LIFE DURING WARTIME Now and Then

Dec. 12, 1941: The City Council of Berkeley, Calif. approves, by 5-4, a resolution condemning as "warmongering" the recent U.S. declaration of war on Japan. In a statement, the council deplores "violence as a means of settling international disputes" and urges President Roosevelt to "sit down with the Japanese ambassador in Washington" and "enter into a meaningful, non-gender or race-based dialogue."

Dec. 13, 1941: In an article for the New Yorker, Mavis Montag suggests that the U.S. "has only itself to blame" for the attack on Pearl Harbor. However, she expresses satisfaction that America is now formally at war with Germany and will thus "be forced to aid the heroic struggle of the Soviet Union."

Jan. 30, 1942: In an interview on "Good Morning Nippon," a Japanese bomber pilot wounded over Pearl Harbor denounces the American Navy's attempt to defend itself from the attack.

"They should have accepted our bombs as divine will," says Murama Takaji, 22, who appears on the popular morning show with both arms in a sling. He says that once he recovers he hopes to join the elite Divine Wind ("kamikaze") squadron. "It would be a great honor to crash into an American ship," he says. "I hear there are many pretty geishas in the next life."

Feb. 7, 1942: The head of ABC News retracts revelation of Doolittle mission. "I misspoke," he says. "There actually is no secret plan to launch B-25 bombers off aircraft carriers to bomb Tokyo on April 18. Really."

April 20, 1942: Officials from the Japanese Imperial Ministry of Propaganda and Dissimulation give American reporters a tour of areas of Tokyo damaged in the Doolittle raid. According to the officials, all bombs missed military targets, landing instead on nursery schools, hospitals, temples, infant formula factories and schools for handicapped children.

April 21, 1942: The head of the United Notions expresses "grave concern" over civilian casualties in yesterday's Doolittle raid over Tokyo.

"If there are to be any more of these so-called 'daring' raids over Japanese population centers," he says, "American pilots must be more sensitive to collateral damage."

Mr. Buckley is editor of Forbes FYI. His new novel, "Trial of the Millennium," will be published next year by Random House.

It seems like the crazy, leftist, anti-America types were with us even during WW II. The America First movement looked a lot like Moveon.org.

Charles Lindbergh provided Americans with a portrait of the European war that differed substantially from the one conceived by the Roosevelt administration...

* Drawing on his experiences and observations during four or five years abroad (1935-1939) in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America, Charles Lindbergh provided Americans with a portrait of the European war that differed substantially from the one conceived by the Roosevelt administration and by so-called interventionists in the United States. He did not see the conflict as basically a war for democracy or morality. He was skeptical of the ideology and moral righteousness of the British and French. He conceived of morality in international affairs as relative to time, place, circumstances, and power. His approach was, in effect, more understanding of the Germans (without approving of what they did) and more skeptical of the Allies than the conventional view in the United States. Lindbergh saw a divided responsibility for the origins of the European war, rather than an assignment of the total blame to Hitler, Nazi Germany, and the Axis states. He did not view Germany, Britian, and France as implacable foes with irreconcilable differences that could be resolved only by war; he saw them all as parts of Western civilization. And he conceived of the European war as a fratricdal struggle (like the wars between Athens and Sparta in ancient Greece) that could destroy Western civilization. Conceptions of race were conspicuous in his analyses, as were his concerns about the challenge of Asiatic hordes to the survival of Western civilization. Like later American "realists," Colonel Lindbergh attached great weight to the role of power in international relations and in prevailing definitions of morality.

* Source: Wayne S. Cole's, Charles A. Lindbergh and the Battle Against American Intervention in World War II

That is certainly the difference. The America First organization shut down immediately after the Pearl Harbor attack.

Back then, the anti-war types still had some vestiges of loyalty in them. On the other hand, they could have been afraid of getting their hind ends kicked by the general public.

Maybe the difference is that we aren't determined enough to stand up for what is right to cause the anti-war wackos to think twice before spewing anti-American venom.

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