Reminds me of JFK’s response when the Berlin Wall went up just 4 months after the Bay of Pigs catastrophe.
Kennedy was sailing on a Sunday morning when word came that East Berlin was being sealed off.
He came back to shore, talked briefly with a staffer, then sailed for another hour.
On the one hand, what could he do, short of declaring war?
On the other hand, I will always believe that the Cuban Missile Crisis would never have happened if Kennedy had shown more resolve and personal strength in those two earlier crises.
I think the same thing can be said about FDR.
There is clear documentary evidence that many senior military and government officials in Japan believed that FDR was effeminate and a man of weak character who desired only public adulation.
I will never believe that the Japanese would have attacked Pearl Harbor if Teddy Roosevelt was president.
Cf. Contrafactus, pg. 633 of GEB, where the "Subjunc-TV" is discussed and employed, ... "What would that last play have looked like if space were four-dimensional?"
Compare preference given to hiring of gay males to guard the US diplomatic outpost in Benghazi.
I will never believe that [Ansar Al-shariah] would have attacked our Benghazi compound were promotion of the LGBT agenda not at the heart of US foreign policy. Well, OK, the fact that we're being led by a flaming Islamic sympathizer, who cannot tell the truth played a major role, too.
HF