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Politics "Under democracy, one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule -and both commonly succeed, and are right." -H.L. Menken

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Old 05-17-2005, 08:47 PM   #51
MrMaelstrom
 
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-You seem to know a lot about golf!

-I know even more about grass :wink:
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Old 05-17-2005, 09:27 PM   #52
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ice


S'the D-o-double-g-izzle :wink:



:shock: .........


...
......




















.......







Um,...









What the fizzle is that pizzle doin' up in mah hizzy?!


((Sorry, had to do it))



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Old 05-18-2005, 11:53 AM   #53
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Asurai, it is never right to kill a civilian, period. Combat should be kept between soldiers. What excuse is there for the genocide that our country committed on Japan? We can't rationalize things like that away. We can't say "Well, if you kill one of mine we'll take out not only your family, but your city." No. That's just wrong to me and wreaks of the gangster mentality. Where would it end?
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Old 05-18-2005, 12:38 PM   #54
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You can't justify a country's atrocities by claiming the other countries are guilty of their own.

Nothing justifies them.

You start down that road, then the next step is to avoid dealing with them.
The mindset continues, and they occur again.

You acknowledge them and take steps to punish or at least acknowledge them, and try to make sure that they don't happen again. We have to be responsible for our country's mistakes. Crimes. Atrocities. Injustices.

That isn't anti-country. It makes the country better. The U.S. has done a lot of harm. To the native americans, to the japanese, to our minorities, to others. When it happens, most people in the U.S. are angry and want the people responsible taken to task.

It doesn't mean we should agree with all the charges laid against us. I don't think there's a country in the world that could honestly say they haven't been misrepresented, so some aren't true.

But the ones that are should not be ignored or covered up, and they can't be justified.
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Old 05-18-2005, 03:28 PM   #55
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SI:
Quote:
Originally Posted by MrM
I smell a dog picture coming...
Just being ironic here, s'all :wink:
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Old 05-18-2005, 06:31 PM   #56
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wolfmoon-fighting should only be kept between soldiers? Morally, theoretically, etc, yes. However, you're missing, oh, about 90% of warfare.

See, you can go about exposuing this idea that civilians are/should be kept out of the way (and ideally, they are). However, civilian populations do make a wonderful target. Killing off an enemies family, friends, etc, demoralises them a good portion of the time. (that idea that if you kill somebodys family, they're gonna come after you for revenge? PLEASE! Basic psychology will tell you that whilst such fantasies are entertained in the minds of survivors, they're usually in such a state of shock that they really can't put more than a few cogent thoughts together. Now, whilst this separation is good for creating an army that follows orders, this doesn't mean that they've got the blood-lust. In fact, such as in World War 2, the problem of morale goes from a low-end annoyance to a major situation). This has been a major factor in most wars throughout history.

Not to mention the fact that during times of wars, we are propagandised with the idea that there are no civilians on the other side. The obvious form of this are slurs ('gooks", "japs", "sand-******s", etc), but it also goes into HOW the war itself is portrayed in the media. See, if you have the idea that you are in constant danger from an "enemy" of some type hammered into your head, you're gonna see less and less "civilians"and more and more "enemies" (basic psychology once again). Thus, making the killing of civilians not a moral ambiguity for the families of the soldiers killing them.

And one more thing to add upon all of this (to expand upon the HOW the war is portrayed).....making our side right and their side wrong. It's (again) basic psychology that any group we belong to will always try to find justification for actions taken up in our collective name. (The obvious example...."we are spreading democracy throughout the world", first spoken by McKinley to justify our occupancy of the Phillipines and Cuba, celebrated by Teddy Roosevelt with his "unboat diplomacy", and being updated by El Presidente Bush for the purposes of justifying his major fuck-ups).

All in all, the idea of "killing civilians' being wrong....again, depends upon who you speak to. Historically, it's never been followed by anybody.
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Old 05-19-2005, 04:47 AM   #57
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Loy - The new term is Haji - like the indian in Johnny Quest. Tis what the coalition forces call the Iraqis.

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Old 05-19-2005, 05:30 AM   #58
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Originally Posted by CptSternn
Loy - The new term is Haji - like the indian in Johnny Quest. Tis what the coalition forces call the Iraqis.

Slán
H-a-g-e-e...you wouldn't believe how many Johnny Walker and Frampton vinyls they try selling. Personally, I think if the middle east weren't such a war torn place it would be a good tourist spot.



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Old 05-19-2005, 07:56 AM   #59
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MrMaelstrom

And sorry, but the US picked a fight. It just didn't count on the japanese 1st blood hit being so effective (Pearl Harbour).
Mael, IIRC, the US did not want to get involved in WW2, until after Pearl Harbour. How were we picking a fight?


(and then, there is the theory that the US government wanted us involved, but the American populace [read: voters] were so against it, that our elected officials deliberaly hid the intelligence warning us the Japanese were headed this way, in order to change the minds of the populace....but I think this is a conspiracy theory on the same level as the 2nd gunman on the grassy knoll, and we will never really know the whole truth)
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Old 05-19-2005, 08:18 AM   #60
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1990 biography of Roosevelt

..."Roosevelt had always been receptive to the idea of
attacking Japan or Germany first, if the circumstances warranted it. For
example, as early as January 1933, 'he frightened two of his advisers, Moley
and Tugwell,by commenting that it might be better to have war [with Japan]
now rather than later. ... At his first cabinet meeting he warned that war
with Japan was a possibility". [Freidel p 109]

Remember that Japan had come out victorious against Russia (Jap navy obliterated the russian navy at Port Arthur - 1905) and were establishing themselves as the dominant force in the Pacific after the invasion of China (Manchuria), in a region the renamed Manchuko, as they believed it to be the place where the original japanese came from.

The US had a lot of plans for China (and still has) and Roosevelt didn't like them going down the drain...

I'm gonna do some searches on US foreign policy in the Pacific region in the few months prior to P.Harbour, and I'll get back to you.
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Old 05-19-2005, 08:53 AM   #61
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Sorry for the lazyness of copying a text off the net without editing, but between speculation and fact, this makes for interesting reading. I hope it helps, Dragon-Liver. I underlined passages I find.... er.... ...see for yourself....

Scabbed off http://www.threeworldwars.com/world-war-2/ww2.htm :

"The date of September 1, 1939, when Germany invaded Poland, is remembered as the date the war started. But little is remembered about the date Russia also moved into Poland, on September 16,1939. The nation of Poland was now divided between these two war-time allies.

It is interesting to notice what the responses of the major allied nations were to these two dates. When Germany entered the western portion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany. But when Russia moved into eastern Poland, there was no war declaration by either nation.

The Soviets caused one of the tragic events of history after they occupied their portion of Poland. They captured approximately 10,000 Polish officers and brutally murdered them, most of them meeting their death in Katyn Forest near the Russian town of Smolensk. The traditional story about their deaths was that the officers had been killed by the German army, but now the evidence is clear that the Russians committed this crime. The other victims were taken aboard a barge which was towed out to sea and then sunk.

Even with all of these efforts of the American businessman to construct the German war machine with the full knowledge and approval of President Roosevelt, he kept repeating that the nation would continue its "neutral" position: it would remain out of the war. On September 1, 1939, when the war started, he was asked by a reporter whether America would stay out of the war and Roosevelt replied: "... I believe we can, and every effort will be made by the Administration to do so."

Roosevelt responded by appointing George Marshall, a CFR member, as Chief of Staff of the Army over General Douglas MacArthur, not a member of the CFR, and other senior officers.

Others did not believe Roosevelt's claim that America would remain neutral. On September 12, 1939, Hans Thomson, the German charge d'affaires in Washington, cabled the German government: "... if defeat should threaten the Allies (England and France), Roosevelt is determined to go to war against Germany, even in the face of the resistance of his own country."

But Germany's war efforts were still dependent on oil resources, and it came from a variety of sources, some external to the German border. Before Rumania was invaded by the Germans, it was selling oil to Germany. Life magazine of February 19, 1940, has a picture of Rumanian oil being loaded into oil tank cars. The picture has a caption under it which reads, in part: "Oil for Germany moves in these tank cars of American Essolube and British Shell out of Creditui Minier yards near Ploesti (Rumania.) Notice that cars are marked for German-American Oil Co. and German Railways, consigned to Hamburg and Wuppertal in Germany. They were sent from Germany to speed up Rumanian oil shipments." This picture was taken after Germany had invaded Austria and Poland, yet American and British oil companies are transporting oil for the German government, (the tank cars in the picture are dearly marked "Essolube," and "Shell").

And other sources supplied oil as well. When the German air force ran short of fuel, this was generously supplied from the great refinery belonging to the Standard Oil Company situated on the island of Aruba via Spanish tankers. This occurred during the war itself, yet these tankers were not sunk by American submarines.

Even with the purchases of oil from non-German sources, the major supplier of oil was still the cartel. The I.G. Farben-Standard Oil cooperation for production of synthetic oil from coal gave the I.G. Farben cartel a monopoly of German gasoline production during World War II. Just under one half of German high octane gasoline in 1945 was produced directly by I.G. Farben, and most of the balance by its affiliated companies.

But as the war in Europe continued, America's leaders were attempting to get America involved, even though the American people didn't want to become part of it Roosevelt, the presidential candidate, was promising the American people that the Roosevelt administration would remain neutral should he be re-elected. Others knew better. One, for instance, was General Hugh Johnson, who said: "I know of no well informed Washington observer who isn't convinced that, if Mr. Roosevelt is elected (in 1940), he will drag us into war at the first opportunity, and that, if none presents itself, he will make one."

Roosevelt had two opportunities to involve America in World War II: Japan was at war with China, and Germany was at war with England, France and other countries. Both war zones presented plenty of opportunities to involve the American government in the war, and Roosevelt was quick to seize upon the opportunities presented.

His first opportunity came from the war in the Pacific. It was in August, 1940, that the United States broke the Japanese "purple" war-time code. This gave the American government the ability to read and understand all of their recoverable war-time messages. Machines were manufactured to de-code Japan's messages, and they were sent all over the world, but none was sent to Pearl Harbor.

Roosevelt's public efforts to involve America, while ostensibly remaining neutral, started in August, 1940, when the National Guard was voted into Federal service for one year. This was followed in September by the Selective Service Act, also for one year's duration.

But the key to America's early involvement occurred on September 28, 1940, when Japan, Germany and Italy signed the Tripartite Treaty. This treaty required that any of the three nations had to respond by declaring war should any one of the other three be attacked by any of the Allied nations. This meant that should Japan attack the United States, and the United States responded by declaring war against Japan, it would automatically be at war with the other two nations, Germany and Italy.

Roosevelt now knew that war with Japan meant war with Germany. His problem was solved.

He had made secret commitments to Winston Churchill and the English government to become involved in the war against Germany and he knew that the only way he could fulfill his secret commitments to Churchill to get us into the war, without openly dishonoring his pledges to the American people to keep us out, was by provoking Germany or Japan to attack.

Roosevelt moved towards the Pacific theater first, knowing that, if he could provoke Japan to attack America first, America would automatically be at war with Germany as well. He also knew that, should Germany attack America, Japan would have to declare war on America. So Roosevelt attempted to get either nation to attack the United States first. Japan was to get the first opportunity.

In October, 1940, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox sent for Admiral J.O. Richardson, Commander-in-Chief of the American fleet in the Pacific. Knox advised him that the President wanted him to establish a patrol of the Pacific—a wall of American naval vessels stretched across the western Pacific in such a way as to make it impossible for Japan to reach any of her sources of supply; a blockade of Japan to prevent by force her use of any part of the Pacific Ocean. Richardson protested vigorously. He said that would be an act of war, and besides, we would lose our navy. Of course Roosevelt had to abandon it.



This scene in history poses two rather interesting questions:

Why did Roosevelt, the Commander-in-Chief of all armed forces, including the Navy, not directly order Admiral Richardson to do as he wished? Why did he choose to use his Secretary of the Navy to almost politely ask him to create the naval patrol?

Is it possible that Roosevelt did not choose to use his supreme power because he knew that this was indeed an act of war and that he did not want to be identified as the originator of the plan. If Richardson had agreed to Knox's proposal, and Japan had attacked an American naval vessel, Roosevelt could have directly blamed the admiral for allowing the vessel to get into the position of being fired upon by the Japanese Navy in the first place.

Roosevelt wanted a scapegoat and Richardson refused.



Why did Roosevelt not replace the admiral with someone who would do exactly as he wished?

It is possible that Roosevelt realized that Richardson now knew about the plan, and since he did not approve, he would be in a position to clearly identify Roosevelt as the source of the idea should the second admiral agree to it.

Roosevelt did not want to jeopardize his carefully constructed image as a "dove" in the question of whether or not America should become involved in the war.

It is important to remember that, in November, 1940, just after this incident, candidate Roosevelt told the American people: "I say to you fathers and mothers, and I will say it again and again and again, your boys will not be sent into foreign wars."

Richardson later appraised his situation at Pearl Harbor and felt that his position was extremely precarious. He visited Roosevelt twice during 1940 to recommend that the fleet be withdrawn to the west coast of America, because:

His ships were inadequately manned for war;

The Hawaiian area was too exposed for Fleet training; and

The Fleet defenses against both air and submarine attacks were far below the required standards of strength.

That meant that the American government had done nothing to shore up the defenses of Pearl Harbor against an offshore attack since the naval manuevers of 1932 discovered just how vulnerable the island was.

Richardson's reluctance to provide Roosevelt's incident for the United States to enter the war, and his concern about the status of the Fleet, led to his being unexpectedly relieved of the Fleet command in January, 1941.

The American Ambassador to Tokyo, Joseph C. Grew, was one of the first to officially discover that Pearl Harbor was the intended target of the Japanese attack, as he corresponded with President Roosevelt's State Department on January 27, 1941: "The Peruvian minister has informed a member of my staff that he had heard from many sources, including a Japanese source, that, in the event of trouble breaking out between the United States and Japan, the Japanese intended to make a surprise attack against Pearl Harbor...."

In March 1941, President Roosevelt was still hoping for an incident involving the United States and Germany, according to Harold Ickes, Roosevelt's Secretary of the Interior. He reported: "At dinner on March 24, he [Roosevelt] remarked that 'things are coming to a head; Germany will be making a blunder soon.' There could be no doubt of the President's scarcely concealed desire that there might be an incident which would justify our declaring a state of war against Germany...."

Roosevelt and Churchill had conspired together to incite an incident to allow America's entry into the war. According to Churchill:

The President had said that he would wage war but not declare it, and that he would become more and more provocative. If the Germans did not like it, they could attack American forces.

The United States Navy was taking over the convoy route to Iceland.

The President's orders to these escorts were to attack any U-boat which showed itself, even if it were two or three hundred miles away from the convoy....

Everything was to be done to force "an incident".

Hitler would be faced with the dilemma of either attacking the convoys and dashing with the United States Navy or holding off, thus "giving us victory in the Battle of the Atlantic. It might suit us in six or eight weeks to provoke Hider by taunting him with this difficult choice."

But Hider was attempting to avoid a confrontation with the United States. He had told his naval commanders at the end of July [1941] to avoid incidents with the United States while the Eastern campaign [the war against Russia] was still in progress .... A month later these orders were still in force.

Churchill even wrote to Roosevelt after the German ship the Bismarck sank the British ship the Hood, recommending in April, 1941: "... that an American warship should find the Prinz Eugen (the escort to the Bismarck) then draw her fire, 'thus providing the incident for which the United States would be so thankful,' i.e., bring her into the war."

Hitler was not as wise in other matters. He attacked his "ally" Russia on June 22, 1941, even though Germany and Russia had signed a treaty not to declare war on each other.

With this action, the pressure to get the United States involved in the war really accelerated. Roosevelt, on June 24, 1941, told the American people: "Of course we are going to give all the aid that we possibly can to Russia."

And an American program of Lend-Lease began, supplying Russia enormous quantities of war materials, all on credit.

So with Hitler pre-occupied with the war against Russia and refusing to involve himself with the Americans on the open sea, Roosevelt had to turn his attentions back to Japan for the incident he needed.

The next step was to assist other countries, the English and the Dutch, to embargo oil shipments to Japan in an attempt to force them into an incident that would enable the United States to enter the war.

Japan, as a relatively small island, and with no oil industry to speak of, had to look elsewhere for its oil, and this was the reason for the proposed embargo. It was thought that this action would provoke Japan into an incident. Ex-President Herbert Hoover also saw the manipulations leading to war and he warned the United States in August, 1941: "The American people should insistently demand that Congress put a stop to step-by-step projection of the United States into undeclared war... ."

But the Congress wasn't listening.

President Roosevelt wasn't listening either to the charges of Congressman Martin Dies, Chairman of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. By August of 1941, the Dies committee had assembled a large amount of evidence which more than confirmed the suspicions which we had entertained on the basis of surface appearances: It was clear that the Japanese were preparing to invade Pearl Harbor and that they were in possession of vital military information.

This information was made available to the Roosevelt administration by Congressman Dies personally. But this was the second time that Dies had appealed to Roosevelt about his knowledge of Japan's intention to attack Pearl Harbor. Early in 1941 the Dies Committee came into possession of a strategic map which gave clear proof of the intentions of the Japanese to make an assault on Pearl Harbor. The strategic map was prepared by the Japanese Imperial Military Intelligence Department.

Dies telephoned Secretary of State Cordell Hull who talked to President Roosevelt.

Congressman Dies was told not to release the document to the public, and the Roosevelt administration did nothing. (In April, 1964, when Dies told the American public of these revelations, he added this comment: "If anyone questions the veracity and accuracy of these statements, I will be glad to furnish him with conclusive proof.")

It was also in August, 1941, when the new product of the I.G. Farben cartel was tested on humans for the first time. The product was called Zyklon B and it was to be used on the Jews and others at the concentration camps.

In the Pacific Theater, Japan's war messages, being read in Washington, started asking their spy in Pearl Harbor to report ship movements, and, later, the exact nature and location of the ships in the harbor.

Japan's request for more information on what was happening at Pearl Harbor was followed on October 16, 1941, by the resignation of the Prince's cabinet in Japan. These resignations were followed by the military administration of General Tojo and his cabinet. All of this activity was recognized by the American government as a decided step toward war, but still nothing was done to alert Pearl Harbor.

It was on this day that Henry Stimson, Roosevelt's Secretary of War, wrote the following in his diary: "... and so we face the delicate question of the diplomatic fencing to be done so as to be sure that Japan be put into the wrong and to make the first bad move—overt move."

Stimson was to repeat this concern that faced the Roosevelt administration when he testified before one of the Committees investigating Pearl Harbor. There he was quoted as saying: "The question was how we should maneuver them [the Japanese] into the position of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves."

The Japanese would still not respond with the incident to provoke the United States into retaliating, but America was convinced that it would happen ultimately. For instance, Secretary of State Cordell Hull told Roosevelt on November 7, 1941, that he foresaw "every possibility of an early war with Japan."

Japan continued its efforts towards staying out of a war with the United States and had its Ambassador in Washington continue his efforts towards securing a no-war treaty with the Secretary of State. On November 22, 1941, they wired their Ambassador: "Do your best, spare no efforts and try to bring about the solution we desire."

But even though Japan was attempting to avoid war with the United States, the Japanese were being encouraged by an unlikely source to strike out at the United States. On May 17, 1951, the New York Daily News featured an article by its Washington correspondent, John O'Donnell, concerning various old Far Eastern intelligence reports which were being closely guarded in Washington. Among those documents were the 32,000 word confession of Soviet spy Richard Sorge.

Mr. Sorge was a Russian spy who had infiltrated the German embassy in Japan and worked hard to convince Japanese officials that Japan should not attack Russia, but move south, at the risk of war with the United States.

When Sorge informed the Kremlin [in Russia] in October, 1941, that the Japanese intended to attack Pearl Harbor within 60 days, he received thanks for his report and the notice that Washington — Roosevelt, Marshall, Admiral Stark, et al. — had been advised of the Japanese intentions.

On November 25,1941, the day that the Japanese fleet sailed for Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt convened a meeting of the various Cabinet officers: Secretaries Stimson, Knox, Marshall and Admiral Harold R. Stark, Chief of Naval Operations. According to Stimson's testimony: "The President brought up the event that we were likely to be attacked perhaps [as soon as] next Monday, for the Japanese are notorious for making an attack without warning. In spite of the risk involved, however, in letting the Japanese fire the first shot, we realized that in order to have the full support of the American people, it was desirable to make sure that the Japanese be the ones to do this so that there should remain no doubt in anyone's mind as to who were the aggressors."

On November 26, 1941, the Japanese Embassy in Washington sent the following message to Tokyo: "Hull said... I am sorry to tell you that we cannot agree to it [Japan's treaty Proposal]."

The British Intelligence Service, which had men inside the Japanese diplomatic agencies in the United States, took the November 26th telegram to Tokyo as meaning that the "Japanese negotiations off. Services expect action within two weeks."

And Roosevelt and the Department of the Army also knew this, as "... a very important American Army Intelligence officer, in service in the Far East during 1941... had gained knowledge of the Yamamoto plan to send a task force to attack Pearl Harbor and sent three separate messages to Washington revealing this information, and at least two of these reached the Army files well before the attack on Pearl Harbor."

Finally, in desperation, the Japanese government sent a message to their Washington embassy on December 6, 1941, in essence breaking off all negotiations with the American government After the message was intercepted by the American government, de-coded and given to Roosevelt, he is quoted as saying: "This means war."
Roosevelt now knew that Japan planned on attacking the United States, but still he did nothing about warning the American forces at Pearl Harbor.

And on December 7,1941, Japan launched a "surprise attack."

The American forces were not prepared for the attack. And the attacking Japanese forces had orders from Japan to return to Japan should they detect any evidence that the Americans had been alerted.

As their air force attacked Pearl Harbor, they reported that the American planes were having difficulty in getting off the ground.

This was because the American planes had been grouped in circles, with their propellers all facing inward as the result of an order by President Roosevelt.
It was reported that Roosevelt had ordered the planes grouped in this fashion because he feared "acts of sabotage" against the planes and he was acting to protect them.

Since airplanes do not have a "reverse gear" the grouping of the planes in this manner made it extremely difficult for them to rapidly get out of the circle and into the air. One critic of the circling of these airplanes, Harry Elmer Barnes, has written: "Bunching the planes in a circle, wing to wing, would [make them] helpless in the event of a surprise air attack."

Another strange circumstance was the make-up of the fleet anchored at Pearl Harbor at the time of the attack. The Pacific Fleet consisted of nine battleships and three aircraft carriers along with a host of smaller ships.

During the attack, the Japanese sank or seriously damaged eight battleships but no aircraft carriers.

The American government had reasoned that the aircraft carriers would have an extremely important role to play in the type of war they felt would be waged in the Pacific theater. So all of the aircraft carriers were moved out of Pearl Harbor and all of the less valuable battleships were left behind. The battleships were expendable because most of them had been constructed prior to or during World War I, which meant that they were old and obsolete.

Along with the aircraft carriers, Roosevelt's government also withdrew the smaller, more mobile ships that they knew could be more efficiently utilized in a sea war. On November 28th, Admiral William F. Halsey was sent to Wake Island with the carrier Enterprise, three heavy destroyers and nine destroyers. On December 5th, Admiral John E. Newton was sent to Midway with the carrier Lexington, three heavy cruisers and five destroyers. The carrier Saratoga had been sent to the Pacific Coast.

Admiral Husband Kimmel, the commander of the naval forces at Pearl Harbor, clearly places the blame for Pearl Harbor's unpreparedness on President Roosevelt. He has written: "We were unready at Pearl Harbor because President Roosevelt's plans required that no word be sent to alert the fleet in Hawaii."

The Rt Hon. Oliver Lyttleton, a member of Churchill's war cabinet, declared in an address to the American Chamber of Commerce in London on June 24, 1944: "America provoked [the Japanese] to such an extent that the Japanese were forced to attack Pearl Harbor. It is a travesty of history to say that America was forced into the war."

The Council on Foreign Relations published an article in its publication called Foreign Affairs in January, 1974, that agreed with Lyttleton. The article stated that "Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor actually thrust the United States into World War II, but the Roosevelt administration decided a year and a half earlier to risk war in order to prevent the totalitarian domination of all Europe."

So on December 8, 1941, President Roosevelt asked the Congress to declare war on Japan, stating that December 7, 1941 would go down in history as a "day of infamy."

So when Roosevelt addressed the nation through his speech in Congress, he lied when he said: "We don't like it — and we didn't want to get in it — but we are in it and we're going to fight it with everything we've got."

So Roosevelt asked for, and received, a Declaration of War against Japan. Germany followed on December 11th with a Declaration of War against the United States. This action was in accordance with the terms of the Tripartite Treaty signed earlier by Germany, Italy and Japan.

Roosevelt's activities in the planning of Pearl Harbor had a costly price. The final toll was 2,341 U.S. servicemen dead and 1,143 wounded; eighteen ships including the eight battleships were sunk or heavily damaged; more than two hundred Army Air Corps and Navy planes were destroyed or unusable; and sixty-eight civilians were killed.

For his supposed unpreparedness at Pearl Harbor, Admiral Kimmel was relieved of his command, and he retired on January 7, 1942.

After the war was over. Congress looked into the reasons for the lack of preparation at Pearl Harbor. Their conclusions are most revealing:

The attack was unprovoked by America;

There was no evidence that the President, Secretary of State, Secretary of War, Secretary of Navy, provoked the attack;

The American government made every effort to avoid the war with Japan;

The attack was caused by the Army's and Navy's failure to detect hostile forces; and

The errors made were errors of judgment and not derelictions of duty.

The last conclusion was apparently intended to relieve the commanders of the armed forces from responsibility so that they could not be court-martialed. Admiral Kimmel and General Walter C. Short, the commander of the armed forces at Pearl Harbor, continuously pleaded for a court martial to clear their reputations, but they were never granted.

Admiral Robert Theobold, the Commander of all destroyers at Pearl Harbor, wrote a book entitled The Final Secret of Pearl Harbor, in which he detailed his conclusions about the "surprise attack." He wrote:

President Roosevelt forced Japan to war and enticed them to initiate hostilities by holding the Pacific fleet in Hawaiian waters as an invitation to that attack;

The plans to use Pearl Harbor as the bait started in June, 1940;

War with Japan meant war with Germany; and

Roosevelt, Marshall and Stark knew about Pearl Harbor 21 hours before the attack.

But in spite of all of this evidence that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was known by Roosevelt and his top advisors well in advance of that actual event, there are those who still hold to the position that the government, and Roosevelt specifically, knew nothing about it.

So America now had a two-front war against Japan in the Pacific and against Germany in Europe.

Just as planned!




Hope you enjoyed it.
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Old 05-19-2005, 09:30 AM   #62
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Calling a muslim a "Haji" is a sign of respect, actually, as it refers to someone who has taken part in the actual pilgramage and not the hindu from Johny Quest (some people can't tell the difference between individuals that wear "towels" on their head). That custom has been dated back a long ways.

Soul, agreed! Espeically Saudi Arabia if they weren't an enclosed off and uber conservative muslim country.
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Old 05-19-2005, 09:37 AM   #63
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:shock: So much for "conspiracy theories".


Lame Excuse Alert:

I admit my knowledge of WW2 history is pretty sparse in some areas. I blame it on the High School History teacher I was stuck with. I signed up for the -good- history teacher (The one who "killed off" the entire front row before the first semester was over, and actually made history interesting), but since he was the good one, he was also the most popular one, and I lost out on the lottery there.

I got stuck with the one who would put an insomniac on meth asleep.

Thanks Mael.
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Old 05-19-2005, 01:52 PM   #64
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LOL. Ever have one of those moments where a long-forgotten file in your brain is suddenly opened, and you go, "Ah-HAH!"

Some of this I remember through "sleep studies" in that aforementioned history class. "Some of it" being the operative term.

And while it is biased, it doesn't seem to be entirely beyond the realm of possibility, does it? KNowing how most politicians seem to behave, I honestly wouldn't be surprised to find out all of it was true...nor would I be surprised to discover none of it was true. I know, that made about as much sense as tits on a boar, didn't it?

After all, Politicians and Diplomats the world over play at this game, and I don't think any of them are entirely on the up-and-up.

Like I said, WW2 history is very much my weak point, and I think I'll bow out of the discussion before I make a bigger ass out of myself. :lol:
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Old 05-19-2005, 03:32 PM   #65
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Originally Posted by TStone
Oh come now Drgnlvr, don’t take everything mael says as gospel. Though much of it (facts and occurrences) are true, it’s painted with much conjecture and heavily steeped in conspiracy. If we are to have a history lesson, I’d like to see the teacher less biased…care to elaborate on the other side for a bit, mael?
I did say "fact and speculation".

I'd find it interesting to do that, Tman. How about you argue for the japs?
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Old 05-19-2005, 05:32 PM   #66
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TStone-when you point to our involvement being inevitable as being a "fact", well....that's kind of an iffy statement. If you're saying "Roosevelt purposely antagonising the Japs in a way that would make them strike, thus providing an excuse for him to enter the fray", then yes, it could be called inevitable.

However, one also has to look at who was trying to keep us out. Namely, the business and (most) social leaders of the day. Now, why were they so against us to war? Simple-they were making money off both sides. Whilst congress passed some fairly low-key neutrality acts (making dealings with wither side of the "European conflict", as it was termed, a crime), in reality, the laws were never followed (and the perpetrators never punished). Some of the business leaders involved with such skullduggery included the Rockefellers, the Walkers, the Bushs (though Walker and Bush had some of their businesses shut down for dealing with Nazis, no charges were ever brought up. And the money they made from their Nazi dealings were used to finance both their runs for governmental positions. And if those names sound familiar, they should-we're talking about El Presidente Bush's grandfather and great-grandfather), and Ford.

So, imagine if Roosevelt hadn't made any kind of threat (overt or veiled) to the Japanese. Can you honestly tell me that we would've entered the fray? Especially when our upper-class citizens were making a killing off of it?

(one can also compare our pre-war business dealings with our post-war treatment of certain German citizens, mainly their business leaders, who had all made money using slave labor from the concentration camps, in full knowledge of the purpose of those camps, and were never brought up for war crimes trials. In fact, the US went oput of its way to hide their involvement with the camps. One can also make a comparison with our bombing targets-our bombers were kept from bombing plants belonging to American companies, such as Ford, that happened toi be in Nazi cities. In some areas, while houses burned to rubble, the locals started using these plants as air-raid shelters, as they knew they wouldn't be touched).
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Old 05-19-2005, 05:43 PM   #67
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Loy, thanks for your posts as well. They've been great, although a bit spicy .

Give Tstone a moment to catch his breath (I bet that keyboard is still smoking).

He's gonna argue for your side anyway, so don't give ammo to a guy with former military training.

Play devil's advocate like me. I really do disagree with you on the evitability of US participation in WWII. I actually believe it was inevitable and will argue for it. Please join me. It will confuse you at first, but then gets really easy.
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Old 05-19-2005, 05:46 PM   #68
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TStone-You also forgot to point out the embargos we placed upon Japan in 1939-1940. When you combine this with the Lend-Lease program the Government started with England in 1940, you can't say that Roosevelt wasn't trying to provoke something.

Which also points to another question that's never been brought about in history texts-why did we side with England rather than Germany? Was this siding with the Brits Roosevelt flipping the bird to Bush, Walker, etc for their fucking with his New Deal (remember, business leaders saw the New Deal as "bad for business")? Was Roosevelt really against Germany at all, or was he compelled to declare war on them since they were buddy/buddy with the Japs (remember, we declared war onm Germany a while AFTER we declared war on Japan), whom he was really wanting to go after? Or was he simpoly helping England because he saw the decline of the British Empire as an in for the rise of the American Empire (remember Teddy Roosevelt? In case you forgot, there is a relation between them).
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Old 05-20-2005, 05:07 PM   #69
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Tom, I'm glad I'm on narcotics right now. If I weren't I probably wouldn't have understood a word you typed. And if we all fell off the wagon a lil more often, the world might be a better place.

:}
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Old 05-21-2005, 08:44 PM   #70
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Well.

I apologize for the late (and short) reply, but I managed to catch the flu in the springtime. Since I've never had it before or come into contact with even a weakened strain, it's kicking my ass.

Wolfmoon, on civilian casualties: Nothing justifies the death of an innocent civilian. An individual, however, must always choose his own life when it comes between his and that of an attacker. Rand used a good example: if an innocent is attacked, he must shoot his attacker even if another innocent stands behind the attacker, ie, evil person attacks, innocent defends himself, bullet passes through evil man into other innocent. In this case, whether or not the attacked person defends himself, one innocent or another would die -- and without a common judge to appeal to for justice, it's "every man for himself;" each individual must look after his own life, rather than sacrifice himself for the good of another. Regardless of what outcome happens, the original attacker is to be blamed for the death of either innocent: he instituted the situation
(what Locke called "the state of war"), so he bears the full blame of everything that happens in that situation.

The Japanese instituted the state of war between America and Japan. Ergo, whatever happened during that war is to be blamed entirely upon them. When the choice came before the Americans of American lives or Japanese lives (a nation must protect its citizens, and American soldiers are also American citizens), we carried out the only choice that we could: we chose our own. Anything other would have been truly evil: sacrificing American lives to save the lives of our enemies. (Japanese civilians condoned and supported the government's actions that drew America into the war: Pearl Harbor, mainly. As such, they had to be held as accomplices and enemies as well, but to a lesser extent -- protected when possible, destroyed when necessary.)

Had Truman made the opposite choice, you would now be condemning him for sacrificing American lives to save the lives of those who killed 3,000 of us on Pearl Harbor.

Still, for all of this, I repeat: The atomic bombs saved not only American lives, but also Japanese lives: more civilians would have been killed had we invaded mainland Japan itself.
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Old 05-21-2005, 09:20 PM   #71
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Loy
OK, an argument could be made that our society is more of an oluigarchy than an actual capitolistic one. But let's go with the myth of us being a capitolistic state....where is the justification, in all the great capitolistic tracks, for corporate personage, or corporate welfare, or allowance of monoplies, or the disenfranchisment of workers from starting up their own businesses, or allowing companies MORE rights (under the guise of corporate personage) than actual human beings have....the list can go on, but this is too basic. The point is...how can one say that a capitolistic society (which is what many claim we live in) provide equal opportunities for everybody (and not coddle those that don't need it), and support exactly that? Again, your mythology needs a bit of updating and/or a total restructuring to comply with the facts.
Not really. As you said, we're more of an oligarchy than a true capitalistic state. All of those evils that you mentioned are the traits of an oligarchy, of government involvement in business. In a truly capitalist system, they would disappear.

Quote:
As far as your statement about absolute evils.....as far as it being rwrong to rob, ****, etc....these actians have been thoroughly forgiven of our soldiers (past and present) during times of war (and in military towns, times of peace as well). Again, morality only has absolutes as strong and pervasive as the person expousing them.
No government has the power to "forgive" evils, ie to say that evil becomes good. As far as individual soldiers have wrongly robbed, *****, etc., those were evil actions, and no government "forgiveness" can change that. Morality is higher than any government: morality is absolute; governments are human and flexible.

To pardon a murderer does not mean that his act was not evil.
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Old 05-24-2005, 02:46 PM   #72
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TStone-as always, your thoughtlines are always worthy of following through. But I do have to appologise about one fact I got wrong-Walker and Bush's business were actually shut down DURING the war for laundering money for the Third Reich, and not beforehand. I looked over what I wroite, and realised I didn't make that clear. It really has little to do with this whole spiel, but I figured I'd appologise for getting a minor fact wrong.

As for your historty lesson, it reminds me of a book called "The Lucifer Complex". The basic hypothesis put forward was that the agresiveness within our genes don't date back to our ape days, but even further back to the single-cell days. The author also made a point about the transference of agresive natures to something more beneficial, and he used the ongoing war between the US and JApan. Ongoing war? Yes. After the end of "hostilities", Japan decided to kick our asses on the economic/industrial/technological level, and the amount of competitiveness between the two sides could be seen as a war (albeit, one sans weapons and death, but just as much about dominance), and asked which war was better in the long run. Alot of it I still have problems with, but it's an interesting read nontheless.

As far as why I'm debating this at all....the point I was trying to make was that, whilst it was true that Germany had designs on us, the Germans weren't the reason we went to war in the first place, and that the feeling of appeasment/camraderie between certain factions of US citizens and the Reich were extremely high. What I'm trying to point out was that, hiustorical revisionists aside, we were extremely close with the Nazis, and that it was only AFTER the war that we've distanced ourselves from them. Call it my urge to dredge up hidden history, but to call the war "inevitable" is one of many ways we take history out of context and revise it into "grand mythology", which, as everybody knows, is another word for "denial".

Asurai-You know, you can keep repeating "the bomb saved more lives than it killed" to yourself over and over again, however it just don't make it true. And just out of boredom, I went through a bunch of my history books and found an interesting fact-apparently after the war, Truman got a bunch of people to calculate exactly HOW many lives (on both sides) were actually saved. They figured that we saved the lives of 187 american soldiers (not to mention the 50 that would've went MIA because of the enemy, and the 300+ that would've just gone AWOL) and 50 Japanese lives. So therer you go, 50 less Japs died because we dropped the bomb on them.

And as far as saying the Japanese instituted the state of war....please stop misreading facts and cheryy-picking details (whilst ignoring the rest). It makes for bad form. However, your whole post actually shows what I was talking about when people talk themselves into not seeing civilians on the other side, so thank you.
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Old 05-25-2005, 10:51 AM   #73
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Asurai, Government does have the right to "forgive" evils. Especially if it's in their best interest to do so. Forgiving doesn't turn 'evil' to 'good'. It simply means that we're not gonna hold a grudge or squabble over it anymore.

You may think that morality is higher than government, but if so then why do we have laws against stealing or killing? Should we then punish people with there own guilt, since it would be more terrible than what the government could possibly do? If their own morality were higher than the government? Careful there I can almost see those lovebeads you're wearin'. Is that Phish on the radio?


:wink:
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Old 05-25-2005, 10:53 PM   #74
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You may think that morality is higher than government, but if so then why do we have laws against stealing or killing? Should we then punish people with there own guilt, since it would be more terrible than what the government could possibly do? If their own morality were higher than the government? Careful there I can almost see those lovebeads you're wearin'. Is that Phish on the radio?
Never heard of Phish.

The government doesn't punish stealing/killing/whatever because it's evil, but because the acts violate the rights of their citizens. The role of a government is to protect the rights of its citizens, and therefore to both discourage those crimes and to punish them when they occur.

A government, ideally, is not in the business of morality. Its purpose is to protect the lives and rights of its citizens, and nothing else -- else we get religious fanatics having "sin" banned en masse and secular fanatics shoving their pet projects for the "greater good" down everyone's throat.

But that's not what I meant by "morality is higher than government." I merely meant that government decree has no influence upon what is good and what is evil. I'm sure that many dictatorships have issued statements proclaiming that their nation is entirely good, and that all seemingly harsh measures (such as mass-slaughter of dissidents) is forgiven because it was for the greater good . . . . I'm also quite sure that nobody here would have listened to Hitler had he said something to that effect, for essentially the same reasons that I've stated: governments cannot make good evil and evil good.

As for all of that not-holding-grudges bit, we're just quibbling on grammar. :-P

Tstone, same thing. Sure, the government can pardon itself, but it's doubtful that there's any effect. Hitler could have made an official statement to the effect that the Holocaust was justified and necessary, but every reasonable person in the world would realize just how worthless that statement would be.

As for your example: yes, but the act is still criminal, regardless of whether the mule pardons himself or not. It would do absolutely no good to be caught by the police only to say, "It's okay, guys, I pardoned myself! Any my neighbors didn't catch me, so it's cool."
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Old 05-26-2005, 11:21 AM   #75
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Phish is a band that smelly soap-dodging hippies listen to.

:wink:

I believe I begin to see what you mean, but there are places of business that are shutdown by the government for the sake of 'morality'. Such as adult bookstores and the like. Ever here of public indecency? The government, to a degree, does dictate morality.

Some hot chick could be running around naked and the government will violate my right to ogle her by making her get dressed.

:P

edit: I don't think that a government can forgive themselves of a crime, but they can forgive others. That was what you originally meant, right? Hitler couldn't erase what he did, but he did make it seem far more palatable to the masses. They say he was an exellent public speaker.

We will never forget what happened at Pearl Harbor, but we can forgive and move on.
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