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That's the US specialty -- getting others to fire the first shot and then seizing the moral high ground to wage a defensive war. We do it in war after war.
> "Japan was provoked into attacking America at Pearl Harbor. It is a travesty of history to say that America was forced into the war." -- Oliver Lyttleton, British Minister of Production, 1944. The book "Day of Deceit" proves that the US carried out a deliberate, successful policy to provoke Japan into attacking the US so the US could enter WWII.
The US actively provoked and sought to enter the war.
The US was shocked and horrified at the lighting-fast collapse of France, our old WWI ally and then the world's 2nd largest empire.
It was then said that the US set about enacting a policy of provoking Japan to attack the US as a way for the US to enter the war.
> "For a long time I have believed that our best entrance into the war would be by way of Japan." -- Harold Ickes, Sec. of the Interior, October 1941.
Journalist and WWII Navy vet Robert Stinnett researched the beginning of the war for decades. He uncovered the "McCollum memo" with a freedom of info act. The memo was from an American naval intelligence officer who was born in Japan, an officer who was the US Navy's liaison messenger between the White House and the Navy Dept. The memo listed 8 steps for the US to do to force Japan to attack the US.
The US did all 8 steps! Among those steps were moving the US Pacific Fleet HQ from San Francisco to the small backwater navy base in Hawaii. That move was so controversial that the secretary of the Navy resigned in protest of the move.
Stinnett's book, linked below, is must reading for anyone interested in this conspiracy theory.
> "Japan was provoked into attacking America at Pearl Harbor. It is a travesty of history to say that America was forced into the war." -- Oliver Lyttleton, British Minister of Production, 1944. The book "Day of Deceit" proves that the US carried out a deliberate, successful policy to provoke Japan into attacking the US so the US could enter WWII.
The US was shocked and horrified at the lighting-fast collapse of France, our old WWI ally and then the world's 2nd largest empire.
It was then said that the US set about enacting a policy of provoking Japan to attack the US as a way for the US to enter the war.
> "For a long time I have believed that our best entrance into the war would be by way of Japan." -- Harold Ickes, Sec. of the Interior, October 1941.
Journalist and WWII Navy vet Robert Stinnett researched the beginning of the war for decades. He uncovered the "McCollum memo" with a freedom of info act. The memo was from an American naval intelligence officer who was born in Japan, an officer who was the US Navy's liaison messenger between the White House and the Navy Dept. The memo listed 8 steps for the US to do to force Japan to attack the US.
The US did all 8 steps! Among those steps were moving the US Pacific Fleet HQ from San Francisco to the small backwater navy base in Hawaii. That move was so controversial that the secretary of the Navy resigned in protest of the move.
Stinnett's book, linked below, is must reading for anyone interested in this conspiracy theory.
> "Japan was provoked into attacking America at Pearl Harbor. It is a travesty of history to say that America was forced into the war." -- Oliver Lyttleton, British Minister of Production, 1944. The book "Day of Deceit" proves that the US carried out a deliberate, successful policy to provoke Japan into attacking the US so the US could enter WWII.
> Ukraine is already at war with Russia,
We know this. After the US refused to limit NATO expansion Russia attacked Ukraine. They were serious about their "red line."
> and here you spread more Russian, not anti-war, propaganda.
It's a simple fact. The US executed 2 coups in Ukraine, one resulting in 2008 with the US saying Ukraine could come into NATO. The Russians responded with a bluntly-worded warning of "military conflict" if NATO expansion was not stopped. We know that thanks to Bradley/Chelsea Manning's Wikileaks dumps of US diplomatic cables.
In 2014 we financed another coup which put the current regime into power. The US went so far as to pick out the first post-coup Prime Minister and also state who was not going to be in the gov't (our friends and enemies list).
To point these facts out is not "propaganda," it's just stating facts or "inconvenient truths."
Myself, I do not "stand with Ukraine" -- I'm an American. Ukraine should have accepted the neutrality offer they were given.
Instead the fools in Kiev let themselves be set up by the US. We wanted this war and baited a "bear trap" to get Russia involved in a costly guerrilla war. Just like Afghanistan, the Russians stepped into our trap. Now we'll fight until the last dead Ukrainian.
That's what we do best -- set others up to commit the first act of war. It keeps our white horse nice and pretty.
> "Japan was provoked into attacking America at Pearl Harbor. It is a travesty of history to say that America was forced into the war." -- Oliver Lyttleton, British Minister of Production, 1944. The book "Day of Deceit" proves that the US carried out a deliberate, successful policy to provoke Japan into attacking the US so the US could enter WWII.
Submission statement: Replete with photos and links, this article covers the basics that FDR had foreknowledge of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.
A controversial conspiracy theory, this theory has been gaining more traction over the years. Robert Stinnett, a WWII Navy vet who served on the same aircraft carrier as George H.W. Bush, did some groundbreaking work on the conspiracy theory that FDR sought to provoke Japan into attacking the US. After the war Stinnett became a journalist with a focus on WWII and Pearl Harbor.
Stinnett uncovered the US gov'ts "McCollum Memo" with a FOIA request. That memo was written by a mid-level Navy intelligence officer who born in Japan and functioned as a liaison between the Navy Dept. and the White House. That memo listed out 8 steps the US would have to take to provoke Japan into attacking the US.
Stinnett's findings were covered in his book Day Of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor.
> "Japan was provoked into attacking America at Pearl Harbor. It is a travesty of history to say that America was forced into the war." -- Oliver Lyttleton, British Minister of Production, 1944.
Robert Stinnett, a WWII Navy vet who served on the same aircraft carrier as George H.W. Bush, did some groundbreaking work on the conspiracy theory that FDR sought to provoke Japan into attacking the US. After the war Stinnett became a journalist with a focus on WWII and Pearl Harbor.
Stinnett uncovered the US gov'ts "McCollum Memo" with a FOIA request. That memo was written by a mid-level Navy intelligence officer who born in Japan and functioned as a liaison between the Navy Dept. and the White House. That memo listed out 8 steps the US would have to take to provoke Japan into attacking the US.
Stinnett's findings were covered in his book Day Of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor.
> "Japan was provoked into attacking America at Pearl Harbor. It is a travesty of history to say that America was forced into the war." -- Oliver Lyttleton, British Minister of Production, 1944.
Robert Stinnett, a WWII Navy vet who served on the same aircraft carrier as George H.W. Bush, did some groundbreaking work on the conspiracy theory that FDR sought to provoke Japan into attacking the US. After the war Stinnett became a journalist with a focus on WWII and Pearl Harbor.
Stinnett uncovered the US gov'ts "McCollum Memo" with a FOIA request. That memo was written by a mid-level Navy intelligence officer who born in Japan and functioned as a liaison between the Navy Dept. and the White House. That memo listed out 8 steps the US would have to take to provoke Japan into attacking the US.
Stinnett's findings were covered his book Day Of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor.
That's our strategy everywhere. We know the propaganda value of portraying "the other guy" as the aggressor.
In 1979 we implemented a deliberate strategy to provoke the USSR into sending troops to aid the Afghan gov't on their border, all due to the US funding and arming radical Muslim fundamentalists.
When the Soviets sent troops in to assist their neighbor, US and western media reported that as an "invasion."
> "Japan was provoked into attacking America at Pearl Harbor. It is a travesty of history to say that America was forced into the war." -- Oliver Lyttleton, British Minister of Production, 1944. The book "Day of Deceit" proves that the US carried out a deliberate, successful policy to provoke Japan into attacking the US so the US could enter WWII.
With journalist/author/WWII veteran Robert Stinnet's discovery of the "McCollum memo" and his subsequent book on Pearl Harbor, some historians are questioning that point.
> "Japan was provoked into attacking America at Pearl Harbor. It is a travesty of history to say that America was forced into the war." -- Oliver Lyttleton, British Minister of Production, 1944.
There is so much wrong with this article it'd take a book to explain it.
But wait, one journalist/author who served on the same WWII aircraft carrier as former president George Bush, and who has researched Pearl Harbor for decades, did write a book to explain it.
That author not only dug up key evidence from the federal government via Freedom of Information Act requests, but he also personally interviewed WWII cryptographers who said the US did break the Japanese Navy's code (something the US gov't said was not done until after Pearl Harbor).
Needless to say, there's more to this story than this article, which has a NSA historian as its key source.
> "Japan was provoked into attacking America at Pearl Harbor. It is a travesty of history to say that America was forced into the war." -- Oliver Lyttleton, British Minister of Production, 1944.
It's a no-brainer that the US only used the atomic bombs to test them and to intimidate the Russians:
> "There was never, from about two weeks from the time I took charge, any illusions on my part, but that Russia was our enemy, and that the project was carried out on that basis." -- US Army General Leslie Groves, the director of the WWII Manhattan Project to develop an atomic bomb
The only thing that keeps the idea that we dropped the bombs "to end the war" is US propaganda and nationalistic indoctrination.
But is it too politically incorrect to deal with the fact that the US deliberately sought to provoke Japan into attacking the US?
WWII vet, journalist and researcher Robert Stinnett has researched Pearl Harbor for decades, amassing much evidence -- everything from first-hand testimony from WWII vets to a Freedom of Information Act-uncovered US gov't document which outlined 8 steps the US needed take to provoke Japan into attacking the US.
The reason for the US wanting Japan to attack is simple.
After France fell so quickly the Roosevelt administration (and the world) was shocked! So the US sought to enter the war against Germany through the "back door" -- the German-Japanese alliance. Thus, the US carried out each of those 8 steps, as Stinnett details in his book "Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor"
> "Japan was provoked into attacking America at Pearl Harbor. It is a travesty of history to say that America was forced into the war." -- Oliver Lyttleton, British Minister of Production, 1944.
Just coming out of WW1 and a loss of millions of lives? Fuck it, let japan fly a few planes over to hawaii and bomb some ships, the people will be clamoring for another war.
Pay no mind to the fact that we brainstormed a list of actions that would provoke such an attack. Or the fact that we were warned ahead of time that an attack was on the way. Funny how they don't teach that here but they do in other countries.
http://www.amazon.com/Day-Of-Deceit-Truth-Harbor/dp/0743201299
> some say FDR knew the attack was going to come and allowed to happen,
What shocked me was in that "Day of Deceit" book it's documented about how when Washington gave Hawaiian military commanders a warning about the attack, the Navy admiral immediately ordered all of his ships out to sea in the area northwest of Hawaii.
His fleet was stripped, and consisted of only old ships with no carriers -- all of the good ships had been ordered by Washington on another mission.
The area to the NW -- the exact area that Japan attacked from -- was the only approach to Hawaii that was not covered by commercial shipping or aircraft. It was the logical place to launch an attack from.
But Washington ordered the admiral's ships back to port! And that is where they were when the attack happened.
> the sentiment that the Japanese in WWII were absolutely evil is rather rampant,
That's because they were absolutely evil! China may have their flaws and biases, but they're not wrong about that. Which made our deal not to prosecute Japan's bio-warfare criminals all the more repugnant.
Depending on the class I could be an a*-hole. Teaching HS history sucked. You were expected to teach "between the lines" and regurgitate nationalistic US history -- I hated that.
At the college level one could explore more of what I consider the "fun" parts of history -- to view things from other perspectives.
It was always interesting to view WWII from different countries perspectives. Nazi Germany was simply ruthless, megalomania and conquest. But Japan was very interesting.
There is a strong case to be made that Japan was provoked into attacking the US.
One British cabinet member bluntly said during the war, "Japan was provoked into attacking America at Pearl Harbor. It is a travesty of history to say that America was forced into the war." Many felt that way.
One WWII Navy veteran, who turned into a journalist and author and researched Pearl Harbor for decades after the war, argued in his book "Day of Deceit" that the US deliberately set out to provoke Japan into attacking us!
His theory is that the US was so shocked at the lightning-fast defeat of France (then the world's second-largest empire) that FDR tried to provoke Germany into declaring war on us by the US sinking German subs in the Atlantic. But when Hitler wouldn't respond, he contends FDR decided to poke Japan and enter the war via the alliance system between Germany-Italy-Japan.
Sound crazy?
The author uncovered many details to support his theory! The most shocking was a memo written by a US Navy intelligence officer who was raised in Japan until his teens. That officer was a liaison between the Navy and White House. The author uncovered that US gov't document (the McCollum memo) by a Freedom of Info Act request and the shocking document lists out 8 steps the US had to do to provoke Japan into attacking the US -- and we did all 8!
I'm betting they didn't discuss such things and possibilities in your history class. :)
If that is true that FDR cooked up that scheme (and as I said, the evidence is quite strong!) it did allow the US to enter the war in a united fashion (compared to WWI where there was a surprisingly strong sentiment against the war all through the war).
> "For a long time I have believed that our best entrance into the war would be by way of Japan." -- Harold Ickes, Sec. of the Interior, October 1941.
> This means that Soviets would be left alone to face all the might of the Germans with unlikely lend-lease coming their way. Not to mention that Germans could freely trade oil with ME or Venezuela.
That was the UK goal!
Stalin twice offered the UK/France an alliance to stop Nazi Germany. The first was when Hitler was threatening Czechoslovakia. The UK ignored the USSR's offer and Chamberlain made his historic peace agreement.
Stalin and the Soviets came to the conclusion that the UK was trying to spin Hitler east to attack the USSR.
Stalin's 2nd offer of an alliance was when Hitler was threatening to invade Poland. This alliance offer was classified and censored in the west for decades: Stalin was 'prepared to move more than a million Soviet troops to the German border to deter Hitler's aggression just before the Second World War'.
100 Soviet Red Army divisions on the German border would have meant there was no way Hitler could have invaded Poland. But the UK ignore Stalin's alliance proposal.
It was at this point that Stalin/Molotov executed a brilliant move of real-politik!
The USSR did a 180-degree pirouette. Molotov signed a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany. Stalin viewed that pact as a temporary thing, thinking that Hitler would eventually break it (he was right but off on the timing!). That gave the USSR peace on its western border and huge economic benefits by the USSR sending Germany raw materials.
The fact that WWII could have been stopped by either of these alliance offers is always ignored in these types of analyses.
> "Japan was provoked into attacking America at Pearl Harbor. It is a travesty of history to say that America was forced into the war." -- Oliver Lyttleton, British Minister of Production, 1944. The book "Day of Deceit" proves that the US carried out a deliberate, successful policy to provoke Japan into attacking the US so the US could enter WWII.
> this is the biggest pile of dung and revisionist history i have heard in a long, long, time.
These thoughts were bandied about in 1941 by Republicans and others right after the attack. The attack was predicted in 1941, front-page news on one of Honolulu's major newpapers a week before the actual attack.
In the 1990s Kimmel and Short, the Navy and Army commanders in Hawaii at the time of Pearl Harbor had their smearing rescinded with an excuse that they were denied key intelligence by Washington.
> Did the US "provoke" japan and force it to invade China?
Japan invaded China for simple imperial reasons. But Japan was pressured to attack the US as a defensive move.
When Stinnett discovered the McCollum Memo we listed out the steps we took to provoke Japan into attacking -- and carried them out. It's all there by a US Navy intelligence officer who was born in Japan and who had weekly contact with FDR and the White House.
The details uncovered in Stinnett's book flush the full story out.
After France (then the world's 2nd largest empire) fell so quickly the US was shocked and horrified. We at first started attacking German submarines in the Atlantic but Hitler ignored our provocations. So we then sought to get into the war by the tri-partite military alliance that Nazi Germany, Italy and Japan had.
> maybe you should learn about history before posting such ridiculous nonsense.
Dig through my decade-plus history of reddit posting and you'll see that I'm a former professor and US/world history teacher.
> "For a long time I have believed that our best entrance into the war would be by way of Japan." -- Harold Ickes, Sec. of the Interior, October 1941. The book "Day of Deceit" documents how the US adopted a policy to provoke Japan into attacking the US to cause the US to enter WWII.
That's speculative theory, of course. What we know is what happened.
But to project, it depends on whether we deliberately provoked Japan into attacking the US or not.
Some people -- like this author and journalist, and WWII vet who served on the same aircraft carrier as President George H.W. Bush -- claim that after trying to provoke Germany into declaring war on us by sinking German subs in the Atlantic in int'l waters, we enacted a plan to enter WWII via the "back door:" the German-Japanese alliance.
That author uncovered a US document via Freedom of Info Act request which outlined steps for the US to provoke Japan into attacking us, and the book details the fact that we carried out those steps. One -- moving Pacific Fleet HQ from well-equipped San Francisco to the isolated, vulnerable backwater port of Pearl Harbor in our colony/territory of Hawaii, was so controversial that the Pacific Fleet commander resigned in protest over the move.
The logic goes that the US was so shocked (as was the world) at the lightning fast defeat of France, then the world's 2nd largest global empire, that the US felt compelled to enter the war. But FDR wanted to enter the war with the country united (it wasn't during WWI) so he felt he needed to be attacked -- thus the secret policy.
The author also claims, based on first-hand testimony by WWII cryptographers, that we had broken the Japanese naval code before Pearl Harbor (the US gov't claims we only broke it afterwards). That would've given us knowledge of the Japanese attack, and allowed us to move our aircraft carriers and new ships out of Pearl Harbor leaving only old, mostly obsolete ships to be attacked -- exactly what happened.
While this seems nuts to us today, in the 1940s it wasn't (see quote below). In fact, a Hawaiian newspaper ran a front page story the week before Pearl Harbor which said Japan was about to attack Hawaii.
If you subscribe to that theory, we entered WWII unjustly without cause, just like we did WWI.
> "Japan was provoked into attacking America at Pearl Harbor. It is a travesty of history to say that America was forced into the war." -- Oliver Lyttleton, British Minister of Production, 1944. The book "Day of Deceit" documents that the US carried out a deliberate, successful policy to provoke Japan into attacking the US so the US could enter WWII.
Was not. Please read up on how FDR provoked Japan into "attacking first". Examples abound. Embargo is one, and on itself might be considered an act of war. Read about the Flying Tigers, another clear-cut case of US initiating aggression. Literature on this:
Also, the US had (and still has) no business meddling in foreign affairs and wars, especially a war mostly manufactured by Churchill. Literature on this:
WW2 was a war, we were attacked at Pearl Harbor, despite the fact that it was provoked and that we were well aware of it, allowed it to happen.
https://www.amazon.ca/Day-Deceit-Truth-About-Harbor/dp/0743201299
What we do now is attack, bomb, invade and occupy with no declaration of war, do not identify the enemy with no end in sight.
We are essentially killing people because they dont want us in their countries... Who in TF would want to be invaded and killed by a foreign force.
In this context of illegal invasions and occupations, false flag attacks and wars for profit, youre talking about ROE.
Thats like saying that murderers have a code of conduct.
It's crystal clear that for decades we have not been told the full truth about Pearl Harbor, FDR's actions before the war, and the actual US entry into the war.
But with that said, I have to wonder how/if/how much this will be used by Libertarians and the political right (e.g. Mises.org) to attack the New Deal and FDR's domestic policies.
> Greaves's conclusion is dramatic: "It must be said also that the evidence revealed in the course of the several investigations leads to the conclusion that the ultimate responsibility for the catastrophe inflicted on the U.S. Fleet at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, must rest on the shoulders of President Roosevelt.... It was thanks to Roosevelt’s decisions and actions that an unwarned, ill-equipped, and poorly prepared Fleet remained stationed far from the shores of the continental United States, at a base recognized by his military advisers as indefensible and vulnerable to attack.... Thus the attack on Pearl Harbor became FDR’s excuse, not his reason, for calling for the United States’s entry into World War II."
The review mentions Stinnett's groundbreaking research (and conclusions?) about Pearl Harbor.
Stinnett's book covers its topic well and presents a lot of evidence for his point that FDR not only sought to enter WWII (that is clear, we were escorting convoys and attacking German subs in the Atlantic and doing all sorts of skulduggery that can only be considered acts of war), but that the administration deliberately maneuvered to provoke Japan into attacking the US, and that Japan "took the bait" attacking at Pearl Harbor.
With that said, I'd recommend reading Stinnett's book, "Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor". But if you read it, do it with an open mind and be prepared to rewrite some of your country's military history.
> "Japan was provoked into attacking America at Pearl Harbor. It is a travesty of history to say that America was forced into the war." -- Oliver Lyttleton, British Minister of Production, 1944.
The 8 steps were featured in a memo uncovered by a journalist with a freedom of information act request. The journalist wrote a book, Day of Deceit, on his decades of research on Pearl Harbor and the US entry into the war.
I cannot remember all 8 steps, but one that sticks in my mind was the US Navy moving the Pacific Fleet HQ from San Francisco (where it had been for about a century) to the ill-equipped colonial outpost of Pearl Harbor. That move was so controversial that it caused the Fleet commander to resign in protest. (When the new commander later received Washington's weakly-worded warning that Japan might attack, the commander immediately ordered all ships out to sea to the northwest of Hawaii, the only direction the Japanese could attack without being detected by shipping lanes or air traffic. Washington overruled him and ordered his ships back to port and he was subsequently blamed for Pearl Harbor.)
The McCollum memo (I'm not sure of that source, but it has images of the document) lists out all 8 steps, but if you're interested in the topic the book contains much more evidence.
1.) Holocaust: Well, the situation is a little more complicated then that. First of all, everyone said that they didn't dream of how bad the Holocaust was. They knew things were atrocious, but never dreamed of them being so horrible. But, what the Holocaust did, is that it instilled a sense of morality, the "never again" mentality. Furthermore, the public was told that the reason we were going is was to prevent this genocide; that was never the official reason for WWII.
But the US didn't join WWII to fight the Holocaust (as you point out), it was out of a desire for self-defense. Interestingly, might I refer you to Robert Stinnett's book that uses an overwhelming amount of primary sources to show that Roosevelt not only permitted Pearl Harbor to happen, he lured the Japanese into attacking it.
But anyway this entire argument is moot. I was responding to mapryan's claim that Muslims should be grateful to the US because of they saved them from the Serbs. I said that they didn't save them out of a sense of altruism but rather for economical gains.
2.) Puppet Gov'ts. I don't really see how this point is debatable. Hosni Mubarak, president of the great democracy of Egypt, has been the unquestionable leader there for 30 years. Now, his son is priming to take control of the gov't. This is done entirely with US support (the demon you know rather than the one you don't).
You've seen what happens countless times whenever democracy wins and people choose a leadership that our gov't doesn't agree with (Hamas, Suharto, etc).
Karzai (whose election was severely more fraudulent than Iran's didn't even receive a slap on his wrist). His brother is an Afghan warlord who is responsible (indirectly) for the vast amounts of poppy growth and violence. [Aside: we made so much fuss about the Iranian election, I have still yet to see a definitive statement that the election was rigged. The best statistical analysis that I've seen thus far can only say, "the election may have been rigged to exaggerate Ahmedenijad's victory, but we're not sure." If someone has an authoritative source on that matter, can you please refer me to it)]
I could go on, but I think you get the picture.
Oh, and the US has repeatedly tried to "control a country like Cuba;" Bay of Pigs, several assasination attempts on Castro. The only reason that they never used explicit force (ie invasion) was because of nukes and the Soviets.
Hmm...I'm not exactly sure of the dynamic that exists between Pakistan and India, and you may be more knowledgable in addressing the issue there, but again, the situation is more complex than you let on.
It is easy to say, that "Pakistan sits on America's lap - so that it can still thumb its nose at India." But comments like that omit things like Richard Armitage's remark, "Help us or we will bomb you into the stone age." If you read the transcripts from Clinton's visit to the region last year, it is clear that the people are severely ticked off because they are fighting America's war and paying the price in blood. Heck with the vast number of flag burnings that go on there, I would assume that the number of Pakistanis engaged in this relationship to snub India are very few. Pakistan's war, I would argue and so do a majority of journalists around the world, is one of coercion and submission.
I'm sorry, I don't know enough to comment on Pakistan's pre-9/11 relationship with the US.
I don't have any articles handy at the moment, but there have been several from Foreign Policy that do state just that: the monarchy in Saudi Arabia is there because of US military might. There was an article on reddit a few days ago where it said exactly what I said: they are required to re-invest a substantial portion of their oil revenue back into treasury bonds. Again, the summary from all these articles, is that as long as oil flows, the US will support the Saudi royal family (again, better to deal with the demon you do know than the one you don't).
You're also forgetting the numerous trade restrictions set in place (for example sanctions aganist Iran are a farce)
> Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. The US declared war on Japan in response.
While the above is true, it omits the important fact that we deliberately provoked Japan trying to make them attack the US.
This has been long claimed, but is ignored in our history books.
For example, Harold Ickes, FDR's Secretary of the Interior bluntly said in October 1941, "For a long time I have believed that our best entrance into the war would be by way of Japan." The British Minister of Production, Oliver Lyttleton, was even more blunt, saying in 1944 "Japan was provoked into attacking America at Pearl Harbor. It is a travesty of history to say that America was forced into the war."
The US government saw that the Nazis were evil. But what shocked us was the rapid fall of France. FDR's administration (and the world) shit their pants at the lightning-fast French defeat and started to plot how the US could enter the war.
We were already arming Britain and were anything but neutral -- hell, we were sinking German U-boats while escorting convoys halfway across the Atlantic -- but Germany refused to take the bait and declare war on us. So we came up with a plan to use the German-Japanese alliance to enter the war via the backdoor; by provoking Japan.
WWII veteran and author/journalist Robert Stinnett has done years of work on the war. With a US Freedom of Information Act request he uncovered one smoking gun, the so-called "McCollum Memo". It was written by a US naval intelligence officer who met with FDR and high members of the War Dept. daily. The memo made the case of how to provoke Japan and contained 8 steps -- we then implemented all 8 steps and Japan attacked us, just like we wanted them to.
Stinnett documents this and much other evidence in his book, Day of Deceit. If you read it you'll probably be shocked to learn that the US Navy so opposed the move of the HQ of the US Fleet from San Francisco to Pearl Harbor (then a crude colonial outpost in the Pacific) that the Pacific Fleet commander resigned over the issue. Or that when Washington gave weakly-worded warnings about a possible Japanese attack that the (new) Pacific Fleet commander ordered all his ships out on maneuvers in the exact region to the northwest of Oahu where the Japanese would attack from -- but that Washington overrode the commander and ordered the ships back to port (where many were later sunk).
Day of Deceit is profusely documented and is required reading for anyone wanting to know about Pearl Harbor and the start of the war.
> but Korea was good?
If we want to be honest, we also need to rewrite our nationalistic history of the Korean war. The South Korean dictator, Syngman Rhee, spoke the truth in a U.S. News & World Report of August 1954 when he bluntly said, "We started this fight in the first place in the hope that the Communists would be destroyed." But that is not what is recorded in our history books...
> "The chief problem in historical honesty is not outright lying. It is omission or de-emphasis of important data. The definition of 'important', of course, depends on one's values." -- Historian Howard Zinn.
> Is there any evidence in this link that's a smoking gun of an impending attack?
There is a ton -- that's what's amazing. The most thorough starting place to review that evidence is Stinnett's book Day of Deceit. In it, Stinnett goes into detail about his decades of research, both based on personal interviews and historical records, but the key elements obtained with Freedom of Information Act requests from the US gov't.
Before WWII we had a Pacific-wide system of monitoring the Japanese Navy. Most of this was done with radio-direction finding, and we could ID individual warships not only by their radio call signs, but by the minute quirks of each ship's specific radio hardware. Needless to say, the Navy paid close attention to the movement of Japan's aircraft carriers.
Stinnett details with the Navy's own documents that we tracked, via radio direction finding, the fleet that attacked Pearl Harbor from northern Japan across the northern Pacific and even turning southeast towards Hawaii.
The US also knew that Hawaii was the target based on us breaking the Japanese diplomatic code, which the US gov't admits we had broken before Pearl Harbor.
But in the paperback version of the book (updated after the hardcover book), Stinnett includes new documents that prove the US also had broken the Japanese Navy's code, in which the attack was discussed many times. The exact messages, however, remain classified by the US gov't even today.
The total amount of evidence makes it clear -- Washington knew the Japanese were going to attack Pearl Harbor. But Washington failed to inform the Hawaiian Army and Navy commanders of what they knew. Washington did issue out some vaguely worded warnings, but then tied the hands of the Hawaiian military commanders. For example, after one warning the Hawaiian-based Pacific Fleet commander, Admiral Kimmel, sent his warships out to the northwest of Hawaii, which naval wargames proved was the only place you could approach Hawaii from without being detected by airline or shipping routes. Washington ordered Kimmel's ships back into port and then ordered the aircraft carriers out on other missions.
The full story is simply amazing.
But the really groundbreaking discovery by Stinnett, again by FOIA request, was the 8-point memo written in 1940 by a US naval officer who had grown up in Japan. That memo outlined how to provoke Japan into attacking the US. We know that the memo was seen by admirals high in the Navy and by high political figures -- but there is not direct proof that FDR read the memo. But what we do know is that the US gov't carried out all 8 steps, that the US issued an ultimatum to Japan about the war in China and other US-Japanese relations, and that Japan felt so outraged that it attacked the US at Pearl Harbor.
In the geo-political context, Stinnett makes a convincing argument. In 1940, France had fallen and the world was shocked -- England stood alone against the Nazis. The US feared England would fall and wanted to enter the war. But the US wanted to enter the war united, unlike WWI which had much opposition all through the war.
Before Pearl Harbor we were sinking German submarines in the Atlantic and had violated and then rewrote US neutrality laws.
Stinnett's view is that the US sought to enter the war through the "back door" using the German-Italian-Japanese military alliance by provoking Japan to attack. The quotes in the book by officials high in FDR's administration about ensuring Japan committed the first overt act and the need for unity in a war lends strong credence to Stinnett's point of view.
I've read and reread the book critically, looking for loopholes, unsubstantiated claims, leaps of logic, and, frankly, I think he makes an airtight case. And the recent release (years after Stinnett's book) of Herbert Hoover's memoirs where he bluntly says that FDR had a policy to provoke Japan into attacking the US adds additional weight to this view.
Did you read the article?
How do you deny the McCollum memo, a document written by an American naval officer who was an FDR aide which outlined the 8 steps the US should take to provoke the Japanese into attacking the US?
That memo was uncovered by a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by a WWII naval veteran and journalist and came from the US gov't itself.
In this article the journalist, Robert Stinnet, covers what he proves.
In his book Day of Deceit Stinnet documents code intercepts -- again from US gov't sources -- which proved the US knew that the Japanese fleet was approaching Hawaii. Heck, Washington ordered Admiral Kimmel's Pearl Harbor fleet back to port when Kimmel ordered the fleet to sail out to look for the incoming Japanese fleet. In another key piece of evidence, Stinnet details interviews with WWII code breakers who swear the US had broken not only the Japanese diplomatic code (which told the US of the oncoming attack) but also the Japanese naval code (which the US claims not to have broken). The BBC video linked in the article makes the same point.
Labeling things as a "conspiracy theory" is just a way of smearing the idea and painting it as something only believed by crazy people. How about addressing the specific proof and evidence of what the article cites?
Edit: Typos.
That the "innocent US" was treacherously attacked at Pearl Harbor which forced a reluctant US to enter WWII.
The US was most certainly treacherously attacked, but as one Navy veteran/journalist discovered with US gov't documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, the US gov't was actively trying to provoke Japan into attacking, and that the US gov't knew the Japanese fleet was heading to Pearl Harbor (even ordering US ships into port to ensure that Japanese could approach undetected and would commit an overt act of war).
The documents and information presented in the book "Day of Deceit" shocked the shit out me, but brought sense to other US policies, such as a peacetime draft, the sinking of German U-boats by the US Navy prior to Pear Harbor, and the US shock at France's defeat and desire to ensure the UK did not lose the war in Europe.
Japan was putting out feelers for surrender terms months before we dropped the nukes. America could have ended the war much sooner if the political will had been there to do so.
Most of those who died at Pearl Harbor were marines, soldiers and sailors. Most who died in the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were civilians. There is no moral equivalency.
And please, the attack on Pearl Harbor was not "unprovoked." FDR goaded Japan into attacking. If you don't believe me, read Robert Stinnett's "Day of Deceit."
America baited Japan into attacking Pearl Harbor in order to give FDR the rationale to enter the European war. If you don't believe me, read Robert Stinnett's "Day of Deceit."
America didn't enter WW2 to end the Holocaust or save the Jews. In fact FDR rejected numerous opportunities to save groups of Jews throughout the war. The SS St. Louis incident is just one example.
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