Careful. It's a crime scene.
Posted on 12/07/2005 8:04:14 AM PST by MNJohnnie
The 7 December 1941 Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor was one of the great defining moments in history. A single carefully-planned and well-executed stroke removed the United States Navy's battleship force as a possible threat to the Japanese Empire's southward expansion. America, unprepared and now considerably weakened, was abruptly brought into the Second World War as a full combatant.
Eighteen months earlier, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had transferred the United States Fleet to Pearl Harbor as a presumed deterrent to Japanese agression. The Japanese military, deeply engaged in the seemingly endless war it had started against China in mid-1937, badly needed oil and other raw materials. Commercial access to these was gradually curtailed as the conquests continued. In July 1941 the Western powers effectively halted trade with Japan. From then on, as the desperate Japanese schemed to seize the oil and mineral-rich East Indies and Southeast Asia, a Pacific war was virtually inevitable.
By late November 1941, with peace negotiations clearly approaching an end, informed U.S. officials (and they were well-informed, they believed, through an ability to read Japan's diplomatic codes) fully expected a Japanese attack into the Indies, Malaya and probably the Philippines. Completely unanticipated was the prospect that Japan would attack east, as well.
The U.S. Fleet's Pearl Harbor base was reachable by an aircraft carrier force, and the Japanese Navy secretly sent one across the Pacific with greater aerial striking power than had ever been seen on the World's oceans. Its planes hit just before 8AM on 7 December. Within a short time five of eight battleships at Pearl Harbor were sunk or sinking, with the rest damaged. Several other ships and most Hawaii-based combat planes were also knocked out and over 2400 Americans were dead. Soon after, Japanese planes eliminated much of the American air force in the Philippines, and a Japanese Army was ashore in Malaya.
I guess the LIEberals have no sense of gravity...the momentum they feel is a downward spiral!
I am sorry...I tried to post what Murtha said..but, maybe I didn't do it well..
I am pretty sure that I heard him say that the House had voted to have the State take over Iraq at some point, but it was taken out during the conference with the Senate...and so the President was left making the decision about who to have run the war...and Bush chose the Defense Department..
Which, according to Murtha, was THE big mistake...that the State Department should have...and then he went on to talk about how Bush said when he was running for POTUS in 2000, that he didn't believe in nation-building, blah, blah...
If I misunderstood, I am sorry...I really didn't mean to misspeak...
LOL!!
Caller ... Honey let me tell you what's going on
And ... I don't give a rats rear end
I switched to MSNBC...Fox babes just chattering to fill space.
ROFLOL..... bird brain flu
ROFLOL...... Minister Farracan Fruitcake
What moron would have the State Department run a war
And as for the "nation-building" ??
Yea .. well that was before 3,000 People were MURDERED on 9/11
Shhhhh...your not supposed to mention 9/11 around Democrats!
No problem, Tx. Your report is appreciated. It's not easy to listen and type at the same time (unless you are Peach or Soul Seeker...how do they do it?). If Murtha did say State should have run the war, he is an idiot, but we all knew that anyway.
Johnson and Congress ran the Vietnam war which is why so many of out people died.
Wow, see ya all tomorrow, have to go make Chicken & Dumplings for supper. Ummmmmmmmmmmmmm good.
Murtha thinks that is such a zinger. He is an old fool.
Why have a DEFENSE DEPARTMENT if the dems think the State Department should be in charge of the war? I don't think Colin Powell would have aggressively pursued the terrorists that attacked us, and there are entirely too many clinton appointees cum civil servants embedded there.
Dang. I've GOT to leave....keep reporting so I can check back later.
I have posted a transcript (from memory) of my conversation with the Great One.
A Brief Conversation with Rush (During the second hour today): http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1535861/posts
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