Pearl Harbor

Related to another commentary on the follies of revisionist history, there are plenty of opinions out there regarding how much Roosevelt knew before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Rhetoric is so thick on some websites that Roosevelt has now become a villain, and Hitler and his ilk are innocent pawns caught in a big-boy game. It's as if some people require everything that happens in life to be based in deep conspiracies. And, as if they can't fathom the complexities or war, they make the error in believing that if one side is bad the other must automatically be good.

To sway the opinions of some of these writers would be more difficult than trying to reverse the direction the earth spins so all I can do is present counter-arguments to some of the nonsense I have seen out there.

Fact: The enemy is ALWAYS planning a surprise attack.

You would be a foolish leader to think the empires that are raping lands and peoples in vast quantities have no interest in conquering you (or someone important to you at some point in the future.) The trick then is in knowing where and when that first 'surprise' attack will come. Some sites claim to know that on the day before Pearl Harbor, FDR received a memo with specifics and ignored it. Unlike authors on those sites, I wasn't working in the White House in 1941 so I can't contradict these opinions. I can speculate as to the nature of what they are upset about, and I will in a bit.

Fact: Americans in general chose to stay out of the war.

Yes, this is a fact. However, one must ask if people who use this as an argument believe that the masses always make the right decisions? For example, if we were 'governed' by mob-rule, we would pay no taxes, and everything would be free. Is this practical or attainable? Simply put, if not in December, it was only a matter of time before we would be forced into war. This may have happened when Japan attacked Australia, or, when someone important to us was killed on a passenger liner sunk by a U-boat in the Atlantic. Or, perhaps it would have come when Japanese submarines launched an attack on the west coast while German subs attacked New York City whilst under the false guise of a peace treaty. 

Or, perhaps we would have realized the scale of destruction the world was suffering before it became too late for us to do anything about it. Whatever the world says of Americans, they can never claim we would fail to act against gross injustice. Germany and Japan COULD NOT be allowed to continue to act at will.

With all this in mind, how likely is it that Roosevelt needed to contrive such a convoluted scheme to change our minds? Why would we need to go to war at the end of 1941. Why not 1940 with the war over a year old? Why not in 1942 when we would be more ready? If Roosevelt needed the war, why not wait until we had amassed enough weapons and vehicles to make a difference? Also, Roosevelt often expressed his love of the Navy and regretted not being able to serve as an officer in the fleet. This is not the sort of commentary from a man who would willingly throw away the lives of several thousand sailors.

Fact: The Pacific is a massive ocean.

That U.S. forces found it so incredibly difficult to locate Japanese fleets shows that before the war, with a fraction of a presence in the Pacific, knowing exactly where they were would have been almost impossible. Some sites claim Roosevelt knew that the Japanese fleet was in range of Pearl Harbor. If so, once war had been declared, doesn't it seem more logical that the conspirators would want the war ended quickly to help their agendas, when in fact, we would have continued trouble finding ships and fleets in the vast ocean?

Fact: The right side won the war.

There is a twisted logic in many websites that seem to suggest the way the war ended was the opposite of what would be better for mankind. In their perverse thought, Roosevelt intervened in some sort of minor squabble between Hitler, Japan, and the rest of the world. This was not in order to prevent a greater looming disaster. It was apparently done in order to impose his own evil will on all of us. It baffles me to think what these authors think the world would be like today if the war had been won by two xenophobic psychopaths with a propensity toward genocide. Chances are great they wouldn't be alive today. Certainly, there wouldn't be the freedom for anyone to express opinions on the matter as they do.

Fact: Opinions are great. But, the greatest opinions are those that come from research. The best are those that then follow up with intelligent reasoning.

I saw a site that claimed Roosevelt implemented a multi-part plan to goad Japan and/or Hitler into war. All the 'great' empires in history became such because they conquered many people and great areas of land. Unless Hitler didn't want the same for himself (I have yet to see someone voice that opinion but I am sure it is out there), then one cannot follow the ideology that he needed goading into declaring war with anyone. Yes, perhaps Hitler would have sued for peace with the United States but that would have come ONLY with the defeat of Russia behind him, and the defeat of Britain in front of him. But, that would have been a ploy, much as those he had used before.

Some authors consider this scenario preferable to how things turned out. They think that a peace treaty between Nazi Europe, Japanese Asia, and the United States would have created a better world for them. Consider the following. The United States declared war on Japan and Japan alone on December 8th. Germany and Italy declared war on the United States FIRST on the 11th. They were not forced into this action. Germany chose to open a front against the U.S. in the midst of a stalled campaign in Russia.

Evidence may someday be revealed proving that Roosevelt knew surprising details about an impending attack. Discovery is healthy. Discussion is good. We must question, learn, and argue, but we must also consider the 'biggest' picture. Always view things as gray. They are seldom black or white, right or wrong, or good or bad. Similarly, remain gray in your beliefs. Slip too far to one side and facts become suppositions based on loose statistics, presumption, and biases. We play games with facts, statistics, politics, laws, ethics, and morals. The danger of that is in evidence everywhere around us.

Here is my statement of truth:
In 1945, the Allies won the war and none of the conspiracy theories came to pass:

1: Roosevelt was working with communists to help them take over the world.

This conspiracy theory requires some fancy explanation as to why, only five years after the end of the war, we would enter into major conflict against communists in Korea and then again in the 1970's in Vietnam. If World War Two was a ploy to help some socialist agenda, things would not have ended in 1945 with a wall in the middle of Berlin.

Japan and Germany would not have been rebuilt and set free. Any agenda bent on some sort of conquest of territories (financial, social, or military) would never consider releasing nations to their own governance.

2: Roosevelt was working with banks, to help Wall Street Jews conquer the world.

Recent history has shown us how quickly banks that are all-powerful can destroy national and world economies. Does anyone really think the banks had been biding their time since 1945?  Were they secretly in control of the world for sixty years and then something suddenly went wrong a few years ago? No, a cabal of all-powerful financial institutions would make itself felt, and when it did, it wouldn't be what we see now, individuals greedy beyond any point of sanity, humanity, or logic. Conspiracy theories would make them the smartest guys in the room.

Yes there is strife on a global level today, but the fact that we see strife at all is something that would be easily squelched if any of these conspiracy theories were true.

3: Roosevelt was working with the military to help them take over the world.

See both points above. If the military really wanted to rule in 1945, 1940, or 1933, or whenever the conspiracy begins, we wouldn't have stopped in Berlin. We would have formed a new front, picked a direction (likely east as Churchill and Patton desired) and continued the war to global victory. Again, when they are a dominant power, empires don't suddenly decide they have had enough.They certainly don't settle down for a few years or a few decades to plot.

A military governed state is easily recognizable. Think "Escape from New York" only, change 'New York' to 'The World'. And, there is no escape. In this gray world, areas are cordoned off by high concrete walls topped with armed patrols. Unmanned drones patrol the skies to 'protect you.' Undesirables are removed before they become a threat. That is military order.

In closing, I would like to address the most common form of conspiracy theory regarding President Roosevelt and Pearl Harbor, that he knew an attack was coming THERE. It is extremely self-centered of these so called experts to focus on Pearl Harbor at the exclusion of other major events on that day. Detailed in his speech, on December 7th, Malaya, Hong Kong, Guam, and The Philippines were ALL attacked. Looking at how vast the Pacific is, imagine the forces that Japan had moving around. Imagine trying to plan how to watch them, and to intercept them. Impossible. Each of these places would see years of suffering, slavery, gang rape, mass murder, and genocide at the hands of the Japanese. How many people should have seen this coming? How many should we blame for 'allowing' this to happen?

In closing, I must say that I hope this is the last time I find myself defending the legacy of The Greatest Generation. Those who have the luxury and freedom to doubt them today, can do so only because seven decades ago, these men and women gave everything.