SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
David Swanson, author of "War is a Lie", writes via CounterPunch:
The facts [of the Pearl Harbor story] do not support the mythology. The United States government did not need to make Japan a junior partner in imperialism, did not need to fuel an arms race, did not need to support Nazism and fascism (as some of the biggest U.S. corporations did right through the war), did not need to provoke Japan, did not need to join the war in Asia or Europe, and was not surprised by the attack on Pearl Harbor. For support of each of these statements, keep reading.
[...] Churchill's fervent hope for years before the U.S. entry into the war was that Japan would attack the United States. This would permit the United States (not legally, but politically) to fully enter World War II in Europe, as its president wanted to do, as opposed to merely providing weaponry and assisting in the targeting of submarines as it had been doing. On December 7, 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt drew up a declaration of war on both Japan and Germany, but decided it wouldn't work and went with Japan alone. Germany quickly declared war on the United States, possibly in hopes that Japan would declare war on the Soviet Union.
Getting into the war was not a new idea in the Roosevelt White House. FDR had tried lying to the U.S. public about U.S. ships including the Greer and the Kerny, which had been helping British planes track German submarines, but which Roosevelt pretended had been innocently attacked. Roosevelt also lied that he had in his possession a secret Nazi map planning the conquest of South America, as well as a secret Nazi plan for replacing all religions with Nazism. The map was of the quality of Karl Rove's "proof" that Iraq was buying uranium in Niger.
And yet, the people of the United States didn't buy the idea of going into another war until Pearl Harbor, by which point Roosevelt had already instituted the draft, activated the National Guard, created a huge Navy in two oceans, traded old destroyers to England in exchange for the lease of its bases in the Caribbean and Bermuda, and--just 11 days before the "unexpected" attack, and five days before FDR expected it--he had secretly ordered the creation (by Henry Field) of a list of every Japanese and Japanese-American person in the United States.
[...] On November 15th, Army Chief of Staff George Marshall briefed the media on something we do not remember as "the Marshall Plan". In fact we don't remember it at all. "We are preparing an offensive war against Japan", Marshall said, asking the journalists to keep it a secret, which as far as I know they dutifully did.
[...] Congresswoman Jeannette Rankin (R-MT), the first woman ever elected to Congress, and who had voted against World War I, stood alone in opposing World War II [...] found that the Economic Defense Board had gotten economic sanctions under way less than a week after the Atlantic Conference [of August 1941]. On December 2, 1941, the New York Times had reported, in fact, that Japan had been "cut off from about 75 percent of her normal trade by the Allied blockade". Rankin also cited the statement of Lieutenant Clarence E. Dickinson, U.S.N., in the Saturday Evening Post of October 10, 1942, that on November 28, 1941, nine days before the attack, Vice Admiral William F. Halsey, Jr., (he of the catchy slogan "Kill Japs! Kill Japs!") had given instructions to him and others to "shoot down anything we saw in the sky and to bomb anything we saw on the sea".
The article is very detailed and shows repeatedly the duplicity of those who have claimed that the strike on Pearl Harbor was a "surprise".
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday December 08 2016, @06:19PM
Then you'll really want to read how jet fuel can't melt steel beams...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday December 08 2016, @07:14PM
...or about how what hit the Pentagon was small, white, and about the length of a pickup truck. Can't wait for Wikileaks to get the real story on that one.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 08 2016, @08:37PM
You mean it was big enough to clip the light poles on the 14th St bridge, and it happened during the heart of rush hour with all the people who saw it? WTF are you talking about? The size of a pickup truck? That pickup truck made a hell of a sound as it flew feet above the cars sitting in traffic on the bridge, not to mention all the people on the highways and parking lots. What about the World Trade Center planes captured on video. Are those super-duper pickup trucks too? And that was one hell of a big pickup truck that crashed in PA.
This, at least, explains a lot of your positions on things.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday December 09 2016, @05:05AM
A guy who worked for me previously worked for ABC News. He built their video archival system. He had the raw footage of cameras pointing at the world trade center and at street level in DC that they would typically use for those weather or traffic cutaway shots. The WTC stuff didn't have anything that contradicted the official accounts (except for the horrible shots of people throwing themselves out that were sanitized from most coverage). The Pentagon street-level shots i saw were from a cross street on the approach to the strike. there were 2-3 frames that showed an object flying. It was blurry and you couldn't make out details, but you could tell scale because it was right over a pickup in one of the frames and it was about the same length. I thought it might be consistent with a cruise missile. Why it would be a cruise missile i have no idea, because why would anybody in the US armed forces shoot a cruise missile at a passenger plane, or how would terrorists get their hands on a cruise missile? But the object was not a passenger jet. Much too small. That's what i saw and it's what i know.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 09 2016, @05:10PM
So it was "right over" a pickup truck... for some values of "right over."
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 08 2016, @08:41PM
I wasn't aware they built those buildings out of jet fuel.
So all these years you were figuring it was lighter fluid that cooked your steaks? Those black briquette-shaped things were there just to hold the lighter fuel, right?
For all the self-congratulatory statements made around here about how "smart" everyone is about tech and science, I see the most dumbass statements made from people who have an interesting view of how the world works, and it sure don't much align with physics.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Friday December 09 2016, @02:06AM
You're comparing steel beams to charcoal briquettes? If we know nothing of physics, you have even less of a grasp on Chemistry.....
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday December 09 2016, @10:35PM
No, I think he's comparing carpeting and drywall and stacks of office paper to charcoal briquettes.
Not sure which of those would burn hotter than aviation fuel though. Maybe plastics and electronics?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 09 2016, @06:20PM
And there is no way that someone would ever use sub-standard steel in construction... I mean that is unheard of.
(Score: 2) by Bogsnoticus on Friday December 09 2016, @05:56AM
Then you might want to read what happens to load bearing steel beams holding up a few hundred tons of concrete and steel when they are subject to intense heat.
Hint: they don't need to melt, just heat up enough to soften, then the weight from above will cause catastrophic failure.
Genius by birth. Evil by choice.