BBC Documentary: Sacrifice at Pearl Harbor
"Why, of course, the people don't want war... But it is always a simple matter to drag the people along... That is easy. All you
have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the
pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It
works the same in any country."
- Herman Goering
- Herman Goering
I know you have all heard the saying about someone winning the battle yet managing to lose the war. Well, how about a powerful nation winning the World War and a few years later being on the brink of losing its Empire? According to the insightful article by Gary North, this is precisely what has taken place between the two countries involved in the Pearl Harbor surprise(?) attack 70 years ago today. While the victor focused on building an impressive and costly presence of over 1,000 military bases worldwide and engaged in countless warring adventures thereafter, the vanquished had little choice other than to 'beat its swords into plowshares', becoming (along with their defeated ally, Germany) one of the major economic powerhouses of the postwar era. Is there a lesson for all to learn here?
On a side note, it is now acknowledged by most researchers (though 'Uncle Sam' has yet to admit it) that Pearl Harbor was anything but a surprise attack for FDR and his top commanders. As borne out by the following articles, more than a year before the incident FDR implemented a sophisticated plan to provoke an attack from Japan - knowing that this was the only way to force America into the war. It is only one of several false-flag events in history used to trick otherwise peaceful States into war.
An Exchange of Empires
by Gary NorthRecently by Gary North: Blind Men's Bluff: FED-Defending, Gold-Hating Economists
On December 7, 1941, the naval forces of the Empire of Japan launched one of the most ill-conceived, boneheaded military ventures in history, one exceeded only by Adolph Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union the previous June. (Hitler then one-upped Japan again, four days later, when he declared war on the United States, although he was not required to by the terms of the Axis pact, since Japan had initiated the war.)
That attack led to the destruction of the empire in 1945: the utter humiliation of the military; the reversal of the nation's centuries-long honoring of military valor; the permanent transformation of Japan's desire to succeed by war and the adoption of a new goal, to succeed by peaceful economic competition; and the abolition of the national armed forces, which persists to this day. This laid the foundation of the greatest post-war economic recovery in history.
The attack led to a military response from the United States, which in retrospect marked the triumph of the forces favoring the creation of an American empire over a persistent tradition of a non-interventionist foreign policy. It led to a wartime increase in the federal government's debt on a scale not seen since the Civil War. It transformed the military budget from one that can be described as a near-starvation diet in 1941 to a seventy-year bloat never seen before in man's history. It led to the nation's retroactive honoring of the conscripted millions who went to war as "the greatest generation." It led to the creation of an empire that has 1,000 military and spy bases outside the territorial United States, and the creation of an aircraft carrier-based Navy that patrols the world in search of monsters to destroy, to quote John Quincey Adams.
This leads me to a controversial conclusion: Through the defeat of the Japanese military, Japan won the war in the Pacific. The United States lost it.
THE WRONG REASONS:
No comments:
Post a Comment