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Yes the US did and President Roosevelt was behind it all and
over 2400 soldiers died because of it in one day, not counting the wounded.
That way the US would have to defend it's self and also be able to go after Hitler
which the American people did not want to do but President Roosevelt did want to.
Just like Bush did going after Osama Ben Laden so he could make a war
against Saddam Hussein the one he really wanted.
.
Well there have been a lot of conspiracy theories over the years. For example, some people could not just give the Japanese credit for the planning and the execution of the Pearl Harbor attack - they assumed the Roosevelt administration had to be on it. After all, how could those people, those Japs carry something like the Pearl Harbor attack off by themselves? There had to be a conspiracy!
I do agree with one thing you said, that Roosevelt wanted to get in on the war. But he wanted war with the Germans not the Japanese. By 1941, American destroyers and German U-boats were firing at each other on sight. And the USA was already providing Lend-Lease aid to the British and the Soviets.
So the United States and Nazi Germany were already inching toward war. No need for machiavellian schemes for the Japanese to attack the USA so this way the Germans could also attack the USA. How could Roosevelt know they would attack? Were the Japanese in on the scheme? Were the Germans? Were the British, the Dutch and the other nations who boycotted Japan also in on the scheme? It really becomes far fetched when you break it down and think about it.
Anyway you are making Roosevelt to be some kind of Bismarck who could manipulate other nations, even his enemies, to do his will. My first question would be is that if Roosevelt was such a Bismarck - how come he did not find a way to get into the war much much earlier? And later how was he so taken to the cleaners by "Uncle Joe" Stalin, although that's another topic.
No he doesn't and neither do you. Please provide evidence to support your claim that FDR provoked, allowed or engineered the attack on Pearl Harbor.
People were so shell shocked by Pearl Harbor back then that they began to come up with conspiracy theories to try to explain it. Human nature I suppose.
NJGOAT, I think it has been well documented that FDR wanted the japaneese to strike first... for many reasons, the most important being that it would give him public support to declare war. At that time, close to 90% opposed intervention.
I'm not making up any conspiracy theories or saying that FDR provoke at attack intentionally. I'm simply saying that there is literature out there that indicates FDR wanted the japaneese to strike first.
I know people love FDR, but at the end of the day he was still a politician, so we shouldn't be afraid to question.
There's a lot of evidence that FDR wanted to declare war on the Axis but preferred to wait for a provocation. There's evidence that he and his top military staff also knew Japan had been backed into a corner and was likely to react in a military manner.
However there's scant evidence that he actually had advance knowledge about the planned Pearl Harbor attack. The Americans hadn't yet broken current Japanese ciphers, and the Japanese were very careful to keep radio silence in the days leading up the event.
Obviously, the fleet was caught flat-footed and should not have all been at harbor. You could make a case that they had been anchored there as a lure and an appealing target that would in fact achieve Roosevelt's goal of gaining public support for a full war effort against two very dangerous foes in the Pacific and in Europe.
Some argued that it would be better to let the Germans exhaust themselves fighting the equally undesirable Russian Communists. Once the two titans were spent, the West could step in and clean the Nazis out of western Europe, and perhaps send enough arms to the Republic of China forces to repel the Japanese.
NJGOAT, I think it has been well documented that FDR wanted the japaneese to strike first... for many reasons, the most important being that it would give him public support to declare war. At that time, close to 90% opposed intervention.
I'm not making up any conspiracy theories or saying that FDR provoke at attack intentionally. I'm simply saying that there is literature out there that indicates FDR wanted the japaneese to strike first.
I know people love FDR, but at the end of the day he was still a politician, so we shouldn't be afraid to question.
If such a thing has been "well documented" then please provide a source. I googled the words "fdr wanted japan to attack" and the first 5 pages of results did not return a single academic or even remotely valid source. Most of them were from fringe sites and blogs with the occasional rant by a poster on Yahoo Answers.
As to your second paragraph, that is exactly what you implied in your first post that recieved kudos from "bumpus"...
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There was speculation that FDR provoked the Japanese into attacking Pearl Harbor. This would allow the US to get involved in the war, which is what he desperately wanted.
Care to reconcile your statements so we know what you actually mean?
As to the final paragraph, I am no slave in the cult of FDR and can criticize and praise him an equal measure and have no problem with questioning him. However, indulging in old conspiracy theories is not questioning, it's dealing in conjecture.
There's a lot of evidence that FDR wanted to declare war on the Axis but preferred to wait for a provocation.
...and that evidence is for a desire to intervene in Europe, not the Pacific.
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There's evidence that he and his top military staff also knew Japan had been backed into a corner and was likely to react in a military manner.
They knew because they maneuvered Japan into that corner over repeated aggressive moves by Japan throughout the Pacific. The major sanctions were not put in place until Japan siezed French Indochina which was a major escalation of what until then had been a contained war between China and Japan in which the US only cared about maintaining its trading rights with China.
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However there's scant evidence that he actually had advance knowledge about the planned Pearl Harbor attack. The Americans hadn't yet broken current Japanese ciphers, and the Japanese were very careful to keep radio silence in the days leading up the event.
There are several known pieces of intelligence that called out the fact there would be an attack in the latter part of 1941. Some were even specific to Hawaii and the fleet. These are often pointed out by people who believe in the "FDR Peral Harbor conspiracy". What they fail to mention is that these individual pieces of intelligence were one amongst tens of thousands of pieces of intelligence the US was getting. Pearl Harbor became a case study for the young CIA in learning to separate "intelligence" from "noise".
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Obviously, the fleet was caught flat-footed and should not have all been at harbor. You could make a case that they had been anchored there as a lure and an appealing target that would in fact achieve Roosevelt's goal of gaining public support for a full war effort against two very dangerous foes in the Pacific and in Europe.
The fleet was moved to Pearl to send a message to Japan to back down. This was "gunboat diplomacy" 101. No one actually believed that the Japanese were capable of or desired to sail their fleet halfway around the world to bomb the fleet. Even the Japanese HQ did not fully believe in the veracity of the plan and only agreed to "Yamamoto's sideshow" under pressure.
FDR wanted war with Germany, not Japan.
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Some argued that it would be better to let the Germans exhaust themselves fighting the equally undesirable Russian Communists. Once the two titans were spent, the West could step in and clean the Nazis out of western Europe, and perhaps send enough arms to the Republic of China forces to repel the Japanese.
But, things didn't quite work out that way.
Some did argue it and some people still argue it today. Both were misguided.
NJGOAT, I think it has been well documented that FDR wanted the japaneese to strike first... for many reasons, the most important being that it would give him public support to declare war. At that time, close to 90% opposed intervention.
I'm not making up any conspiracy theories or saying that FDR provoke at attack intentionally. I'm simply saying that there is literature out there that indicates FDR wanted the japaneese to strike first.
I know people love FDR, but at the end of the day he was still a politician, so we shouldn't be afraid to question.
Well of course FDR wanted the Japanese to attack first but thats probably because he had no intention attacking them at all! The real enemy was Nazi Germany. FDR along with Churchill the other allies thought they could stop the Japanese invasion of China with economic means.
So they thought a economic blockade along with a show of strength (Peace through strength) would do the trick. This is direct contrast to what FDR was doing toward the Germans where the US Navy was already fighting a undeclared war with the German U-Boats.
So if FDR really wanted Japan to attack, he would not have sent eight of the stronger US battleships of the time, the "standard type" battleships with their 14 inch and 16 inch guns to Pearl Harbor. Nor would he have sent hundreds of aircraft throughout the Pacific, including many bombers to the Philippines. And the very stretched British would not have become building a fleet and army at Singapore when they could have been used to fight the Germans and the Italians.
What the Allies expected was Japan to behave in a logical manner. When Japan was already stretched thin by a unending long war in China (imagine the task of invading a country the size of China! ) and now being confronted by economic sanctions backed by powerful naval and air forces, they probably expected Japan to seek diplomacy.
Unfortunately for everybody Japan chose a different path.
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