Revisionists argue that Pearl Harbor, while horrible, did what Roosevelt wanted: It galvanized Americans and drove the country into World War II against the Axis powers.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt needed Japan to attack the United States to inflame Americans and force the country from its isolationist stance. It worked, the argument goes. America entered the war.
After meeting FDR at the Atlantic Conference (August 14, 1941) Churchill noted the "astonishing depth of Roosevelt's intense desire for war." But there was a problem: the President could not overcome the resistance to "Europe's war" felt by most Americans and their elected representatives.
On 7 December 1941 the greatest disaster in United States history occurred. Truly this was and is, “’A date which will live in infamy.’”, but not for the bombing of Pearl Harbor, rather for the deception and the miss-guidance used by the Government and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
In a purely artificial chess game Roosevelt sacrificed over 2400 American Seamen’s lives, thanks to his power as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces.
By over-looking the obvious facts of an attack by Japan on Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt was able to control both the political and economic systems of the United States.
Most of American society before the Pearl Harbor bombing believed in the idea of isolationism. Franklin D. Roosevelt knew this, and knew the only way in which United States countrymen would take arms and fight in Europe’s War was to be an overt action against the United States by a member of the Axis Power.
There are numerous accounts of actions by Roosevelt and his top armed forces advisors, which reveal they were not only aware of an attack by Japan, but also they were planning on it, and instigating that attack.
On 7 October 1940, Lieutenant Commander Arthur H. McCollum, head of the Far East desk of the Office of Naval Intelligence, wrote the eight-action memo. This memo outlined eight different steps the United States could do that he predicted would lead to an attack by Japan on the United States.
The day after this memo was given to Franklin D. Roosevelt, he began to implement these steps.
The intercepts show that American radio operators in Hawaii, Corregidor in the Phillippines and near Half Moon Bay here in the Bay Area tracked the Japanese fleet before the Pearl Harbor attack. The information went to Washington - but it never reached the two key commanders in Hawaii.
From Chimp Planet
6 comments:
Provide some links. Couldn't you dig up something from wikipedia at least?
Thanks Sean,
I did put up links! Almost the entire article is linked. Click anywhere! Actually this is old news!
My apologies, not accustomed to an entire article being a single link. :)
I'll meet you part way and agree US military leadership (inc. Roosevelt) had the opportunity, and possible knowledge of the attack. This isn't shocking for me to consider.
Where that source lost credibility, is the end with the rant about a satanic free mason (Illuminati?) conspiracy.
To say the US provoked Japan into war gives a false impression.
The Empire was doing plenty of bad stuff across Asia and the Pacific well before Dec. 1941. Years ago I met with residents of Taiwan and Korean who lived during Japanese occupation. To keep this post civil, I'll just say there was the highest imaginable animosity from those survivors towards Japan. We can forgive and forget, but Imperial Japan was on the wrong side of history.
Thanks
-Sean
Thanks Sean!
Sean's a idiot. There are MANY Taiwanese who served in the Japanese army and consider Japan their homeland.
More importantly, they are all thankful for the infrastructure and agricultural knowhow Japan provided to the country. They all speak fluent Japanese and often talk about how things went downhill, in terms of crime and burglary, after Japan pulled out.
I've been going to Taiwan since 1985 and have a great many friends there, all of them extremely successful and from families that struggled to make their fortune after WWII.
He should do speak from experience instead of slinging mud at Japan.
Besides, what the heck does that have to do with Roosevelt forcing America into a war she had no business participating in?
Thanks for enlightening the ignorant, with the acceptation of Sean, Mike!
"i"
@Ira
I'm no expert, but I did live in Taipei from 1987-1990. I was only sharing my personal experience I gained from speaking with a few people.
While my experience with Korea is much more limited, for some reason the S. Korean government had a ban on Japanese Cultural imports until 1998: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan%E2%80%93Korea_relations#From_Japan_to_South_Korea
I don't personally agree with that policy, but my thought is you don't impose trading bans with friends. This suggests popular Korean post-war opinion of Japan was negative for many years.
Please don't think I have some agenda against Japan. There are many things I love dearly from Japan.
Everything said, you will not get me to concede that in WWII Imperial Japan was some benevolent empire serving a mission of compassion. We can agree to disagree on that, but don't call me an idiot or a liar.
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