Pearl Harbor?

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Prior to the attack on the naval base at Pearl, our government suppressed information that the Japanese fleet was steaming to Hawaii, in order to bring us into the war against Germany. Are we now seeing the same sort of information suppression, in order to accelerate the plans for global governance? How convenient that the Euro and the dollar are at near parity, facilitating a single currency unit, just before Y2K. How fascinating that everywhere the media shills trumpet the triumph of globalism, assuring us that it's already a done deal. The men who died on the U.S.S. Arizona were sacrificed on the altar of Roosevelt's machinations--how many will be sacrificed to the god of Elite Control this time around? The fleet is sailing, the date is set, and from Washington...silence.

-- Spidey (free@last.Amen), December 07, 1999

Answers

It's simply not true that Roosevelt knew about the Japanese plans. Yes, the Imperial code had been cracked, but they had no idea that the fleet was about to be attacked. The carriers were out on routine training. The Japanese struck with complete surprise.

-- Historian (Records@set.straight), December 07, 1999.

Nevertheless, Historian, there are many examples where the powers that be have taken great liberty with information, when that information is perceived to possibly cause undesirable actions on the part of somebody (like the hapless public). Like the "amazing discovery" of Nazi concentration camps by the liberating Allied forces near the end of WWII, which required a huge and urgent drain on medical resources. In point of fact, the details of what the camps were used for was well known to Allied intelligence.

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.cum), December 07, 1999.

I have difficulty believing the "Roosevelt let Pearl Harbour get attacked" thing. It supposes that Roosevelt was simultaneously cunning enough to engineer a pretext for war and sufficiently stupid to spark a war across the Pacific ocean by letting the enemy decimate his Pacific Fleet. Doesn't add up

-- Rob (rob@planet.rob), December 07, 1999.

Historian - I took Latin from a person who was one of the codebreakers. We knew.

-- Linda (lwmb@psln.com), December 07, 1999.

Hi Rob, please call me Colin. I totally agree that it's tiresome that there are so many threads in here which are inflamatory, jingoistic and at best tenously related to Y2K which is - in case you've forgotten - the topic here.

Hi Polly troll, Sure, I want to see these threads moved to a more appropriate forum, or as a last resort, deleted. But they seem to be allowed to stay. I could just accept that, but that would also mean accepting that a new reader might get the impression that this forum is populated solely by paranoid flag waving survivalists. Or I could take action to illustrate how ludicrous and nonsensical these threads are, when there are very real issues to be dealt with here. Don't worry, I expect I'll get "banned" soon. If only I had some way to spoof my name, email and IP address...

-- Colin MacDonald (roborogerborg@yahoo.com), December 07, 1999.


It's curious that someone is annoyed by the analogy of supression of Pearl Harbor information to surpression of Y2k information, but they have time to post to the thread and argue relevence instead of just moving on.

-- Tom Beckner (tbeckner@xout.erols.com), December 07, 1999.

FDR LOVED the Navy, and he would never have allowed his battleships to be caught. Also too many others would be in on the secret who would not have let it happen. When first told of the attack, FDR went white and said, "This can't be true! They must mean the Philipines!" My best guess is that he anticipated an attack to the south...i.e. towards Dutch and British areas. By the way, Kimmel prepared by having ammo in on-deck ready lockers, instead of in the magazines, which is why the Navy was able to fire back within about 5 minutes. Gen Short expected sabotage, which is why the Army Air Force lined the planes up wingtip-to-wingtip; they were easier to guard that way. The radar dectected the planes from the north, BUT radar in those days could give reciprocal...i.e, opposite heading information. The duty officer, aware of this, believed the blip was the expected flight of B-17s, which actually did come in from the South at the same time as the attack. ALWAYS REMEMBER...the Japanese leadership was questioned after the war as to WHY they had initiated a war they could not possibly win. The answer..."WE NEVER DREAMED YOU WOULD FIGHT."

-- Mr. Mike (mikeabn@aol.com), December 07, 1999.

They got the message, they decoded it, but nobody believed it could be true.

Any similarities to Y2K here?

-- Linda (lwmb@psln.com), December 07, 1999.


Linda,

"They knew" Re: Pearl Harbor

I understand that a transmission was intercepted by our forces revealing the attack was about to happen, but that the message alerting to it was passed up to higher ranks in the wrong method-ie. regular route vs. emergency.

The Japanese ambassador in Wash.DC was to deliver a Declaration of War to our Secretary of State or President minutes before the attack, but was delayed in transcribing from Japanese to English and traffic was slow moving.

At the moment of the surprise attack, the Japanese Ambassador was sitting in the waiting room of the President (I think) with message in hand about the Japanese declaration of War. Had he been given just a few more minutes that declaration would have been delivered, and technically it would not have been a surprise to the U.S.

Again though, as far as I know, this still is officially a "two day storm". Just like Pearl Harbor?

-- maid upname (noid@ihope.com), December 07, 1999.


Our battleships were obsolete, and would not likely have survived their first contact with a Japanese carrier task force. A lot of good men died in them sooner than they would have otherwise.

Without the emotional reaction against the Pearl Harbor attack, Congress would have been much more reluctant to declare war. The United States had not been directly threatened by Japan's activity in the Pacific. In Dec. 1941 considerable public sentiment favored the Germans, who had attacked Russia the previous June. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend," and Germany was perceived by many as doing God's work. (At the time there was no general awareness of the "Final Solution" Germany was imposing on the Jewish population.)

Even after Pearl Harbor, the vote on the declaration of war against Japan was not unanimous in the House (388 to 1). Ref.: http://metalab.unc.edu/pha/77-1-148/77-1-148.html#pro-1

None of this proves anything, of course. But it gives some perspective.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), December 07, 1999.



The Dutch warned the Americans. Yes, the U.S. knew where the Japanese fleet was, although some chose to believe that Japan would never have the gall to attack us. At the same time, we had information via the phone calls of Japan's envoys to the U.S., White House calls to Tokyo, that were immediately translated. There was no secret.

Apparently Cordell Hull even told a prominent journalist well priot to the hit that we would be attacked.

Whether it was deliberate strategy to involve us in the war, or sheer ignorant STUPIDITY, the analogy to Y2K is pretty nearly exact.

I, too, am an historian, and have had an article bought by Naval History (on the Battle of Okinawa) and a fictional alternate history of the war in the Pacific, published in English and to be issued in both Japan and Singapore, if there is still a world economy after January (??).

-- Mara (MaraWayne@aol.com), December 07, 1999.


Spidey is 100% absolutely correct. The news is out.

Citizens can be sacrificed and will be if TPTB think in their great brains that its a good Plan to not tell anyone.

-- d----- (dciinc@aol.com), December 07, 1999.


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