Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

The Real Lesson of Pearl Harbor
The Daily Beast ^ | Mon Dec 6 | James Bradley

Posted on 12/07/2010 7:32:38 AM PST by fruser1

click here to read article


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-46 next last
To: fruser1
In 1853, U.S. Navy warships entered the North Pacific with the largest show of naval power the area had ever seen. ~~~
The Navy’s goal in 1853 was to make Japan into what a Japanese prime minister later called “America’s unsinkable aircraft carrier in the Pacific”
Which shows incredible prescience by the USN. (in 1853 they didn't yet operate aircraft)
21 posted on 12/07/2010 8:52:39 AM PST by Oztrich Boy (History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce - Karl Marx)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: GreyFriar

Got a link to such a video?


22 posted on 12/07/2010 8:54:12 AM PST by al_c (http://www.blowoutcongress.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: ridesthemiles
Whoopi goldberg says the Japenese never bombed us at Pearl Harbor.

Jeremiah Wright said something similar. Could Pearl Harbor have been an inside job?

23 posted on 12/07/2010 9:06:37 AM PST by Fiji Hill
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: fruser1

The lesson is that we should make ourselves weaker, meaning presumably that Japan attacked us because they thought we were too strong to beat?


24 posted on 12/07/2010 9:12:10 AM PST by Pollster1 (Natural born citizen of the USA, with the birth certificate to prove it)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Notary Sojac

The lesson of Pearl Harbor is this: if you declare war, you have to fight with everything you’ve got and achieve total victory over the enemy’s ideology.

Amen, and when congress shirks it’s responsibility and lets the executive branch diddle around with war powers, what we see is what we get. It is their job to make the decision.

We have been diddling since the end of the big one in 1945.


25 posted on 12/07/2010 9:17:19 AM PST by wita
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: Oztrich Boy
In 1853, U.S. Navy warships entered the North Pacific with the largest show of naval power the area had ever seen. ~~~ The Navy’s goal in 1853 was to make Japan into what a Japanese prime minister later called “America’s unsinkable aircraft carrier in the Pacific”

Does it really say that at the Daily Beast? (I can't follow the link at my current venue.) Not only did the navy anticipate the invention of aircraft, they followed the premise through to the development of the aircraft carrier. True genius!

26 posted on 12/07/2010 9:29:19 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson ("Every nation has the government that it deserves." - Joseph de Maistre (1753-1821))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: dfwgator; central_va

It’s a movie reference. Classic John Belushi line in Animal House.


27 posted on 12/07/2010 9:31:45 AM PST by FreedomPoster (No Representation without Taxation!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: al_c

Just watch the Pearl Harbor shows on History & Military Channel’s today and you’ll see it. My other “movie closeup error” is showing a P-47’s left side with 4 x 50 cal firing and then either a US fighter or bomber exploding that closeup usually follows a distance shot of a Bf-109 or FW-190.


28 posted on 12/07/2010 9:32:54 AM PST by GreyFriar (Spearhead - 3rd Armored Division 75-78 & 83-87)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: Homer_J_Simpson

Yes, yes it does.

Just incredible.


29 posted on 12/07/2010 9:34:50 AM PST by FreedomPoster (No Representation without Taxation!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: Fiji Hill

Klingons via time warp.


30 posted on 12/07/2010 9:37:32 AM PST by Calamari (Pass enough laws and everyone is guilty of something.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: central_va; BenLurkin

http://www.johnspeedie.com/healy/jap.wav


31 posted on 12/07/2010 9:39:39 AM PST by ErnBatavia (It's not the Obama Administration....it's the "Obama Regime".)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: FreedomPoster
It’s a movie reference. Classic John Belushi line in Animal House.

Of course I know that, I was just expecting somebody to respond with "Forget it, he's rolling."

32 posted on 12/07/2010 9:40:41 AM PST by dfwgator (Congratulations to Josh Hamilton - AL MVP)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: ridesthemiles
Whoopi goldberg says the Japenese never bombed us at Pearl Harbor. Wonder who she thinks did that bombing?

She said the Japanese military bombed us at Pearl Harbor.

33 posted on 12/07/2010 9:50:08 AM PST by SeeSac
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: PGR88

Actually, to be just slightly accurate....

Germany and Italy declared war on us. Dumbest thing Hitler ever did.


34 posted on 12/07/2010 9:50:53 AM PST by Vermont Lt (Don't taze my junk bro.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: ridesthemiles

Thats OK.

We didn’t nuke the Japs then....


35 posted on 12/07/2010 9:52:25 AM PST by Vermont Lt (Don't taze my junk bro.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: dfwgator

Doh!


36 posted on 12/07/2010 10:04:53 AM PST by FreedomPoster (No Representation without Taxation!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 32 | View Replies]

To: GreyFriar

You’re gonna have to do better than that in support of your outlandish claim. I’ve heard the Pearl Harbor conspiracy theories for many years, but this is the first I’ve read of anyone claiming we bombed our own ships.


37 posted on 12/07/2010 10:05:12 AM PST by al_c (http://www.blowoutcongress.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 28 | View Replies]

To: Homer_J_Simpson
The article
On the anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attacks, Flags of Our Fathers author James Bradley explains how the U.S. under Teddy Roosevelt first meddled in Asian affairs—and why we’re playing a dangerous game in doing so again.

I always assumed that my father—John Bradley—had raised two American flags on the island of Iwo Jima because of the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor 65 years ago today. But unbeknownst to my dad, 88 years before Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Navy had eyed Iwo Jima as a potential staging area for naval operations aimed at China.

In 1853, U.S. Navy warships entered the North Pacific with the largest show of naval power the area had ever seen. The three neighboring countries—Japan, Korea, and China—had been at peace with one another for centuries.

The Navy’s goal in 1853 was to make Japan into what a Japanese prime minister later called “America’s unsinkable aircraft carrier in the Pacific” in order to compete for influence in nearby China. The pretext given to the American public was that the Navy was on a humanitarian mission to halt mistreatment of American whalers shipwrecked on Japanese shores.

Twenty years later, in 1873, Japan launched its first modern overseas military foray—an invasion of Taiwan. The rationale was to threaten China, thus allowing Japan to wrest the island of Okinawa from China’s orbit, an idea cooked up by the Japanese foreign ministry’s first foreign employee—a retired American Civil War general. The excuse was that the Taiwanese had abused Okinawan civilians. The Japanese invaders sailed on American-made ships with U.S. Navy advisers. In 1894, Americans applauded as a newly militarized Japan attacked China to promote “peace and stability” on the Korean Peninsula.

Then in 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt secretly urged Japanese leaders to develop a “Japanese Monroe Doctrine for Asia.” Roosevelt encouraged the Japanese navy to seize “a paramount interest in what surrounds the Yellow Sea, just as the United States has a paramount interest in what surrounds the Caribbean.” Unknown to Congress and his own State Department, Theodore Roosevelt agreed to a secret, unconstitutional treaty with Tokyo allowing the Japanese military to seize Korea and initiate their Japanese Monroe Doctrine for Asia.

When the United States and Japan later quarreled over who would control China, war broke out. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt condemned that day of infamy, not realizing that the Japanese navy had modeled their Pearl Harbor attack after a similar surprise naval operation in Korean and Chinese harbors 37 years earlier. In 1904, when word of Japan’s first infamous sneak attack reached him, President Theodore Roosevelt wrote secretly, “I was thoroughly well pleased with the Japanese victory, for Japan is playing our game.”

U.S. Marines raise the American flag atop Mt. Suribachi, Iwo Jima, on this Feb. 23, 1945. (Photo: Joe Rosenthal / AP Photo) The U.S. Navy is continuing Theodore Roosevelt’s game in Asia. In June, North Koreans fired on and killed three Chinese civilians on their northern border and Washington viewed it as a minor incident. In November, when North Korea tragically killed four South Koreans, President Barack Obama led the China-bashing and dispatched thousands of warships, tens of thousands of troops, and billions of dollars of high-tech weapons to the coast of China.

Pretty much "peaceful chinee threatened by American Imperialism"

Simpler explanation for the Perry expedition (which is also the explanation for most historical events): Trade

38 posted on 12/07/2010 10:05:19 AM PST by Oztrich Boy (History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce - Karl Marx)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: PGR88

Let me guess. You are a product of the Public School System? Right?


39 posted on 12/07/2010 10:20:19 AM PST by jim_trent
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: Vermont Lt
Dumbest thing Hitler ever did.

Hitler believed in return the Japanese would attack the Soviets in the Far East, and ease Hitler's burden in Russia.

The Japanese weren't stupid.

40 posted on 12/07/2010 10:31:55 AM PST by dfwgator (Congratulations to Josh Hamilton - AL MVP)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-46 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson