Pearl Harbor: 75 Years Ago Today

TCM is devoting its programming to movies about or related to the attack on Pearl Harbour. Among them are Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, From Here To Eternity, and Tora! Tora! Tora!.

75 years ago today the attack on Pearl Harbour defined the moment when the freest country in the World was forced into making the decision to fight with all its' might to stay that way and risk losing everything or to voluntarily become a much lesser weaker light. One day later the decision was made and set into motion through a mountain of heroic sacrifices the events that ultimately defeated the evil to the core Axis allies...the original globalists.

From Roosevelt's "A Date that will live in Infamy" speech:

"...No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.

I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us..."

America certainly did by righteous might win absolute victory. They were great then. May they become great defenders of Freedom, Liberty and Justice again.

Remind me again ... Just how LONG our war on Terrorism has been going on ? I assure you the NOBODY was calling for the importation of MORE Japanese people into America after Pearl Harbor ... unlike what our weenie leaders have done after 9-11

How U.S. Economic Warfare Provoked Japan's Attack on Pearl Harbor
This talk was the Arthur M. Krolman Lecture at the 30th Anniversary Supporters Summit of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, Callaway Gardens, Georgia, on October 26, 2012.

Stimson favored the use of economic sanctions to obstruct Japan's advance in Asia. Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau and Interior Secretary Harold Ickes vigorously endorsed this policy. Roosevelt hoped that such sanctions would goad the Japanese into making a rash mistake by launching a war against the United States, which would bring in Germany because Japan and Germany were allied.

The Roosevelt administration, while curtly dismissing Japanese diplomatic overtures to harmonize relations, accordingly imposed a series of increasingly stringent economic sanctions on Japan. In 1939, the United States terminated the 1911 commercial treaty with Japan. "On July 2, 1940, Roosevelt signed the Export Control Act, authorizing the President to license or prohibit the export of essential defense materials." Under this authority, "[o]n July 31, exports of aviation motor fuels and lubricants and No. 1 heavy melting iron and steel scrap were restricted." Next, in a move aimed at Japan, Roosevelt slapped an embargo, effective October 16, "on all exports of scrap iron and steel to destinations other than Britain and the nations of the Western Hemisphere." Finally, on July 26, 1941, Roosevelt "froze Japanese assets in the United States, thus bringing commercial relations between the nations to an effective end. One week later Roosevelt embargoed the export of such grades of oil as still were in commercial flow to Japan."8 The British and the Dutch followed suit, embargoing exports to Japan from their colonies in Southeast Asia.

Roosevelt and his subordinates knew they were putting Japan in an untenable position and that the Japanese government might well try to escape the stranglehold by going to war. Having broken the Japanese diplomatic code, the American leaders knew, among many other things, what Foreign Minister Teijiro Toyoda had communicated to Ambassador Kichisaburo Nomura on July 31: "Commercial and economic relations between Japan and third countries, led by England and the United States, are gradually becoming so horribly strained that we cannot endure it much longer. Consequently, our Empire, to save its very life, must take measures to secure the raw materials of the South Seas."9

Because American cryptographers had also broken the Japanese naval code, the leaders in Washington also knew that Japan's "measures" would include an attack on Pearl Harbor.10 Yet they withheld this critical information from the commanders in Hawaii, who might have headed off the attack or prepared themselves to defend against it. That Roosevelt and his chieftains did not ring the tocsin makes perfect sense: after all, the impending attack constituted precisely what they had been seeking for a long time. As Stimson confided to his diary after a meeting of the War Cabinet on November 25, "The question was how we should maneuver them [the Japanese] into firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves." After the attack, Stimson confessed that "my first feeling was of relief . . . that a crisis had come in a way which would unite all our people."11

https://mises.org/library/how-us-economic-warfare-provoked-japans-attack-pearl-harbor

Wars will go on until you make the cost to the enemy unpalatable. The Germans and Japanese were beaten so bad they have become national pansies. Casualties have to be in the millions and victory be conclusive or it never ends.

Wars can be very profitable, especially for those whose positions of power allow them to keep their children out of harms way. US participation concluded ww2 in 4½ years, ended the great depression and made US industrialists incredibly rich. It didn't take them long to realize that continuous wars could make them even richer.

@Rizwan - 9:11 was a "Pearl Harbor" event. There is evidence that the US knew it was going to happen and manipulated the situation for maximum effect.

A great piece of work from Rizwan encapsulating the Second World War, straight out of the Marxist manifesto. What is not mentioned is the reason behind the trade embargo that was instituted at the time. Rizwan should maybe try looking at the rise of Japanese Imperialism and the Sino-Japanese war before he tries to admonish the Western leaders for their conduct before, during and after the war.

The 75th anniversary memorial of the Pearl Harbour attack. Or in Obama's world, a photo op.

@Antenor obviously didn't examine the link provided, and instead engages in a meaningless ad hominem attack. One wonders of attacking the messenger is supposed to be an intelligent response? One also wonders what part of "This talk was the Arthur M. Krolman Lecture" eluded his intellectual grasp?

From the same link @Rizwan provided:

Consider these summary statements by George Victor, by no means a Roosevelt basher, in his well documented book The Pearl Harbor Myth.

Roosevelt had already led the United States into war with Germany in the spring of 1941—into a shooting war on a small scale. From then on, he gradually increased U.S. military participation. Japan's attack on December 7 enabled him to increase it further and to obtain a war declaration. Pearl Harbor is more fully accounted for as the end of a long chain of events, with the U.S. contribution reflecting a strategy formulated after France fell. . . . In the eyes of Roosevelt and his advisers, the measures taken early in 1941 justified a German declaration of war on the United States—a declaration that did not come, to their disappointment. . . . Roosevelt told his ambassador to France, William Bullitt, that U.S. entry into war against Germany was certain but must wait for an "incident," which he was "confident that the Germans would give us." . . . Establishing a record in which the enemy fired the first shot was a theme that ran through Roosevelt's tactics. . . . He seems [eventually] to have concluded—correctly as it turned out—that Japan would be easier to provoke into a major attack on the Unites States than Germany would be.3

The claim that Japan attacked the United States without provocation was . . . typical rhetoric. It worked because the public did not know that the administration had expected Japan to respond with war to anti-Japanese measures it had taken in July 1941. . . . Expecting to lose a war with the United States—and lose it disastrously—Japan's leaders had tried with growing desperation to negotiate. On this point, most historians have long agreed. Meanwhile, evidence has come out that Roosevelt and Hull persistently refused to negotiate. . . . Japan . . . offered compromises and concessions, which the United States countered with increasing demands. . . . It was after learning of Japan's decision to go to war with the United States if the talks "break down" that Roosevelt decided to break them off. . . . According to Attorney General Francis Biddle, Roosevelt said he hoped for an "incident" in the Pacific to bring the United States into the European war.4

Further: "Expecting to lose a war with the United States—and lose it disastrously—Japan's leaders had tried with growing desperation to negotiate. On this point, most historians have long agreed. Meanwhile, evidence has come out that Roosevelt and Hull persistently refused to negotiate. . . . Japan . . . offered compromises and concessions, which the United States countered with increasing demands."

Sounds to me by this tome that Japan considered itself a "victim" of US Imperialism, or is it just the author, instead of "chicken meet roost". Of course, after almost 9 years of war across Manchuria & China imposing their East Asia Co-Prosperity theme, they might have just gained a conscience & maybe just call the whole thing off?

Next you'll be claiming that the US didn't need to use the Bomb to End This Damned War?

Japan was an Axis Power allied with Germany. Of course the United States is going to slap sanctions on American resources to prevent Japan from building it's war machine for use against American allies and other countries. In my view war with Japan was inevitable and sanctions were part of a bloodless pre-War effort against an Axis power. Japan wasn't pushed into anything - they were the bloodthirsty power-hungry expansionists.

John Galt
Before the world came to know the about the atrocities committed by the Nazis they were more than familiar with those done in the name of the Japanese Imperial Army as they introduced their 'diplomatic overtures' across Southeast Asia.
How come the Military Industrial Complex (I haven't heard that term for some time) didn't talk the president out of dropping the A bomb? I mean after all war=profit so why would you let the war end so soon just when things were going so well, profit-wise?

WW2 was just the start; there's been a continuous litany of wars since then, and the MIC is quite happy to supply munitions to both sides, all for profit while making the world safe for KFC and McDs. "Making the world safe for democracy" is just more propaganda that lots of fools will fall for.

Everyone knew it was coming. The day before it came they even knew when. What the U.S. couldn't figure out was where.

No one expected an attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor. Even after the U.S. decrypted the Japanese diplomatic cipher, the Japanese still managed to nearly destroy America's Pacific fleet and guarantee the U.S.'s entry into World War II.

The story of the U.S. code breakers at the dawn of America's involvement in WWII is one of brilliant technology, ingenuity and intuition hampered by incompetence, miscommunication, and lethal assumptions.

Ever since that day, Dec. 7, 1941, which President Franklin Roosevelt described as "a date which will live in infamy," conspiracy theorists have been busy, mostly blaming Roosevelt and the military for either not paying attention to intelligence that would have predicted the attack, or knowing the attack was coming but choosing for political purposes to ignore it. Neither is true.

http://www.livescience.com/57117-decrypting-japanese-cipher-couldnt-prevent-pearl-harbor.html

'just more propaganda that lots of fools will fall for'
I see.
Only you can see the strings that the puppet masters use to control the world and keep those fast food outlets on the march. Funny thing though, fast food outlets like KFC and MacDonalds have been losing market share around the globe; those string pullers better work a bit harder.

"Don't jump to unfounded conclusions." WTF?

Don't put words in my mouth, sport. I still don't know what your point was, quoting directly from this tome. All I've read is revisionist history, using this author's interpretation of history. I doubt that anyone in the US had a clear picture at the time & putting what appears to be an anti US bent on their entry into the war is typical of the anti war folks, post war. I can't say unequivocally, because I wasn't born yet to ask anybody about it. Me da was in the RCAF at the time & me Ma was a Farmerette in S. Ontario.

If you want to bash warmongers of any sort, maybe direct some of your ire towards the two powers that be that did as much if not more warmongering to "engineer" their first shots in WW II...leading up to 1939 in Poland and earlier in Manchukuo, China, without disclosing such intent to their own populations or their neighbors.

You still haven't answered my questions if Canada should have stayed out & saved Canadian lives overseas, or if the US should have dropped the Bomb on Hiroshima/Nagasaki to pound it into the Japanese' heads that "resistance is futile" if you want your country to survive.