British ruling class–right and left, in and out of power, politicians and intellectuals and noozies, everyone who mattered–insisted on believing in Adolf Hitler’s good intentions, and led their country down the garden path into a near-fatal disaster: World War II. Year after year, day after day, truthful and accurate information poured into Britain from ambassadors, foreign correspondents, and refugees, about what was going on in Germany–and year after year, day after day, Britain’s bigwigs refused to believe a single word of it.
Does this not strike you as eerily familiar? War was coming, doom was coming: and they refused to believe it: no accident that Nazi Germany came very near to winning the war.
I think I’ll watch Jurassic World now… and pray to Almighty God that He spares us another such catastrophe.
An interest in the Space Program led to an interest in the Cold War which has naturally led me to World Wars I & II. None of these events happened in a vacuum. I find it almost impossible to understand WW II apart from the context of WW I.
WW I was Germany, Austro-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire faced off with pretty much every other country for a war which killed record numbers of civilians and soldiers alike. WW II was, in many ways, a sequel to WW I, the biggest difference being that Japan was now allied with Germany and no longer against it. The Ottoman Empire had been broken up after WW I and was marginalized as a power, but there were some interesting sympathies between some German leaders and persons of influence in former Ottoman territories.
In some aspects, WW II has never really ended. North and South Vietnam were artifacts of the rush by both the Soviets and the U.S. to influence the aftermath in territories held by the Japanese. While Vietnam is now one country, Korea remains divided and has become a flash point of major concern. Nothing would surprise me with regard to that particular situation, but my point is simply that the end of WW II is not nearly as tidy as one might casually assume it to have been.
I see our current situation as an outgrowth of the tensions which have grown in the aftermath of both World Wars. Many of the players are recognizable. The European Union seems like the outgrowth of Germany. Russia seems to be quite similar to the Soviet Union. Turkey has stepped away from the secular course it took after WW I and is trying to establish itself as a Neo Ottoman Empire, which would suggest that they wouldn’t mind a bit if they could fill a power vacuum in Syria, which was part of the Ottoman Empire.
Iran is projecting influence far beyond its borders and now controls much of Iraq and parts of eastern Syria. If they can extend that influence just a bit farther west they will have overland access to the Mediterranean, giving them immense regional power, not to mention a solid route to supply Hizbollah in Lebanon.
If the above were not mind-boggling enough, in the last few weeks a major realignment has taken place with Turkey, Qatar and Iran forming an alliance which is opposed by Saudi Arabia, several smaller Sunnni states and the US. One more thing, Qatar, China and Iran would like to see oil bought and sold without using the US dollar, while Saudi Arabia is just fine with the petrodollar.
Going back to Syria: there are numerous nations and various Sunni and Shiite groups participating in that particular war, all of whom have a stake in seeing their will prevail in the region. As a result, the Turks, Syrians, Russians and Americans are all but tripping over one another and occasionally finding themselves at odds while the Israelis are returning fire to the source of any errant missiles or artillary which crosses their line in the sand.
Add to this the fact that refugees from both the Syrian war and several North African countries are steadily arriving in Europe and the potential for unheard of levels of conflict grows beyond measure. Conflicts between Europeans and Middle Eastern refugees are already common and several countries are refusing to take in any more refugees. Just of its own, that situation could escalate into open warfare at any moment.
My personal opinion is that it all centers upon Israel and Jerusalem. Zechariah 12 tells us that Jerusalem will become a burden to the nations. Ezekiel 38 tells us that God will put hooks in the jaws of the nations to lead them into the Gog of Magog attack. This attack comes from the north which is, immediately, Syria and Lebanon, but could include Turkey and perhaps Russia.
However, the nooze media seem to be downplaying all of the political turmoil while they advance their own agenda. I’ve spent countless hours keeping up with the events in the Middle East using a wide variety of news sources. Many news sources seem to leave out significant events, or cover them with vague stories which water down events that may be quite significant.
If I didn’t believe all of this to be a part of a larger purpose, I’d probably be beside myself.
As an afterthought: In the Bible, attacks on Israel (and other places) always seem to come from the north. Geography is the reason for that. For instance, to attack Judah, Nebuchadnezzar would have had to march his army from Babylon northward along the Euphrates and then turn south, coming at Jerusalem from the north–all because no ancient army could possibly march across the desert between Mesopotamia and Israel.
Indeed. The geography of the region is significant in this matter. However, to the best of my knowledge, no one has even mentioned the possibility of an attack from the west, via the Mediterranean.
Even the Romans had to march down from the north. Sea-borne invasions were a bit beyond the scope of ancient logistics. They only resorted to those when invading an island (Caesar vs. Britain). Besides, Israel/Judah had no ports suitable for such a purpose. You’d have to use Tyre or Sidon, and still wind up marching down from the north. If the Holy Land could have been attacked from the west by sea, the Crusaders would have done it.
You mean the Romans didn’t have D-Day style landing craft? 🙂
They had a very hard time landing their invasion of Britain.
Earlier, Athenian warships were light enough to be pulled up on land, making them more versatile than the bigger, heavier Roman ships. In fact, Athenian warships were usually beached at night, if possible, because they weren’t all that seaworthy.
BTW, according to Herodotus, a trained oarsman commanded a very high rate of pay, back then. Nobody used galley slaves if they could help it. And according to Thucydides, Sparta got the edge over Athens by being able to attract more skilled oarsmen from other parts of Greece.
But landing on the Mediterranean coast, south of Joppa–nah, nobody tried that.