[Buddha-l] Re: Greetings from Oviedo

[Dan Lusthaus]

Tomo,

> Oh dear. Are you seriously claiming that

I was being sarcastic.

> shown to be erroneous, as Robert Stinnett's well-researched book, Day
> of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor, has shown.

That's probably the oldest "conspiracy" theory we have re: WW II (anti-war
activists were already proposing that in the early '40s).

For those unfamiliar with that theory, it's laid out at

http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/6315/pearl.html

(there is a link to a Japanese version on that page)

Like most conspiracy theories, it works by removing facts from their actual
context, and fitting them instead into a magic thread of suspicion. For
instance, just to take one of the "suspicious" "facts": FDR positioning the
fleet at Pearl Harbor, over the objections of some Military Brass. The
context is not a secret desire to have virtually the entire fleet destroyed
as a pretext to get into the war (one would want to get into the war with a
capable fleet -- would you want to instigate someone into a gun fight by
destroying your gun?); the actual context is the well entrenched and
misguided US Military theory of the day -- they did not take air power
seriously, and the military was resistant to developing a serious airforce.
Billy Mitchell was court martialed for insisting that the US take the notion
of air power seriously, and  even predicted that the next war would be with
Japan, a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor by aircraft (that was in the mid
1920s). He was court martialed for his insistance on improving air power
years before FDR ever came to power. The Navy dismissed his ideas about air
power, Pearl Harbor, etc. as misguided, vested-interest-threatening
rantings -- everybody knew international power was naval -- gunboat
diplomacy -- planes were meaningless distractions that had been dramatic but
largely inconsequential to the outcome of WW I. Military thinking about the
importance of air power obviously changed radically during war II. It
changed again -- to take a more recent example -- during the Clinton
Administration concerning Serbia and Bosnia. Military dogma insisted that a
successful campaign could not be conducted by air alone, so that Clinton
should not begin his bombing campaign since that will inevitably prove an
embarrassment or lead to the commitment of ground forces. In a matter of
weeks that dogma was proven wrong. Imagine how much greater the resistance
to taking air power seriously was in the 30s and early 40s.

There is nothing to this "FDR knew and wanted" theory, but I can understand
why you would find that sort of thing persuasive and even comforting. Bottom
line: even if one would like to imagine that somehow magically Japan didn't
attack Pearl Harbor of its own volition but was somehow forced or tricked
into it by FDR, that doesn't explain what happened to Manchuria, Korea,
China, etc. etc. long before Pearl Harbor. Or was all that also just an
elaborate American plot to make Japan suicidally confront the US? When shall
we say the Pacific War began? In 1937 (invasion of China)? Occupation of
Korea? Don't you think that if FDR had anticipated Peal Harbor, they would
have been more ready? It took years for the US Naval forces to rebuild from
those losses, so that the Pacific War was almost lost.

As contributors to this list amply prove, there is a deep tradition of
people in the West (America especially) of finding a way to blame everything
on themselves -- possibly deriving from a delusionary sense of omnipotence
(nothing can happen without us being responsible for it) mixed with a
profound sense of impotence (we-I-us are doing this against my will). That
leads to self-hatred which is easier to live with when externalized as a
"them." So Muslims couldn't possibly be jihadic unless we omnipotent
Americans caused it; Japan couldn't have attacked Pearl Harbor unless we
wanted them to; and so on. It's not a healthy tradition.

As for the comedy of errors -- too polite to present an ultimatum in a
timely manner -- that whole story, from every angle, stretches credulity
beyond all bounds. How many weeks did this funeral take? Lance has already
informed us that governments don't act quickly, so there must have been some
time built into that diplomatic maneuver if was an actual ultimatum -- at
least enough time for FDR to offer a reply and for that reply to reach the
Japanese planes. Otherwise that would be a meaningless gesture. Are we to
believe that there was no way to recall the planes, since no response to the
ultimatum had been reached? If so, then the timing of the delivery of the
ultimatum is a non-issue -- the attack was scheduled to take place
regardless. It was meant to produce US capitulation -- surrender because you
no longer have a navy. The error was missing part of the fleet (see below),
not the timing of the delivery of the ultimatum.

It was a surprise attack. If an ultimatum had been offered in a timely
manner, there would have been time to mount at least some sort of defense,
and there would have been no advantage of surprise. But of course, FDR
wanted the place bombed, right? So an ultimatum wouldn't have mattered -- so
why don't we spare Japan all embarrassment in this, and say that the
ultimatum was delivered on time, and FDR just sat on it?
(That was sarcastic again)

Admiral Yamamoto (and this has been well known for a long time -- this is
real history, not the bogus phantoms you find so interesting) was a
brilliant strategist, and his plan was to destroy the American fleet at
Pearl Harbor, knowing that were it to be completely destroyed, the Pacific
War would already be over. That was also the point of the ultimatum -- the
subtitles to the main event. It turned out that while all the ships in
harbor were destroyed, part of the fleet happened to be out on maneuvers,
and the planes missed them (oh! another suspicious fact! Ships never go on
maneuvers unless there's a conspiracy afoot). When news got back to Yamamoto
about the losses, he realized that part of the fleet had been missed,
meaning that they were still out in the Pacific somewhere. He is reported to
have said, even in these opening hours of the war after Pearl Harbor, that
the war was over, Japan had lost.

If Yamamoto, who planned the attack, had that reaction, what does that
explain about the attack and the ultimatum?

The issue here is not about being pro or anti US or Japan, but about
thinking clearly.

Pearl Harbor was a surprise attack. A surprise attack is successful when it
is a suprise.

Dan

Unless this shifts over to a WW II history list, I think we've taken this
discussion as far as it can go here, and beyond any direct relevance to
Buddhism.