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Monday, December 12, 2016

Why Did Japan Choose a Suicidal War in 1941?

Seven decades after Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor some truth is finally beginning to emerge from the miasma of propaganda that still clouds our vision of World War II.

It seems clear by now that President Franklin Roosevelt’s White House knew from deciphered codes that Japan was planning an attack on America’s key naval base in Hawaii. Shamefully, the senior US Navy and Army commanders at Pearl Harbor were not informed of the impending attack. The US Navy’s three aircraft carriers were coincidentally moved far from harm’s way before the attack, leaving only obsolescent World War I battleships in port as sitting ducks.

Roosevelt was eager to get the United States into war against Germany at all costs. But Americans wanted no part of Europe’s war, recalling how British propaganda had deceived America into World War I. The single largest ethnic group in America was of German origin. In the 1880’s, my native New York City was the third most populous German city on earth after Berlin and Hamburg.

Roosevelt, whose sympathies lay far to the left in spite of his patrician background, understood that only a surprise attack would provoke Americans into war.

At the time, the US supplied 80% of Japan’s oil, 100% of its aviation fuel, and much of its metal. Roosevelt demanded Japan vacate China that it had invaded, or face an embargo of these vital strategic materials on which Japan’s industry depended. Japan’s fascist military government refused, as Washington knew it would. A US embargo ensued.

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

WWI, The Great War, The War to End All Wars, was still too fresh on the mind of voters in 1941. Roosevelt knew that, but also saw the spread of the Axis Empire and felt the need to get involved. The American voter- and rightly so- was adamant about NOT getting involved in another global war that killed so many of our sons and brothers. So, he felt there was no other way than to use American emotions to get us involved again to spare us against, not only Japanese aggression, but Hitler's cancer spreading in Europe. We were already involved by assisting Europe, and he knew it would continue until the power of the US was all in.
I'm not sure he knew of the day the attack would start, but the Pacific fleet was aware of an imminent attack.