> Of all the days that will "live in
infamy" in American
> history, two
> stand out: Sept. 11, 2001, and Dec. 7, 1941.
>
> But why did Japan, with a 10th of our industrial power,
> launch a
> sneak attack on the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor, an act of
> state
> terror that must ignite a war to the death it could not
> win? Were
> they insane? No, the Japanese were desperate.
>
> To understand why Japan lashed out, we must go back to
> World War I.
> Japan had been our ally. But when she tried to collect her
> share of
> the booty at Versailles, she ran into an obdurate Woodrow
> Wilson.
>
> Wilson rejected Japan's claim to German concessions in
> Shantung, home
> of Confucius, which Japan had captured at a price in
> blood. Tokyo
> threatened a walkout if denied what she had been promised
> by the
> British. "They are not bluffing," warned Wilson,
as he
> capitulated. "We gave them what they should not
have."
>
> In 1921, at the Washington Naval Conference, the United
> States
> pressured the British to end their 20-year alliance with
> Japan. By
> appeasing the Americans, the British enraged and alienated
> a proud
> nation that had been a loyal friend.
>
> Japan was now isolated, with Stalin's brooding empire to
> the north, a
> rising China to the east and, to the south, Western
> imperial powers
> that detested and distrusted her.
>
> When civil war broke out in China, Japan in 1931 occupied
> Manchuria
> as a buffer state. This was the way the Europeans had
> collected their
> empires. Yet, the West was "shocked, shocked" that
Japan
> would embark
> upon a course of "aggression." Said one Japanese
diplomat,
> "Just when
> we learn how to play poker, they change the game to
> bridge."
>
> Japan now decided to create in China what the British had
> in India –
> a vast colony to exploit that would place her among the
> world powers.
> In 1937, after a clash at Marco Polo Bridge near Peking,
> Japan
> invaded and, after four years of fighting, including the
> horrific
> Rape of Nanking, Japan controlled the coastal cities, but
> not the
> interior.
>
> When France capitulated in June 1940, Japan moved into
> northern
> French Indochina. And though the United States had no
> interest there,
> we imposed an embargo on steel and scrap metal. After
> Hitler invaded
> Russia in June 1941, Japan moved into southern Indochina.
> FDR ordered
> all Japanese assets frozen.
>
> But FDR did not want to cut off oil. As he told his
> Cabinet on July
> 18, an embargo meant war, for that would force oil-starved
> Japan to
> seize the oil fields of the Dutch East Indies. But a State
> Department
> lawyer named Dean Acheson drew up the sanctions in such a
> way as to
> block any Japanese purchases of U.S. oil. By the time FDR
> found out,
> in September, he could not back down.
>
> Tokyo was now split between a War Party and a Peace Party,
> with the
> latter in power. Prime Minister Konoye called in
> Ambassador Joseph
> Grew and secretly offered to meet FDR in Juneau or
> anywhere in the
> Pacific. According to Grew, Konoye was willing to give up
> Indochina
> and China, except a buffer region in the north to protect
> her from
> Stalin, in return for the U.S. brokering a peace with
> China and
> opening up the oil pipeline. Konoye told Grew that Emperor
> Hirohito
> knew of his initiative and was ready to give the order for
> Japan's
> retreat.
>
> Fearful of a "second Munich," America spurned the
offer.
> Konoye fell
> from power and was replaced by Hideki Tojo. Still, war was
> not
> inevitable. U.S. diplomats prepared to offer Japan a
> "modus vivendi."
> If Japan withdrew from southern Indochina, the United
> States would
> partially lift the oil embargo. But Chiang Kai-shek
> became "hysterical," and his American adviser, one
Owen
> Lattimore,
> intervened to abort the proposal.
>
> Facing a choice between death of the empire or fighting
> for its life,
> Japan decided to seize the oil fields of the Indies. And
> the only
> force capable of interfering was the U.S. fleet that FDR
> had
> conveniently moved from San Diego out to Honolulu.
>
> And so Japan attacked. And so she was crushed and forced
> out of
> Vietnam, out of China, out of Manchuria. And so they fell
> to Stalin,
> Mao and Ho Chi Minh. And so it was that American boys, not
> Japanese
> boys, would die fighting Koreans, Chinese and Vietnamese
> to try to
> block the aggressions of a barbaric Asian communism.
>
> Now Japan is disarmed and China is an Asian giant whose
> military
> boasts of pushing the Americans back across the Pacific.
> Had FDR met
> Prince Konoye, there might have been no Pearl Harbor, no
> Pacific war,
> no Hiroshima, no Nagasaki, no Korea, no Vietnam. How many
> of our
> fathers and uncles, brothers and friends, might still be
> alive?
>
> "For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are
> these: 'It
> might have been.'" A few thoughts as the War Party
pounds
> the drum
> for an all-out American war on Iraq and radical Islam.
>
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