To understand the extent of the loss to America in New Orleans’s decimation by Hurricane Katrina, a bit of British history is worthy of study.

India was traditionally known as the jewel in the crown of the British Empire. Colonized by Britain in 1858, the acquisition of India by the empire led to Queen Victoria adding to her regal imperial titles the phrase “Empress of India” in 1877.

The acquisition of the Indian subcontinent by Britain opened up an eastern door, a great sea gateway, which consolidated the empire’s reach into all hemispheres—north, south, west and east. Its possession enhanced Britain’s strategic trade and security structure as a globe-girdling empire beyond anything before or since. The whole world became the beneficiary, to one extent or another, of this British influence.

The British were fulfilling a great prophecy of God. They became a great company of nations (Genesis 35:11). This gift of the Indian subcontinent added tremendously to the wealth of the empire materially, politically, culturally and economically.

The influence of that great empire still impacts the old British colonies to this day. It all hinged on Britain’s possession of the world’s major sea gates (Genesis 22:17; 24:60). The extent of these possessions by one nation had never before occurred in history, and has never been matched since.

Paradoxically, even as it was the colonizing of India that made Britain’s empire the greatest company of nations in history, it was the loss of that prime piece of real estate, when India was granted independence in 1947, that accelerated Great Britain’s demise as a great imperial power. The decolonization of India portended a rush by Britain—a nation exhausted following two great world wars—to grant independence from British rule to most of the rest of its vast foreign possessions. Just 20 years later, the once vast British Empire was no more. Dispossessed of its strategic sea gates, Britain became a second-rate power.

Now to New Orleans.

Track back to the year 1803. Napoleon is grasping for funds to fight his megalomaniacal wars. The upshot is a take-it-or-leave-it offer to the U.S. to purchase a huge swath of French-owned territory in North America, centered around that which we know as the state of Louisiana, for just $15 million. The Americans grabbed the deal.

Known as the Louisiana Purchase, this acquisition gave the evolving, upstart nation the most strategic of land possessions, with a potentially large seaport providing a crucial junction for the inland water routes of North America, at the mouth of the great trunk route of the Mississippi River. It was this famous purchase that enabled the rocketing of the U.S. into the position of politically the greatest, most economically successful single nation on Earth. The U.S. had inherited and was fulfilling the great promise God made to its patriarch over 3,000 years before (Genesis 35:11). And it all revolved around a great river and sea gateway. Louisiana, with its great port of New Orleans, became the jewel in America’s crown.

Then, just over 200 years later—disaster!

One of the greatest storms in U.S. history struck at the heart of this greatest of America’s seaports. New Orleans’s whole city infrastructure is taken out. The workforce has fled. America has sustained the most mortal of geopolitical wounds—within its own shores—in its entire history as a nation. A great sea gate lies crippled. The jewel in America’s crown is crushed, not by any strike from its enemies, not from any nuclear missile, nor from any flying Islamic bombs—but by a quirk of weather!

Media commentary has focused, emotionally, on the human factor, and to a lesser extent, the impact on the oil industry, with its concomitant result of higher gas prices at the pump. What is missing is insightful analysis of the massive geopolitical impact of this latest curse on the United States, and the ripple effect on the whole global economy.

One phrase, from a thoughtful article in an Australian newspaper called the Age, pointed to the heart of the situation, calling it “[t]he aorta of the American economy ripped asunder.” This disaster has the effect of “disrupting shipping and rail networks and sending prices for lumber, coffee and other commodities soaring” (September 2).

Take a look at a map of the U.S. Its entire road, rail and goods distribution infrastructure, the veins and arteries of commerce, are all geared to one major clearing point—the huge handling facilities of the Ports of South Louisiana (posl) and New Orleans located on the southern end of the mighty Mississippi River. “On its own merit, the Port of South Louisiana is the largest port in the United States by tonnage and the fifth-largest in the world. … [T]he New Orleans port complex … is where the bulk commodities of agriculture go out to the world and the bulk commodities of industrialism come in. The commodity chain of the global food industry starts here, as does that of American industrialism” (Stratfor, September 1).

Katrina’s strike on New Orleans is not just a local disaster for the state of Louisiana. It is a national disaster. Not only that, its effects will be global.

Dr. George Friedman, who heads up the prime U.S. think tank, Texas-based Stratfor Systems, puts it this way: “[I]t seems almost as if a nuclear weapon went off in New Orleans. … It appears to us that New Orleans and its environs have passed the point of recoverability. … It is not about the facilities, and it is not about the oil. It is about the loss of a city’s population and the paralysis of the largest port in the United States” (ibid.). This truly gets to the crux of the problem the U.S. now faces.

The jewel in America’s entire system of national and international commerce has been taken out. As Friedman further observes: “Katrina has taken out the port—not by destroying its facilities, but by rendering the area uninhabited and potentially uninhabitable. That means that even if the Mississippi remains navigable, the absence of a port near the mouth of the river makes the Mississippi enormously less useful than it was. For these reasons, the United States has lost not only its biggest port complex, but also the utility of its river transport system—the foundation of the entire American transport system” (ibid.).

Many of our readers will remember that Herbert W. Armstrong once pointed to the Louisiana Purchase as being the seminal event that enabled the U.S. to suddenly rise from its status as a nation of little geopolitical influence to that of the singular greatest nation in history. “By 1804 London had become the financial hub of the world. The United States had exploded out of its swaddling clothes of the 13 original states and had acquired the expansive Louisiana Purchase. It was fast sprouting up to become the mightiest nation of all time” (The United States and Britain in Prophecy). At just 3 cents an acre, the Louisiana Purchase is considered perhaps the greatest real estate deal of all time. Thomas Jefferson called it “a transaction replete with blessings to unborn millions of men.” Henry Adams also wrote that this purchase was “an event so portentous as to defy measurement.”

With the stroke of a quill in 1803, America—small and relatively unproven in affairs of state—nearly doubled in size overnight. It set this great nation on a course that would propel it into being the greatest single nation ever to exist.

Two centuries later, the loss of America’s greatest port complex attaches itself to a history that goes back thousands of years. It’s about the history of two nations—one destined to become the greatest global empire known to man, the other slated to become the single greatest ever nation. This still-unfolding history was prophesied millennia ago. The prophesies are published for all to read in the Bible; their meaning is made clear in the book authored by Mr. Armstrong from which we quoted above. (Copies of this book, available free of charge, may be requested from this website.) This history has to do with the U.S. and Britain. In this instance of Louisiana, what was prophesied millennia ago has now become documented historical fact. It concerns a history of great national blessings and an emerging immediate future of huge curses.

Consider the following event that occurred 10 years ago. It is part of this unfolding equation of blessings and cursings prophesied for the U.S. and Britain.

In the April 1995 Trumpet, editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote, “Barings Bank of Britain recently lost $1 billion and collapsed. This investment firm’s long history dates back 233 years. It financed the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 for a fledgling United States! This debacle has shaken the financial world. But if the world truly understood, it would be far more terrifying—and at the same time very inspiring!

“This most prestigious bank actually financed the Louisiana Purchase—the very beginning of our birthright blessings from God! Now that bank has collapsed and the throne of David is being repeatedly degraded. It is all closely tied to Bible prophecy.”

Look at the history. The British, unknowing that it was Almighty God who gave them their empire, rose seemingly overnight from a small island nation to international greatness in the early 19th century, with London becoming the financial capital of the world. By just beyond the mid-20th century, their empire was gone. In 1995, Britain’s most prestigious bank, the bank that underwrote America’s Louisiana Purchase, collapsed. Ten years later, the vibrant hub of American commerce which that purchase enabled, the great river and sea gateway of portside Louisiana, is paralyzed, the nation’s whole transport infrastructure crippled.

From blessings to cursings. That’s the evolving history of the U.S. and Britain.

We have long been satiated by the blessings—but we have refused to give our great God the credit for them, let alone begin obeying our Creator! The time of Britain’s and America’s blessings is now history. This is the time of cursings—cursings for disobedience to our most loving and merciful God.

Thus, as the loving parent of humankind, our God is now moving to correct us for our gross national sins and disobedience to His immutable law. Katrina was a curse upon America! New Orleans is now a powerful witness to that truth. And this, along with the 9/11 terror strikes, is just the beginning!

View the Key of David video on this website for more understanding as to why these events are beginning to hurt our nations—and begin to understand why these events are starting even to affect your life, and what you can begin to do about it.