quote:Strangely it is important enough for you to disagree vigorously and repeatedly to someone who has.
Because Tom is using it as the basis of a criticism of his political opponents, and the criticism doesn't just rely on the accuracy of Tom's assertions but the claim that they are "agreed truth."
And this is clear evidence you don't understand what the argument is about: Not whether Tom's claims about FDR's actions are true, but whether those claims are "accepted truth."
In other words, I have formed an opinion on whether FDR's provocation is accepted truth, and that is what we're disagreeing about.
quote:I'm sorry I only have meta-commentary to offer. I'm just sad to see Tom facing off against this battery of non-arguments. It's not that I'm so absolutely sure he's right--like, Dag, I just don't care enough to do the research--but it is pretty damn clear, and galling, that no one disagreeing with Tom has so far been willing or able to engage him on a level.
I'm disagreeing with Tom about the general acceptance of these ideas, not the ideas themselves. To date, we have each presented the exact same amount of evidence about that level of acceptance.
quote:Tom says A, because of B; Dag says not-A, nyeah nyeah.
Except Tom didn't say "A." He said, "A is the accepted truth." I didn't say "Not A." I said "A is not accepted truth because people disagree about it." And I certainly didn't say nyeah nyeah.
quote:Tom says Y, because of Z; CStrom says prove it, buster. Dag's and CStrom's own claims and evidence: nowhere to be found.
Tom provided no evidence of his claim that I am disputing. None. Zero. Zip. Nada. Zilch.
quote:Why do you bother, Tom?
Why do you bother? You barge into a dispute you've demonstrated zero understanding of, utterly mischaracterized the statements made by both sides, and act as if Tom is being put upon for being asked to backup an assertion he made.
It doesn't take much to find stuff on the internet. True, you can find just about anything but it wasn't hard to find things that seemed to make sense. One can say a person is jumping to conclusions based upon the facts, but I didn't find anything that said "Roosevelt DID'T blockade Japan." Why he did it? We can never truly know for sure, but the evidence supports provocation.
A number of articles show that the Freedom of Information Act is what really brought the conspiracy to real light. People dug in the national archives and found that we knew the Japanese codes and knew what was going on in the Pacific.
I think it would be neat if someone would approach Tom's larger question...did the eradication of the Nazi/Japanese menace justify the means? And can/will the same thing be said of Bush and his means to get us into war in the Middle East?
For me, I can't see that happening. Saddam and Hitler are completely different threats. Hitler was actively marching all over Europe and conquering countries and countries that we normally like quite a bit. Saddam sat in his palace and made idle threats while he murdered his own population. He is evil, he is nasty but was he of the world-changing variety. Had Hitler gone unchecked, the world would be a VASTLY different place...or so Philip K. Dick would have us think. I seriously wonder how different the world would be if yet another middle east despot still sat in power. He was a nasty cuss, to be sure, but nastier than anyone else on his block? World-changing nasty? One can definitly argue that Osama (remember him?) changed the USA forever and he still runs free and his network has claimed responsibility for carnage since our own attack on 9/11/01. It would be like instead of fighting all the Axis in WWII and instead focused on one province in Italy and left the rest of the world to deal with the remaining threat. No doubt Italy was among the bad guys, but they certainly weren't at the head of the class.
Do others on here feel that Bush and his deceptions to get us into Iraq could be worth it in the end (if we "win" and leave Iraq better in the long run...which is faaaar from determined, even with elections coming up. If they fairly elect someone who wants to shoot the US, are they better off? Are we?).
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Tres, none of the links you posted really indicate substantial argument among historians. The CNN link quotes a single dissenting historian, Norman Polmar, whose only cited objection is that the Pearl Harbor commanders received a "war warning" occasioned as a result of Roosevelt's meeting on the 25th; while this is true, that warning specifically listed the Philippines and other American Pacific islands as potential targets; Hawaii was not indicated as a likely target. (More importantly, Polmar is only dissenting here from the view that the Navy hung Hawaii out to dry, and not from my larger point.)
Your "Who Lost Pearl Harbor" link only offers evidence to discount the premise that Roosevelt himself specifically knew of the time and place of the Japanese attack, and actually goes so far as to pretty much concede his motivations -- although it does a lot of insulting "conspiracy theorists" for guessing and speculating about the president's intentions.
Finally, your "Case Closed" link pretty much takes as a given that Roosevelt expected a Japanese attack, but complains 1) that one author named Stinnett failed to properly footnote some of his sources and 2) that conspiracy theorists tip-toe unconvincingly around not placing the blame for the deaths at Pearl Harbor at Roosevelt's feet if he did indeed know about them, and argues that this amounts to "Holocaustomania."
In other words, it's pretty much like I said: the controversy is over whether Roosevelt intended Pearl Harbor to be a specific target. As far as I'm concerned, we'll never know the truth about that one, and I don't think it matters much.
quote:Tres, none of the links you posted really indicate substantial argument among historians.
Tom, it offers substantially more evidence of disagreement than your evidence of agreement - which is no evidence and no quotes.
If you need more evidence, here are some links I found (each of which continues to say the issue is controversial, not agreed upon) that include names of articles and authors that dispute claims that FDR intended for the U.S. to be attacked by Japan. I don't have access to many academic journals, unfortunately.
quote:The first category is what we can call conspiracy theories. Pearl Harbor abounds in such theories.
One such theory says that President Roosevelt knew the Japanese attack was coming and -- because of an overweening desire to see the United States in the war -- did not warn the Army and Navy commanders in Hawaii. Readers are referred to the following articles to get both sides of this particular dispute: Edward S. Barkin and L. Michael Meyer, "COMINT and Pearl Harbor: FDR's Mistake," International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 2, no. 4 (Winter 1988): 513-531; and Edwin C. Fishel and Louis W. Tordello, "FDR's Mistake? Not Likely," International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 5, no. 3 (Fall 1991): 360-372.
For a discussion of the latest entry into the "FDR-knew" sweepstakes, see John C. Zimmerman, "Pearl Harbor Revisionism: Robert Stinnett's Day of Deceit," Intelligence and National Security 17, no. 2 (Summer 2002): 127-146, a "Review Essay" focused on Robert Stinnett, Day of Deceit: The Truth about FDR and Pearl Harbor (New York: Free Press, 1999).
A second conspiracy theory accuses British Prime Minister Churchill of knowing that the Japanese fleet was on the way to attack Pearl Harbor but not warning Roosevelt. The reason suggested for Churchill's action was a belief that the America's joining with England was the only way that Hitler could be defeated. The central work in this category is probably James Rusbridger and Eric Nave, Betrayal at Pearl Harbor: How Churchill Lured Roosevelt into World War II (Old Tappan, NJ: Simon & Schuster, 1992). Rusbridger was a prolific -- and often sensationalist -- author on intelligence matters. Nave is regarded by some as the father of British codebreaking in the Far East. Based largely on Nave's memory decades after the fact, the book contends that both the British and the Dutch intercepted -- and read -- a radio signal sent to the Japanese carrier force on 25 November 1941. That message is supposed to have revealed the position and likely destination of the Japanese fleet. The authors assert that Churchill received this message -- and deliberately withheld it in order to ensure that the United States would be attacked and thereby brought into the war.
The assertions in the Rusbridger and Nave book were greeted with some enthusiasm by the popular press, but were rejected almost universally by historians and intelligence experts. In the main, the book is based on hearsay and bits and pieces of information presented as evidence. The central argument in the book violates all that is known about the history of British and American cryptology. Briefly stated, the Japanese code that Rusbridger and Nave claim the message was sent in had not by all credible evidence -- and that evidence is voluminous -- been broken in 1941. In addition, the recently released minutes of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) for 1941 do not support the revisionist suggestion that Churchill had and withheld foreknowledge of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. See Richard Aldrich, "British and American Policy on Intelligence Archives: Never-Never Land and Wonderland?" Studies in Intelligence 38, no. 5 (1995): 18.
To show that conspiracy theorists are committed to equal opportunity for friends and nonfriends alike, a third theory gives Stalin knowledge of the Japanese plans. Like Churchill, he is supposed to have so badly wanted the United States in the war against Hitler that he withheld that information from the Americans.
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