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Pearl Harbor Revisited
by VNN Staff
14 December 2004
Son: Our teacher told us about the Pearl Harbor attack today. He said that the anniversary of that attack is coming up in a few days.
Father: It is. On December 7th, 1941, the Japanese bombed the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. That event officially pushed America into WWII.
Son: Those Japanese must have been evil people.
Father: Well, you might be surprised. Do you know why the Japanese attacked us in 1941?
Son: Yes. My teacher, Mr. Goldberg, said that the Japanese attacked us because we are a democracy.
Father: He did, huh? He didn't tell you that the Roosevelt administration was preventing Japan from importing vital supplies, such as oil, and that that was why Japan attacked America? He didn't tell you that the Roosevelt administration worked hard in trying to get Japan to attack us?[1]
Son: Uhhm, no. Why did they try to get Japan to attack us?
Father: So that America could fight Germany.
Son: Huhh?
Father: The people in the Roosevelt administration really didn't want war with Japan. They wanted war with Germany instead. But they couldn't get Germany to attack the United States. And they couldn't attack Germany because America was isolationist then - such a move would have been unpopular with the public. But they could get Japan to attack America, via an oil embargo. You see, the Roosevelt administration knew that Japan and Germany were friends. They knew that war with Japan would, by default, lead to war with Germany as well. In fact, war with Germany in such a manner was virtually guaranteed, since Japan and Germany were obligated to defend each other in times of war by the 1940 Tripartite Pact.[2]
Son: Why did the Roosevelt administration want war with Germany?
Father: For several reasons - the most important of which was that that administration was full of a certain race of people: Jews. They saw Germany as a threat to every Jew in the entire world. A threat not just in a physical sense but also in a psychological sense, since Germany was exporting so-called 'anti-Semitic' ideas throughout the West.
Son: Wow...they actually wanted war??
Father: Shocking, isn't it?
Son: (silence)
Father: (silence)
Son: I think I'll ask Mr. Goldberg...
Father: Don't bother. But tell your friends about what I said, son.
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[1] In fact, the American plan to use the U.S.-sponsored "Flying Tigers" air fighter squadrons in the Far East against Japanese troops, for China's benefit, was conceived in Spring 1941. In other words, America was planning armed aggression against the Japanese long before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor - an important fact to consider when pondering America's entry into WWII.
[2] regardless of the exact wording of the Tripartite [Three-Power] Pact, FDR must have been aware that war with Japan meant war with Germany at some point. The spirit of the Pact was clear: that Japan and Germany were friends and partners. Furthermore, Japan and Germany had also signed a prior pact, the Anti-Comintern Pact, which was designed to protect the signers from global communism. Since America was aiding a communist country [the Soviet Union] in 1941, the latter pact had some bearing on German/Japanese/American relations as well, if only in spirit.
VNN STAFF
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