Today is December 7, 2008 and the 66th anniversary of the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawai'i.
As then President Franklin Delano Roosevelt correctly said, it is a date that shall live in infamy.
The worrisome aspect of this as more time is removed and more and more soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines from that era go to the glory, is how many of us Americans will forget about what happened that day.
It was an amazing event because it was the first battle of modern warfare.
The Japanese Pacific fleet and air force did something that had never been done before in the history of warfare. An air attack against an enemy target. And, it was regrettably successful at that.
While there has been a lot of strange history that somehow President Franklin Delano Roosevelt actually knew of the impending attack and did nothing to stop it, it is as noted. Strange history. Some use that history to cite that because of that the United States could formally enter the war against the Axis powers that included Germany and Italy.
My take is that it is possible that the Roosevelt administration knew of the potential of an attack, but not how, by who, not when that could take place.
Such conspiracy thinking requires that all the players have to keep the conspiracy under wraps. And we know that there are always those that can not keep a secret.
The real lesson is that the United States has to always know who our friends are and be always watchful for those that wish us harm.
As Santayana once said, those that ignore history are doomed to repeat it.
2 comments:
I think Gordon Prange has successfully debunked the Rooseveldt conspiracy theory on Pearl Harbor. Vigilant and wise we were not. But conspiracy is another thing altogether.
BTW, are you familiar with the story of the lead pilot, Fuchida? Interesting story. Try a google search.
I'll go back to my belated viewing of Tora! Tora! Tora! now.
Al Queda killed more Americans on 9/11 than the Japanese did during the Pearl Harbor raid. Hopefully we will remember 9/11 66 years from now with the same outrage as we do the cowardly attack on Pearl.
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