Quite right Flashman!
Ah KurtGodel… I love you man! You are so crazy! :mrgreen:
Yeah, I’ve read parts of that book by Hoover… you might want to check up on its reputation as an actual respected historical work because its roundly considered hack history, a revanchist piece of writing by a guy who lost an election to the guy who ran the war.
I agree with Zooey72, the idea that “THE US FORCED JAPAN INTO WAR!” has no basis. The logic goes as thus:
1. Since 1937 Japan has waged a massive war of aggression against china.
2. Belatedly, in 1941!, the US says stop or we will cut off oil. (There is no “duty” for one country to trade with another anyway, the US just had a great reason to stop)
3. Japan’s response is, ok, we will continue our war and but also attack you and other allies against whom we should have realized we had no chance of winning! YAAY!
Wouldn’t the logical choice have been, um, maybe scale back your aggression? If Japan had agreed to pull out of, say, most of China/French Indo, but kept Manchuria, they maybe, maybe, could have pulled it off. But the reality was there was no going back by 1941.
I’ve read up on Japanese pre-war history, and its pretty dark. Assassinations, political instability, economic chaos, earthquakes, etc, slowly driving the county into the arms of the militarists, who it might be added acted somewhat independently of any civil authority. The country was careening to some hard landing of one kind or another, and they crashed the plane all by themselves.
What I object to is making race the most important thing about people; the sole basis for a person’s identity. It’s simply inverted fascism. Divide people into separate races and you divide families.
I’m outwardly European but have a dash of Asian ancestry (Indian, Chinese, whatever); it doesn’t effect who I am.
I agree 100%.
Ah KurtGodel… I love you man! You are so crazy! :mrgreen:
Wouldn’t the logical choice have been, um, maybe scale back your aggression? If Japan had agreed to pull out of, say, most of China/French Indo, but kept Manchuria, they maybe, maybe, could have pulled it off. But the reality was there was no going back by 1941.
Good points but IMO FDR would have gotten this war through whatever means necessary, perhaps a Gulf of Tonkin Incident sort of thing. So let’s say Japan pulls out of China and loses all initiative and position there. Then US “finds” its reason(I’m sure Japan understood the intentions of the US/Great Britain when launching Lusitania in 1915) to declare war and now Japan is in the worst poisiton possible.
The best chance for a peaceful route to peace(as opposed to the “Arsenal of democracy” dropping the hammer) was Hitler’s efforts to unite his allies of Nationalist China and Japan. Sad that Japan was unwilling as that cost a countless number of lives. I’m not saying Japan didn’t commit evil atrocities- they very much did- but unless the people of the United States burn with war fever, the US has no responsibility to help the people of China by sanctioning Japan, especially if doing so would engulf the US people into another devastating war, as the US gov gleefully knew it would.
There is evidence that Roosevelt purposely drew Japan into the war. One example would be moving the Pacific fleet to Hawaii when it would have been safer to remain based on the West Coast. Another is that none of the USA’s most modern vessels were moored in Pearl harbor on December 7th. The latest equipment, including all carriers, just “happened” to be elsewhere that day.
@Der:
There is evidence that Roosevelt purposely drew Japan into the war. One example would be moving the Pacific fleet to Hawaii when it would have been safer to remain based on the West Coast. Another is that none of the USA’s most modern vessels were moored in Pearl harbor on December 7th. The latest equipment, including all carriers, just “happened” to be elsewhere that day.
Just going by battleships alone, the evidence doesn’t really support the implication that the US Navy kept its most modern units away from Pearl Harbor (deliberately or otherwise). The most modern fully-operational battleship in the USN at the time was the brand-new North Carolina, which at the time of Pearl Harbor was in the Atlantic for the good reason that she had just completed her shakedown cruise there (specifically in the Caribbean). The next most modern (which in this case means of early 1920s vintage) fully-operational battleships in the USN at the time were the three completed units of the Colorado class: Colorado, Maryland and West Virginia. At the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Colorado was in Puget Sound where she had been undergoing an overhaul since the summer of 1941. Maryland and West Virginia were both at Pearl Harbor during the attack and were both damaged. In other words, of the four most modern fully-operational battleship in the USN at the time, half of them were at Pearl during the attack, and the other two were away for reasons that had nothing to do with any contrivances by FDR and company.
Ah KurtGodel… I love you man! You are so crazy! :mrgreen:
Yeah, I’ve read parts of that book by Hoover… you might want to check up on its reputation as an actual respected historical work because its roundly considered hack history, a revanchist piece of writing by a guy who lost an election to the guy who ran the war.
I agree with Zooey72, the idea that “THE US FORCED JAPAN INTO WAR!” has no basis. The logic goes as thus:
1. Since 1937 Japan has waged a massive war of aggression against china.
2. Belatedly, in 1941!, the US says stop or we will cut off oil. (There is no “duty” for one country to trade with another anyway, the US just had a great reason to stop)
3. Japan’s response is, ok, we will continue our war and but also attack you and other allies against whom we should have realized we had no chance of winning! YAAY!
Wouldn’t the logical choice have been, um, maybe scale back your aggression? If Japan had agreed to pull out of, say, most of China/French Indo, but kept Manchuria, they maybe, maybe, could have pulled it off. But the reality was there was no going back by 1941.
I’ve read up on Japanese pre-war history, and its pretty dark. Assassinations, political instability, economic chaos, earthquakes, etc, slowly driving the county into the arms of the militarists, who it might be added acted somewhat independently of any civil authority. The country was careening to some hard landing of one kind or another, and they crashed the plane all by themselves.
I don’t know, and don’t care, what the Establishment’s opinion is about Herbert Hoover’s book. I do not respect the Establishment’s position on this issue, or on any other issue. The first question the Establishment asks on any politically sensitive issue is always, “How much deception can we get away with?”
That said, I know enough about WWII to be reasonably good at detecting errors an author might make. I’m not claiming perfection in that regard, and it’s quite possible for an author to make errors which slip by me. In the case of Hoover’s book, I detected very few errors. The few I did detect always made the Allied cause seem more favorable than it actually was. If the Establishment is representing Hoover’s book as revaunchist history then, as usual, the Establishment is lying. If they are suggesting that it was written in bitterness, in an effort to discredit the man who’d beaten Hoover in an election, then that’s their usual tactic of attacking a message they don’t like by attacking the messenger.
That the U.S. deliberately pushed Japan into war has been established, and not just by Hoover. Other authors have delved into the subject in more detail, and have presented a larger body of evidence than that which Hoover presented. (Although Hoover’s evidence, by itself, is quite compelling.) Diana West, for example, has focused on the treason which existed within the FDR administration, and on the large numbers of people within that administration who owed their loyalty first and foremost to the Soviet Union. The war against Japan was intended to serve Soviet objectives, by allowing Stalin to focus on his west front only. The United States would keep Japan busy–too busy to launch any kind of serious invasion of the U.S.S.R. from the east. (That was also Stalin’s reason for promoting war between the Chinese nationalists and Japan.)
Diana West points out that Japan had taken aggressive action against China in 1937. But it was not until 1941–shortly after Germany invaded the Soviet Union–that FDR did anything about it. FDR’s action was not limited to the oil embargo only; although that alone would have been sufficient to force Japan to either conquer the Dutch East Indies or face military and economic collapse. (The U.S. had somehow persuaded the Netherlands to join in the embargo, even though provoking Japan in that way was clearly not in Dutch best interests. Not when the Dutch East Indies were just sitting there, ripe for the taking.)
FDR also embraced a series of actions which seemed intended to produce an emotional response among Japanese leadership. A warlike response. These steps included moving the Pacific Fleet from California to Hawaii, basing strategic bombers in the Philippines so that they’d be able to bomb the Japanese homeland, “pop-up cruises” in which U.S. military ships deliberately and repeatedly violated the integrity of Japanese territorial waters, etc. On the other hand, FDR consistently refused to meet with Japanese leaders, or to discuss with them what actions he’d wanted them to take in order to get these warlike measures to stop. None of the actions FDR actually took bear any relationship at all to his claimed objective, of wanting to promote peace between Japan and China. On the contrary: he “acted as if” his goal was to get exactly the response Japan gave us on December 7th. The U.S. had broken Japan’s diplomatic code well before the Pearl Harbor attack. We knew our actions were pushing Japan into war, and we even had an approximate timeframe as to when the attack would take place. Given these data, FDR chose to keep pushing, keep provoking.
For anyone interested in a summary/review of Hoover’s book look here: http://www.claremont.org/crb/book-review/221/
Kurt, I have disagree with your basic history here:
1. Japan and the Soviet Union clashed in 1939, and Japan’s conclusion was that it couldn’t fight the USSR and instead should expand in the Pacific: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Khalkhin_Gol#Japanese_assessment_and_reforms
2. The idea that after you, i.e. Japan, have been waging a massive war of aggression and just invaded another neutral territory, i.e. French Indo China, threatening even greater territorial expansion, another regional power moves to beef up its military presence in the region is “provocative” is ridiculous. That’s like saying, “Even though I’m out raping and pillaging my neighbors, how dare the people down the street arm themselves! They are provoking me to attack them!” Your entire argument here makes no sense. Once a major power engages in unilateral acts of aggression, it must expect the possibility that others may intervene. If not, then you are being naive.
3. Finally, I get the sense you need to equalize the moral standing of Japan and the US, like: “All powers are corrupt and self interested and thus no one power can be judge to be better than another… yada yada yada…”
Well, I am here to tell you, sure the US of the 1930s wasn’t perfect, i.e. segregation, but was morally superior to the fanaticist, racist, fascist, expansionist Japanese Empire. There was no moral equivalency between the two.
I mean, what are you saying? By 1941 you had two major powers running wild across the globe, killing and invading without accountability. In 1941, Germany was beyond the pale, but do you think Japan could have been brought back into some sort of international accord by a negotiated settlement?
I seriously ask you Kurt: What negotiated settlement in 1941 do you think Japan would have agreed to? Withdrawal from Indo China and China? Any such settlement would have discredited the militarists, and they knew they could never agree to it. By 1941 Japan’s leaders had navigated itself into a position where war would be inevitable no matter what the US did or didn’t do. They deludedly thought they could win, that they were superior. Again, with such an attitude, how can think that what the US did or didn’t do would have any real effect on Japanese planning? To them, they were the divine people, entitled by heaven to rule Asia!
For anyone interested in a summary/review of Hoover’s book look here: http://www.claremont.org/crb/book-review/221/
Kurt, I have disagree with your basic history here:
1. Japan and the Soviet Union clashed in 1939, and Japan’s conclusion was that it couldn’t fight the USSR and instead should expand in the Pacific: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Khalkhin_Gol#Japanese_assessment_and_reforms
2. The idea that after you, i.e. Japan, have been waging a massive war of aggression and just invaded another neutral territory, i.e. French Indo China, threatening even greater territorial expansion, another regional power moves to beef up its military presence in the region is “provocative” is ridiculous. That’s like saying, “Even though I’m out raping and pillaging my neighbors, how dare the people down the street arm themselves! They are provoking me to attack them!” Your entire argument here makes no sense. Once a major power engages in unilateral acts of aggression, it must expect the possibility that others may intervene. If not, then you are being naive.
3. Finally, I get the sense you need to equalize the moral standing of Japan and the US, like: “All powers are corrupt and self interested and thus no one power can be judge to be better than another… yada yada yada…”
Well, I am here to tell you, sure the US of the 1930s wasn’t perfect, i.e. segregation, but was morally superior to the fanaticist, racist, fascist, expansionist Japanese Empire. There was no moral equivalency between the two.
I mean, what are you saying? By 1941 you had two major powers running wild across the globe, killing and invading without accountability. In 1941, Germany was beyond the pale, but do you think Japan could have been brought back into some sort of international accord by a negotiated settlement?
I seriously ask you Kurt: What negotiated settlement in 1941 do you think Japan would have agreed to? Withdrawal from Indo China and China? Any such settlement would have discredited the militarists, and they knew they could never agree to it. By 1941 Japan’s leaders had navigated itself into a position where war would be inevitable no matter what the US did or didn’t do. They deludedly thought they could win, that they were superior. Again, with such an attitude, how can think that what the US did or didn’t do would have any real effect on Japanese planning? To them, they were the divine people, entitled by heaven to rule Asia!
The link you provided was not so much a book review of Freedom Betrayed, as it was a broader description of both isolationist and interventionist forces in American politics. The article’s author writes from a pro-interventionist perspective. But the specific arguments Hoover made against our interventionism in WWI and in WWII are not addressed in the article. Without even attempting to refute a single anti-interventionist point Hoover had made in his book, the author presents the case in favor of interventionism using standard-issue talking points, and by arguing that the United States is now so committed to interventionism that to change course could lead to very serious consequences.
You are correct to state that Japan and the Soviet Union waged an undeclared war in 1939, and that the Soviets emerged the victor. That was a point Victor Suvorov emphasized in his book. Suvorov also mentioned the fact that both sides had remained silent about this. Japan, because they didn’t want to publicize what they probably saw as a humiliating, shameful defeat. And the Soviets, because Stalin didn’t want to alert potential future victims to what his army had done to Japan.
However, Stalin could not be certain that Japan would not launch an invasion against the U.S.S.R., to go along with the German invasion. To guard against that possibility, he stationed a large part of his army on his eastern front. But after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Stalin sent 100 divisions west across the Trans-Siberian railway. They arrived in the middle of winter, and took the Germans completely by surprise. (The initial German invasion force consisted of 100 divisions. While a German division was somewhat larger than a Soviet division, we are still talking about a major reinforcement of the Soviet western front.) While pro-Soviet traitors such as Sorge and others did their best to guide Japanese foreign policy away from anti-Soviet aggression and toward anti-American aggression, Stalin could not be sure those efforts would succeed. Not until after the decision to attack Pearl Harbor had been made.
Not only did the Pearl Harbor attack assure Stalin he’d get a one front war, it also helped FDR achieve his goal of getting the U.S. involved in the war in Europe, on the side of the Soviet Union. U.S. government documents leaked in the weeks leading up to Pearl had led Hitler to believe that it was only a matter of time before the U.S. declared war on Germany. Those documents also made the case that the U.S. could not fight a two ocean war–at least not any time soon. If it was at war against Japan, its navy would be so busy in the Pacific it wouldn’t have the ships it needed to protect Lend-Lease transports in the Atlantic. By declaring war sooner rather than later, Hitler could deprive the Soviets and the British of a large portion of the tanks, artillery pieces, military aircraft, and other weapons the U.S. was sending them. Those leaked documents were instrumental in Hitler’s decision to declare war against the U.S. after Japan had launched its Pearl Harbor attack.
As for morality: the Allies murdered more people than did the Axis. That remains true even if you subtract Soviet mass murders from the Allied total. (Why anyone would subtract those murders is not clear, considering that in the '30s and early to mid '40s all the major Western democracies deliberately embraced pro-Soviet foreign policies.) Western democratic mass murder consisted of the food blockade imposed on Germany during the war, which resulted in millions or tens of millions of deaths. It also consisted of JCS 1067, which resulted in an estimated 6 million deaths in postwar western Germany. Further there was Operation Keelhaul, which resulted in the deaths of unknown (but very large) number of refugees from the Soviet Union. And finally there was the treatment of German POWs, which again resulted in large numbers of deaths. The claim that the U.S. was somehow morally superior to Japan can be made only if we are willing to sweep all those mass murders under the rug. One must also sweep under the rug the fact that FDR deliberately, happily embraced a pro-Soviet foreign policy.
As an American, I firmly believe my nation’s political and plutocratic Establishment is evil, and is not morally superior to anyone. That Establishment’s grim and shameful track record of mass murder during and shortly after WWII is proof that this evil goes back at least half a century.
@Der:
There is evidence that Roosevelt purposely drew Japan into the war. One example would be moving the Pacific fleet to Hawaii when it would have been safer to remain based on the West Coast. Another is that none of the USA’s most modern vessels were moored in Pearl harbor on December 7th. The latest equipment, including all carriers, just “happened” to be elsewhere that day.
Good sir, this is not evidence at all. At best it could only be circumstantial, but I think even that would be pushing it.
I’ve been reading up on this “U.S. provoked Japan to attack U.S”-theory, as it was rather new to me. I don’t find it convincing.
My general impression of the theory is that is seems very much based on a U.S. point of view. Which can be OK, but it becomes too narrow. Thinking Japan had no other option that attacking after the embargo was at force, seems to generally underestemate the value of diplomacy and international trade.
Also it seems based almost entirely on hindsight. FDR did this or that, which led to certain consequences. Accordingly, the consequences were wanted. Isn’t this too shallow? It almost looks like conspiracy theories, everything is part of someone’s great plan. Nothing happens by coincidence and the other party’s actions are always anticipated and desired…
For example Hoover’s book, which I only know through the article. Hoover seems to argue it was a waste for U.S. to get involved in the European theatre, since Nazi-Germany never could conquer the Soviet, because of the vast distances, hard winters, mud on the Eastern front and so on. Sure, it is easy to say after the war, when the outcome is well known. But I strongly doubt the common understanding late 1941 or even early 1942 was in line with that. At that moment Nazi-Germany had conquered half of Europe, practically never lost any considerable battles or failed hugely in any way yet - maybe apart from battle of Britain, if the Sealion-threat even was off by then.
And Hoover seems to argue that the U.S. should only send enough material to U.K. to neutralize the Sealion-threat. Well, who during the war knew exactly the amount of required materials? Tranferred to the conflicts of today, the question would have been how much materials and men the U.S. would need to defeat the taliban 15 years ago. Or to stabilize Iraq? Maybe some skilled military official could give an estimate. And still be completely off, as he would of course fail to predict the firing of the Iraqi army and the consequences thereof. Or fail to see the Arab spring, which led to the civil war in Syria, which made room for the ISIS, which destabilized half the Middle East including Iraq. It is easy for someone to come up with the answer in 10 or 50 years time. But when the heat is on? Hindsight!
@Herr:
Good sir, this is not evidence at all. At best it could only be circumstantial, but I think even that would be pushing it.
I’ve been reading up on this “U.S. provoked Japan to attack U.S”-theory, as it was rather new to me. I don’t find it convincing.
My general impression of the theory is that is seems very much based on a U.S. point of view. Which can be OK, but it becomes too narrow. Thinking Japan had no other option that attacking after the embargo was at force, seems to generally underestemate the value of diplomacy and international trade.
Also it seems based almost entirely on hindsight. FDR did this or that, which led to certain consequences. Accordingly, the consequences were wanted. Isn’t this too shallow? It almost looks like conspiracy theories, everything is part of someone’s great plan. Nothing happens by coincidence and the other party’s actions are always anticipated and desired…
For example Hoover’s book, which I only know through the article. Hoover seems to argue it was a waste for U.S. to get involved in the European theatre, since Nazi-Germany never could conquer the Soviet, because of the vast distances, hard winters, mud on the Eastern front and so on. Sure, it is easy to say after the war, when the outcome is well known. But I strongly doubt the common understanding late 1941 or even early 1942 was in line with that. At that moment Nazi-Germany had conquered half of Europe, practically never lost any considerable battles or failed hugely in any way yet - maybe apart from battle of Britain, if the Sealion-threat even was off by then.
And Hoover seems to argue that the U.S. should only send enough material to U.K. to neutralize the Sealion-threat. Well, who during the war knew exactly the amount of required materials? Tranferred to the conflicts of today, the question would have been how much materials and men the U.S. would need to defeat the taliban 15 years ago. Or to stabilize Iraq? Maybe some skilled military official could give an estimate. And still be completely off, as he would of course fail to predict the firing of the Iraqi army and the consequences thereof. Or fail to see the Arab spring, which led to the civil war in Syria, which made room for the ISIS, which destabilized half the Middle East including Iraq. It is easy for someone to come up with the answer in 10 or 50 years time. But when the heat is on? Hindsight!
Any description of the arguments in Hoover’s book, written by an interventionist, is highly unlikely to do justice to the book or its content.
The idea that FDR deliberately and cynically provoked the Pearl Harbor attack is not the product of 20/20 hindsight. It’s based on hard, solid data. For example: a moderate Japanese prime minister rose to power in 1941. He’d staked his entire political career on the idea that he could negotiate a peaceful resolution to the differences which had arisen between Japan’s government and the FDR administration. FDR refused a meeting with him for months. They knew that the longer he failed to come away with some kind of diplomatic win–something–the weaker his hold on power would be. This prime minister would have been willing to grant extensive concessions in China and elsewhere. In exchange, he wanted the U.S. to cease the aggressive measures it had adopted shortly after Barbarossa.
But that kind of peaceful resolution didn’t take place. Instead, the FDR administration passively watched this prime minister’s credibility wither with each month he failed to secure a meeting, or any real negotiation with the U.S. Eventually he was replaced by hardline Japanese militarists. Such was Japanese respect for the United States’ military, that even those militarists attempted a negotiated solution. The FDR administration gave them more or less the same treatment it had given to their moderate predecessor. It didn’t take the militarists long to give up on the idea of a negotiated settlement. At that point they began issuing the orders for war.
Had the goal been to pressure the Japanese into making concessions in China, then when the Japanese came to the negotiating table willing to do exactly that, it would have made sense for the FDR administration to have shown up at that table as well. The conspicuous absence of any effort at all on the part of FDR’s administration to negotiate a peace treaty is a clear indication that peace in the Pacific had never been their objective.
As an American, I firmly believe my nation’s political and plutocratic Establishment is evil, and is not morally superior to anyone.
Kurt, we are just going to have to agree to disagree about a lot things, which is fine.
However, I will say given the recent change in US leadership cough you may be more right on this last point than I like to think….
Also Kurt, again, I question your history:
In occupied Germany, the thinking behind the Morgenthau plan was at first reflected in the U.S. occupation directive JCS 1067[2][3] and in the Allied Industrial plans for Germany aimed at “industrial disarmament”.[3] Compared with the Morgenthau Plan, however, JCS 1067 contained a number of deliberate “loopholes”, limiting any action to short-term military measures and preventing large-scale destruction of mines and industrial plants, giving wide-ranging discretion to the military governor and Morgenthau’s opponents at the War Department.[4][5] In 1947, JCS 1067 was replaced by JCS 1779, which aimed at restoring a “stable and productive Germany” and was soon followed by the Marshall Plan.[4][6]
Sure not nice, but I doubt such directive had much real impact on the ground as Germany was already largely ruined in 1946 and no where to go but up.
Also Kurt, again, I question your history:
In occupied Germany, the thinking behind the Morgenthau plan was at first reflected in the U.S. occupation directive JCS 1067[2][3] and in the Allied Industrial plans for Germany aimed at “industrial disarmament”.[3] Compared with the Morgenthau Plan, however, JCS 1067 contained a number of deliberate “loopholes”, limiting any action to short-term military measures and preventing large-scale destruction of mines and industrial plants, giving wide-ranging discretion to the military governor and Morgenthau’s opponents at the War Department.[4][5] In 1947, JCS 1067 was replaced by JCS 1779, which aimed at restoring a “stable and productive Germany” and was soon followed by the Marshall Plan.[4][6]
Sure not nice, but I doubt such directive had much real impact on the ground as Germany was already largely ruined in 1946 and no where to go but up.
oh, source of quote:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgenthau_Plan#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEGreiner1995327.E2.80.93328_6-0
(I know Wikipedia is not considered totally credible, but actually I think the history stuff is pretty good and well cited.)
Also Kurt, again, I question your history: . . .
Sure not nice, but I doubt such directive had much real impact on the ground as Germany was already largely ruined in 1946 and no where to go but up.
As long as you’re relying on Wikipedia, I may as well do the same. :)
During 1945 it was estimated that the average German civilian in the U.S. and the United Kingdom occupation zones received 1,200 calories a day.[16] Meanwhile, non-German Displaced Persons were receiving 2,300 calories through emergency food imports and Red Cross help.[17] . . .
U.S. occupation forces were under strict orders not to share their food with the German population, and this also applied to their wives when they arrived later in the occupation. The women were under orders not to allow their German maids to get hold of any leftovers; “the food was to be destroyed or made inedible”, although in view of the starving German population facing them many housewives chose to disregard these official orders.[18]
In mid-1946 non-German relief organizations were permitted to help starving German children.[20] [Prior to that, it would have been against the law for a relief organization to give food to a starving German child.] The German food situation became worst during the very cold winter of 1946-47, when German calorie intake ranged from 1,000 to 1,500 calories per day, a situation made worse by severe lack of fuel for heating.[21] Average adult calorie intake in the U.S was 3,200-3,300. . . .
On March 20, 1945, President Roosevelt was warned that the JCS 1067 was not workable: it would let the Germans “stew in their own juice”. Roosevelt’s response was “Let them have soup kitchens! Let their economy sink!” Asked if he wanted the German people to starve, he replied, “Why not?”[32]
The starvation caused by JCS 1067 was deliberate, and served no possible military purpose. On the contrary: the deliberate starvation of Germans made West Germany ripe for communist revolution. To allow the Soviets to add West Germany to their sphere could not possibly serve American national interests. This starvation was not only bloodthirsty, vindictive, and inhuman. It was also treasonous.
The Establishment which instituted these despicable crimes against humanity is just as evil today as it had been during the Dresden raid, or when JCS 1067 was enacted. Trump’s presidency represented a sort of rebellion against Establishment rule. I will not comment on whether Trump is morally superior to that Establishment. But it would be impossible for anyone to be morally inferior to it, or more evil than it.
Hmmm, you have a point. Although, like we’ve argued before, I don’t think you can reasonably differentiate civilians and combatants in a total war scenario. However, allowing the vanquished to starve isn’t in conformity with US declarations re: human rights etc. But understandably there was a lot of bad feelings towards the Germans after WWII. I will only point out that as you note, the US pulled back on this policy and reversed course. What other great powers in history have done that? Not many, I am sure.
Hmmm, you have a point. Although, like we’ve argued before, I don’t think you can reasonably differentiate civilians and combatants in a total war scenario. However, allowing the vanquished to starve isn’t in conformity with US declarations re: human rights etc. But understandably there was a lot of bad feelings towards the Germans after WWII. I will only point out that as you note, the US pulled back on this policy and reversed course. What other great powers in history have done that? Not many, I am sure.
I would argue that the distinction between combatants and civilians is one of the two pillars of the laws of war. Military personnel are supposed to wear uniforms, are allowed to shoot enemy combatants, and be shot at by said combatants. Civilians are not legitimate targets of violence. But in exchange for that protection, they are not allowed to shoot or otherwise kill enemy civilians or military personnel. To remove this distinction is to multiply the brutality of war, and the associated loss of human life. Just because the Establishment did exactly that–in both world wars, not just WWII–doesn’t mean their position was good or right.
The bad feelings towards Germans after WWII existed because the Establishment accused National Socialist Germany of being guilty of the Establishment’s chief sins. Those sins include mass murder, the desire for world conquest, rejection of traditional morality. The unstated theory was that anyone who opposed mass murder or supported traditional morality should support the Establishment!
It is not normal–at least not in modern times–for the victor in a war to starve the vanquished after the war was over. That the Establishment chose to do this anyway speaks volumes, and demonstrates that the Establishment of 1945 - '47 was not morally superior to the Establishment which had turned a blind eye to the Soviet crimes against humanity of the 1930s.
I would also point out that support for the Marshall Plan came from a new breed of American politician: anti-communist Republicans. Prior to 1948, the vast majority of American politicians fell into two categories: pro-Soviet interventionists, such as FDR. And anti-interventionists, such as Herbert Hoover. The idea of using interventionism to oppose communism was not on the table–at least not prior to '48. The fact that the anti-communist interventionists were, for the most part, decent, well-intentioned people should not serve as an apology for the shameful actions and war crimes committed by pro-communist interventionists such as FDR.
Hoover was only credible with Chicken recipes. He was a disgraced president and usually his views would also be considered lightly and with great trepidation. I wouldn’t listen to anything President Grant said about the Civil War or his own presidency either.
The main thing is to make the Germans during WW2 look like the victims who got stuck in a war by FDR, Churchill and Stalin. Goering was a skinny guy and ate little as well.
@Der:
There is evidence that Roosevelt purposely drew Japan into the war. One example would be moving the Pacific fleet to Hawaii when it would have been safer to remain based on the West Coast. Another is that none of the USA’s most modern vessels were moored in Pearl harbor on December 7th. The latest equipment, including all carriers, just “happened” to be elsewhere that day.
This argument is very much borne out of coincidental hindsight rather than supportable fact.
It wasn’t just Pearl Harbor that was built up or reinforced. The US did the same in the Philippines, Wake, Guam and Midway. All of which point to preparation for a swift response to Japanese aggression, should it have occurred. And it did. The Japanese decided to attack and/or invade all of those (minus Midway) immediately as a part of their overall battle plan to obtain as much territory and inflict as much damage as quickly as possible at the outset of war.
Enterprise, Lexington and Saratoga were all engaged in operations either planned months in advance (Saratoga) or under orders conforming to their normal cycles of departure. Lexington was reinforcing Marine squadrons at Midway. Enterprise was doing the same at Wake. Both were under direct orders from Adm. Kimmel based on requests (not orders) from the Navy Dept. Saratoga was taking on her new air group in San Diego after an extended refit that occurred for the entire year of 1941. Contrary to keeping them safe, the deployment of Enterprise and (especially) Lexington left the two carriers extremely vulnerable to attack from the Japanese fleet. The timing of Enterprise’s return to Pearl Harbor on Dec 7 was anyhting but ‘safe’. Enterprise and Lexington quickly received order to engage the enemy fleet if found. Because both ships were split up and unable to support one another, the likelyhood of a successful attack against the Japanese was very small. Even had Enterprise and Lexington been able to engage the enemy together, it would have been 2 underprepared carriers versus 6 battle ready Japanese carriers plus surface escorts. Both Enterprise and Lexington would have been sunk. In hindsight, deploying Lexington and Enterprise where they were and for what purpose on and around Dec 7 was highly unwise if US command was aware of Japanese plans.
If Roosevelt knew of Japanese intentions and timeframe of battle, as you imply, would it not have been more appropriate to position the carriers such that they would be able to ambush the Japanese at Pearl Harbor, very much like they did at Midway?
That Roosevelt ordered the carriers elsewhere on purpose, so as to save them from the destruction, also implies that he (or those he trusted with such intelligence) very pointedly foresaw the significant strategic importance of aircraft carriers versus battleships which eventually became clear in the Second World War. That would be a stretch. USN carrier tactics were still being developed at the beginning of the war. The Battle of the Coral Sea in May of 1942 was indecisive in many respects because carrier vs carrier battles as such had never been fought before and battle execution was crude. In fact, carrier based aircraft had never before sunk a capital ship under way at sea until December 10, 1941 when Japanese aircraft destroyed HMS Prince of Wales and Repulse. That Roosevelt and established naval leaders could have precisely predicted the massive advantage of naval air power without historical precedent is an attribution very much borne out of hindsight. Additionally, it is a convenience which diminishes the accomplishments of the Japanese Navy in executing the Pearl Harbor attack.
But it was not only US tactics that were flawed at the beginning of the war. The Japanese proceeded with the attack on Pearl Harbor having received a report that the US carriers would not be present. Carriers were to be secondary targets to the battleships and critical shore installations were to be even lesser targets than that. As successful and daring as their attack was, the Japanese strategic blunders were their own; not the manipulative string-pulling of FDR and the US Navy.
http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/myths/Missing_Carriers.html
http://www.thehistoryreader.com/modern-history/yamamoto-planning-pearl-harbor/
This argument is very much borne out of coincidental hindsight rather than supportable fact.
It wasn’t just Pearl Harbor that was built up or reinforced. The US did the same in the Philippines, Wake, Guam and Midway. All of which point to preparation for a swift response to Japanese aggression, should it have occurred. And it did. The Japanese decided to attack and/or invade all of those (minus Midway) immediately as a part of their overall battle plan to obtain as much territory and inflict as much damage as quickly as possible at the outset of war.
Enterprise, Lexington and Saratoga were all engaged in operations either planned months in advance (Saratoga) or under orders conforming to their normal cycles of departure. Lexington was reinforcing Marine squadrons at Midway. Enterprise was doing the same at Wake. Both were under direct orders from Adm. Kimmel based on requests (not orders) from the Navy Dept. Saratoga was taking on her new air group in San Diego after an extended refit that occurred for the entire year of 1941. Contrary to keeping them safe, the deployment of Enterprise and (especially) Lexington left the two carriers extremely vulnerable to attack from the Japanese fleet. The timing of Enterprise’s return to Pearl Harbor on Dec 7 was anyhting but ‘safe’. Enterprise and Lexington quickly received order to engage the enemy fleet if found. Because both ships were split up and unable to support one another, the likelyhood of a successful attack against the Japanese was very small. Even had Enterprise and Lexington been able to engage the enemy together, it would have been 2 underprepared carriers versus 6 battle ready Japanese carriers plus surface escorts. Both Enterprise and Lexington would have been sunk. �In hindsight, deploying Lexington and Enterprise where they were and for what purpose on and around Dec 7 was highly unwise if US command was aware of Japanese plans.
If Roosevelt knew of Japanese intentions and timeframe of battle, as you imply, would it not have been more appropriate to position the carriers such that they would be able to ambush the Japanese at Pearl Harbor, very much like they did at Midway?
That Roosevelt ordered the carriers elsewhere on purpose, so as to save them from the destruction, also implies that he (or those he trusted with such intelligence) very pointedly foresaw the significant strategic importance of aircraft carriers versus battleships which eventually became clear in the Second World War. That would be a stretch. USN carrier tactics were still being developed at the beginning of the war. The Battle of the Coral Sea in May of 1942 was indecisive in many respects because carrier vs carrier battles as such had never been fought before and battle execution was crude. In fact, carrier based aircraft had never before sunk a capital ship under way at sea until December 10, 1941 when Japanese aircraft destroyed HMS Prince of Wales and Repulse. That Roosevelt and established naval leaders could have precisely predicted the massive advantage of naval air power without historical precedent is an attribution very much borne out of hindsight. Additionally, it is a convenience which diminishes the accomplishments of the Japanese Navy in executing the Pearl Harbor attack.
But it was not only US tactics that were flawed at the beginning of the war. The Japanese proceeded with the attack on Pearl Harbor having received a report that the US carriers would not be present. Carriers were to be secondary targets to the battleships and critical shore installations were to be even lesser targets than that. As successful and daring as their attack was, the Japanese strategic blunders were their own; not the manipulative string-pulling of FDR and the US Navy.
http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/myths/Missing_Carriers.html
http://www.thehistoryreader.com/modern-history/yamamoto-planning-pearl-harbor/
I haven’t studied the specifics of the carrier movement orders, and I’m not going to debate you on that point. Until I obtain firsthand knowledge of those movement orders, I’ll allow that there’s a chance your theory is correct. That the carriers were absent from Pearl for benign reasons.
However, it still remains the case that FDR and his administration deliberately provoked Japan. Eight separate measures were employed in an effort to provoke Japanese aggression, the most notable of which was the oil embargo. Once that embargo was imposed, Japan had about a year before its economy and military ground to a halt. FDR consistently refused to meet with the Japanese, or to discuss his requirements for having the embargo or other “soft war” measures rescinded.
You suggested that it would have been appropriate for FDR to position the carriers to ambush the Japanese forces, if indeed his motives were nefarious. (Which they were.) However, it’s worth pointing out that, from FDR’s perspective, Japan’s initial attack was intended to achieve a political objective, not a military one. If there was even a hint of conflict between a political and military objective, the political objective would be prioritized. At least for the initial attack. Military objectives could be achieved later. Later being after the U.S. was safely in the war, and after FDR had wrung every last drop of propaganda advantage he could out of Pearl Harbor. The account FDR gave of December 7th–the Japanese winning a victory through treachery, while the U.S. was attempting to negotiate in good faith–bore absolutely no relationship to reality. If a politician is lying that blatantly and outlandishly, there is usually a reason why.
If the U.S. navy had assaulted the Japanese fleet before it launched its strike on Pearl, that would have interfered with FDR’s intended narrative of Japan as the aggressor, the U.S. the naive but honest victim of a sucker punch. Even worse (from FDR’s perspective) if the U.S. had achieved initial victories in the war against Japan, those victories might have discouraged Germany from declaring war against the U.S. FDR’s main objective for engaging in hostilities in the first place was to ensure the defeat of National Socialist Germany and the victory of Soviet communism.
