Then And Now

I thought the story from this link was interesting, though I didn’t understand the context of the very last quote from Yale professor Gaddis Smith.

As you can see, the story provides some background to the attack on Pearl Harbor which took place 64 years ago today and the commissions that investigated the attack versus the 9/11 commission and the publication of its findings, which turned out to be a best seller.

I’ve heard people say for awhile now that President Franklin D. Roosevelt knew that the attack on Pearl Harbor was coming, but did nothing to stop it to deliberately facilitate our entry into the war (Roosevelt, being dead by the time the commissions were holding their hearings, was unable to defend himself). Based on what I’ve read, I’m moving a little in that direction, but I will only say that I think he knew SOMETHING was coming (maybe an attack on Wake Island only?) and he wanted to use that to get us into the war to help England (after all, the entire Japanese fleet was moving towards this country…how could he not know that?). Again, based on what I’ve read to date, I’ll never believe that he deliberately let the attack on Pearl Harbor take place knowing how terrible it would be. In the same way (again, based on what I’ve read to date), I’ll never believe that Dubya knew that 9/11 would happen. Like Roosevelt, I think he knew something was coming, but he didn’t expect it to be as catastrophic as it was.

I think Roosevelt’s actions showed a bit of guile and deception for what he believed to be a just cause; Dubya’s actions (ignoring the al Qaeda threat even though Richard Clarke and others were warning him not to do so as forcefully as they could) only showed willful arrogance and incompetence.

I pondered all of this a few months ago as I watched “Victory At Sea” on my Mitsubishi VHS player, getting a bit depressed over the irony.

Speaking of the 9/11 commission and its most recent findings, here is a link to a recent story in the Inquirer (registration required) which is truly scary (and remember…it was a bipartisan commission).