We ought not to look back unless it is to derive useful lessons from past errors, and for the purpose of profiting by dear-brought experience.George Washington

Earlier this month we celebrated the seventy third anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack.  The word infamy became a familiar word to all America.   Imperial Japan led by it’s warlords knew that the war was going to happen eventually and in their myopic racist view the United States was not ready  and would not have the stomach for a major war.   They thought that the peoples insistence on neutrality would prevent us from doing what had to be done.  With the entire world on fire about us, Americans remembered the horror of World War I and did not want to get entangled once again.  This presented President Roosevelt with a major dilemma.  Like President Wilson, another progressive democrat, Roosevelt promised the American people on more then one occasion that we would not fight in another world war all the while knowing it was going to happen.  The Americans believed Wilson in 1916 and Roosevelt in 1936,1937,1938,1939,1940 up to December 6, 1941.  Were they lying?  Of course they were and I am sure that they even had their own Jonathan Gruber going around laughing about the stupid and gullible American voter – after all that trait is in the democrats DNA.

My mother, an Englishwoman who would shortly be joining the RAF at the time,  would always get annoyed with me every December 7 because I would ask her if she knew what the day was and she would answer “It’s Pearl Harbor Day”.  I would reply with “yup, the day Japan saved England!”  Like most English she believed that they would have handled Hitler with or without America.  I enjoyed riling her, but I was also acknowledging that the Pearl Harbor attack was the catalyst in everything we know and have today.  For myself, upon entering the war my father joined the USAAC and was eventually stationed in England where he met and married my mother.  THANK YOU TOJO!

Over 2300 service personnel were killed and another 1100 were wounded in that attack.  Almost half of the men killed were from one ship, the USS Arizona, an astounding number.   As a baby boomer I grew up reading as much as I could on Pearl Harbor and the ensuing war.  As I aged, my awareness of the magnitude of that war sharpened.  Pearl Harbor was like a thread sticking out of a sweater.  I kept pulling it and the next thing I knew the sleeve was missing and the collar was being unraveled.  Joseph Stalin once said that “the killing of one man was a tragedy but the killing of a million was a statistic” however the more I read I became closer to the individuals.  It directed me to learn more about American society during the twenties and thirties when these men who were sacrificed were born and raised.  That in turn grew my desire to go further back in history.  One of the offshoots is how my interest in economics and government (politics) developed to see how intertwined they are in the causes of all conflicts.  If you want a good study of how economics and politics work with war look at the United States government policies from 1936 to 1941.

By 1936 America was entering the sixth year of the Great Depression.  In fact, we were entering a recession in 1936 within the depression and life was not improving for the average American.  The world was ramping up for war and Americans wanted no part of it.  FDR had to constantly remind the country that he would not have American boys fighting overseas.  Japan had been fighting China in a number of “incidents” and preparing for a full invasion set for 1937.  Germany was making it’s move to grow at their neighbors expense albeit “peacefully”.  As the decade of the 30’s were coming to a close Americans were still anti-involvement much to FDR’s chagrin.  He was in an unenviable position between knowing what had to be done and following the peoples wishes (which didn’t start to sway until June 1941 when the Nazis invaded Russia and the American left went from being anti-war to let’s get in it for Uncle Joe).  The conspiracy theorist have much to work with during this time period with FDR’s handling of Japan.  He had painted them into a corner with all the embargoes he placed on them due to their actions in China.  I am convinced that he knew what he was doing and he did see it as a backdoor into the war, however I do not believe he knew that Pearl Harbor would be the target and almost completely destroyed.  He and his advisors were blinded by their racial bias and could not believe that the Japanese would have the skill or audacity to pull off such a feat and expected other targets to be attacked.  The scattered intelligence that pointed to Pearl Harbor was just that – scattered.  Just as on 9/11/2001 the bureaucrats in the intelligence services never communicated so pieces were never put together.  Bureaucracies are stupid and self serving and the bigger they are the dumber they get!  But like good democrats they never let a disaster go to waste and FDR was able to use the Pearl Harbor attack to go on a full war footing.  However, FDR needed Hitler to make the biggest error in his unfortunate life.  Hitler made it easy for FDR by declaring war on the United States.  It was going to happen eventually and FDR was correct in preparing the nation as much as he dared politically.  And that is where I have a problem with him and other politicos who can not be honest with the people.

Pearl Harbor did not have to happen but our involvement in the World War was inevitable.  The men who died at Pearl Harbor were sacrificed by their Nation’s ignorance and their political leaders cowardice.  The politician’s cowardly ways carried on beyond December 7 also as the Congressional investigations into the how’s and why’s of the successful attack found only two men at fault.  General Walter Short and Admiral Husband Kimmel the two military commanders stationed in Hawaii were found to be at fault which was not only wrong but criminal to accuse these men while knowing the truth.  They were just two more men sacrificed and swept under the rug of the horror of what was to follow the next four years.

On December 7th. we should not only remember the men who were sacrificed at Pearl Harbor but also use that event as a reminder that governments and the politicians who run them can not be trusted to be truthful or protective.