Conservapedia - User contributions [en]

Talk:Minister's son

2008-03-26T21:05:04Z

Gadflie:

Did we intentionally leave out minister's daughters, or are we saving that for another article? [[User:HelpJazz|Help]][[User talk:HelpJazz|Jazz]] 16:56, 27 February 2008 (EST)

Is Worldwide Challenge a reliable source when it comes to statistics? [[User:DLerner|DLerner]] 10:40, 12 March 2008 (EDT)

The Census bureau lists a bit over 350,000 ministers, pastors etc in the population of the U.S. This is a little more than one out of a thousand. Knowing this, the parenthesised phrase (less than one in many tens of thousands) should possibly be rethought. [[User:Gadflie|Gadflie]] 17:05, 26 March 2008 (EDT)

Belfast

2007-11-14T03:18:38Z

Gadflie:

Belfast is the capital of [[Northern Ireland]]. Its name means, "the sandy ford at the mouth of the river", reflecting its position on the estuary of the River Lagan. Belfast is the largest city in Northern Ireland, and the second largest city on the island of [[Ireland]].

Belfast was founded in the early seventeenth century when King [[James I]] of [[England]] granted land in the vicinity and the right to create a borough to Sir Arthur Chichester in 1611. As the small port developed its population grew from 2,500 in 1700 to 20,000 in 1800. The 19th century saw rapid industrialisation of the city. Industries included shipbuilding (most famously after 1862 by the yard of Harland & Wolff, builders of the RMS [[Titanic]]), linen weaving (which had begun in the previous century on a household basis but was organised in large factories and mills in the nineteenth century), engineering and distilling of [[whiskey]] and [[gin]]. Belfast was [[Ireland]]'s main industrial centre in part because it could import coal cheaply from the coalfields of the west of [[Scotland]]. By 1901 the population had risen to 349,000.

In the twentieth century Belfast suffered from a decline in its staple industries. It was also badly affected by two major bouts of civil disturbance. The first of these occurred in the early 1920s, as the Irish War of Independence was taking place. The second took place from 1968 to 1997, part of 'the Troubles' that afflicted Northern Ireland at this time. Since 1997 Belfast has thrived as a 'city break' destination as part of a so-called 'peace dividend', and there has been much development along the Lagan waterfront.

Belfast is served by two airports: Aldergrove, 20 miles west on the shore of [[Lough Neagh]], and Belfast City, in the eastern suburbs of the city. It is linked by rail to [[Dublin]] and [[Derry]]/[[Londonderry]], and ferry services connect Belfast to [[Stranraer]] and [[Cairnryan]] in south-west Scotland and to [[Liverpool]] in north-west England.

== External Link ==
http://www.localhistories.org/belfast.html

[[Category:Cities]]
[[Category:Ireland]]
[[Category:Northern Ireland]]

World War II

2007-11-07T13:58:57Z

Gadflie: /* Japanese capitulation */ added pilot information and the name of the 2nd B29

[[Image:France rel94.JPG|thumb|France]]
'''World War II''' was a global conflict fought between the [[Allies|Allied powers]] which eventually came to include the [[United States]], the [[Soviet Union]], the [[British Commonwealth]], the [[Republic of China]], and many other nations, and the [[Axis Powers]] (mainly [[Third Reich|Nazi Germany]], [[Fascism|Fascist]] [[Italy]], and Imperial [[Japan]]). Several conflicts involving some world major powers precipitated the general conflagration. On September 1, 1939 [[Poland]] was invaded by Nazi Germany. On September 3, the [[United Kingdom]] and the [[French Third Republic]] with its allies entered the war.

During the war, eight major world powers fought, along with several lesser states joining with one side or the other. On the side which lost were the Axis Powers Germany, [[Japan]], and [[Italy]]. Against them came to be the Allied Powers [[United States]], [[United Kingdom]] and the Commonwealth, the [[Soviet Union]] with its [[Comintern]] allies, and the [[Republic of China]].

==Failure of the League treaty==
The causes of World War II are complicated. The immediate causes of World War II are generally held to be the Japanese attacks on China and the British and Dutch colonies, and the German invasion of Poland on the 1st September 1939. Following the two day deadline for the withdrawal of German forces, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand declared war on Germany, followed quickly by France, South Africa, Canada and Nepal.

The state of Germany in the aftermath of [[World War I]] is also considered to be a contributing factor. The [[Weimar Republic]] that was founded at the end of WWI, was struggling from the beginning. One reason were the harsh terms of Versailles treaty. Although the terms of the treaty were never fully enforced, the psychological damage was immense, since they were perceived as a grave injustice. The republic was also struggling with the rejection by monarchist, who were still occupying important position in the state. Many WWI veterans believed that the German forces in WWI were not defeated, but that the social democratic leaders, who founded the Weimar republic to thwart a communist revolution, surrendered to the allies for political gains. It was known as the "stab-in-the-back myth", and was used to discredit the republic. [http://www.germannotes.com/hist_weimar_dolch.shtml] Although the Weimar Republic enjoyed a time of economic resurgence after the early years of hyper-inflation it failed to gain deep public support. The Weimar Republic was famously called a ''democracy without democrats''.
[[Image:58742big.jpg|thumb|300px|right|Japanese Expansion in Asia, 1928 - 1941. [http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/WW2Timeline/maps2.html]]]

In the early 1930 Germany was in a permanent political and constitutional crisis, caused by rising unemployment during the great depression. Germany was hit harder than most other countries. The National Socialists, known as the Hitler movement, promised to restore national pride and statue, by disbanding the Versailles treaty, and reverting the injustices imposed onto Germany by its international enemies. It was common to blame the "international Jewdom." Part of this ideology was that Germany deserved to be larger, and that in order to survive, it would have to conquer the East.

===Chinese Civil War===

China was engaged at the same time in two separate wars. One was with Japan. The other was with the [[Comintern]]. The Soviet Union fought China with an army of [[Chinese Communist Party|Chinese revolutionaries]], the CCP, directed and armed by the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union's ambitions in China were to transform all northern China — [[Sinkiang]], [[Mongolia]] and [[Manchuria]] — into Soviet dependencies and to convert what remained of China into a [[Communist]] satellite state.

[[Edgar Snow]] wrote his 1937 book, ''Red Star Over China'' "the political ideology, tactical line and theoretical leadership of the Chinese Communists have been under the close guidance, if not positive detailed direction, of the [[Communist International]], which during the last decade has become virtually a bureau of the [[Russian Communist Party]]." And he further declared that the CCP had to subordinate itself to the "strategic requirements of [[Soviet Russia]], under the leadership of [[Stalin]]."<ref>Red Star Over China by Edgar Snow, New York, 1937.</ref>

===Mukden Incident===

The Japanese invasion of [[Manchuria]] in 1931 marked the beginning of World War II in Asia. In March 1932 the Japanese set up the [[puppet state]] of [[Manchukuo]]. On 24 February, 1933, the [[League of Nations]] adopted a resolution calling for the non-recognition of Manchukuo, however the [[Soviet Union]] nonetheless did recognize Manchukuo and sold Japan the Chinese Eastern Railway in 1935.<ref>''While You Slept : Our Tragedy in Asia and Who Made It'', John T. Flynn, New York : The Devin - Adair Company, 1951, [http://www.mises.org/books/whileyouslept.pdf pgs. 18, 36, 65] pdf.</ref>

===The Ethiopian War===

===Reoccupation of the Rhineland===

===Spanish Civil War===
:''Main article: [[Spanish Civil War]]''

===Second Sino-Japanese War===
:''Main article:[[Second Sino-Japanese War]]''

In 1937, when the Japanese invaded China, Soviet General Secretary [[Josef Stalin]] ordered the CCP to cease operations against China's government, the [[Kuomintang]] or KMT, and present a [[united front]] to the Japanese. This lasted until 1939.<ref>''While You Slept : Our Tragedy in Asia and Who Made It'', John T. Flynn, New York : The Devin - Adair Company, 1951, [http://www.mises.org/books/whileyouslept.pdf pg. 46] pdf.</ref>

[[CCP]] Chairman [[Mao Zedong]] sent a secret directive to his followers which said:
:"The Sino-Japanese war affords our party an excellent opportunity for expansion . . . the first stage is a compromising stage . . . but in reality this will serve as camouflage for the… development of our party. The second [stage]. . . should be spent in laying the foundation of our party's political and military powers . . . until we can match and break the [[Kuomintang]]. The third is an offensive stage . . . in which our forces. . . isolate and disperse…and wrest the leadership from the hands of the Kuomintang."<ref>Documents on the Problem of the Chinese Communist Party (Chungking, 1944).</ref>

With the making of the [[Hitler-Stalin pact]] the Soviet Union was at war on the side of Germany. The CCP stopped fighting the Japanese and resumed [[guerrilla]] operations against the Kuomintang (KMT). The CCP devoted its energies to fighting the Chinese government for the portions of eastern China between the railroad lines, held by the Japanese.

===Treaty of Munich===
:''Main article [[Munich conference]]''

The [[Locarno Pacts]] formed the background for the events of 1938 when Czechoslovakia was dismembered at Munich. When the guarantee of Locarno became due in 1936, Britain dishonored its agreement, the Rhineland was remilitarized and the way was open for Germany to move eastward. Poland protested vigorously at the refusal to guarantee her frontiers.<ref>[http://sandiego.indymedia.org/media/2006/10/119975.pdf ''Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time''], Carroll Quigley, Collier-Macmillan, 1966, pg. 293.ISBN 0-945001-10-X</ref>

At Munich, Hitler, British Prime Minister [[Neville Chamberlain]], [[Mussolini]] and French Premier [[Edouard Daladier]] carved up Czechoslovakia without consulting anyone, least of all the Czechs and Slovaks.<ref>''Tragedy and Hope'', Quigley, pg. 638.</ref> The outlawry of war was relatively meaningless without some sanctions that could compel the use of peaceful methods. Efforts in this direction were nullified by Britain.<ref>''Tragedy and Hope'', Quigley, pg. 296.</ref>

==Polish Partition==
[[Image:Communazi Peace Pact.jpg|thumb|300px|right|By terms of a secret protocol to the [[Nazi-Soviet pact]], Poland was partitioned with Germany and the USSR each occupying 200,000 square kilometers.]]
:''Main article: [[Molotov-Ribbentrop pact]]''

In the immediate run up to WWII, there were frequent reports of trespassing Polish troops. On August 31, 1939 German covert operatives staged a fake attack by Polish troops on a German radio station. WWII started on September 1, 1939, when German troops invaded Poland. Hitler justified this as a defensive act, pointing to the frequent border incidents, and said famously that from this moment on Germany would strike back.

The major tactical innovation of the war was the use of combined arms warfare, typified by the German doctrine of [[blitzkrieg]]. In this style of warfare armor, infantry, artillery and air power (see [[Luftwaffe]]) all coordinate to achieve overwhelming superiority at point on the enemy lines. Armor and fast-moving infantry units then exploit the gap and penetrate deep behind enemy lines. The objective is to cause a widespread collapse of the enemy's ability to fight. It was particularly effective during the early stages of the war, before the Allies developed effective countermeasures.
[[Image:Communazipact1.JPG|thumb|300px|left|Partition of Poland. Source: Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, NY; Time magazine [http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/WW2Timeline/fdr-diplo-images.html].]]
On September 17, 1939, Poland was invaded from the east by Hitler’s noble ally, Josef Stalin.

In 1939-1940, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Bessarabia were invaded and annexed into the Soviet Union proper. The Soviets lowered the local standard of living and disrupted and destroyed the prevailing socioeconomic structure. Local currencies were still legal tender but so was the Russian ruble. The occupying Russian soldiers were paid in rubles and the established exchange rate inflated the ruble by as much as 2000 to 3000 per cent. Overvaluing made the average Russian soldier extremely rich. This huge influx of rubles started a wave of inflation that natives did not notice at first. Eventually shortages were caused by Soviet purchasing agents that fanned out through the newly occupied nations, buying up wholesale goods in warehouses and the production of local factories.

Goods produced locally were shipped to Russia instead of resupplying the local market. Russian propaganda stated the goal was to raise the ordinary working person's standard of living. Prices were frozen, and wages raised by as much as ten times. Merchants and factory owners declared bankruptcy and went out of business. Shortages of food and other necessities introduced growing inflation, a black market, and discontent among the population. These deliberate Soviet policies raised the cost of living but not the actual standard of living. Once annexation was complete, local stores and industries were nationalized, their former owners arrested, stripped of their possessions, including their accumulated rubles, and shipped to the [[gulag]]s of Siberia. Workers still employed were then paid in rubles. <ref>Vladimir Petrov, Money and Conquest: Allied Occupation Currencies in World War II, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1967, pgs. 173 -175.</ref>
[[Image:2-463.jpg|thumb|350px|right|Soviet and German troops meet up in the town of Brześć on September 18, 1939.<ref>[http://www.ipn.gov.pl/portal/en/23/211/September_17_1939__Soviet_aggression_on_Poland.html September 17, 1939 - Soviet aggression on Poland], The Institute of National Remembrance - Commission of the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation.</ref>]]
The French and British were initially reluctant to honor promises to the Polish government, avoiding serious consideration of an invasion of Germany. The British failed to send land forces in time to support the Poles (see [[Western betrayal]]). The French mobilized slowly and then launched a token offensive in the Saar. The Meanwhile, on September 8, the Germans reached Warsaw, having slashed through the Polish defenses. On September 17, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the East.

Following the completion of the invasion of Poland, German forces regrouped and Allied forces remained defensive, leading US commentators to dub it the [[Phoney War]]. May 10 1940 marked the end of any accusation of a phony war, with the invasion of France by Germany, via the [[Netherlands]], [[Luxembourg]] and [[Belgium]]. Resistance by the British armies and French armies proved weak and the occupation of France began. British troops were routed and evacuated mainland Europe at Dunkirk. France was divided into the northern [[Occupied France]] and the collaborationist [[Vichy regime]] in the south of France, including [[Corsica]].

The collapse and occupation of France, together with Germany's non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union,<ref>[http://nobsopus.blogspot.com/2007/01/celebrations-marking-60-years-since-end.html Celebrations Marking 60 Years Since the End of World War II], Pavel Vitek, ''Russkii vopros - Studies'', No. 1 2005. Translation from Russian.</ref>, their alliances with fascist Italy, and an expansionist Japan, benevolent neutrality of fascist Spain, with little of Europe outside of Axis hands led many to assume that the United Kingdom had been defeated. Indeed it would appear that the, seemingly foolish, decision of the relatively weak United Kingdom to continue the war took the Axis powers off guard. This decision ensured the remaining British Empire was still involved in the war, with Japan threatening many British possessions in Asia.

In 1940 [[Denmark]] and [[Norway]] were invaded by German forces, to preempt a British occupation of Norway. Norway also contained a source of [[Heavy water]], possibly crucial in the construction of an atomic weapon. This was soon followed by the British invasion of neutral [[Iceland]] (the invasion of [[Denmark]] by German forces marks the start of an independent Iceland).

With Britain the sole opposing European nation, the [[Battle of Britain]] commenced. The [[Luftwaffe]] attempted to achieve aerial dominance over the south of Britain, in order to allow a sea based invasion of Britain to proceed. For many months the [[Royal Air Force]] and Luftwaffe fought for dominance, with the resilience of the RAF, with British, Canadian and [[Republic of Poland|London Polish exile]] pilots forced a rethink of [[German]] tactics. The period that followed is known as the [[Blitz]], where the RAF and Luftwaffe attempted to undermine the infrastructure of the opposing country. This was a period of great economic devastation, which took both countries a considerable period to recover from. More seriously it led to huge numbers of civilian deaths.

==Finnish War==

The Soviet Union invaded [[Finland]], a member of the [[neutral]] [[Oslo Group of States]] on November 30 1939. Despite the overwhelming numbers of the [[Red Army]], the Finnish resistance was strong and the battle was hard fought before the Soviet army took control. The Soviet Union was expelled from the League of Nations on December 12, 1939 for violations of the League treaty.<ref>[http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/policy/1939/391214a.html League of Nations' Expulsion of the USSR, December 12, 1939].</ref> The League of Nations found the Soviet Union conducting "a [[war of aggression]] [which] constitutes a violation of this solidarity and an international crime."<ref>[http://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/The_League_of_Nations_Protocol_for_the_Pacific_Settlement_of_International_Disputes The League of Nations Protocol for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes], 2 October, 1920.</ref>

==Soviet-German War==
[[Image:SOVietOffense med.gif|thumb|300px|right|Soviet map of offense plans in the West. The map is dated May 15, 1941.<ref>Stalin's chance. Soviet Union and struggle for the Europe: 1939-1941. 2000. (In Russian) [http://militera.lib.ru/research/meltyukhov/index.html] Index to Maps and Illustrations [http://militera.lib.ru/research/meltyukhov/ill.html]</ref>]]
1941 marked the major turning point in the war in Europe, when the Germans undertook [[Operation Barbarossa]] - the invasion of the Soviet Union. In a war of major turning points, this was the most significant in Europe. This miscalculation diminished the German army's capacity.

Stalin was informed by his master spy in Japan, [[Richard Sorge]], of the Japanese Imperial Conference in Tokyo which decided on July 2 not to move against the Soviet Union from [[Manchuria]] through Siberia, but instead to prosecute a plan of advance to the south at the risk of war with the United States and United Kingdom. The possibility of a Japanese attack and a two front war with both Germany and Japan was a specter that haunted Soviet officials. <ref>President Roosevelt followed the debate through the medium of "Magic" -- a name applied to intercepted and decoded Japanese messages. He described the Imperial Conference as "a real drag-down and knockout fight... to decide which way they were going to jump --attack Russia, attack the South Seas (or) sit on the fence and be more friendly with us." President Roosevelt to Secretary Ickes, July l, l941 cited in William L. Langer and S. Everett Gleason, ''The Undeclared War, 1940-41'', (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1953), p. 646.</ref><ref>Testimony of Major General Charles A. Willoughby, August 9, 1951, [[Institute of Pacific Relations]], Hearings, Part 2, pp. 363-364; p. 505.</ref> Russia had over 200,000 men facing Japan in the Far East. These troops were desperately needed in the war against Germany. [[Victor Kravchenko]] a high Soviet official and defector wrote, "Beginning with the nineteenth (October, 1941), the situation improved. The first seasoned Siberian and Far Eastern forces began to arrive... Far Eastern troops, hardened in border struggle with the Japanese, and Siberian forces inured to winter warfare were rushing westward across a continent to hold the invaders." <ref>Victor Kravchenko, ''I Chose Freedom'', New York: Charles Scribner and Sons, 1950, p. 377-378.</ref>

The German war against the Soviet Union (known as the [[Great Patriotic War]] in the Soviet Union) demanded a huge dedication of resources and lengthy supply lines in need of defense later in the war permitted an invasion of mainland Europe by Allied Forces on [[D-Day]].
[[Image:Molotov-matsuoka.JPG|thumb|300px|left|Soviet Foreign Minister [[Vyacheslav Molotov]] signs the [[Matsuoka pact]]. Japanese Foreign Minister [[Yosuke Matsuoka]] is to his immediate left, Joseph Stalin is seen standing between the two.<ref>[http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/wwii/s1.htm Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact April 13, 1941], The Department of State Bulletin Vol. XII, No. 305, April 29, 1945. Retrieved from the Avalon Project 11 August 2007.</ref> ]]
==United States enters the War==

American naval escort of British convoys carrying [[Lend-Lease]] aid lead to a shooting war with Germany. On October 17, 1941, the U.S. destroyer Kearney was torpedoed; two weeks later, the destroyer Rueben James was blown to pieces. On November 10, an American escort of 11 vessels picked up a convoy of six vessels including America's three largest ocean liners with 20,000 British troops and guarded them from Halifax to India and Singapore. Many of the activities of the American Navy in the summer of 1941 were not known at all to the American public. In September, Roosevelt sought to repeal the [[Neutrality Act]] forbidding the arming of merchant vessels which was done on October 17. Two weeks later, all the essential points
of the Neutrality Act were repealed. <ref>Carroll Quigley, ''Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time'', Collier-Macmillan, 1966, pg. 720. ISBN 0-945001-10-X</ref>

The [[Attack on Pearl Harbor|attack on Pearl Harbor]] officially brought the United States into World War Two. Admiral [[Isoroku Yamamoto]] of the Japanese Imperial Navy was against engaging with the United States, due to fear of "waking a sleeping giant". The United States recovered from the shell shock of the initial attack and plunged into the war with the slogan "Remember Pearl Harbor!".

==Yugoslav and Chinese Partisans==
Hitler invaded Yugoslavia in April 1941. The Yugoslavian government fled to [[London]] and joined the Allied governments-in-exile of Belgium, Czechoslovak, Greece, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, and the [[French National Committee]]. At the Inter-Allied Meeting held of September 24, 1941 in London, the Yugoslavian government along with the other governments-in-exile and the Soviet Union, pledged their "adherence to the common principles of policy set forth" in the [[Atlantic Charter]], to "respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live."<ref>[http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/wwii/atlantic/at17.htm The Atlantic Conference : Resolution of September 24, 1941].</ref> On January 1, 1942, the Yugoslavian government and the other signatories of the Atlantic Charter, along with most other Powers of the British [[Commonwealth]] and the [[Pan American Union]] of States, put forward the [[Declaration by United Nations]], "being convinced that complete victory over their enemies is essential to defend life, liberty, independence and [[religious freedom]], and to preserve [[human rights]] and [[justice]] in their own lands as well as in other lands, and that they are now engaged in a common struggle against savage and brutal forces seeking to subjugate the world....
each Government pledges itself to cooperate with the Governments signatory hereto."<ref>[http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/paw/274.html Declaration by United Nations, January 1, 1942], U.S. Department of State Bulletin, vol. VI, p. 3.</ref> Within Yugoslavia, Colonel [[Draja Mikhailovitch]], a Serb, organized a resistance army on behalf of the Yugoslavian government known in the press as the Chetniks.<ref>''While You Slept : Our Tragedy in Asia and Who Made It'', John T. Flynn, New York : The Devin - Adair Company, 1951, [http://www.mises.org/books/whileyouslept.pdf pg. 46] pdf.</ref>

[[Josef Broz Tito]], an agent of the [[Comintern]], led the Comintern affiliated [[Yugoslav Partisans]]. In the United States, [[Louis Adamic]] had access to the First Lady, [[Eleanor Roosevelt]]. Adamic was invited to the [[White House]] and pressed upon U.S. President [[Franklin Roosevelt]] support for the [[subversion]] of Colonel Mikhailovitch in favor of Tito. The U.S. [[Office of War Information]] (OWI) began a [[disinformation]] campaign against Mikhailovitch which was repeated in [[mainstream media]] sources, with a call for "unity" with the partisans.

The Yugoslav government-in-exile in London continued to support Mikhailovitch. [[Franklin Roosevelt|President Roosevelt]] in 1942 paid tribute to Mikhailovitch and his men. But at the [[Teheran conference]], as part of the policy of [[appeasement|appeasing]] Stalin, Roosevelt and [[Winston Churchill|Churchill]] abandoned Mikhailovitch completely and yielded to Soviet’s choice of Tito. The U.S. withheld arms and aid from the United Nations ally and gave them to Tito and thus delivered Yugoslavia to communism.

At the [[Cairo conference]] the same program was launched against Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang. [[OWI]] and the American press began referring to the CCP as "partisans." The [[propaganda]] campaign originated in the Soviet Union. ''War and the Working Class'', a [[Bolshevik]] publication, in March 1943 printed the following:
:"The Eighth Route and the New Fourth Army in China consist of the most progressive, steadfast and self-sacrificing people of China. They are led by the Communist Party. . . . China has every possibility over the enemy."<ref>Quoted in ''While You Slept'', Flynn, pg. 47.</ref>

And it added, "national unity is necessary." This began to appear in the United States. The Chinese Communists and Mao were referred to as "partisans," and the call for "unity in China." [[Edgar Snow]] in the ''Saturday Evening Post'' wrote that the situation in China was much like that in Yugoslavia, with the Chinese partisans led by General [[Chu Teh]], and Mao Zedong corresponding to Marshal Tito and his following.<ref>"Sixty Million Lost Allies", by Edgar Snow, ''Saturday Evening Post'',
June 10, 1944.</ref>

Shortly after the Teheran conference, Churchill in a speech in February 1944 indicated that the allies were no longer sending supplies to Mikhailovitch. Two months later King Peter, the Yugoslavian Head of State was forced to dismiss Premier Purich, which meant the entire cabinet in which Mikhailovitch was Minister of War. The Communist Subasich was made Prime Minister. With the subsequent Russian invasion and the aid of American supplies, the Communists and Tito were took control. Mikhailovitch, an ally of the Atlantic Charter, was shot by Tito as a traitor.

==War in Europe 1944==

"The time of liberation is at hand. Poles, to arms! There is not a moment to lose!" This was broadcast on the Polish language radio station from Moscow on July 29, 1944, at 8:15 in the evening. A force of 40,000 responded. <ref>''Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time'', Carroll Quigley, Collier-Macmillan, 1966, pg. 795. ISBN 0-945001-10-X</ref> But the Red Army, for sixty-three days, denying they knew anything about it, refused to drop weapons and food to assist the Polish fighters for whose liberty the British government had gone to war in September 1939. The Polish resistance fighters were massacred methodically by the Germans. At the very time at which Prime Minister Mikolajczyk from the legitimate [[Republic of Poland|Polish Government in exile]] in London flew to Moscow, the Kremlin "recognized" the [[Comintern]] puppet regime, the [[Lublin Committee]], as the new Polish "people's government." <ref>Stanislaw Mikolajczyk, ''The Rape of Poland; Pattern of Soviet Aggression'', (NY: Whittlesey House, 1948), p. 70.</ref>

While Romania was frantically imploring the West for assistance, the U.S. [[Office of War Information]] (OWI) praised the Soviet Unions’ "new democracy" and the "innocent nature of Communism." <ref>Reuben M. Markham, ''Rumania Under the Soviet Yoke'' (Boston: Meader, 1949), p.
169.</ref> By November, [[Andrey Vyshinsky]], the legal mastermind who presided at the major show trials of Stalin's [[Great Purge]], arrived to "restore internal order."

==War in Europe 1945==
:''See also [[Western_betrayal#Warsaw_Uprising|Warsaw Uprising]]''

On January 5, 1945, the Soviet Union announced that the [[Comintern]] affiliated [[Lublin Committee]], with which it had dealt ''de facto'' ever since its birth, was now officially recognized as provisional government of Poland. "The [[Yalta Declaration]]," Soviet Deputy Commissar of Defense [[Nikolai Bulganin]] told the Lublin Committee on February 17, 1945 "is a scrap of paper.... You will be the Government of Poland, no matter how those elections turn out and whatever might happen in the meantime. Be steadfast and have faith in Stalin!" <ref>Rear Admiral Ellis M. Zacharias and Ladislas Farago, ''Behind Closed Doors; the Secret History of the Cold War'', (NY:Putnam, 1950), p. 58.</ref>

On February 24, 1945, in violation of the Yalta pact -- which had been signed on February 11 -- the U.S.S.R. indicated her unwillingness to co-operate in the Allied Control Councils in Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania, and on February 27, [[Andrey Vyshinsky]], in another violation of the Yalta pact, insisted by an official [[demarche]] that King Michael of Romania substitute Communists and Communist tools for certain members of his cabinet. Despite these Soviet manifestations of contempt for the agreements which had been signed at the Crimea Conference, [[Franklin Delano Roosevelt]], on March 1, 1945, told a joint session of Congress that "more than ever before, the major Allies are closely united."

On May 26 presidential adviser [[Harry Hopkins]] met [[Stalin]] at the [[Kremlin]] to discuss the fundamental relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union. Hopkins told Stalin that two months earlier there had been overwhelming sympathy among the American people for the Soviet Union and complete support for President Roosevelt's policies but now this body of American public opinion was seriously disturbed. Hopkins noted the deterioration of public opinion the previous six weeks had been so serious as to affect adversely the relations between the two countries.

Hopkins stated public opinion was alarmed and worried at the present trend of events and did not quite understand why, but it was obvious to them that if present trends continued unchecked the entire structure of world cooperation and relations with the Soviet Union would be destroyed. [[President Truman]] asked Hopkins to relay his great anxiety at the present situation and his desire to continue Roosevelt's policy, and intention to carry out all arrangements, formal and informal, which Roosevelt and Stalin made together. Hopkins said he wished to state as clearly and as forcibly as possible, the question of Poland had become a symbol of the U.S ability to resolve problems with the Soviet Union.

Stalin replied that at the [[Yalta conference]] it had been agreed that the existing Polish government was to be reconstructed and that anyone with common sense could see that this meant the [[Lublin Committee]] was to form the basis of the new government. Stalin said no other understanding of the Yalta Agreement was possible.

Stalin went on to declare that at Yalta it had been agreed that the three powers would sit on the Reparation Commission. Now the United States Government was insisting that France should be represented on the same basis as the Soviet Union. This, Stalin said, was an insult to the Soviet Union in view of the fact that France had concluded a separate peace with Germany and had opened the frontier to the Germans. To attempt to place France on the same footing as the Soviet Union looked like an attempt to humiliate the Russians. <ref>''Roosevelt and Hopkins : An Intimate History'', Robert E. Sherwood, New York Harper and Brothers, 1948. Full record of meeting, [http://americandeception.com/index.php?action=downloadpdf&photo=/PDFsml_AD/Roosevelt_and_Hopkins-An_Intimate_History-Robert_E_Sherwood-1948-1034pgs-GOV-POL.sml.pdf&id=252&PHPSESSID=03d3557b41f249f71349e6d730cc8498 pgs. 920 - 934] pdf. Those in attendance were Stalin, Molotov and Pavlov and Hopkins, Harriman and Bohlen. </ref>

==Far Eastern Theatre==

The Soviet Union was allied with Japan through the [[Matsuoka pact]] while giving aid and direction to the [[Chinese Communist Party]] (CCP), its [[Comintern]] ally, to subvert the Kuomintang (KMT) government. This duplicity of motives and actions bore out tragic and disastrous events -- most specifically the eventual [[slavery|enslavement]] of 550 million Chinese people and a deeply partisan crisis in American domestic politics. The Soviet Union agreed to President Roosevelt's "Great Design" for a [[United Nations]] with "Four Policeman" to enforce the peace, the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the Chinese Nationalist Government avowed in the [[Joint Four Power Declaration]] of United Nations at the Moscow conference of October 1943<ref>[http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/policy/1943/431000a.html Joint Four Power Declaration], Moscow Conference, October, 1943.</ref> But [[Stalinist]] agents in several countries, including [[propagandist]]s in American academia and media along with subversive infiltrators in key [[U.S. Government]] positions, were able to subvert American [[foreign policy]].

At first the United States was on the defensive, losing the Philippines, and other countries under U.S. military protection. The battle of the Coral Sea was the first major engagement with the Japanese that resulted in a draw and set the stage for the battle of Midway a month later. That one battle changed the direction of the war forever, crushing Japanese offensive sea power in one strike. After that, the Japanese were forced to be on the defensive for the rest of the war and never seriously threatened the American military again. In order to shorten the war, the U.S. military chose to adopt a policy of island hopping that including bypassing most of the extensive Japanese holdings to instead focus on a relatively straight path leading to Japan.
[[Image:Ww2-asia usma.edu pic.gif|thumb|300px|left|Time Line of Pacific War]]
Stalin, throughout the war, had assured the United States through Ambassadors [[Averell Harriman]],<ref> John R. Deane, The Strange Alliance: The Story of Our Efforts at Wartime Co-operation with Russia (NY:Viking, 1947) p. 226.</ref> Pat Hurley,<ref> William D. Leahy, I Was There: The Personal Story of the Chief of Staff to Presidents Truman and Roosevelt; Based on his Notes and Diaries Made at the Time; (NY:Whittlesey House, 1950), p. 147.</ref> and Secretary of State [[Cordell Hull]]<ref>Cordell Hull, Memoirs (NY:Macmillian, 1948), Chapter 90, p. 1398.</ref> that he would enter the war against Japan. In 1943, to Hull, the promise had been made "without any strings to it." In 1944, when the matter was again discussed with Harriman, Stalin specified his conditions: "provided that the United States would assist in building up sixty divisions in Siberia" and "provided the political aspects of Russia's participation had been clarified."<ref> John R. Deane, The Strange Alliance: The Story of Our Efforts at Wartime Co-operation with Russia (NY:Viking, 1947) p. 247.</ref>

On the eve of [[Yalta conference]] the Japanese Foreign Minister asked the Russian Ambassador in Tokyo about the possibility of arranging for a settlement. Stalin did not communicate this to either Roosevelt of Churchill.<ref>''While You Slept: Our Tragedy in Asia and Who Made It'', John T. Flynn, New York: The Devin-Adair Company, 1951, [http://www.mises.org/books/whileyouslept.pdf pg. 168] pdf.</ref> Admiral [[Chester Nimitz]] and General [[Douglas MacArthur]] assured Roosevelt on his way to the [[Yalta conference]] at a stopover in Hawaii just after Roosevelt's [[United States presidential election, 1944|nomination for his fourth term]] that as soon as they took the Philippines and the Marianas, Japan would be hopelessly cut off from supplies and that she would have to surrender.<ref>I Was There, Admiral William D. Leahy, New York, 1950, pgs. 245-259.</ref> But Gen. [[George c. Marshall]] was adamant. Admiral Leahy says that Marshall didn't seem to realize that the Navy had beaten Japan. .<ref>I Was There, Leahy, New York, pgs. 245-259.</ref>

Army Chief of Staff [[George C. Marshall]] believed that Japan would fight to the last man. Marshall insisted on preparing for a land invasion of Japan with an army of 2,000,000 men anticipating a tremendous number of casualties. Marshall further insisted that the Soviet Union becoming involved in the war was necessary to fight the Kwantung army Japan had in Manchuria. Marshall apparently was unaware that this army was deteriorated by levies for use in other parts of the Pacific.

==Japanese capitulation==

On August 6, 1945, a B-29 Superfortress, the Enola Gay piloted by Paul Tibbet, dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima. Then, on August 9, Bocks Car, a B-29 piloted by Frederick C. Bock dropped the second atomic bomb. On August 20 the Japanese government told the United States it was ready to accept the terms which the Allies proposed. The next day, the Allies replied, saying the authority of the emperor would be "subject to the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers." On August 14 the Japanese government agreed to this.

The Soviet Union declared war on Japan on August 8, 1945, in breach of the [[Matsuoka pact]] which was supposed to remain in force until April 1946.<ref>''The Japanese-Soviet Neutrality Pact: A Diplomatic History 1941-1945'', Boris Slavinsky, Nissan Institute Routledge Japanese Studies Series, 2003, pg. 1.</ref> Five days later, Soviet armies were in [[Korea]] with an force of 250,000 and weapons taken from the Japanese. An armed militia of 150,000 men was quickly organized.<ref>''Korea Today'', by George M. McCune, Cambridge, 1950, pgs. 178-179.</ref> Dr. [[Syngman Rhee]] who served as head of the Korean Provisional Government-in-Exile for many years, returned and set out to organize a republic in South Korea. He envisioned a unified republic, with a constitution and elections. But there was no wish for election or unity in the occupation zone of [[North Korea]].

Then, September 2, 1945, the Japanese government, along with all its military forces, formally surrendered to the United States. This happened in a ceremony aboard a United States battleship, the ''Missouri'', on [[Tokyo Bay]], where the [[Japanese Instrument of Surrender]] was signed. This was the ending of World War II, after six years almost to the day.

==Chinese Civil War resumes==

When the Japanese surrendered, the Chinese Nationalist army far outnumbered the Red revolutionary army. Then appeared Stalin's army of 1,250,000 men armed with American guns, planes, tanks and munitions and other supplies and the balance began to alter. And the Maoists had immense quantities of munitions laid down by the Japanese in the Manchuria.

General [[George C. Marshall]] was sent by [[President Truman]] as his personal representative to China, arriving on December 20, 1945. His specific instructions from Secretary of State [[James Byrnes]] were to insist on a coalition government of "unity" as a condition for continued aid to the Nationalists.<ref>''George C. Marshall, Statesman, 1945-1959'', Forrest C. Pogue, New York, 1987, pg. 61.</ref> [[CCP]] leader [[Mao Zedong]] already said publicly in April 1945 that a coalition government with the Chinese Nationalists would result in the defeat of "reactionary American imperialism."<ref>"On Coalition Government," address to the April 1945 Seventh National Convention of the Chinese Communist Party, quoted in Anthony Kubek, ''How the Far East Was Lost'', Chicago 1963, pg. 238.</ref>

Marshall held several meetings with [[Chiang Kai-shek]] or his delegates and with Mao's representative, [[Zhou Enlai]], and twice arranged ceasefires, in January and June of 1946. When the ceasefires was ordered the Communists held 57 counties. A year later they had 310—a violation of the truce. The Bolton Congressional report compiled a catalogue of the bridges, railway stations and other installations destroyed by the Communists during the ceasefire.<ref>Bolton Report, House Committee on Foreign Affairs (Sub-Committee No. 5) on Communism in China, 1948.</ref><ref>''History of the Chinese Communist Party'', Jacques Guillermaz, London, 1972, pg. 445.</ref><ref>''China: A Political History, 1917-1980'', Richard C. Thornton, Boulder, CO, 1982, pg. 192.</ref> Marshall however imposed an embargo on the [[Chinese Nationalist government]]. All aid of all sorts to the Kuomintang was discontinued until the summer of 1947 by which time the balance had shifted. Even then what the U.S. sent was insufficient to stem the Communist tide.

Gen. [[Douglas MacArthur]]'s Chief of Intelligence told the U.S. [[Senate Internal Security Subcommittee]] in 1951, "The real cause for the Communization of China is the long-range [[subversion|subversive]] operation, over the last two decades, conducted by professional Communists under orders of the [[Kremlin]]-controlled Third [[Comintern]]."<ref>[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,821608-3,00.html The Case Against '''[[I.P.R.]]'''], ''[[Time magazine]]'', September 03, 1951.</ref>

==Ukrainian Resistance==

==Fallout From World War II==

*[[Iron Curtain]]

*[[British Empire]]
The war effectively bankrupted Britain, which started the process of dismantling its empire. It was not until 2007 Britain finished paying off the loans to the USA which it had taken to fight Nazi Germany.

*the Netherlands and Indonesia
After the defeat of the Japanese empire, their army retired from the [[Dutch East Indies]] and the land was returned back to the Dutch. Quickly after that, the people of the islands revolted against the government on 17 August 1945 and declared themselves independent. The Dutch sent their “new” army to the colonies to restore order. The Dutch scored a number of victories, but after the political pressure from the USA and Australia the Dutch acknowledged in 27 December 1949 the sovereignty of [[Indonesia]]

*Supremacy of the USA in the Western World
Whilst most countries had seen their economies demolished by the war, the USA had industrialized heavily and made financial gains from sales of arms to other Allied countries. Prior to the war, one-third of Americans were employed in agriculture. The socioeconomic changes brought by returning soldiers, many of whom took advantage of a generous GI education benefits, precipitated the rise of the great American middle class.

*Supremacy of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe.

*[[Vietnam War]]
During the war the French lost their colony of Vietnam to the Japanese. At the end of the war they decided to reassert their colonial mastery, but the Vietnamese now had other ideas. The battle with the French would eventually lead into the Vietnam war after the French defeat and American intervention ensued to prevent the spread of Communism.

==See also==
*''Main article: [[Workers World Revolution]]
*[[Cairo conference]]
*[[Harry Dexter White]]
*[[Institute of Pacific Relations]]
*[[Lend-Lease Act]]

==Further reading==

*Gerhard L. Weinberg, ''Foreign Policy of Hitler's Germany: Starting World War II, 1937-1939'', Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980.
* Gerhard L. Weinberg, ''A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II'', Cambridge: University Press, 1994.
*[http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~epf/1997/padilla.html Kursk: The Turning Point on the Eastern Front in World War II], by Roberto R. Padilla II

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

== External Links ==
* United States Department of the Navy/Navy Historical Center's [http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq36-4.htm Fleet Admiral Chester William Nimitz]
* [http://www.onpower.org/history_wwii.html/ World War II]
* [http://www.independent.org/publications/tir/article.asp?issueID=12&articleID=139 "On the Brink of World War II: Justus Doenecke’s ''Storm on the Horizon''," by Ralph Raico]
* [http://www.independent.org/publications/working_papers/article.asp?id=1499 "Government and the Economy: The World Wars," by Robert Higgs]
* [http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=113 "How War Amplified Federal Power in the Twentieth Century," by Robert Higgs]
* [http://www.independent.org/store/book_detail.asp?bookID=65 ''Depression, War and Cold War'', by Robert Higgs]
* [http://www.independent.org/publications/article.asp?id=138 "Wartime Prosperity?", by Robert Higgs]
* [http://www.independent.org/issues/article.asp?id=1431 Pearl Harbor]
[[Category:World War II| ]]
[[Category:Wars]]

World War II

2007-11-07T13:52:05Z

Gadflie: /* Failure of the League treaty */ corrected my correction

[[Image:France rel94.JPG|thumb|France]]
'''World War II''' was a global conflict fought between the [[Allies|Allied powers]] which eventually came to include the [[United States]], the [[Soviet Union]], the [[British Commonwealth]], the [[Republic of China]], and many other nations, and the [[Axis Powers]] (mainly [[Third Reich|Nazi Germany]], [[Fascism|Fascist]] [[Italy]], and Imperial [[Japan]]). Several conflicts involving some world major powers precipitated the general conflagration. On September 1, 1939 [[Poland]] was invaded by Nazi Germany. On September 3, the [[United Kingdom]] and the [[French Third Republic]] with its allies entered the war.

During the war, eight major world powers fought, along with several lesser states joining with one side or the other. On the side which lost were the Axis Powers Germany, [[Japan]], and [[Italy]]. Against them came to be the Allied Powers [[United States]], [[United Kingdom]] and the Commonwealth, the [[Soviet Union]] with its [[Comintern]] allies, and the [[Republic of China]].

==Failure of the League treaty==
The causes of World War II are complicated. The immediate causes of World War II are generally held to be the Japanese attacks on China and the British and Dutch colonies, and the German invasion of Poland on the 1st September 1939. Following the two day deadline for the withdrawal of German forces, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand declared war on Germany, followed quickly by France, South Africa, Canada and Nepal.

The state of Germany in the aftermath of [[World War I]] is also considered to be a contributing factor. The [[Weimar Republic]] that was founded at the end of WWI, was struggling from the beginning. One reason were the harsh terms of Versailles treaty. Although the terms of the treaty were never fully enforced, the psychological damage was immense, since they were perceived as a grave injustice. The republic was also struggling with the rejection by monarchist, who were still occupying important position in the state. Many WWI veterans believed that the German forces in WWI were not defeated, but that the social democratic leaders, who founded the Weimar republic to thwart a communist revolution, surrendered to the allies for political gains. It was known as the "stab-in-the-back myth", and was used to discredit the republic. [http://www.germannotes.com/hist_weimar_dolch.shtml] Although the Weimar Republic enjoyed a time of economic resurgence after the early years of hyper-inflation it failed to gain deep public support. The Weimar Republic was famously called a ''democracy without democrats''.
[[Image:58742big.jpg|thumb|300px|right|Japanese Expansion in Asia, 1928 - 1941. [http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/WW2Timeline/maps2.html]]]

In the early 1930 Germany was in a permanent political and constitutional crisis, caused by rising unemployment during the great depression. Germany was hit harder than most other countries. The National Socialists, known as the Hitler movement, promised to restore national pride and statue, by disbanding the Versailles treaty, and reverting the injustices imposed onto Germany by its international enemies. It was common to blame the "international Jewdom." Part of this ideology was that Germany deserved to be larger, and that in order to survive, it would have to conquer the East.

===Chinese Civil War===

China was engaged at the same time in two separate wars. One was with Japan. The other was with the [[Comintern]]. The Soviet Union fought China with an army of [[Chinese Communist Party|Chinese revolutionaries]], the CCP, directed and armed by the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union's ambitions in China were to transform all northern China — [[Sinkiang]], [[Mongolia]] and [[Manchuria]] — into Soviet dependencies and to convert what remained of China into a [[Communist]] satellite state.

[[Edgar Snow]] wrote his 1937 book, ''Red Star Over China'' "the political ideology, tactical line and theoretical leadership of the Chinese Communists have been under the close guidance, if not positive detailed direction, of the [[Communist International]], which during the last decade has become virtually a bureau of the [[Russian Communist Party]]." And he further declared that the CCP had to subordinate itself to the "strategic requirements of [[Soviet Russia]], under the leadership of [[Stalin]]."<ref>Red Star Over China by Edgar Snow, New York, 1937.</ref>

===Mukden Incident===

The Japanese invasion of [[Manchuria]] in 1931 marked the beginning of World War II in Asia. In March 1932 the Japanese set up the [[puppet state]] of [[Manchukuo]]. On 24 February, 1933, the [[League of Nations]] adopted a resolution calling for the non-recognition of Manchukuo, however the [[Soviet Union]] nonetheless did recognize Manchukuo and sold Japan the Chinese Eastern Railway in 1935.<ref>''While You Slept : Our Tragedy in Asia and Who Made It'', John T. Flynn, New York : The Devin - Adair Company, 1951, [http://www.mises.org/books/whileyouslept.pdf pgs. 18, 36, 65] pdf.</ref>

===The Ethiopian War===

===Reoccupation of the Rhineland===

===Spanish Civil War===
:''Main article: [[Spanish Civil War]]''

===Second Sino-Japanese War===
:''Main article:[[Second Sino-Japanese War]]''

In 1937, when the Japanese invaded China, Soviet General Secretary [[Josef Stalin]] ordered the CCP to cease operations against China's government, the [[Kuomintang]] or KMT, and present a [[united front]] to the Japanese. This lasted until 1939.<ref>''While You Slept : Our Tragedy in Asia and Who Made It'', John T. Flynn, New York : The Devin - Adair Company, 1951, [http://www.mises.org/books/whileyouslept.pdf pg. 46] pdf.</ref>

[[CCP]] Chairman [[Mao Zedong]] sent a secret directive to his followers which said:
:"The Sino-Japanese war affords our party an excellent opportunity for expansion . . . the first stage is a compromising stage . . . but in reality this will serve as camouflage for the… development of our party. The second [stage]. . . should be spent in laying the foundation of our party's political and military powers . . . until we can match and break the [[Kuomintang]]. The third is an offensive stage . . . in which our forces. . . isolate and disperse…and wrest the leadership from the hands of the Kuomintang."<ref>Documents on the Problem of the Chinese Communist Party (Chungking, 1944).</ref>

With the making of the [[Hitler-Stalin pact]] the Soviet Union was at war on the side of Germany. The CCP stopped fighting the Japanese and resumed [[guerrilla]] operations against the Kuomintang (KMT). The CCP devoted its energies to fighting the Chinese government for the portions of eastern China between the railroad lines, held by the Japanese.

===Treaty of Munich===
:''Main article [[Munich conference]]''

The [[Locarno Pacts]] formed the background for the events of 1938 when Czechoslovakia was dismembered at Munich. When the guarantee of Locarno became due in 1936, Britain dishonored its agreement, the Rhineland was remilitarized and the way was open for Germany to move eastward. Poland protested vigorously at the refusal to guarantee her frontiers.<ref>[http://sandiego.indymedia.org/media/2006/10/119975.pdf ''Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time''], Carroll Quigley, Collier-Macmillan, 1966, pg. 293.ISBN 0-945001-10-X</ref>

At Munich, Hitler, British Prime Minister [[Neville Chamberlain]], [[Mussolini]] and French Premier [[Edouard Daladier]] carved up Czechoslovakia without consulting anyone, least of all the Czechs and Slovaks.<ref>''Tragedy and Hope'', Quigley, pg. 638.</ref> The outlawry of war was relatively meaningless without some sanctions that could compel the use of peaceful methods. Efforts in this direction were nullified by Britain.<ref>''Tragedy and Hope'', Quigley, pg. 296.</ref>

==Polish Partition==
[[Image:Communazi Peace Pact.jpg|thumb|300px|right|By terms of a secret protocol to the [[Nazi-Soviet pact]], Poland was partitioned with Germany and the USSR each occupying 200,000 square kilometers.]]
:''Main article: [[Molotov-Ribbentrop pact]]''

In the immediate run up to WWII, there were frequent reports of trespassing Polish troops. On August 31, 1939 German covert operatives staged a fake attack by Polish troops on a German radio station. WWII started on September 1, 1939, when German troops invaded Poland. Hitler justified this as a defensive act, pointing to the frequent border incidents, and said famously that from this moment on Germany would strike back.

The major tactical innovation of the war was the use of combined arms warfare, typified by the German doctrine of [[blitzkrieg]]. In this style of warfare armor, infantry, artillery and air power (see [[Luftwaffe]]) all coordinate to achieve overwhelming superiority at point on the enemy lines. Armor and fast-moving infantry units then exploit the gap and penetrate deep behind enemy lines. The objective is to cause a widespread collapse of the enemy's ability to fight. It was particularly effective during the early stages of the war, before the Allies developed effective countermeasures.
[[Image:Communazipact1.JPG|thumb|300px|left|Partition of Poland. Source: Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, NY; Time magazine [http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/WW2Timeline/fdr-diplo-images.html].]]
On September 17, 1939, Poland was invaded from the east by Hitler’s noble ally, Josef Stalin.

In 1939-1940, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Bessarabia were invaded and annexed into the Soviet Union proper. The Soviets lowered the local standard of living and disrupted and destroyed the prevailing socioeconomic structure. Local currencies were still legal tender but so was the Russian ruble. The occupying Russian soldiers were paid in rubles and the established exchange rate inflated the ruble by as much as 2000 to 3000 per cent. Overvaluing made the average Russian soldier extremely rich. This huge influx of rubles started a wave of inflation that natives did not notice at first. Eventually shortages were caused by Soviet purchasing agents that fanned out through the newly occupied nations, buying up wholesale goods in warehouses and the production of local factories.

Goods produced locally were shipped to Russia instead of resupplying the local market. Russian propaganda stated the goal was to raise the ordinary working person's standard of living. Prices were frozen, and wages raised by as much as ten times. Merchants and factory owners declared bankruptcy and went out of business. Shortages of food and other necessities introduced growing inflation, a black market, and discontent among the population. These deliberate Soviet policies raised the cost of living but not the actual standard of living. Once annexation was complete, local stores and industries were nationalized, their former owners arrested, stripped of their possessions, including their accumulated rubles, and shipped to the [[gulag]]s of Siberia. Workers still employed were then paid in rubles. <ref>Vladimir Petrov, Money and Conquest: Allied Occupation Currencies in World War II, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1967, pgs. 173 -175.</ref>
[[Image:2-463.jpg|thumb|350px|right|Soviet and German troops meet up in the town of Brześć on September 18, 1939.<ref>[http://www.ipn.gov.pl/portal/en/23/211/September_17_1939__Soviet_aggression_on_Poland.html September 17, 1939 - Soviet aggression on Poland], The Institute of National Remembrance - Commission of the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation.</ref>]]
The French and British were initially reluctant to honor promises to the Polish government, avoiding serious consideration of an invasion of Germany. The British failed to send land forces in time to support the Poles (see [[Western betrayal]]). The French mobilized slowly and then launched a token offensive in the Saar. The Meanwhile, on September 8, the Germans reached Warsaw, having slashed through the Polish defenses. On September 17, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the East.

Following the completion of the invasion of Poland, German forces regrouped and Allied forces remained defensive, leading US commentators to dub it the [[Phoney War]]. May 10 1940 marked the end of any accusation of a phony war, with the invasion of France by Germany, via the [[Netherlands]], [[Luxembourg]] and [[Belgium]]. Resistance by the British armies and French armies proved weak and the occupation of France began. British troops were routed and evacuated mainland Europe at Dunkirk. France was divided into the northern [[Occupied France]] and the collaborationist [[Vichy regime]] in the south of France, including [[Corsica]].

The collapse and occupation of France, together with Germany's non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union,<ref>[http://nobsopus.blogspot.com/2007/01/celebrations-marking-60-years-since-end.html Celebrations Marking 60 Years Since the End of World War II], Pavel Vitek, ''Russkii vopros - Studies'', No. 1 2005. Translation from Russian.</ref>, their alliances with fascist Italy, and an expansionist Japan, benevolent neutrality of fascist Spain, with little of Europe outside of Axis hands led many to assume that the United Kingdom had been defeated. Indeed it would appear that the, seemingly foolish, decision of the relatively weak United Kingdom to continue the war took the Axis powers off guard. This decision ensured the remaining British Empire was still involved in the war, with Japan threatening many British possessions in Asia.

In 1940 [[Denmark]] and [[Norway]] were invaded by German forces, to preempt a British occupation of Norway. Norway also contained a source of [[Heavy water]], possibly crucial in the construction of an atomic weapon. This was soon followed by the British invasion of neutral [[Iceland]] (the invasion of [[Denmark]] by German forces marks the start of an independent Iceland).

With Britain the sole opposing European nation, the [[Battle of Britain]] commenced. The [[Luftwaffe]] attempted to achieve aerial dominance over the south of Britain, in order to allow a sea based invasion of Britain to proceed. For many months the [[Royal Air Force]] and Luftwaffe fought for dominance, with the resilience of the RAF, with British, Canadian and [[Republic of Poland|London Polish exile]] pilots forced a rethink of [[German]] tactics. The period that followed is known as the [[Blitz]], where the RAF and Luftwaffe attempted to undermine the infrastructure of the opposing country. This was a period of great economic devastation, which took both countries a considerable period to recover from. More seriously it led to huge numbers of civilian deaths.

==Finnish War==

The Soviet Union invaded [[Finland]], a member of the [[neutral]] [[Oslo Group of States]] on November 30 1939. Despite the overwhelming numbers of the [[Red Army]], the Finnish resistance was strong and the battle was hard fought before the Soviet army took control. The Soviet Union was expelled from the League of Nations on December 12, 1939 for violations of the League treaty.<ref>[http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/policy/1939/391214a.html League of Nations' Expulsion of the USSR, December 12, 1939].</ref> The League of Nations found the Soviet Union conducting "a [[war of aggression]] [which] constitutes a violation of this solidarity and an international crime."<ref>[http://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/The_League_of_Nations_Protocol_for_the_Pacific_Settlement_of_International_Disputes The League of Nations Protocol for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes], 2 October, 1920.</ref>

==Soviet-German War==
[[Image:SOVietOffense med.gif|thumb|300px|right|Soviet map of offense plans in the West. The map is dated May 15, 1941.<ref>Stalin's chance. Soviet Union and struggle for the Europe: 1939-1941. 2000. (In Russian) [http://militera.lib.ru/research/meltyukhov/index.html] Index to Maps and Illustrations [http://militera.lib.ru/research/meltyukhov/ill.html]</ref>]]
1941 marked the major turning point in the war in Europe, when the Germans undertook [[Operation Barbarossa]] - the invasion of the Soviet Union. In a war of major turning points, this was the most significant in Europe. This miscalculation diminished the German army's capacity.

Stalin was informed by his master spy in Japan, [[Richard Sorge]], of the Japanese Imperial Conference in Tokyo which decided on July 2 not to move against the Soviet Union from [[Manchuria]] through Siberia, but instead to prosecute a plan of advance to the south at the risk of war with the United States and United Kingdom. The possibility of a Japanese attack and a two front war with both Germany and Japan was a specter that haunted Soviet officials. <ref>President Roosevelt followed the debate through the medium of "Magic" -- a name applied to intercepted and decoded Japanese messages. He described the Imperial Conference as "a real drag-down and knockout fight... to decide which way they were going to jump --attack Russia, attack the South Seas (or) sit on the fence and be more friendly with us." President Roosevelt to Secretary Ickes, July l, l941 cited in William L. Langer and S. Everett Gleason, ''The Undeclared War, 1940-41'', (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1953), p. 646.</ref><ref>Testimony of Major General Charles A. Willoughby, August 9, 1951, [[Institute of Pacific Relations]], Hearings, Part 2, pp. 363-364; p. 505.</ref> Russia had over 200,000 men facing Japan in the Far East. These troops were desperately needed in the war against Germany. [[Victor Kravchenko]] a high Soviet official and defector wrote, "Beginning with the nineteenth (October, 1941), the situation improved. The first seasoned Siberian and Far Eastern forces began to arrive... Far Eastern troops, hardened in border struggle with the Japanese, and Siberian forces inured to winter warfare were rushing westward across a continent to hold the invaders." <ref>Victor Kravchenko, ''I Chose Freedom'', New York: Charles Scribner and Sons, 1950, p. 377-378.</ref>

The German war against the Soviet Union (known as the [[Great Patriotic War]] in the Soviet Union) demanded a huge dedication of resources and lengthy supply lines in need of defense later in the war permitted an invasion of mainland Europe by Allied Forces on [[D-Day]].
[[Image:Molotov-matsuoka.JPG|thumb|300px|left|Soviet Foreign Minister [[Vyacheslav Molotov]] signs the [[Matsuoka pact]]. Japanese Foreign Minister [[Yosuke Matsuoka]] is to his immediate left, Joseph Stalin is seen standing between the two.<ref>[http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/wwii/s1.htm Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact April 13, 1941], The Department of State Bulletin Vol. XII, No. 305, April 29, 1945. Retrieved from the Avalon Project 11 August 2007.</ref> ]]
==United States enters the War==

American naval escort of British convoys carrying [[Lend-Lease]] aid lead to a shooting war with Germany. On October 17, 1941, the U.S. destroyer Kearney was torpedoed; two weeks later, the destroyer Rueben James was blown to pieces. On November 10, an American escort of 11 vessels picked up a convoy of six vessels including America's three largest ocean liners with 20,000 British troops and guarded them from Halifax to India and Singapore. Many of the activities of the American Navy in the summer of 1941 were not known at all to the American public. In September, Roosevelt sought to repeal the [[Neutrality Act]] forbidding the arming of merchant vessels which was done on October 17. Two weeks later, all the essential points
of the Neutrality Act were repealed. <ref>Carroll Quigley, ''Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time'', Collier-Macmillan, 1966, pg. 720. ISBN 0-945001-10-X</ref>

The [[Attack on Pearl Harbor|attack on Pearl Harbor]] officially brought the United States into World War Two. Admiral [[Isoroku Yamamoto]] of the Japanese Imperial Navy was against engaging with the United States, due to fear of "waking a sleeping giant". The United States recovered from the shell shock of the initial attack and plunged into the war with the slogan "Remember Pearl Harbor!".

==Yugoslav and Chinese Partisans==
Hitler invaded Yugoslavia in April 1941. The Yugoslavian government fled to [[London]] and joined the Allied governments-in-exile of Belgium, Czechoslovak, Greece, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, and the [[French National Committee]]. At the Inter-Allied Meeting held of September 24, 1941 in London, the Yugoslavian government along with the other governments-in-exile and the Soviet Union, pledged their "adherence to the common principles of policy set forth" in the [[Atlantic Charter]], to "respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live."<ref>[http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/wwii/atlantic/at17.htm The Atlantic Conference : Resolution of September 24, 1941].</ref> On January 1, 1942, the Yugoslavian government and the other signatories of the Atlantic Charter, along with most other Powers of the British [[Commonwealth]] and the [[Pan American Union]] of States, put forward the [[Declaration by United Nations]], "being convinced that complete victory over their enemies is essential to defend life, liberty, independence and [[religious freedom]], and to preserve [[human rights]] and [[justice]] in their own lands as well as in other lands, and that they are now engaged in a common struggle against savage and brutal forces seeking to subjugate the world....
each Government pledges itself to cooperate with the Governments signatory hereto."<ref>[http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/paw/274.html Declaration by United Nations, January 1, 1942], U.S. Department of State Bulletin, vol. VI, p. 3.</ref> Within Yugoslavia, Colonel [[Draja Mikhailovitch]], a Serb, organized a resistance army on behalf of the Yugoslavian government known in the press as the Chetniks.<ref>''While You Slept : Our Tragedy in Asia and Who Made It'', John T. Flynn, New York : The Devin - Adair Company, 1951, [http://www.mises.org/books/whileyouslept.pdf pg. 46] pdf.</ref>

[[Josef Broz Tito]], an agent of the [[Comintern]], led the Comintern affiliated [[Yugoslav Partisans]]. In the United States, [[Louis Adamic]] had access to the First Lady, [[Eleanor Roosevelt]]. Adamic was invited to the [[White House]] and pressed upon U.S. President [[Franklin Roosevelt]] support for the [[subversion]] of Colonel Mikhailovitch in favor of Tito. The U.S. [[Office of War Information]] (OWI) began a [[disinformation]] campaign against Mikhailovitch which was repeated in [[mainstream media]] sources, with a call for "unity" with the partisans.

The Yugoslav government-in-exile in London continued to support Mikhailovitch. [[Franklin Roosevelt|President Roosevelt]] in 1942 paid tribute to Mikhailovitch and his men. But at the [[Teheran conference]], as part of the policy of [[appeasement|appeasing]] Stalin, Roosevelt and [[Winston Churchill|Churchill]] abandoned Mikhailovitch completely and yielded to Soviet’s choice of Tito. The U.S. withheld arms and aid from the United Nations ally and gave them to Tito and thus delivered Yugoslavia to communism.

At the [[Cairo conference]] the same program was launched against Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang. [[OWI]] and the American press began referring to the CCP as "partisans." The [[propaganda]] campaign originated in the Soviet Union. ''War and the Working Class'', a [[Bolshevik]] publication, in March 1943 printed the following:
:"The Eighth Route and the New Fourth Army in China consist of the most progressive, steadfast and self-sacrificing people of China. They are led by the Communist Party. . . . China has every possibility over the enemy."<ref>Quoted in ''While You Slept'', Flynn, pg. 47.</ref>

And it added, "national unity is necessary." This began to appear in the United States. The Chinese Communists and Mao were referred to as "partisans," and the call for "unity in China." [[Edgar Snow]] in the ''Saturday Evening Post'' wrote that the situation in China was much like that in Yugoslavia, with the Chinese partisans led by General [[Chu Teh]], and Mao Zedong corresponding to Marshal Tito and his following.<ref>"Sixty Million Lost Allies", by Edgar Snow, ''Saturday Evening Post'',
June 10, 1944.</ref>

Shortly after the Teheran conference, Churchill in a speech in February 1944 indicated that the allies were no longer sending supplies to Mikhailovitch. Two months later King Peter, the Yugoslavian Head of State was forced to dismiss Premier Purich, which meant the entire cabinet in which Mikhailovitch was Minister of War. The Communist Subasich was made Prime Minister. With the subsequent Russian invasion and the aid of American supplies, the Communists and Tito were took control. Mikhailovitch, an ally of the Atlantic Charter, was shot by Tito as a traitor.

==War in Europe 1944==

"The time of liberation is at hand. Poles, to arms! There is not a moment to lose!" This was broadcast on the Polish language radio station from Moscow on July 29, 1944, at 8:15 in the evening. A force of 40,000 responded. <ref>''Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time'', Carroll Quigley, Collier-Macmillan, 1966, pg. 795. ISBN 0-945001-10-X</ref> But the Red Army, for sixty-three days, denying they knew anything about it, refused to drop weapons and food to assist the Polish fighters for whose liberty the British government had gone to war in September 1939. The Polish resistance fighters were massacred methodically by the Germans. At the very time at which Prime Minister Mikolajczyk from the legitimate [[Republic of Poland|Polish Government in exile]] in London flew to Moscow, the Kremlin "recognized" the [[Comintern]] puppet regime, the [[Lublin Committee]], as the new Polish "people's government." <ref>Stanislaw Mikolajczyk, ''The Rape of Poland; Pattern of Soviet Aggression'', (NY: Whittlesey House, 1948), p. 70.</ref>

While Romania was frantically imploring the West for assistance, the U.S. [[Office of War Information]] (OWI) praised the Soviet Unions’ "new democracy" and the "innocent nature of Communism." <ref>Reuben M. Markham, ''Rumania Under the Soviet Yoke'' (Boston: Meader, 1949), p.
169.</ref> By November, [[Andrey Vyshinsky]], the legal mastermind who presided at the major show trials of Stalin's [[Great Purge]], arrived to "restore internal order."

==War in Europe 1945==
:''See also [[Western_betrayal#Warsaw_Uprising|Warsaw Uprising]]''

On January 5, 1945, the Soviet Union announced that the [[Comintern]] affiliated [[Lublin Committee]], with which it had dealt ''de facto'' ever since its birth, was now officially recognized as provisional government of Poland. "The [[Yalta Declaration]]," Soviet Deputy Commissar of Defense [[Nikolai Bulganin]] told the Lublin Committee on February 17, 1945 "is a scrap of paper.... You will be the Government of Poland, no matter how those elections turn out and whatever might happen in the meantime. Be steadfast and have faith in Stalin!" <ref>Rear Admiral Ellis M. Zacharias and Ladislas Farago, ''Behind Closed Doors; the Secret History of the Cold War'', (NY:Putnam, 1950), p. 58.</ref>

On February 24, 1945, in violation of the Yalta pact -- which had been signed on February 11 -- the U.S.S.R. indicated her unwillingness to co-operate in the Allied Control Councils in Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania, and on February 27, [[Andrey Vyshinsky]], in another violation of the Yalta pact, insisted by an official [[demarche]] that King Michael of Romania substitute Communists and Communist tools for certain members of his cabinet. Despite these Soviet manifestations of contempt for the agreements which had been signed at the Crimea Conference, [[Franklin Delano Roosevelt]], on March 1, 1945, told a joint session of Congress that "more than ever before, the major Allies are closely united."

On May 26 presidential adviser [[Harry Hopkins]] met [[Stalin]] at the [[Kremlin]] to discuss the fundamental relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union. Hopkins told Stalin that two months earlier there had been overwhelming sympathy among the American people for the Soviet Union and complete support for President Roosevelt's policies but now this body of American public opinion was seriously disturbed. Hopkins noted the deterioration of public opinion the previous six weeks had been so serious as to affect adversely the relations between the two countries.

Hopkins stated public opinion was alarmed and worried at the present trend of events and did not quite understand why, but it was obvious to them that if present trends continued unchecked the entire structure of world cooperation and relations with the Soviet Union would be destroyed. [[President Truman]] asked Hopkins to relay his great anxiety at the present situation and his desire to continue Roosevelt's policy, and intention to carry out all arrangements, formal and informal, which Roosevelt and Stalin made together. Hopkins said he wished to state as clearly and as forcibly as possible, the question of Poland had become a symbol of the U.S ability to resolve problems with the Soviet Union.

Stalin replied that at the [[Yalta conference]] it had been agreed that the existing Polish government was to be reconstructed and that anyone with common sense could see that this meant the [[Lublin Committee]] was to form the basis of the new government. Stalin said no other understanding of the Yalta Agreement was possible.

Stalin went on to declare that at Yalta it had been agreed that the three powers would sit on the Reparation Commission. Now the United States Government was insisting that France should be represented on the same basis as the Soviet Union. This, Stalin said, was an insult to the Soviet Union in view of the fact that France had concluded a separate peace with Germany and had opened the frontier to the Germans. To attempt to place France on the same footing as the Soviet Union looked like an attempt to humiliate the Russians. <ref>''Roosevelt and Hopkins : An Intimate History'', Robert E. Sherwood, New York Harper and Brothers, 1948. Full record of meeting, [http://americandeception.com/index.php?action=downloadpdf&photo=/PDFsml_AD/Roosevelt_and_Hopkins-An_Intimate_History-Robert_E_Sherwood-1948-1034pgs-GOV-POL.sml.pdf&id=252&PHPSESSID=03d3557b41f249f71349e6d730cc8498 pgs. 920 - 934] pdf. Those in attendance were Stalin, Molotov and Pavlov and Hopkins, Harriman and Bohlen. </ref>

==Far Eastern Theatre==

The Soviet Union was allied with Japan through the [[Matsuoka pact]] while giving aid and direction to the [[Chinese Communist Party]] (CCP), its [[Comintern]] ally, to subvert the Kuomintang (KMT) government. This duplicity of motives and actions bore out tragic and disastrous events -- most specifically the eventual [[slavery|enslavement]] of 550 million Chinese people and a deeply partisan crisis in American domestic politics. The Soviet Union agreed to President Roosevelt's "Great Design" for a [[United Nations]] with "Four Policeman" to enforce the peace, the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the Chinese Nationalist Government avowed in the [[Joint Four Power Declaration]] of United Nations at the Moscow conference of October 1943<ref>[http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/policy/1943/431000a.html Joint Four Power Declaration], Moscow Conference, October, 1943.</ref> But [[Stalinist]] agents in several countries, including [[propagandist]]s in American academia and media along with subversive infiltrators in key [[U.S. Government]] positions, were able to subvert American [[foreign policy]].

At first the United States was on the defensive, losing the Philippines, and other countries under U.S. military protection. The battle of the Coral Sea was the first major engagement with the Japanese that resulted in a draw and set the stage for the battle of Midway a month later. That one battle changed the direction of the war forever, crushing Japanese offensive sea power in one strike. After that, the Japanese were forced to be on the defensive for the rest of the war and never seriously threatened the American military again. In order to shorten the war, the U.S. military chose to adopt a policy of island hopping that including bypassing most of the extensive Japanese holdings to instead focus on a relatively straight path leading to Japan.
[[Image:Ww2-asia usma.edu pic.gif|thumb|300px|left|Time Line of Pacific War]]
Stalin, throughout the war, had assured the United States through Ambassadors [[Averell Harriman]],<ref> John R. Deane, The Strange Alliance: The Story of Our Efforts at Wartime Co-operation with Russia (NY:Viking, 1947) p. 226.</ref> Pat Hurley,<ref> William D. Leahy, I Was There: The Personal Story of the Chief of Staff to Presidents Truman and Roosevelt; Based on his Notes and Diaries Made at the Time; (NY:Whittlesey House, 1950), p. 147.</ref> and Secretary of State [[Cordell Hull]]<ref>Cordell Hull, Memoirs (NY:Macmillian, 1948), Chapter 90, p. 1398.</ref> that he would enter the war against Japan. In 1943, to Hull, the promise had been made "without any strings to it." In 1944, when the matter was again discussed with Harriman, Stalin specified his conditions: "provided that the United States would assist in building up sixty divisions in Siberia" and "provided the political aspects of Russia's participation had been clarified."<ref> John R. Deane, The Strange Alliance: The Story of Our Efforts at Wartime Co-operation with Russia (NY:Viking, 1947) p. 247.</ref>

On the eve of [[Yalta conference]] the Japanese Foreign Minister asked the Russian Ambassador in Tokyo about the possibility of arranging for a settlement. Stalin did not communicate this to either Roosevelt of Churchill.<ref>''While You Slept: Our Tragedy in Asia and Who Made It'', John T. Flynn, New York: The Devin-Adair Company, 1951, [http://www.mises.org/books/whileyouslept.pdf pg. 168] pdf.</ref> Admiral [[Chester Nimitz]] and General [[Douglas MacArthur]] assured Roosevelt on his way to the [[Yalta conference]] at a stopover in Hawaii just after Roosevelt's [[United States presidential election, 1944|nomination for his fourth term]] that as soon as they took the Philippines and the Marianas, Japan would be hopelessly cut off from supplies and that she would have to surrender.<ref>I Was There, Admiral William D. Leahy, New York, 1950, pgs. 245-259.</ref> But Gen. [[George c. Marshall]] was adamant. Admiral Leahy says that Marshall didn't seem to realize that the Navy had beaten Japan. .<ref>I Was There, Leahy, New York, pgs. 245-259.</ref>

Army Chief of Staff [[George C. Marshall]] believed that Japan would fight to the last man. Marshall insisted on preparing for a land invasion of Japan with an army of 2,000,000 men anticipating a tremendous number of casualties. Marshall further insisted that the Soviet Union becoming involved in the war was necessary to fight the Kwantung army Japan had in Manchuria. Marshall apparently was unaware that this army was deteriorated by levies for use in other parts of the Pacific.

==Japanese capitulation==

On August 6, 1945, a B-29 Superfortress, the Enola Gay, dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima. Then, on August 9, a B-29 dropped the second atomic bomb. On August 20 the Japanese government told the United States it was ready to accept the terms which the Allies proposed. The next day, the Allies replied, saying the authority of the emperor would be "subject to the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers." On August 14 the Japanese government agreed to this.

The Soviet Union declared war on Japan on August 8, 1945, in breach of the [[Matsuoka pact]] which was supposed to remain in force until April 1946.<ref>''The Japanese-Soviet Neutrality Pact: A Diplomatic History 1941-1945'', Boris Slavinsky, Nissan Institute Routledge Japanese Studies Series, 2003, pg. 1.</ref> Five days later, Soviet armies were in [[Korea]] with an force of 250,000 and weapons taken from the Japanese. An armed militia of 150,000 men was quickly organized.<ref>''Korea Today'', by George M. McCune, Cambridge, 1950, pgs. 178-179.</ref> Dr. [[Syngman Rhee]] who served as head of the Korean Provisional Government-in-Exile for many years, returned and set out to organize a republic in South Korea. He envisioned a unified republic, with a constitution and elections. But there was no wish for election or unity in the occupation zone of [[North Korea]].

Then, September 2, 1945, the Japanese government, along with all its military forces, formally surrendered to the United States. This happened in a ceremony aboard a United States battleship, the ''Missouri'', on [[Tokyo Bay]], where the [[Japanese Instrument of Surrender]] was signed. This was the ending of World War II, after six years almost to the day.

==Chinese Civil War resumes==

When the Japanese surrendered, the Chinese Nationalist army far outnumbered the Red revolutionary army. Then appeared Stalin's army of 1,250,000 men armed with American guns, planes, tanks and munitions and other supplies and the balance began to alter. And the Maoists had immense quantities of munitions laid down by the Japanese in the Manchuria.

General [[George C. Marshall]] was sent by [[President Truman]] as his personal representative to China, arriving on December 20, 1945. His specific instructions from Secretary of State [[James Byrnes]] were to insist on a coalition government of "unity" as a condition for continued aid to the Nationalists.<ref>''George C. Marshall, Statesman, 1945-1959'', Forrest C. Pogue, New York, 1987, pg. 61.</ref> [[CCP]] leader [[Mao Zedong]] already said publicly in April 1945 that a coalition government with the Chinese Nationalists would result in the defeat of "reactionary American imperialism."<ref>"On Coalition Government," address to the April 1945 Seventh National Convention of the Chinese Communist Party, quoted in Anthony Kubek, ''How the Far East Was Lost'', Chicago 1963, pg. 238.</ref>

Marshall held several meetings with [[Chiang Kai-shek]] or his delegates and with Mao's representative, [[Zhou Enlai]], and twice arranged ceasefires, in January and June of 1946. When the ceasefires was ordered the Communists held 57 counties. A year later they had 310—a violation of the truce. The Bolton Congressional report compiled a catalogue of the bridges, railway stations and other installations destroyed by the Communists during the ceasefire.<ref>Bolton Report, House Committee on Foreign Affairs (Sub-Committee No. 5) on Communism in China, 1948.</ref><ref>''History of the Chinese Communist Party'', Jacques Guillermaz, London, 1972, pg. 445.</ref><ref>''China: A Political History, 1917-1980'', Richard C. Thornton, Boulder, CO, 1982, pg. 192.</ref> Marshall however imposed an embargo on the [[Chinese Nationalist government]]. All aid of all sorts to the Kuomintang was discontinued until the summer of 1947 by which time the balance had shifted. Even then what the U.S. sent was insufficient to stem the Communist tide.

Gen. [[Douglas MacArthur]]'s Chief of Intelligence told the U.S. [[Senate Internal Security Subcommittee]] in 1951, "The real cause for the Communization of China is the long-range [[subversion|subversive]] operation, over the last two decades, conducted by professional Communists under orders of the [[Kremlin]]-controlled Third [[Comintern]]."<ref>[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,821608-3,00.html The Case Against '''[[I.P.R.]]'''], ''[[Time magazine]]'', September 03, 1951.</ref>

==Ukrainian Resistance==

==Fallout From World War II==

*[[Iron Curtain]]

*[[British Empire]]
The war effectively bankrupted Britain, which started the process of dismantling its empire. It was not until 2007 Britain finished paying off the loans to the USA which it had taken to fight Nazi Germany.

*the Netherlands and Indonesia
After the defeat of the Japanese empire, their army retired from the [[Dutch East Indies]] and the land was returned back to the Dutch. Quickly after that, the people of the islands revolted against the government on 17 August 1945 and declared themselves independent. The Dutch sent their “new” army to the colonies to restore order. The Dutch scored a number of victories, but after the political pressure from the USA and Australia the Dutch acknowledged in 27 December 1949 the sovereignty of [[Indonesia]]

*Supremacy of the USA in the Western World
Whilst most countries had seen their economies demolished by the war, the USA had industrialized heavily and made financial gains from sales of arms to other Allied countries. Prior to the war, one-third of Americans were employed in agriculture. The socioeconomic changes brought by returning soldiers, many of whom took advantage of a generous GI education benefits, precipitated the rise of the great American middle class.

*Supremacy of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe.

*[[Vietnam War]]
During the war the French lost their colony of Vietnam to the Japanese. At the end of the war they decided to reassert their colonial mastery, but the Vietnamese now had other ideas. The battle with the French would eventually lead into the Vietnam war after the French defeat and American intervention ensued to prevent the spread of Communism.

==See also==
*''Main article: [[Workers World Revolution]]
*[[Cairo conference]]
*[[Harry Dexter White]]
*[[Institute of Pacific Relations]]
*[[Lend-Lease Act]]

==Further reading==

*Gerhard L. Weinberg, ''Foreign Policy of Hitler's Germany: Starting World War II, 1937-1939'', Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980.
* Gerhard L. Weinberg, ''A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II'', Cambridge: University Press, 1994.
*[http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~epf/1997/padilla.html Kursk: The Turning Point on the Eastern Front in World War II], by Roberto R. Padilla II

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

== External Links ==
* United States Department of the Navy/Navy Historical Center's [http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq36-4.htm Fleet Admiral Chester William Nimitz]
* [http://www.onpower.org/history_wwii.html/ World War II]
* [http://www.independent.org/publications/tir/article.asp?issueID=12&articleID=139 "On the Brink of World War II: Justus Doenecke’s ''Storm on the Horizon''," by Ralph Raico]
* [http://www.independent.org/publications/working_papers/article.asp?id=1499 "Government and the Economy: The World Wars," by Robert Higgs]
* [http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=113 "How War Amplified Federal Power in the Twentieth Century," by Robert Higgs]
* [http://www.independent.org/store/book_detail.asp?bookID=65 ''Depression, War and Cold War'', by Robert Higgs]
* [http://www.independent.org/publications/article.asp?id=138 "Wartime Prosperity?", by Robert Higgs]
* [http://www.independent.org/issues/article.asp?id=1431 Pearl Harbor]
[[Category:World War II| ]]
[[Category:Wars]]

World War II

2007-11-07T13:47:37Z

Gadflie: grammar edit

[[Image:France rel94.JPG|thumb|France]]
'''World War II''' was a global conflict fought between the [[Allies|Allied powers]] which eventually came to include the [[United States]], the [[Soviet Union]], the [[British Commonwealth]], the [[Republic of China]], and many other nations, and the [[Axis Powers]] (mainly [[Third Reich|Nazi Germany]], [[Fascism|Fascist]] [[Italy]], and Imperial [[Japan]]). Several conflicts involving some world major powers precipitated the general conflagration. On September 1, 1939 [[Poland]] was invaded by Nazi Germany. On September 3, the [[United Kingdom]] and the [[French Third Republic]] with its allies entered the war.

During the war, eight major world powers fought, along with several lesser states joining with one side or the other. On the side which lost were the Axis Powers Germany, [[Japan]], and [[Italy]]. Against them came to be the Allied Powers [[United States]], [[United Kingdom]] and the Commonwealth, the [[Soviet Union]] with its [[Comintern]] allies, and the [[Republic of China]].

==Failure of the League treaty==
The causes of World War II are complicated. The immediate causes of World War II are generally held to be the Japanese attacks on China and the British and Dutch colonies, and the German invasion of Poland on the 1st September 1939. Following the two day deadline for the withdrawal of German forces, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand declared war on Germany, followed quickly by France, South Africa, Canada and Nepal.

The state of Germany in the aftermath of [[World War I]] is also considered to be a contributing factor. The [[Weimar Republic]] that was founded at the end of WWI, was struggling from the beginning. One reason were the harsh terms of Versailles treaty. Although the terms of the treaty were never fully enforced, the psychological damage was immense, since they were perceived as a grave injustice. The republic was also struggling with the rejection by monarchist, who were still occupying important position in the state. Many WWI veterans believed that the German forces in WWI were not defeated, but that the social democratic leaders, who founded the Weimar republic to thwart a communist revolution, surrendered to the allies for political gains. It was known as the "stab-in-the-back myth", and was used to discredit the republic. [http://www.germannotes.com/hist_weimar_dolch.shtml] Although the Weimar Republic enjoyed a time of economic resurgence after the early years of hyper-inflation it failed to gain deep public support. The Weimar Republic was famously called a ''democracy without democrats''.
[[Image:58742big.jpg|thumb|300px|right|Japanese Expansion in Asia, 1928 - 1941. [http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/WW2Timeline/maps2.html]]]

In the early 1930 Germany was in a permanent political and constitutional crisis, caused by rising unemployment during the great depression. Germany was hit harder than most other countries. The National Socialists, known as Hitler's movement, promised to restore national pride and statue, by disbanding the Versailles treaty, and reverting the injustices imposed onto Germany by its international enemies. It was common to blame the "international Jewdom." Part of this ideology was that Germany deserved to be larger, and that in order to survive, it would have to conquer the East.

===Chinese Civil War===

China was engaged at the same time in two separate wars. One was with Japan. The other was with the [[Comintern]]. The Soviet Union fought China with an army of [[Chinese Communist Party|Chinese revolutionaries]], the CCP, directed and armed by the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union's ambitions in China were to transform all northern China — [[Sinkiang]], [[Mongolia]] and [[Manchuria]] — into Soviet dependencies and to convert what remained of China into a [[Communist]] satellite state.

[[Edgar Snow]] wrote his 1937 book, ''Red Star Over China'' "the political ideology, tactical line and theoretical leadership of the Chinese Communists have been under the close guidance, if not positive detailed direction, of the [[Communist International]], which during the last decade has become virtually a bureau of the [[Russian Communist Party]]." And he further declared that the CCP had to subordinate itself to the "strategic requirements of [[Soviet Russia]], under the leadership of [[Stalin]]."<ref>Red Star Over China by Edgar Snow, New York, 1937.</ref>

===Mukden Incident===

The Japanese invasion of [[Manchuria]] in 1931 marked the beginning of World War II in Asia. In March 1932 the Japanese set up the [[puppet state]] of [[Manchukuo]]. On 24 February, 1933, the [[League of Nations]] adopted a resolution calling for the non-recognition of Manchukuo, however the [[Soviet Union]] nonetheless did recognize Manchukuo and sold Japan the Chinese Eastern Railway in 1935.<ref>''While You Slept : Our Tragedy in Asia and Who Made It'', John T. Flynn, New York : The Devin - Adair Company, 1951, [http://www.mises.org/books/whileyouslept.pdf pgs. 18, 36, 65] pdf.</ref>

===The Ethiopian War===

===Reoccupation of the Rhineland===

===Spanish Civil War===
:''Main article: [[Spanish Civil War]]''

===Second Sino-Japanese War===
:''Main article:[[Second Sino-Japanese War]]''

In 1937, when the Japanese invaded China, Soviet General Secretary [[Josef Stalin]] ordered the CCP to cease operations against China's government, the [[Kuomintang]] or KMT, and present a [[united front]] to the Japanese. This lasted until 1939.<ref>''While You Slept : Our Tragedy in Asia and Who Made It'', John T. Flynn, New York : The Devin - Adair Company, 1951, [http://www.mises.org/books/whileyouslept.pdf pg. 46] pdf.</ref>

[[CCP]] Chairman [[Mao Zedong]] sent a secret directive to his followers which said:
:"The Sino-Japanese war affords our party an excellent opportunity for expansion . . . the first stage is a compromising stage . . . but in reality this will serve as camouflage for the… development of our party. The second [stage]. . . should be spent in laying the foundation of our party's political and military powers . . . until we can match and break the [[Kuomintang]]. The third is an offensive stage . . . in which our forces. . . isolate and disperse…and wrest the leadership from the hands of the Kuomintang."<ref>Documents on the Problem of the Chinese Communist Party (Chungking, 1944).</ref>

With the making of the [[Hitler-Stalin pact]] the Soviet Union was at war on the side of Germany. The CCP stopped fighting the Japanese and resumed [[guerrilla]] operations against the Kuomintang (KMT). The CCP devoted its energies to fighting the Chinese government for the portions of eastern China between the railroad lines, held by the Japanese.

===Treaty of Munich===
:''Main article [[Munich conference]]''

The [[Locarno Pacts]] formed the background for the events of 1938 when Czechoslovakia was dismembered at Munich. When the guarantee of Locarno became due in 1936, Britain dishonored its agreement, the Rhineland was remilitarized and the way was open for Germany to move eastward. Poland protested vigorously at the refusal to guarantee her frontiers.<ref>[http://sandiego.indymedia.org/media/2006/10/119975.pdf ''Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time''], Carroll Quigley, Collier-Macmillan, 1966, pg. 293.ISBN 0-945001-10-X</ref>

At Munich, Hitler, British Prime Minister [[Neville Chamberlain]], [[Mussolini]] and French Premier [[Edouard Daladier]] carved up Czechoslovakia without consulting anyone, least of all the Czechs and Slovaks.<ref>''Tragedy and Hope'', Quigley, pg. 638.</ref> The outlawry of war was relatively meaningless without some sanctions that could compel the use of peaceful methods. Efforts in this direction were nullified by Britain.<ref>''Tragedy and Hope'', Quigley, pg. 296.</ref>

==Polish Partition==
[[Image:Communazi Peace Pact.jpg|thumb|300px|right|By terms of a secret protocol to the [[Nazi-Soviet pact]], Poland was partitioned with Germany and the USSR each occupying 200,000 square kilometers.]]
:''Main article: [[Molotov-Ribbentrop pact]]''

In the immediate run up to WWII, there were frequent reports of trespassing Polish troops. On August 31, 1939 German covert operatives staged a fake attack by Polish troops on a German radio station. WWII started on September 1, 1939, when German troops invaded Poland. Hitler justified this as a defensive act, pointing to the frequent border incidents, and said famously that from this moment on Germany would strike back.

The major tactical innovation of the war was the use of combined arms warfare, typified by the German doctrine of [[blitzkrieg]]. In this style of warfare armor, infantry, artillery and air power (see [[Luftwaffe]]) all coordinate to achieve overwhelming superiority at point on the enemy lines. Armor and fast-moving infantry units then exploit the gap and penetrate deep behind enemy lines. The objective is to cause a widespread collapse of the enemy's ability to fight. It was particularly effective during the early stages of the war, before the Allies developed effective countermeasures.
[[Image:Communazipact1.JPG|thumb|300px|left|Partition of Poland. Source: Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, NY; Time magazine [http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/WW2Timeline/fdr-diplo-images.html].]]
On September 17, 1939, Poland was invaded from the east by Hitler’s noble ally, Josef Stalin.

In 1939-1940, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Bessarabia were invaded and annexed into the Soviet Union proper. The Soviets lowered the local standard of living and disrupted and destroyed the prevailing socioeconomic structure. Local currencies were still legal tender but so was the Russian ruble. The occupying Russian soldiers were paid in rubles and the established exchange rate inflated the ruble by as much as 2000 to 3000 per cent. Overvaluing made the average Russian soldier extremely rich. This huge influx of rubles started a wave of inflation that natives did not notice at first. Eventually shortages were caused by Soviet purchasing agents that fanned out through the newly occupied nations, buying up wholesale goods in warehouses and the production of local factories.

Goods produced locally were shipped to Russia instead of resupplying the local market. Russian propaganda stated the goal was to raise the ordinary working person's standard of living. Prices were frozen, and wages raised by as much as ten times. Merchants and factory owners declared bankruptcy and went out of business. Shortages of food and other necessities introduced growing inflation, a black market, and discontent among the population. These deliberate Soviet policies raised the cost of living but not the actual standard of living. Once annexation was complete, local stores and industries were nationalized, their former owners arrested, stripped of their possessions, including their accumulated rubles, and shipped to the [[gulag]]s of Siberia. Workers still employed were then paid in rubles. <ref>Vladimir Petrov, Money and Conquest: Allied Occupation Currencies in World War II, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1967, pgs. 173 -175.</ref>
[[Image:2-463.jpg|thumb|350px|right|Soviet and German troops meet up in the town of Brześć on September 18, 1939.<ref>[http://www.ipn.gov.pl/portal/en/23/211/September_17_1939__Soviet_aggression_on_Poland.html September 17, 1939 - Soviet aggression on Poland], The Institute of National Remembrance - Commission of the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation.</ref>]]
The French and British were initially reluctant to honor promises to the Polish government, avoiding serious consideration of an invasion of Germany. The British failed to send land forces in time to support the Poles (see [[Western betrayal]]). The French mobilized slowly and then launched a token offensive in the Saar. The Meanwhile, on September 8, the Germans reached Warsaw, having slashed through the Polish defenses. On September 17, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the East.

Following the completion of the invasion of Poland, German forces regrouped and Allied forces remained defensive, leading US commentators to dub it the [[Phoney War]]. May 10 1940 marked the end of any accusation of a phony war, with the invasion of France by Germany, via the [[Netherlands]], [[Luxembourg]] and [[Belgium]]. Resistance by the British armies and French armies proved weak and the occupation of France began. British troops were routed and evacuated mainland Europe at Dunkirk. France was divided into the northern [[Occupied France]] and the collaborationist [[Vichy regime]] in the south of France, including [[Corsica]].

The collapse and occupation of France, together with Germany's non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union,<ref>[http://nobsopus.blogspot.com/2007/01/celebrations-marking-60-years-since-end.html Celebrations Marking 60 Years Since the End of World War II], Pavel Vitek, ''Russkii vopros - Studies'', No. 1 2005. Translation from Russian.</ref>, their alliances with fascist Italy, and an expansionist Japan, benevolent neutrality of fascist Spain, with little of Europe outside of Axis hands led many to assume that the United Kingdom had been defeated. Indeed it would appear that the, seemingly foolish, decision of the relatively weak United Kingdom to continue the war took the Axis powers off guard. This decision ensured the remaining British Empire was still involved in the war, with Japan threatening many British possessions in Asia.

In 1940 [[Denmark]] and [[Norway]] were invaded by German forces, to preempt a British occupation of Norway. Norway also contained a source of [[Heavy water]], possibly crucial in the construction of an atomic weapon. This was soon followed by the British invasion of neutral [[Iceland]] (the invasion of [[Denmark]] by German forces marks the start of an independent Iceland).

With Britain the sole opposing European nation, the [[Battle of Britain]] commenced. The [[Luftwaffe]] attempted to achieve aerial dominance over the south of Britain, in order to allow a sea based invasion of Britain to proceed. For many months the [[Royal Air Force]] and Luftwaffe fought for dominance, with the resilience of the RAF, with British, Canadian and [[Republic of Poland|London Polish exile]] pilots forced a rethink of [[German]] tactics. The period that followed is known as the [[Blitz]], where the RAF and Luftwaffe attempted to undermine the infrastructure of the opposing country. This was a period of great economic devastation, which took both countries a considerable period to recover from. More seriously it led to huge numbers of civilian deaths.

==Finnish War==

The Soviet Union invaded [[Finland]], a member of the [[neutral]] [[Oslo Group of States]] on November 30 1939. Despite the overwhelming numbers of the [[Red Army]], the Finnish resistance was strong and the battle was hard fought before the Soviet army took control. The Soviet Union was expelled from the League of Nations on December 12, 1939 for violations of the League treaty.<ref>[http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/policy/1939/391214a.html League of Nations' Expulsion of the USSR, December 12, 1939].</ref> The League of Nations found the Soviet Union conducting "a [[war of aggression]] [which] constitutes a violation of this solidarity and an international crime."<ref>[http://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/The_League_of_Nations_Protocol_for_the_Pacific_Settlement_of_International_Disputes The League of Nations Protocol for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes], 2 October, 1920.</ref>

==Soviet-German War==
[[Image:SOVietOffense med.gif|thumb|300px|right|Soviet map of offense plans in the West. The map is dated May 15, 1941.<ref>Stalin's chance. Soviet Union and struggle for the Europe: 1939-1941. 2000. (In Russian) [http://militera.lib.ru/research/meltyukhov/index.html] Index to Maps and Illustrations [http://militera.lib.ru/research/meltyukhov/ill.html]</ref>]]
1941 marked the major turning point in the war in Europe, when the Germans undertook [[Operation Barbarossa]] - the invasion of the Soviet Union. In a war of major turning points, this was the most significant in Europe. This miscalculation diminished the German army's capacity.

Stalin was informed by his master spy in Japan, [[Richard Sorge]], of the Japanese Imperial Conference in Tokyo which decided on July 2 not to move against the Soviet Union from [[Manchuria]] through Siberia, but instead to prosecute a plan of advance to the south at the risk of war with the United States and United Kingdom. The possibility of a Japanese attack and a two front war with both Germany and Japan was a specter that haunted Soviet officials. <ref>President Roosevelt followed the debate through the medium of "Magic" -- a name applied to intercepted and decoded Japanese messages. He described the Imperial Conference as "a real drag-down and knockout fight... to decide which way they were going to jump --attack Russia, attack the South Seas (or) sit on the fence and be more friendly with us." President Roosevelt to Secretary Ickes, July l, l941 cited in William L. Langer and S. Everett Gleason, ''The Undeclared War, 1940-41'', (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1953), p. 646.</ref><ref>Testimony of Major General Charles A. Willoughby, August 9, 1951, [[Institute of Pacific Relations]], Hearings, Part 2, pp. 363-364; p. 505.</ref> Russia had over 200,000 men facing Japan in the Far East. These troops were desperately needed in the war against Germany. [[Victor Kravchenko]] a high Soviet official and defector wrote, "Beginning with the nineteenth (October, 1941), the situation improved. The first seasoned Siberian and Far Eastern forces began to arrive... Far Eastern troops, hardened in border struggle with the Japanese, and Siberian forces inured to winter warfare were rushing westward across a continent to hold the invaders." <ref>Victor Kravchenko, ''I Chose Freedom'', New York: Charles Scribner and Sons, 1950, p. 377-378.</ref>

The German war against the Soviet Union (known as the [[Great Patriotic War]] in the Soviet Union) demanded a huge dedication of resources and lengthy supply lines in need of defense later in the war permitted an invasion of mainland Europe by Allied Forces on [[D-Day]].
[[Image:Molotov-matsuoka.JPG|thumb|300px|left|Soviet Foreign Minister [[Vyacheslav Molotov]] signs the [[Matsuoka pact]]. Japanese Foreign Minister [[Yosuke Matsuoka]] is to his immediate left, Joseph Stalin is seen standing between the two.<ref>[http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/wwii/s1.htm Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact April 13, 1941], The Department of State Bulletin Vol. XII, No. 305, April 29, 1945. Retrieved from the Avalon Project 11 August 2007.</ref> ]]
==United States enters the War==

American naval escort of British convoys carrying [[Lend-Lease]] aid lead to a shooting war with Germany. On October 17, 1941, the U.S. destroyer Kearney was torpedoed; two weeks later, the destroyer Rueben James was blown to pieces. On November 10, an American escort of 11 vessels picked up a convoy of six vessels including America's three largest ocean liners with 20,000 British troops and guarded them from Halifax to India and Singapore. Many of the activities of the American Navy in the summer of 1941 were not known at all to the American public. In September, Roosevelt sought to repeal the [[Neutrality Act]] forbidding the arming of merchant vessels which was done on October 17. Two weeks later, all the essential points
of the Neutrality Act were repealed. <ref>Carroll Quigley, ''Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time'', Collier-Macmillan, 1966, pg. 720. ISBN 0-945001-10-X</ref>

The [[Attack on Pearl Harbor|attack on Pearl Harbor]] officially brought the United States into World War Two. Admiral [[Isoroku Yamamoto]] of the Japanese Imperial Navy was against engaging with the United States, due to fear of "waking a sleeping giant". The United States recovered from the shell shock of the initial attack and plunged into the war with the slogan "Remember Pearl Harbor!".

==Yugoslav and Chinese Partisans==
Hitler invaded Yugoslavia in April 1941. The Yugoslavian government fled to [[London]] and joined the Allied governments-in-exile of Belgium, Czechoslovak, Greece, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, and the [[French National Committee]]. At the Inter-Allied Meeting held of September 24, 1941 in London, the Yugoslavian government along with the other governments-in-exile and the Soviet Union, pledged their "adherence to the common principles of policy set forth" in the [[Atlantic Charter]], to "respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live."<ref>[http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/wwii/atlantic/at17.htm The Atlantic Conference : Resolution of September 24, 1941].</ref> On January 1, 1942, the Yugoslavian government and the other signatories of the Atlantic Charter, along with most other Powers of the British [[Commonwealth]] and the [[Pan American Union]] of States, put forward the [[Declaration by United Nations]], "being convinced that complete victory over their enemies is essential to defend life, liberty, independence and [[religious freedom]], and to preserve [[human rights]] and [[justice]] in their own lands as well as in other lands, and that they are now engaged in a common struggle against savage and brutal forces seeking to subjugate the world....
each Government pledges itself to cooperate with the Governments signatory hereto."<ref>[http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/paw/274.html Declaration by United Nations, January 1, 1942], U.S. Department of State Bulletin, vol. VI, p. 3.</ref> Within Yugoslavia, Colonel [[Draja Mikhailovitch]], a Serb, organized a resistance army on behalf of the Yugoslavian government known in the press as the Chetniks.<ref>''While You Slept : Our Tragedy in Asia and Who Made It'', John T. Flynn, New York : The Devin - Adair Company, 1951, [http://www.mises.org/books/whileyouslept.pdf pg. 46] pdf.</ref>

[[Josef Broz Tito]], an agent of the [[Comintern]], led the Comintern affiliated [[Yugoslav Partisans]]. In the United States, [[Louis Adamic]] had access to the First Lady, [[Eleanor Roosevelt]]. Adamic was invited to the [[White House]] and pressed upon U.S. President [[Franklin Roosevelt]] support for the [[subversion]] of Colonel Mikhailovitch in favor of Tito. The U.S. [[Office of War Information]] (OWI) began a [[disinformation]] campaign against Mikhailovitch which was repeated in [[mainstream media]] sources, with a call for "unity" with the partisans.

The Yugoslav government-in-exile in London continued to support Mikhailovitch. [[Franklin Roosevelt|President Roosevelt]] in 1942 paid tribute to Mikhailovitch and his men. But at the [[Teheran conference]], as part of the policy of [[appeasement|appeasing]] Stalin, Roosevelt and [[Winston Churchill|Churchill]] abandoned Mikhailovitch completely and yielded to Soviet’s choice of Tito. The U.S. withheld arms and aid from the United Nations ally and gave them to Tito and thus delivered Yugoslavia to communism.

At the [[Cairo conference]] the same program was launched against Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang. [[OWI]] and the American press began referring to the CCP as "partisans." The [[propaganda]] campaign originated in the Soviet Union. ''War and the Working Class'', a [[Bolshevik]] publication, in March 1943 printed the following:
:"The Eighth Route and the New Fourth Army in China consist of the most progressive, steadfast and self-sacrificing people of China. They are led by the Communist Party. . . . China has every possibility over the enemy."<ref>Quoted in ''While You Slept'', Flynn, pg. 47.</ref>

And it added, "national unity is necessary." This began to appear in the United States. The Chinese Communists and Mao were referred to as "partisans," and the call for "unity in China." [[Edgar Snow]] in the ''Saturday Evening Post'' wrote that the situation in China was much like that in Yugoslavia, with the Chinese partisans led by General [[Chu Teh]], and Mao Zedong corresponding to Marshal Tito and his following.<ref>"Sixty Million Lost Allies", by Edgar Snow, ''Saturday Evening Post'',
June 10, 1944.</ref>

Shortly after the Teheran conference, Churchill in a speech in February 1944 indicated that the allies were no longer sending supplies to Mikhailovitch. Two months later King Peter, the Yugoslavian Head of State was forced to dismiss Premier Purich, which meant the entire cabinet in which Mikhailovitch was Minister of War. The Communist Subasich was made Prime Minister. With the subsequent Russian invasion and the aid of American supplies, the Communists and Tito were took control. Mikhailovitch, an ally of the Atlantic Charter, was shot by Tito as a traitor.

==War in Europe 1944==

"The time of liberation is at hand. Poles, to arms! There is not a moment to lose!" This was broadcast on the Polish language radio station from Moscow on July 29, 1944, at 8:15 in the evening. A force of 40,000 responded. <ref>''Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time'', Carroll Quigley, Collier-Macmillan, 1966, pg. 795. ISBN 0-945001-10-X</ref> But the Red Army, for sixty-three days, denying they knew anything about it, refused to drop weapons and food to assist the Polish fighters for whose liberty the British government had gone to war in September 1939. The Polish resistance fighters were massacred methodically by the Germans. At the very time at which Prime Minister Mikolajczyk from the legitimate [[Republic of Poland|Polish Government in exile]] in London flew to Moscow, the Kremlin "recognized" the [[Comintern]] puppet regime, the [[Lublin Committee]], as the new Polish "people's government." <ref>Stanislaw Mikolajczyk, ''The Rape of Poland; Pattern of Soviet Aggression'', (NY: Whittlesey House, 1948), p. 70.</ref>

While Romania was frantically imploring the West for assistance, the U.S. [[Office of War Information]] (OWI) praised the Soviet Unions’ "new democracy" and the "innocent nature of Communism." <ref>Reuben M. Markham, ''Rumania Under the Soviet Yoke'' (Boston: Meader, 1949), p.
169.</ref> By November, [[Andrey Vyshinsky]], the legal mastermind who presided at the major show trials of Stalin's [[Great Purge]], arrived to "restore internal order."

==War in Europe 1945==
:''See also [[Western_betrayal#Warsaw_Uprising|Warsaw Uprising]]''

On January 5, 1945, the Soviet Union announced that the [[Comintern]] affiliated [[Lublin Committee]], with which it had dealt ''de facto'' ever since its birth, was now officially recognized as provisional government of Poland. "The [[Yalta Declaration]]," Soviet Deputy Commissar of Defense [[Nikolai Bulganin]] told the Lublin Committee on February 17, 1945 "is a scrap of paper.... You will be the Government of Poland, no matter how those elections turn out and whatever might happen in the meantime. Be steadfast and have faith in Stalin!" <ref>Rear Admiral Ellis M. Zacharias and Ladislas Farago, ''Behind Closed Doors; the Secret History of the Cold War'', (NY:Putnam, 1950), p. 58.</ref>

On February 24, 1945, in violation of the Yalta pact -- which had been signed on February 11 -- the U.S.S.R. indicated her unwillingness to co-operate in the Allied Control Councils in Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania, and on February 27, [[Andrey Vyshinsky]], in another violation of the Yalta pact, insisted by an official [[demarche]] that King Michael of Romania substitute Communists and Communist tools for certain members of his cabinet. Despite these Soviet manifestations of contempt for the agreements which had been signed at the Crimea Conference, [[Franklin Delano Roosevelt]], on March 1, 1945, told a joint session of Congress that "more than ever before, the major Allies are closely united."

On May 26 presidential adviser [[Harry Hopkins]] met [[Stalin]] at the [[Kremlin]] to discuss the fundamental relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union. Hopkins told Stalin that two months earlier there had been overwhelming sympathy among the American people for the Soviet Union and complete support for President Roosevelt's policies but now this body of American public opinion was seriously disturbed. Hopkins noted the deterioration of public opinion the previous six weeks had been so serious as to affect adversely the relations between the two countries.

Hopkins stated public opinion was alarmed and worried at the present trend of events and did not quite understand why, but it was obvious to them that if present trends continued unchecked the entire structure of world cooperation and relations with the Soviet Union would be destroyed. [[President Truman]] asked Hopkins to relay his great anxiety at the present situation and his desire to continue Roosevelt's policy, and intention to carry out all arrangements, formal and informal, which Roosevelt and Stalin made together. Hopkins said he wished to state as clearly and as forcibly as possible, the question of Poland had become a symbol of the U.S ability to resolve problems with the Soviet Union.

Stalin replied that at the [[Yalta conference]] it had been agreed that the existing Polish government was to be reconstructed and that anyone with common sense could see that this meant the [[Lublin Committee]] was to form the basis of the new government. Stalin said no other understanding of the Yalta Agreement was possible.

Stalin went on to declare that at Yalta it had been agreed that the three powers would sit on the Reparation Commission. Now the United States Government was insisting that France should be represented on the same basis as the Soviet Union. This, Stalin said, was an insult to the Soviet Union in view of the fact that France had concluded a separate peace with Germany and had opened the frontier to the Germans. To attempt to place France on the same footing as the Soviet Union looked like an attempt to humiliate the Russians. <ref>''Roosevelt and Hopkins : An Intimate History'', Robert E. Sherwood, New York Harper and Brothers, 1948. Full record of meeting, [http://americandeception.com/index.php?action=downloadpdf&photo=/PDFsml_AD/Roosevelt_and_Hopkins-An_Intimate_History-Robert_E_Sherwood-1948-1034pgs-GOV-POL.sml.pdf&id=252&PHPSESSID=03d3557b41f249f71349e6d730cc8498 pgs. 920 - 934] pdf. Those in attendance were Stalin, Molotov and Pavlov and Hopkins, Harriman and Bohlen. </ref>

==Far Eastern Theatre==

The Soviet Union was allied with Japan through the [[Matsuoka pact]] while giving aid and direction to the [[Chinese Communist Party]] (CCP), its [[Comintern]] ally, to subvert the Kuomintang (KMT) government. This duplicity of motives and actions bore out tragic and disastrous events -- most specifically the eventual [[slavery|enslavement]] of 550 million Chinese people and a deeply partisan crisis in American domestic politics. The Soviet Union agreed to President Roosevelt's "Great Design" for a [[United Nations]] with "Four Policeman" to enforce the peace, the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the Chinese Nationalist Government avowed in the [[Joint Four Power Declaration]] of United Nations at the Moscow conference of October 1943<ref>[http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/policy/1943/431000a.html Joint Four Power Declaration], Moscow Conference, October, 1943.</ref> But [[Stalinist]] agents in several countries, including [[propagandist]]s in American academia and media along with subversive infiltrators in key [[U.S. Government]] positions, were able to subvert American [[foreign policy]].

At first the United States was on the defensive, losing the Philippines, and other countries under U.S. military protection. The battle of the Coral Sea was the first major engagement with the Japanese that resulted in a draw and set the stage for the battle of Midway a month later. That one battle changed the direction of the war forever, crushing Japanese offensive sea power in one strike. After that, the Japanese were forced to be on the defensive for the rest of the war and never seriously threatened the American military again. In order to shorten the war, the U.S. military chose to adopt a policy of island hopping that including bypassing most of the extensive Japanese holdings to instead focus on a relatively straight path leading to Japan.
[[Image:Ww2-asia usma.edu pic.gif|thumb|300px|left|Time Line of Pacific War]]
Stalin, throughout the war, had assured the United States through Ambassadors [[Averell Harriman]],<ref> John R. Deane, The Strange Alliance: The Story of Our Efforts at Wartime Co-operation with Russia (NY:Viking, 1947) p. 226.</ref> Pat Hurley,<ref> William D. Leahy, I Was There: The Personal Story of the Chief of Staff to Presidents Truman and Roosevelt; Based on his Notes and Diaries Made at the Time; (NY:Whittlesey House, 1950), p. 147.</ref> and Secretary of State [[Cordell Hull]]<ref>Cordell Hull, Memoirs (NY:Macmillian, 1948), Chapter 90, p. 1398.</ref> that he would enter the war against Japan. In 1943, to Hull, the promise had been made "without any strings to it." In 1944, when the matter was again discussed with Harriman, Stalin specified his conditions: "provided that the United States would assist in building up sixty divisions in Siberia" and "provided the political aspects of Russia's participation had been clarified."<ref> John R. Deane, The Strange Alliance: The Story of Our Efforts at Wartime Co-operation with Russia (NY:Viking, 1947) p. 247.</ref>

On the eve of [[Yalta conference]] the Japanese Foreign Minister asked the Russian Ambassador in Tokyo about the possibility of arranging for a settlement. Stalin did not communicate this to either Roosevelt of Churchill.<ref>''While You Slept: Our Tragedy in Asia and Who Made It'', John T. Flynn, New York: The Devin-Adair Company, 1951, [http://www.mises.org/books/whileyouslept.pdf pg. 168] pdf.</ref> Admiral [[Chester Nimitz]] and General [[Douglas MacArthur]] assured Roosevelt on his way to the [[Yalta conference]] at a stopover in Hawaii just after Roosevelt's [[United States presidential election, 1944|nomination for his fourth term]] that as soon as they took the Philippines and the Marianas, Japan would be hopelessly cut off from supplies and that she would have to surrender.<ref>I Was There, Admiral William D. Leahy, New York, 1950, pgs. 245-259.</ref> But Gen. [[George c. Marshall]] was adamant. Admiral Leahy says that Marshall didn't seem to realize that the Navy had beaten Japan. .<ref>I Was There, Leahy, New York, pgs. 245-259.</ref>

Army Chief of Staff [[George C. Marshall]] believed that Japan would fight to the last man. Marshall insisted on preparing for a land invasion of Japan with an army of 2,000,000 men anticipating a tremendous number of casualties. Marshall further insisted that the Soviet Union becoming involved in the war was necessary to fight the Kwantung army Japan had in Manchuria. Marshall apparently was unaware that this army was deteriorated by levies for use in other parts of the Pacific.

==Japanese capitulation==

On August 6, 1945, a B-29 Superfortress, the Enola Gay, dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima. Then, on August 9, a B-29 dropped the second atomic bomb. On August 20 the Japanese government told the United States it was ready to accept the terms which the Allies proposed. The next day, the Allies replied, saying the authority of the emperor would be "subject to the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers." On August 14 the Japanese government agreed to this.

The Soviet Union declared war on Japan on August 8, 1945, in breach of the [[Matsuoka pact]] which was supposed to remain in force until April 1946.<ref>''The Japanese-Soviet Neutrality Pact: A Diplomatic History 1941-1945'', Boris Slavinsky, Nissan Institute Routledge Japanese Studies Series, 2003, pg. 1.</ref> Five days later, Soviet armies were in [[Korea]] with an force of 250,000 and weapons taken from the Japanese. An armed militia of 150,000 men was quickly organized.<ref>''Korea Today'', by George M. McCune, Cambridge, 1950, pgs. 178-179.</ref> Dr. [[Syngman Rhee]] who served as head of the Korean Provisional Government-in-Exile for many years, returned and set out to organize a republic in South Korea. He envisioned a unified republic, with a constitution and elections. But there was no wish for election or unity in the occupation zone of [[North Korea]].

Then, September 2, 1945, the Japanese government, along with all its military forces, formally surrendered to the United States. This happened in a ceremony aboard a United States battleship, the ''Missouri'', on [[Tokyo Bay]], where the [[Japanese Instrument of Surrender]] was signed. This was the ending of World War II, after six years almost to the day.

==Chinese Civil War resumes==

When the Japanese surrendered, the Chinese Nationalist army far outnumbered the Red revolutionary army. Then appeared Stalin's army of 1,250,000 men armed with American guns, planes, tanks and munitions and other supplies and the balance began to alter. And the Maoists had immense quantities of munitions laid down by the Japanese in the Manchuria.

General [[George C. Marshall]] was sent by [[President Truman]] as his personal representative to China, arriving on December 20, 1945. His specific instructions from Secretary of State [[James Byrnes]] were to insist on a coalition government of "unity" as a condition for continued aid to the Nationalists.<ref>''George C. Marshall, Statesman, 1945-1959'', Forrest C. Pogue, New York, 1987, pg. 61.</ref> [[CCP]] leader [[Mao Zedong]] already said publicly in April 1945 that a coalition government with the Chinese Nationalists would result in the defeat of "reactionary American imperialism."<ref>"On Coalition Government," address to the April 1945 Seventh National Convention of the Chinese Communist Party, quoted in Anthony Kubek, ''How the Far East Was Lost'', Chicago 1963, pg. 238.</ref>

Marshall held several meetings with [[Chiang Kai-shek]] or his delegates and with Mao's representative, [[Zhou Enlai]], and twice arranged ceasefires, in January and June of 1946. When the ceasefires was ordered the Communists held 57 counties. A year later they had 310—a violation of the truce. The Bolton Congressional report compiled a catalogue of the bridges, railway stations and other installations destroyed by the Communists during the ceasefire.<ref>Bolton Report, House Committee on Foreign Affairs (Sub-Committee No. 5) on Communism in China, 1948.</ref><ref>''History of the Chinese Communist Party'', Jacques Guillermaz, London, 1972, pg. 445.</ref><ref>''China: A Political History, 1917-1980'', Richard C. Thornton, Boulder, CO, 1982, pg. 192.</ref> Marshall however imposed an embargo on the [[Chinese Nationalist government]]. All aid of all sorts to the Kuomintang was discontinued until the summer of 1947 by which time the balance had shifted. Even then what the U.S. sent was insufficient to stem the Communist tide.

Gen. [[Douglas MacArthur]]'s Chief of Intelligence told the U.S. [[Senate Internal Security Subcommittee]] in 1951, "The real cause for the Communization of China is the long-range [[subversion|subversive]] operation, over the last two decades, conducted by professional Communists under orders of the [[Kremlin]]-controlled Third [[Comintern]]."<ref>[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,821608-3,00.html The Case Against '''[[I.P.R.]]'''], ''[[Time magazine]]'', September 03, 1951.</ref>

==Ukrainian Resistance==

==Fallout From World War II==

*[[Iron Curtain]]

*[[British Empire]]
The war effectively bankrupted Britain, which started the process of dismantling its empire. It was not until 2007 Britain finished paying off the loans to the USA which it had taken to fight Nazi Germany.

*the Netherlands and Indonesia
After the defeat of the Japanese empire, their army retired from the [[Dutch East Indies]] and the land was returned back to the Dutch. Quickly after that, the people of the islands revolted against the government on 17 August 1945 and declared themselves independent. The Dutch sent their “new” army to the colonies to restore order. The Dutch scored a number of victories, but after the political pressure from the USA and Australia the Dutch acknowledged in 27 December 1949 the sovereignty of [[Indonesia]]

*Supremacy of the USA in the Western World
Whilst most countries had seen their economies demolished by the war, the USA had industrialized heavily and made financial gains from sales of arms to other Allied countries. Prior to the war, one-third of Americans were employed in agriculture. The socioeconomic changes brought by returning soldiers, many of whom took advantage of a generous GI education benefits, precipitated the rise of the great American middle class.

*Supremacy of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe.

*[[Vietnam War]]
During the war the French lost their colony of Vietnam to the Japanese. At the end of the war they decided to reassert their colonial mastery, but the Vietnamese now had other ideas. The battle with the French would eventually lead into the Vietnam war after the French defeat and American intervention ensued to prevent the spread of Communism.

==See also==
*''Main article: [[Workers World Revolution]]
*[[Cairo conference]]
*[[Harry Dexter White]]
*[[Institute of Pacific Relations]]
*[[Lend-Lease Act]]

==Further reading==

*Gerhard L. Weinberg, ''Foreign Policy of Hitler's Germany: Starting World War II, 1937-1939'', Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980.
* Gerhard L. Weinberg, ''A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II'', Cambridge: University Press, 1994.
*[http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~epf/1997/padilla.html Kursk: The Turning Point on the Eastern Front in World War II], by Roberto R. Padilla II

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

== External Links ==
* United States Department of the Navy/Navy Historical Center's [http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq36-4.htm Fleet Admiral Chester William Nimitz]
* [http://www.onpower.org/history_wwii.html/ World War II]
* [http://www.independent.org/publications/tir/article.asp?issueID=12&articleID=139 "On the Brink of World War II: Justus Doenecke’s ''Storm on the Horizon''," by Ralph Raico]
* [http://www.independent.org/publications/working_papers/article.asp?id=1499 "Government and the Economy: The World Wars," by Robert Higgs]
* [http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=113 "How War Amplified Federal Power in the Twentieth Century," by Robert Higgs]
* [http://www.independent.org/store/book_detail.asp?bookID=65 ''Depression, War and Cold War'', by Robert Higgs]
* [http://www.independent.org/publications/article.asp?id=138 "Wartime Prosperity?", by Robert Higgs]
* [http://www.independent.org/issues/article.asp?id=1431 Pearl Harbor]
[[Category:World War II| ]]
[[Category:Wars]]

Tom DeLay

2007-11-06T01:03:45Z

Gadflie: Reworded sentence to reflect the position and party of the person bringing charges.

[[Image:Tomdelay.jpg|right|thumb|Congressman DeLay speaking at a Department of Transportation event]]

'''Thomas Dale DeLay''' (born 1947) is an American politician from Sugarland, Texas. He served in the [[House of Representatives]] from 1984 to 2006, representing the 22nd district in [[Texas]]. He was the House Majority Leader from 2003 to 2005 when the [[Republican Party|Republican]]s had control. DeLay stepped down to handle a response to charges his organization may have received unreported campaign donations from lobbyist [[Jack Abramoff]]. In 2005, DeLay was indicted by a Texas grand jury on charges related to the alleged payments, he made a pro-forma surrender to the police, and one of the indictments against him (conspiracy) <ref>[http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,286942,00.html Court Rules Against Reinstituting Tom DeLay Conspiracy Charge], ''Associated Press'', June 27, 2007.</ref> has been dropped. It has been reported the charges were brought by a Ronnie Earle, the Travis County District Attorney who is a member of the [[Democratic Party]].[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/28/AR2005092800270.html]

Critics of DeLay have taken to calling him "AIPAC's man in Congress."<ref>[http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Talk:Thomas_D._DeLay AIPAC's "man"], SourceWatch, Talk:Thomas D. DeLay, retrieved 06/13/07.</ref><ref>[http://timescorrespondents.typepad.com/baker/2006/04/justice_delayed.html#comment-15942285 Timesonline], retrieved 06/13/07.</ref><ref>[http://www.democrats.org/a/2005/10/tom_delay_im_st.php#comments001959 democrats.org], retrieved 06/13/07.</ref> AIPAC is the American Israeli Poltical Action Committee, a lobbying group in support of Israel. On January 1, 2003, Leader Tom DeLay was invited to address the [[Israeli]] [[Knesset]]. Leader Delay remarked,

{{Cquote|The solidarity between the United States and Israel is deeper than the various interests we share. It goes to the very nature of man, to the endowment of our G-d-given rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness... We know our victory in the [[war on terror]] depends on Israel’s survival. And we know Israel’s survival depends on the willingness of free nations – especially our own – to stand by all endangered democracies in their time of need...In short, it is the position of the people of the United States, as expressed by their representatives in Congress, that Israel’s fight is our fight...The common destiny of the United States and Israel is not an artificial alliance dictated by our leaders. It is a heartfelt friendship between the citizens of two democracies at war, bound by the solidarity of freedom. Brothers and sisters of Israel: Be not afraid. The American people stand with you. <ref>[http://www.tampabayprimer.org/index.cfm?action=articles&drill=viewArt&art=947 Speech of Congressman Tom DeLay at the Knesset], January 01, 2003.</ref>}}

==References==
<references/>

==External links==

*[http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=D000217 Official biography]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Delay, Tom}}

[[Category:United States Representatives]]
[[Category:Republican Party]]

Tom DeLay

2007-11-04T16:24:42Z

Gadflie: Reworded sentence. There is no such thing as a "District Attorney of the opposition Democratic Party" ~~~~

[[Image:Tomdelay.jpg|right|thumb|Congressman DeLay speaking at a Department of Transportation event]]

'''Thomas Dale DeLay''' (born 1947) is an American politician from Sugarland, Texas. He served in the [[House of Representatives]] from 1984 to 2006, representing the 22nd district in [[Texas]]. He was the House Majority Leader from 2003 to 2005 when the [[Republican Party|Republican]]s had control. DeLay stepped down to handle a response to charges his organization may have received unreported campaign donations from lobbyist [[Jack Abramoff]]. In 2005, DeLay was indicted by a Texas grand jury on charges related to the alleged payments, he made a pro-forma surrender to the police, and one of the indictments against him (conspiracy) <ref>[http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,286942,00.html Court Rules Against Reinstituting Tom DeLay Conspiracy Charge], ''Associated Press'', June 27, 2007.</ref> has been dropped. The charges were brought by Ronnie Earle (D), the District Attorney for Travis County.[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/28/AR2005092800270.html]

Critics of DeLay have taken to calling him "AIPAC's man in Congress."<ref>[http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Talk:Thomas_D._DeLay AIPAC's "man"], SourceWatch, Talk:Thomas D. DeLay, retrieved 06/13/07.</ref><ref>[http://timescorrespondents.typepad.com/baker/2006/04/justice_delayed.html#comment-15942285 Timesonline], retrieved 06/13/07.</ref><ref>[http://www.democrats.org/a/2005/10/tom_delay_im_st.php#comments001959 democrats.org], retrieved 06/13/07.</ref> AIPAC is the American Israeli Poltical Action Committee, a lobbying group in support of Israel. On January 1, 2003, Leader Tom DeLay was invited to address the [[Israeli]] [[Knesset]]. Leader Delay remarked,

{{Cquote|The solidarity between the United States and Israel is deeper than the various interests we share. It goes to the very nature of man, to the endowment of our G-d-given rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness... We know our victory in the [[war on terror]] depends on Israel’s survival. And we know Israel’s survival depends on the willingness of free nations – especially our own – to stand by all endangered democracies in their time of need...In short, it is the position of the people of the United States, as expressed by their representatives in Congress, that Israel’s fight is our fight...The common destiny of the United States and Israel is not an artificial alliance dictated by our leaders. It is a heartfelt friendship between the citizens of two democracies at war, bound by the solidarity of freedom. Brothers and sisters of Israel: Be not afraid. The American people stand with you. <ref>[http://www.tampabayprimer.org/index.cfm?action=articles&drill=viewArt&art=947 Speech of Congressman Tom DeLay at the Knesset], January 01, 2003.</ref>}}

==References==
<references/>

==External links==

*[http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=D000217 Official biography]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Delay, Tom}}

[[Category:United States Representatives]]
[[Category:Republican Party]]

Dinosaur

2007-11-04T01:46:15Z

Gadflie: reverting vandalism. ~~~~

[[Image:Fdt566e4.jpg|right|thumb|350px|Triceratops skeleton at the American Museum of Natural History.]]
'''Dinosaurs''' were large, reptilian creatures which are now generally believed to be extinct. The word '''dinosaur''' was coined in 1841 by Richard Owen<ref>[http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v14/i3/dinosaurs.asp Dinosaurs and dragons: stamping on the legends], ''Answers in Genesis''</ref>, from the [[Greek]] words δεινός (deinos [actual pronunciation: dhinos]) and σαύρα (saura [savra]), meaning "terrible lizard."

==Highlights of the history of dinosaur paleontology==
[[Image:Osborn.jpg‎‎|200px|thumb|right|[[Henry Fairfield Osborn]]]]
In the United States during the 1900s, the public imagination was caught by the discoveries of [[Henry Fairfield Osborn]] (1857-1935) and the great competitive dinosaur hunters, [[Edward Drinker Cope]] (1847-1897) and [[Othniel Charles Marsh]] (1831-1899). Exploring in Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico, they found numerous fossil dinosaurs. Their museums worked out the techniques for mounting and displaying them.

Osborn was a proponent of ''orthogenesis,'' as were many paleontologists up through the middle of the twentieth century. These paleontologists interpreted the fossil record as showing sustained, continuing, unidirectional trends in [[Theory of evolution|evolution]], which they felt required some kind of driving principle in addition to natural selection. As the author of an encyclopedia article on variation and selection put it in 1911,
:Selection cannot create the materials on which it is supposed to operate... Both sides concur in the position assumed by Darwin, that the word "chance" in such a phrase as "chance variation" does not mean that the occurrences are independent of natural causation and so far undetermined, but covers in the first place our ignorance of the exact causation.... No doubt a large amount of variation is truly indefinite, so that many meaningless or useless variations arise... But there are several directions in which the field of variation appears to be not only limited but defined in a certain direction.... When beetles, or medusae, or cats vary, the range of possible variation is limited and determined by the beetle, medusa or cat constitution, and any possible further differentiation or specialization must be in a sense at least orthogenetic - that is to say, a continuation of the line along which the ancestors of the individual in question have been forced. Darwin himself showed that different species in a genus, or varieties in a species, tended to show parallel variations.<ref>Mitchell, Peter Chalmers (1911), ''Variation and Selection,'' ''Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th edition,'' volume 27 (TON-VES), p. 906</ref>

[[Roy Chapman Andrews]] (1884–1960), said to be the prototype for the fictional Indiana Jones, is famous for his discovery of fossil dinosaur eggs in Outer Mongolia.

In the 1970, Robert Bakker catalyzed a new era of dinosaur paleontology with evidence that dinosaurs were fully warm-blooded ([[endotherms]]) and fast-moving.<ref>Benton, Michael J. (2000), ''Vertebrate Paleontology'' [http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0632056142&id=PQuKO7xqjNQC&pg=PA217&lpg=PA217&dq=%22robert+bakker%22&sig=imoHNyurTTCpztNV0Pp2EU7Fj6c p. 217]</ref>

==Dinosaur Species==
Dinosaurs were immensely varied, and included both herbivores and carnivores. Although many have been found in the fossil record, paleontologists expect that they have barely scratched the surface of the vast superorder that the dinosaurs encompassed.<ref>[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/09/060905-dinosaurs_2.html Vast Majority of Dinosaurs Still to Be Found, Scientists Say], ''National Geographic''</ref>

== Different Perspectives ==

Ever since the discovery of dinosaur fossils, there has been debate about whether and how dinosaurs fit into the history of life on Earth. Young-Earth creationists reject the [[uniformitarian]] time-scale, and therefore believe that humans and dinosaurs co-existed. Creationists also reject the now-popular idea that dinosaurs evolved into birds.

===Creationary Perspective===
[[Image:Michelangeloflood.jpg|thumb|250px|left|''The [[Great Flood|Flood]]'', by [[Michaelangelo]], detail from the [[Sistine Chapel]], 1509.]]
[[Creationism|Young Earth Creationists]] believe, from the biblical account, that dinosaurs were created on day 6 of the [[Creation Week|creation week]]<ref>''Genesis'' 1:25</ref> approximately 6,000 years ago, along with other land animals, and therefore co-existed with humans.
As such, they reject the [[Theory of Evolution]] and the beliefs of evolutionary scientists about the age of the earth.

They believe that dinosaurs lived in harmony with other animals, (probably including in the [[Garden of Eden]]) eating only plants<ref>''Genesis'' 1:29-30</ref>; that pairs of each dinosaur [[kind]] were taken onto [[Noah's Ark]] during the [[Great Flood]] and were preserved from drowning<ref>[http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/3967/ Were dinosaurs on Noah’s Ark?], ''Creation Ministries International''</ref>; that many of the fossilized dinosaur bones originated during the mass killing of the Flood<ref>Carl Wieland, [http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/219/ Dinosaur bones—just how old are they really?], ''Creation'', vol. 21 No. 1 p. 54</ref>; and that possibly some descendants of those dinosaurs taken aboard the Ark are still around today.<ref Name="Today">Robert Doolan, [http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/833/ Are dinosaurs alive today?], ''Creation'', vol. 15 No. 4 p. 12.</ref>

They use [[archaeological]], [[fossil]], and documentary evidence to argue that dinosaurs co-existed with mankind until at least relatively recent times.

Because the term only came into use in the 19th century, the [[Bible]] does not use the word "dinosaur." However, they are alleged to be mentioned in numerous places throughout the biblical account. For example, the [[behemoth]] in [[Job]] and the [[leviathan]] in [[Isaiah]] are sometimes said to be references to dinosaurs,<ref>Allan K. Steel, [http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/1799 Could Behemoth have been a dinosaur?], ''Journal of Creation'' vol. 15 No. 2 p. 42.</ref> <ref>[http://www.answersincreation.org/job4041a.htm], ''Answers in Creation''</ref>, although others have claimed that Behemoth and Leviathan are references to a hippopotamus or elephant and a crocodile respectively. Young-Earth creationists point out that the descriptions don't fit these creatures, including that hippopotamuses and elephants don't have a "tail like a cedar".

==== Extinction ====

Creationists reject the "Great Impact Theory", pointing out multiple problems with this theory. <ref>Jonathan Sarfati, [http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/2426 Did a meteor wipe out the dinosaurs?].</ref>

Creationists assert that evolutionists are frequently coming out with a "New Theory of Dinosaur Extinction" and that their theories are laden with false assumptions. <ref>Michael Matthews, [http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2002/1115dinosaur.asp Dinosaur demise theory, version #451], ''Answers in Genesis''</ref> It is worth noting, however, that more and more of these theories are being harmonized with one another.<ref>[http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=21082 More Than a Meteor Likely Killed Dinosaurs 65 Million Years Ago], ''SpaceRef.com''</ref>

====Dinosaur-like creatures in history and modern sightings====

Creationists cite a number of reasons to believe that dinosaurs have existed until relatively recent times, and perhaps still survive.
[[Image:AZ_RockArtDino1a.jpg‎|right|150|thumb|right|Charles W. Gilmore, Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology with the United States National Museum, examined an ancient pictograph which he claimed portrays dinosaurs and man coexisting]]
* There have been a number of claimed sightings of dinosaur-like creatures.
** A thousand people reported seeing a dinosaur-like monster in two sightings around Sayram Lake in Xinjiang according to the Chinese publication, China Today.<ref name="Today" />
** Among those who believe in the existence of the [[Loch Ness Monster]], one popular theory is that it is a living [[plesiosaur]].<ref>"New Quest Is Haunted By 'Nessie'", ''The New York Times,'' July 14, 1992, p. C4: "Believers say it resembles a plesiosaur and was trapped in Loch Ness during the Ice Age 12,000 years ago. The plesiosaurs were marine reptiles who are thought to have lived 65 million to 200 million years ago."</ref>
** Locals in the Congo have reported a creature they name ''Mokele-member''<ref name="Today" /><ref>[http://www.mokelembembe.com/ Mokele-mbembe The Living Dinosaur!]</ref>, and from its description it appears to be a small plant-eating dinosaur. The reports have been taken seriously enough that a biologist from [[Chicago University]] has made several expeditions to find the creature. Another biologist has reported seeing the creature.<ref name="Today" />
* There are drawings of creatures resembling dinosaurs.
** An expedition which included Charles W. Gilmore, Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology with the United States National Museum, examined an ancient pictograph which he claimed portrays dinosaurs and man coexisting.<ref>[http://www.creationism.org/swift/DohenyExpedition/Doheny01Main.htm Doheny Scientific Expedition, Hava Supai Canyon, Arizona], ''Creationism.org''</ref><ref>[http://www.christiancourier.com/articles/read/the_hava_supai_dinosaur_carving The Hava Supai Dinosaur Carving], ''ChristianCourier.com''</ref>.
** The [[Nile Mosaic of Palestrina]], a second century piece of art, is said to appear to be a piece of artwork that shows a dinosaur and man coexisting. <ref>[http://www.s8int.com/dinolit2.html Dinosaurs in Literature, Art & History-- Page 2], ''s8int.com''</ref>
** Engravings in the floor of [[Carlisle Cathedral]] appear to be of dinosaurs. They are on the tomb of bishop Richard Bell, who died in 1496.<ref>See picture on page 241 of Batten, Don, et. al., 2007, ''The Creation Answers Book''.</ref>
* Creatures matching dinosaurs and similar creatures have been described by various people groups.
** The description of the "[[Thunder bird]]" of [[American Indian]]s matches the descriptions of [[pterosaur]]s.<ref name="Today" />

* Descriptions of [[dragon]]s are widespread and match descriptions of dinosaurs, suggesting that dragons were real creatures and were actually dinosaurs
** The World Book Encyclopedia states that: "The [[dragon]]s of legend are strangely like actual creatures that have lived in the past. They are much like the great reptiles [dinosaurs] which inhabited the earth long before man is supposed to have appeared on earth." <ref>Quoted in [http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/FAQ25.html What about the Dinosaurs?], ''CreationScience.com''</ref>. Dragons exist in the folklore of many European and Asian cultures.<ref name="WB2000">''Dragon'' entry in World Book Millennium 2000 CD ROM</ref> World Book Encyclopedia says, "In Europe, dragons are traditionally portrayed as ferocious beasts that represent the evils fought by human beings. But in Asia, especially in China and Japan, the animals are generally considered friendly creatures that ensure good luck and wealth."<ref Name="WB2000" />
** Dragons appear in the flag of [[Wales]], in traditional [[China|Chinese]] [[New Years' Day]] celebrations, and in the Chinese [[calendar]]. Every other creature on the calendar is a real creature.
[[Image:Palestrina1.jpg|right|thumb|A portion of the artwork the [[Nile Mosaic of Palestrina]]]]
* That dinosaurs are not known from the fossil record above the [[Cretaceous]] strata is not reason to believe that they have not survived until more recent times.
** Living specimens of orders of animals that were believed to have been extinct for millions of years have been found before, such as the Diatomyidae Squirrel <ref>[[Diatomyidae]] Squirrel [http://news.softpedia.com/news/They-Thought-It-Went-Extinct-11-Million-Years-Ago-19557.shtml]</ref>, the [[Wollemi Pine]] <ref>Wollemi Pine ''Biotechnology Australia'' [http://www.biotechnologyonline.gov.au/enviro/wollemi.cfm]</ref> and the [[Coelacanth]] <ref>Sulawesi Coelacanth. ''University Of California, Berkeley''[http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/vertebrates/coelacanth/coelacanths.html]</ref> <ref>More on the Coelacanth ''marinebio.org''[http://marinebio.org/species.asp?id=54]</ref>.

* The recent dinosaur tissue find is a strong rebuttal of the claim that dinosaurs lived millions of years ago. <ref>Carl Wieland, [http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/3042 Still soft and stretchy], ''Creation Ministries International''</ref>



==== Dinosaurs and birds ====
Creationists contend that the idea that birds are descendants of dinosaurs is not demonstrated by the evidence <ref>[http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/3833/106/ Bird evolution?], ''Creation Ministries International''</ref> <ref>Andy McIntosh, [http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/540/ 100 years of airplanes—but these weren’t the first flying machines!], ''Creation'' vol. 26 No. 1 p. 44</ref>, and that the dinosaur-bird connection is even disputed by some evolutionists.

In his article, "Fifteen ways to refute materialistic bigotry", Dr. [[Jonathan Sarfati]] wrote regarding dinosaurs being descendants of birds:
{{cquote|“The same logic applies to the dinosaur-[[bird]] debate. It is perfectly in order for creationists to cite [[Alan Feduccia|Feduccia]]’s devastating criticism against the idea that birds evolved ‘ground up’ from running dinosaurs (the cursorial theory). But the dino-to-bird advocates counter with equally powerful arguments against Feduccia’s ‘trees-down’ (arboreal) theory. The evidence indicates that the critics are ''both'' right — birds did not evolve either from running dinos or from tree-living mini-crocodiles. In fact, birds did not evolve from non-birds at all!<ref>Jonathan Sarfati, [http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/2610 15 ways to refute materialistic bigotry], ''Creation Ministries International''</ref>}}

Creationists also cite the evolutionist [[Ernst Mayr]] who stated the following:
{{cquote|“It must be admitted, however, that it is a considerable strain on one’s credulity to assume that finely balanced systems such as certain sense organs (the eye of vertebrates, or the bird’s feather) could be improved by random mutations." <ref>[http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/ReferencesandNotes10.html In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood], ''Center for Scientific Creation''</ref>}}

The March 2003 issue of ''Scientific American'' is also cited by creationists:
{{cquote|Of all the body coverings nature has designed, feathers are the most various and the most mysterious...The origin of feathers is a specific instance of the much more general question of the origin of evolutionary novelties--structures that have no clear antecedents in ancestral animals and no clear related structures (homologues) in contemporary relatives. Although evolutionary theory provides a robust explanation for the appearance of minor variations in the size and shape of creatures and their component parts, it does not yet give as much guidance for understanding the emergence of entirely new structures, including digits, limbs, eyes and feathers...." <ref>Michael Matthews, [http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2003/0313sciam.asp Scientific American admits creationists hit a sore spot], ''Answers in Genesis''</ref> <ref>[http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000CD7F6-B16F-1E41-89E0809EC588EEDF Which Came First, the Feather or the Bird?], ''Scientific American''</ref>}}

Creationists also assert that the comparative anatomy analysis done by evolutionists comparing bird bones and dinosaur bones is flawed. <ref>Dr. David N. Menton, [http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2005/0328discovery.asp "Ostrich-osaurus" Discovery?], ''Answers in Genesis''</ref>

===Evolutionary/Old Earth Perspective===

The view of [[Theory of evolution|evolutionists]] and others who accept the uniformitarian timescale is that dinosaurs existed on earth from 230 million years ago to 65 million years ago. In this view, the entire population of dinosaurs were wiped out by a mass extinction event (usually thought to be an asteroid) about 65 million years ago.
This precludes humans and dinosaurs co-existing.

====Extinction====

According to most scientists, close to 65 million years ago, at the end of the [[Cretaceous]] period, and the beginning of what is called the [[Tertiary]] period, an event occurred which has come to be known as the [[K-T Event]]. This event would have obliterated most life on Earth, plunging the world into something that would now be likened to global nuclear winter, through which few extant species could survive. Although these scientists dispute the nature of the K-T Event (selecting among any number of catastrophes that could have caused the significant global cooling that resulted), most find that the claimed K-T Event was caused by the collision of a massive asteroid with the Earth, the dust and debris from which would have shrouded the sky for thousands of years, cooling Earth considerably.<ref>Kevin O Pope, "Meteorite impact and the mass extinction of species at the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary," Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, available at [http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/95/19/11028]</ref> According to this view, the dinosaurs did not survive this cataclysm.<ref>[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/08/0823_020823_asteroid.html Prehistoric Asteroid "Killed Everything"], ''National Geographic''</ref> A layer of rock containing high concentrations of [[Iridium]], a metal that is extremely rare on earth but common in asteroids, is said to be due to the vaporization and then fall of dust from the meteorite's impact, and its compression within the subsequent geological record.<ref>''Ibid''</ref>The evidence of a large impact crater can be found in rocks of the Yucatan Peninsula of the supposed age of this layer.<ref>[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/03/0307_030307_impactcrater.html "Dinosaur-Killer" Asteroid Crater Imaged for First Time], ''National Geographic''</ref> <ref>http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/education/events/cowen1b.html</ref>
Creationists assert that the assumptions underpinning the methods used by modern geologists are incorrect, and even though the validity of a large impact is accepted, this does not consitute proof that the impact caused the extinction of the dinosaurs—although the abundance of dinosaur fossils in rocks found higher in the rock layers than the impact is drastically less than their abundance in rocks lower down.{{fact}}

====An Explosion of new species ====

The mass extinction of the dinosaurs removed a major food competitor, and predator, of smaller animals. As a result of a new "vacancy" in the food chain, following the [[K-T Event]], vast speciation occurred, as the evolutionary pressure of a new cold age propelled animal species to adapt or die out. According to this view, [[mammals]] were some of the main beneficiaries of this explosion: their fur allowed them to adapt to the cold, and their small size allowed them to conserve energy relative to the huge dinosaurs of the previous age.<ref>Bennet, Shostak, Jakotsky, "Life in the Universe," viewable at [http://www.amazon.com/Life-Universe-Jeffrey-Bennett/dp/0805385770]</ref>

====Dinosaurs and Birds====

As a number of feathered fossils (claimed to be dinosaurs) have been discovered, and evolutionary scientists claim the similarity in the bone structure between birds and dinosaurs show that modern birds are a descendants of dinosaurs. This is often cited as an example of [[macroevolution]].<ref>[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/10/1006_041006_feathery_dino.html New Dinosaur Discovered: T. Rex Cousin Had Feathers], ''National Geographic''</ref> Cladists place modern birds within the clade dinosauria, meaning that they consider all bird species today as, technically, dinosaurs.<ref>[http://tolweb.org/Dinosauria/14883/1999.01.01 Tree of Life Web Project.] 1999. Dinosauria. Version 01 January 1999 (temporary). Accessed 30 May 2007.</ref>

==Dinosaur fossils and Human Fossils and Geological Strata ==
It is sometimes asserted that if human bones aren’t found with dinosaur bones, then dinosaurs and man didn’t live together.<ref name="HaD">Hodge, Bodie, [http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v1/n1/humans-and-dinosaurs If humans and dinosaurs lived together, why don’t we find human fossils with dinosaur fossils?] ''Answers'' 1(1):52, May 2006.</ref>
Creation scientists point out that this is a false assumption; if human bones aren’t found buried with dinosaur bones, it simply means they weren't buried together.<ref name="HaD" />

Evolutionists point out that [[radiometric dating]] of rocks containing dinosaur bones shows them to have formed between 65 million years ago and 250 million years ago, whereas rocks with human bones in them are dated as being much newer (less than 5 million years old). Young Earth Creationists believe that these methods of dating rocks provide false results, and therefore reject this argument.

Creationists note that the fossil record contains mainly marine organisms and that a small sliver of the fossil record contains vertebrates and thus assert that we shouldn't expect to find many human fossils at all.<ref name="HaD" />
Moreover, as the biblical [[Great Flood|Flood]] would be a marine catastrophe, it would be expected that marine fossils would dominate the fossil record. This is in fact what we find.<ref name="NAB">Hodge, Bodie, [http://www.answersingenesis.org/PublicStore/pdfs/SampleChapter/10-2-267.pdf Why Don’t We Find Human & Dinosaur Fossils Together?] (chapter 13 of the New Answers Book), 2006.</ref>

Approximately 70% of the Earth is covered in salt water which would also explain the dominance of marine fossils. In addition, creation scientists assert there may have been a small pre-flood human population and that massive amounts of flood sediment are why we haven’t found human fossils in pre-biblical flood sediments.<ref name="NAB" />
Also, creation scientists point out that we don't find human bones buried with [[coelacanth]]s yet humans and coelacanths coexist today.<ref name="HaD" />

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

[[Category:Dinosaurs]]

Ohio State University

2007-11-04T01:15:47Z

Gadflie:

The '''Ohio State University''' is the state run, public [[university]] serving [[Ohio]] in [[Columbus_(city)|Columbus]]. The University was founded in 1870 with a land grant over 15,655 acres and today has the largest population at a single campus of universities in the United States with an enrollment of nearly 52,000 students. The University has an endowment of over 2 billion dollars. <ref>http://www.osu.edu/osutoday/stuinfo.php</ref>.

Varsity Sports Teams at the OSU are the Buckeyes and Lady Buckeyes.

==References==
<References/>

==Links==
[http://www.osu.edu| Ohio State University Official Website]

[http://ohiostatebuckeyes.com/ Ohio State University Athletics]

[[Category:Colleges and Universities]]

Global Warming Controversy

2007-11-04T00:47:39Z

Gadflie:

The controversy over the science of [[global warming]] is mainly over the extent of human contribution to warming, as well as a dispute over predictions of near-future warming and its effect on human beings and the environment.

Among registered U.S. voters, opinion is split neatly down the middle, with 75% of Democrats believing that "the science is settled" in favor of the [[anthropogenic global warming theory]] and 73% of Republicans affirming that there is no scientific consensus.

In any event, it is important to remember that public opinion does not change the physical reality. Even if 100% of people of both parties belive in anthropogenic climate change, if the reality is that mankind is not responsible, then public opinion to the contrary does not change that fact--and vast amounts of money could be wasted in curbing CO2 emissions when there is no need. On the other hand, if anthropogenic warming is occurring, then no amount of public denial will cool the climate down again--only positive action will.

==Links==
*[http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=303 Global Warming: A Divide on Causes and Solutions] - public opinion poll by Pew Research Center

[[Category:Global Warming]]

Global Warming Controversy

2007-11-04T00:46:52Z

Gadflie: removed misleading language ~~~~

The controversy over the science of [[global warming]] is mainly over the extent of human contribution to warming, as well as a dispute over predictions of near-future warming and its effect on human beings and the environment.

Among registered U.S. voters, opinion is split neatly down the middle, with 75% of Democrats believing that "the science is settled" in favor of the anthropogenic global warming theory and 73% of Republicans affirming that there is no scientific consensus.

In any event, it is important to remember that public opinion does not change the physical reality. Even if 100% of people of both parties belive in anthropogenic climate change, if the reality is that mankind is not responsible, then public opinion to the contrary does not change that fact--and vast amounts of money could be wasted in curbing CO2 emissions when there is no need. On the other hand, if anthropogenic warming is occurring, then no amount of public denial will cool the climate down again--only positive action will.

==Links==
*[http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=303 Global Warming: A Divide on Causes and Solutions] - public opinion poll by Pew Research Center

[[Category:Global Warming]]

Ted Nugent

2007-11-03T23:05:43Z

Gadflie:

[[Image:450px-Ted_Nugent_in_concert.jpg|right|250px|thumb]]
'''Ted Nugent''' (b. 12/13/1948) is a [[conservative]] musician, originally from [[Detroit]], [[Michigan]], but currently living in [[Texas]]. He has recorded 30 albums that have sold over 35 million copies worldwide. He has published several books, including a cookbook he co-authored with his wife, Shermane. Nugent is an avid [[hunting|hunter]] and is often criticized by liberal animal rights protesters. He is a friend of [[George W. Bush]]. [http://www.tednugent.com/news/tv_stranglehold.shtml]

Nugent is on the Board of Directors of the [[National Rifle Association]]. He supports the American military but never served himself. He also is a strong supporter of the [[Republican Party]]. Nugent also believes that [[homosexuality]] is an abomination.

[[category:conservative people]]
[[category:musicians]]