President Franklin Roosevelt declared it to be a “day that would live in infamy”. That is Dec. 7, 1941, the day that Japan launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.
Today marks 70 years since that fateful day that claimed the lives of 2,402 American sailors and wounded another 1,282.
That attack did not happen ‘out of the clear blue’. There had been war raging around the globe for a few years already, but the American public supported a policy of “isolationism” and was opposed to us getting involved in another European war. That’s understandable, since it had only been a little better than 20 years since the terrible events of WW I had ended. Yet, the forces at play on the world scene practically assured that, at some point, the U.S. would have to be involved in this 2nd World War.
On that day the scales were tipped! Overnight the American public went from ’pacifist’ to ’screaming eagles’. The pride of a great nation cannot allow over 2,000 of their citizens to be slaughtered without serious consequences.
One has to wonder what possessed the Japanese to believe that even if they succeeded in destroying the Pacific Fleet, they would be able to contain the giant nation that they had prodded as with a sharp stick? Someone in the Japan leadership had a flawed premise, big time!
This is a personal opinion based on a lifetime of historic study of history and the interaction of various cultures. It is my belief that people, in general, forget that other cultures do not think in the same way that “we do”. It was very similar to the mistake the U.S. would make in Vietnam, again dealing with an Asian culture. Americans wanted a quick victory and an end to hostilities, but the North Vietnamese had learned “patience” from their Chinese friends. They “knew” that all they had to do is “wait” and the U.S. would eventually leave, which is exactly what happened. The Japanese obviously knew that the majority of the American people were totally opposed to getting into another war, but their mistake was in misjudging the “fickle mind” of the American public. Some cultures have a more even keel than us Americans. We are not a nation that can be “counted on” to react with “predictability”. In fact we are much like a half-trained lion you see on circus shows. That lion or tiger is trained by his master and appears to be under control and will do all kinds of amazing tricks; but then one day just ‘out of the blue’, kills and eats his master. This is more like the American public.
On Dec. 6, 1941 if Franklin Roosevelt and Congress had declared war on Japan, the American public would have removed them from office. But two days later on Dec. 8, that war was declared with the full support of most American citizens. The attacking and killing of Americans has a tendency to stir up the lion.
This whole event should be a lesson for us to think through in a rational manner when comparing it to our own days. Right after the attack on the Twin Towers on 9-11-01, the “public” was all in favor of us “making war” on “somebody”, or maybe we should say “anybody”! But now, 10 long years later we have “forgotten” and are all about 2nd guessing the wisdom of the wars that the Twin Towers attack brought us in to.
I find no usefulness to the ‘chatter’ about these current wars and how we are to end them. But there is a lesson here that I believe is greatly missing from our national discussion. That is in the way we went about WW II verses the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
What has doomed us today is “politician correctness” or at lest stems from that whole philosophy of how we are to deal with everything from child behavior to national attacks.
I will explain. When we ended World War II, how did we go about rebuilding Japan? It was not by picking some influential Japanese person and setting them up as a “puppet” leader! We put “Military Governors” in control of all those nations until such a time as the chaos of war died down to a point in which the ‘subdued nation’ could form their own government and then we slowly pulled out.
Contrast that to what we did in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Before the war even began, political correctness demanded that we avoid any appearance of “occupiers”, thus we picked some “leader” to immediately set up as a figurehead government. The net result was/is that the belligerents have never had the “agony of defeat”, but we go about it as if we can pacify some misbehaved child into reforming their inborn nature without a clear picture of the consequences of their actions.
I firmly believe that this is the reason we have never actually been successful in any war since WW II. We don’t believe in “winning” wars anymore. Our allies are stuck in the same chokehold of “politician correctness” that we are, thus, even if the U.S. wanted to defeat the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan and set up a “foreign military governor”, the rest of the world would scream “bloody murder”. So we stumble about, like a drunk in the dark, trying to pacify every enemy of freedom, without the will to defeat them and go on our way.
Here is something I find ironic. The “greatest generation” as they call the generation who fought and won WW II, is the very generation that brought us this current state of ‘political correctness’ which forbids us to truly defeat our nations enemies. I don’t believe, for one minute, that it was the troops in the trenches and jungles, personally, that led us into this frame of mind. Those soldiers knew what victory meant, but it was of their generation that the “thinkers” of political correctness emerged. These so-called “great compromisers” who are educated beyond their intelligence, don’t understand that other cultures mock and scorn a mighty nation that shows weakness by refusing to be strong.
It was another Roosevelt, Theodore, that said, “walk softly but carry a big stick”. These modern day “thinkers” must assume that Teddy meant to use that stick “only” as a threat. Having read about Teddy Roosevelt, it is certain that he also meant to use that stick with “conclusive results” if the circumstances demanded it.
In a mere 70 years have we truly lost our love for freedom and security to the point that we, as a nation, no longer have the fortitude to stick to the fight until it is conclusively finished?
There are a lot of shadows in this current struggle. One arm of the Moslem world is determined to rule that world as a “dark age theocracy”. Many U.S. citizens do not seem to understand the struggle. Half of our citizens want to bury their head in the sand, as if it is our own fault that Moslem extremists want to bring down the once great U.S.A. Some Americans are not willing to give up our freedom so easily, and will die before we are subdued by some mullah telling us that we have suddenly became a Moslem, just because they are now in control of politics. Meanwhile our national leaders appear to be a bunch of self-serving idiots that don’t have a clue as to what is really going on in the nation or the world. Throw into the mix the American media, who plaster the daily headlines with such ’heart touching stories’ as a rescued cat, as if they don’t have the fortitude to report “news” that is relevant to a world that teeters on the brink of WW III. No wonder we have some people who’s most important mission of the year is to get that one item at a 20% discount, even if it means killing or injuring a fellow American! Insanity.
Dec. 7, 1941 was truly a defining moment in our history, but as we approach the year 2012 we ought to have learned by now that the world is not a safe place for freedom and liberty. Thus, we must constantly be on guard that we do not lose the vision of “freedom” and what that means to a world gone mad. There is no other nation on earth that has ever allowed its citizens the power that ‘we the people’ possess, but one thing is certain, if we do not use that freedom with responsibility and moral clarity, we will not keep it for much longer. Already the axmen are chopping away the foundation of our country, from within and without, as a people, we will be the ones to make the final choice. Conquer and divide is not a new tactic. For two hundred years the nation has pulled together during times of crisis to overcome inside or outside forces, let it be no different today in our current crisis.
On two fronts we have a ‘crisis’, even if we are not willing to admit the fact. One, is the threat of extremists from the Moslem religion. If we judge their motives by what they claim, it is this; ‘they claim to want to conquer the world by force if necessary, for Mohammad’. Deny their statements if you want, but “they say” that is their goal. It does make the war a ‘religious war’, at least from their perspective.
Here is a “final solution”, I hope that does not sound too much like Hitler, but I believe there is a way to solve our middle east threat. Dill our own oil!! Between the U.S. and Canada we have enough oil to turn the middle east spigot off. This would accomplish two things at once. First, it would relieve us of the necessity to keep that flowage of oil open at the cost of American blood. Second, and this might be of more benefit than anything, it would dry up the flow of money into those countries who want to destroy our way of life. If the Arabs did not have so much oil money they could not buy all weapons to wage war and terror on the rest of the world.
I know this is not going to happen anytime soon in the current climate of world economic greed, but it would go a long way in suppressing the flow of blood for oil. Besides that it would also create in our own depressed economy a great boom in oil production and the thousands of jobs that go along with it.
The other ‘front’ in the war on freedom is from within. It is in the realm of political philosophy. The left in this country believes that our U.S. Constitution is an outdate model for a nation. They would have us believe that we would be better off to scrape the Constitution and Bill of Rights and start over with something that looks, feels and smells like a socialist/communist form of government. The theory, is that only “Big Government”, is capable of running our individual lives and “giving us” the things ‘they say’ we have a “right” too. The implementation of so many of these principles since WW II, is what has brought us to the verge of bankruptcy now, but the trend is to have the national government spend more money (which we don’t have), with the net result that they gain more detailed control over the country, starting with the states and working their way down to every township and small village. Always disguised as “helping” of course. Anytime the Federal government sticks its fingers into local affairs, with a off to “help”, rest assured it is going to cost us money and freedoms. Mostly what they want is our vote and then they can extort our tax dollars to spread around buying more power and influence.
The solution to ‘government’ being a threat to freedom is not so easy to find, but before 2012 ends the American people will have the “power” to change the game at the voting booth, but will we? Or, even more cynical is the question; will we have anyone to vote for that will make a difference?
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