December 7, 1941

"The day which will live in infamy" not only for America, but for the rest of the world, is commemorated today, December 7th.

The Japanese sneak attack exposed many of the vulnerabilities the United States had at the time, and the recriminations are still being heard today.

Conspiracy theories are quite normal surrounding and event of such proportions, and even some still hold the belief that to this day, President Roosevelt and his Administration, willingly let the Japanese attack to serve their own Machiavellian aims. The American Patriot Friends Network has the following to say about the Pearl Harbor slippery slope:

On 7 December 1941 the greatest disaster in United States history occurred. Truly this was and is, “’A date which will live in infamy.’”(Costello 1), but not for the bombing of Pearl Harbor, rather for the deception and the mis-guidance used by the Government and Franklin D. Roosevelt. In a purely artificial chess game Roosevelt sacrificed over 2400 American Seamen’s lives, thanks to his power as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. By over-looking the obvious facts of an attack by Japan on Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt was able to control both the political and economic systems of the United States. Most of American society before the Pearl Harbor bombing believed in the idea of isolationism...

...Churchill later wrote that FDR and his top advisors "knew the full and immediate purpose of their enemy": "A Japanese attack upon the U.S. was a vast simplification of their problems and their duty. How can we wonder that they regarded the actual form of the attack, or even its scale, as incomparably less important than the fact that the whole American nation would be united?"

The real target, Adolf Hitler, duly walked into the trap on December 10, 1941, thus committing the greatest blunder of his career and ensuring Germany's defeat. The rest, as they say, is history. The ensuing fury gave birth first to a superpower, then to an empire. It swept away doubters and isolationists, it legitimized a total war for unconditional surrender. It created nuclear weapons, the Cold War, the military-industrial complex, the "intelligence community," and today's benevolent global hegemony. The people who run the American Empire today will as strenuously deny the existence of a Pearl Harbor conspiracy as their predecessors denied it half a century ago. But in their hearts they'll admit that, even if there had not been one, it should have been invented.

Now, of course to thinking people, these are the words of a madman. America's involvement in the Good War is one widely accepted by not only Americans, but the world as a whole. Popularity isn't always the absolute standard in right and wrong, but it is nice to know that the a sizable chunk of the people in the world feel positive about America and her Allies shedding their blood to stop the fascist and imperialist bastards who unsuccessfully tried play king of hill.

Pearl Harbor and World War II didn't exist in a vaccum, and our civilization is once again under attack from those that hate us. After Pearl Harbor, we rallied our industrial might, donned our country's uniform, and eventually stormed the beaches at Normandy and Okinawa, then libeterating concentration camps designed for the sole purpose of extermination. Our population rallied to the cause, from those that joined the infantry and the Air Corps, to those who bought war bonds and worked in the factories to keep it all afloat.

The Islamists don't have the military might that Japan had in 1941. Maybe if they did, the American people would collectively wake up and decide that this fight is worthy of sacrifice. Instead, our foe is either taken lightly or brushed off as irrelevant next to the inherent evil that "America" supposidly emboides. As demonstrated, the recriminations and conspiracy theories existed in 1941, and have been dismissed as insane. Today, the arguments and accusations of American imperialism and dubious motives are identical but for the proper nouns. However, in 2005, they are being repeated with vehemence in the mainstream by the leaders of the opposing politcal party for partisan gain.

September 11th actually killed more people than the attack on Pearl Harbor did, but the Islamists didn't have six carrier battle groups waiting off shore to follow-up their attack. Maybe that was Japan's biggest mistake. Instead of confronting American culture with a big stick and a loud mouth, it might have been more effective to take over like a fog, slowly encompassing everyone with feelings of self-loathing without anyone's notice until it is too dense to see.

Here's to hoping that we can hold our self-loathing population at bay for just a little while longer. I don't want to see any more days "which will live in infamy" needed to wake everyone up.