Posted on 12/06/2006 4:07:08 PM PST by NonZeroSum
December 7, 1946
HONOLULU (Routers) Five years after the sinking of the battleships in Pearl Harbor, many still question the official government story of what happened on that fateful day, and who was responsible. Some believe that the Roosevelt administration did it themselves, deliberately, making it look like Japanese religious fanatics were responsible, in order to drag the country into a war that they could get by no other means, to benefit arms merchants and the Jews.
The controversy has been renewed by a recently released film documentary, titled "Loose Ships." It makes a compelling case against the Shinto extremist theory, citing inconsistent eyewitness reports, mistaken radar readings, and structural analysis of the sunken battleships.
"It makes no sense to think that Japanese Shintoists could have done this," explains one of the film's producers. "Shinto is a deeply spiritual religion, derived from Buddhism, worshiping nature. A Shintoist would never have desecrated Pearl Harbor with all of that leaking and burning diesel fuel and oil. It is fundamentally a religion of peace."
He points out that many eyewitnesses saw American planes in the air that day, and that the radar images that many claim, preposterously in his view, were of the attacking Japanese aircraft, were actually a squadron of American B-17s on its way to Hickam Air Force Base, perhaps to take part in the plot. The Truman administration itself has admitted that there was a group of bombers in the area that morning, on its way from the mainland, though a War Department spokesman claimed that it was too far away and in the wrong direction to appear on radar at that point in time.
The documentarian went on to expand on his theory. "We don't think that Japanese aircraft would have the range to get here all the way from Japan, but if by some miracle they did, it was probably to protect Honolulu, in which many Japanese live, from the administration plot. That's probably what people were seeing."
Some have examined the wreckage of the Arizona, and claim that it wasn't brought down by aerial bombs, but by charges planted on the ship beforehand.
"Look at those two huge circular holes in the front and rear of the sunken ship," he said. "No bomb is big enough to make a hole that size, and do it so cleanly. It was obviously a shaped charge of some kind. It's just not possible to take down ships that big with the little bombs that are carried in those little Japanese airplanes."
"They killed thousands of sailors for their filthy war, and many of them died a long and horrible death in air pockets. And take a look at the roster of the people who died on the Arizona. How many Jewish names do you see there? I think they were warned ahead of time."
"It was all part of the Zionist neo-liberal conspiracy to drag America into a needless war of choice."
In response to suggestions that the Japanese used aircraft carriers, and that many of the Japanese planes were torpedo bombers, and that the large holes were the empty sockets for the gun turrets, that were removed afterward, he scoffed. "That's all just Franklin Delano Rosenfeld administration propaganda," he sneered knowingly.
Some enterprising and innovative people have carried the analysis further. In one sequence shown in the documentary, a man built a wooden model of the ship in his pond, and filmed himself dropping lit firecrackers on it from above, to demonstrate how preposterous was the notion that ships could be sunk by bombs. They seemed to have no effect other than a slight scorching of the deck, and the sturdy little toy remained afloat.
He was proud of his own small part in uncovering the cover up. "Other than the fact that the ship is wood, which is much weaker than steel, and I used firecrackers instead of iron bombs, and that there was no ammunition magazine aboard to explode, this is a perfect simulation of what the Roosevelt administration claims happened to the Arizona. But there the ship floats, to show to one and all the administration's lie. And how convenient of Roosevelt to die a year and a half ago, so he can avoid having to answer these questions."
Hilarious satire!
It is a scary thing that a rather large handful of our goofiest citizens believe that the WTC and Pentagon attacks were US government conspiracies.
I found the gieaway in the third paragraph:
It is fundamentally a religion of peace.
Note the category: Political Humor...
Also note that tomorrow is the sixty-fifth anniversary of the attack...
Obviously the author was using the occasion to mock the "Loose Change" morons.
I know that some of my father's family still lived in Germany at this time and most likely served in the German military, but I can't confirm this.
"There were a lot of folks out there who believed that the ONLY reason the US got involved in WW2 was because Roosevelt himself planned Pearl Harbor in advance.
These folks ignore the fact that when 300 planes come in and bomb the crap out of one harbor and Japanese troops storm ashore at Guam, Wake Island, and the Phillippines, it doesn't really matter whether or not the US Pacific Fleet was at battle stations or not, there's going to be a war."
Mega dittos, Pearl Harbor was not needed to start a war. One bomb hitting the Phillipines would have done it. By December of 1941, everyone who was paying attention knew war was likely between Japan and the US, the British Empire and the Netherlands. The only question was when. The US was engaged in a desparate race to renforce the Philipines, a race we lost.
I've heard that somewhere recently...
I'm surprised they didn't claim he'd planned his cerebral hemorrhage too just so he wouldn't have to be around if the war ended badly for the U.S.
btt
I don't get that at all. Services (meaning, at that time, the Army and Navy) expected action in the next two weeks. That could have been Hawaii, or the Philipines, Wake, Midway, or other targets. In fact, it turned out to be all. But I don't get how anyone can say "In other words, the only service action contingent on negotiations was Pearl Harbor."
It doesn't prove that at all.
It seems more probable than not to me that FDR knew in advance and stood down, but until all the relevant materials are declassified, and a competent analysis conducted, it is difficult to draw definitive conclusions.
The material I quoted from contains numerous statements that, by themselves, do not seem fully supported by the surrounding material. But when one reviews all the fragments of evidence, the general theme of numerous, independent and reasonably well-sourced warnings appears clear, as well as government responses that seem difficult to explain by mere incompetence/information overload.
A contender for the most idiotic of conspiracy theories - has a lot of competition, though.There isn't the SLIGHTEST motivation for Roosevelt to know about the attack and say nothing.
The people behind the Roosevelt theories credit Roosevelt with a complete, comprehensive, and detailed knowledge of every Japanese thought and plan. Well, the Japanese WERE NOT EXPECTING to surprise Pearl Harbor - they were HOPING to, but they were expecting to have to fight their way in. If the Japanese task force was spotted or Pearl Harbor alerted before the attack, the Japanese had NO plans to call off the attack whatsoever.
And honestly, had PH been warned, the battlefleet probably would have sortied and been sunk forever, no ships raised, in thousands of feet of water, anyway.
And if somehow PH was ready and the Japanese only damaged a couple of US ships and killed several dozen Americans, do you really think the US wouldn't have declared war? It wasn't some necessity for PH to be surprised and thousands of Americans killed to get the US into the war.
And heck, the NEXT DAY the entirety of MacArthur's air force in the Phillipines was caught ON THE GROUND by the Japanese and destroyed - this was AFTER MacArthur knew about PH.
"It is fundamentally a religion of peace."
Oh crap! Where have we heard that B$ before???
In my mind, ranks right up there with the explosives planted to bring down the Twin Towers on 9/11.
Can you imagine what is being considered now, as a galvanizing call to action by the American people? I predict a (number of) nukes in American cities - to galvanize the insipidly stupid libs to call for blood.
This makes no sense. The Japanese could clearly sink more ships in a surprise attack.
And if somehow PH was ready and the Japanese only damaged a couple of US ships and killed several dozen Americans, do you really think the US wouldn't have declared war? It wasn't some necessity for PH to be surprised and thousands of Americans killed to get the US into the war
If PH "was ready", and the ships left, Japanese spies might well have aborted the attack.
Roosevelt may not have known the minutae of the attack, but he damn well knew that the Germans would honor the triple alliance in the event that Japan went to war, he knew public sentiment for joining England and France against Germany ran about 70-30 against it, and he knew that if we didn't get in it the Germans would win and hold a hegemony over more than half of the Eurasian landmass.
All he needed to do to goad the Japanese was turn off the oil and steel. They'd be forced to play their hand for sources in Indonesia and other European colonies, and they'd hit us hard to try to slow us while they build a defensive perimeter.
If he could have found a way to get us into the European conflict without a Pacific war it would have been done, or else the world would have been a vastly different place.
Not considering all of the financial and political machinations that created the stage for the war, i.e. just looking at it from the standpoint of it being a strategic exercise or game, it was undoubtedly brilliant strategy.
The problem we faced is that there was no way that a representative democracy would support the kind of defense expenditures needed to deter or respond after the fact to a a victorious Japan and or Germany. From the strategic outlook, people in leadership HAD to get us into WWII or face a vast uncertainty in a post Axis victory world.
Granted, the foundations of the war could have been avoided a generation earlier, and even prior to that if people would have kept the great financial houses on tight leashes. It is definitely loathsome to the concept of the Republic that it's citizens can be sacrificed as pawns in a global game for the ruling cabals, but it did get the job done, and the OpFors then definitely deserved a beating if any nations ever did...
My Grandfather refers to him as "Dugout Doug". He ended up on Corrigedor after Cavite was pounded, was converted from Navy to a Marine (received Bronze Star as one too). Corrigedor held out until after the march (about 4 months IIRC) did a year as a slave building airstips and such on the mainland Phillipines and then was sent on a death ship to Japan and spent the rest of the war as a slave in a mine.
Still alive and kicking, though having some physical troubles crop up recently (if they come at 88 after you were beaten and starved down to 84 pounds once in your life, that's probably doing pretty damn good...)
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