posted
Bush makes many horrible decisions, but he isn't anywhere near messed up enough to make that horrible a decision. Even if he were to start bombing Iran, it would not be because some ships had a minor standoff.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote:Originally posted by fugu13: Bush makes many horrible decisions, but he isn't anywhere near messed up enough to make that horrible a decision. Even if he were to start bombing Iran, it would not be because some ships had a minor standoff.
Of course not. He can make up far better reasons than that.
(For those who don't know, I'm kidding! Or, at least, I hope I'm kidding. )
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posted
If they actually attacked the navy? He'd at least reduce their little boats to rubble. But posturing? No.
Besides, his legacy machine is hard at work in Israel and Palestine. I don't think it can churn out anything there, let alone with Iran. It's pretty tired from Iraq.
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posted
The latest evidence shows that this event didn't even actually occur. The pentagon made it up, including dubbing things into the video they released. Latest story!
Two things about this have me really worried. First, the original "faked" story got reported by CNN and other major news organizations, now that the truth is out its only being mentioned by the little guys.
Second, and most important, it shows exactly how corrupt our govenment and Bush administration officials have become. How can a democracy possibly function when the people who control access to important information through secrecy and classification are people who are proven liars, who have a track record of manipulating and even fabricating reports to back their militarist agendas?
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posted
Where are you seeing this evidence, Rabbit?
From the beginning of this, the Navy has been very clear about the fact that they spliced the audio and video together, saying that they did so to illustrate how the situation was perceived by the seamen involved rather than as an official record of what had happened.
The latest I've seen on this is the story coming out of The Navy Times claiming that the transmissions were made by a ham radio heckler known as "Filipino Monkey" who has been harassing ships in the Persian Gulf for years. Now, I see some holes in this explanation and wouldn't be surprised if it turned out to be incorrect*, but if it's been conclusively shown to be false I haven't read about it.
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posted
Moreover, I read at least two mainstream articles early this week quoting pentagon officials explicitly saying that they didn't know where the radio transmission came from.
Every single reference to the video I have seen has mentioned that it was spliced and that the origin of the radio transmission was unknown.
The press has been reporting the possible identity of the prankster for 3 days now.
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posted
We do have a long and inglorious tradition of using alleged attacks against US ships as a causus belli, it's true.
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And looked at another way, "Remember the Maine" was as much about selling newspapers as about the government.
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posted
I think this is less Yellow Journalism and more LAZY journalism. Journalists these days want stories handfed to them, I don't think they're lying, I just don't think they care so much about double checking things they are told by the government anymore. The third estate has become the government's bitch. I thought they might get their act together after getting burned by Iraq, but I guess not.
I'm surprised this hasn't hit the major news outlets harder, and for that matter, I can't believe Democrats aren't railing against this one, especially with how hard Bush is pushing this on his Middle East trip.
posted
I'm surprised that a lot of things haven't hit the major news outlets harder, and that the Democrats aren't making hay out of them. This story is the latest one I've felt that way about. While it's possible that a big deal will be made of it, I don't think that it's likely that it will.
posted
I saw that one on CNN yesterday, but only as a short blurb. When I saw it, I shook my head, though "yeah that sounds about right," and moved on.
I'm desensitized. This must be a rather pacified version of what it feels like to live in Russia or China. My government lies and is corrupt, I can't do anything about it for another 10 months or so, and no one is able to stop them, even the other party stays quiet now, either because they are impotent or they fear, for whatever dumb reason, that it might shake what hold on power that they have, so I go on about my day and hope for a better tomorrow.
What can you do anymore?
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Remember the Maine !
And don't forget the Turner Joy and the Maddox!
And be sure to add "The Gulf of Tonkin" to the list. Recently declassified documents from the Vietnam era revealed a lot of interesting things among them, the data proved that the Gulf of Tonkin attack never happened.
quote:The author of the report “demonstrates that not only is it not true, as (then US) secretary of defense Robert McNamara told Congress, that the evidence of an attack was ‘unimpeachable,’ but that to the contrary, a review of the classified signals intelligence proves that ‘no attack happened that night,’” FAS said in a statement.
posted
Oh, and just to pre-empt the "Pearl Harbor" arguments. It is now well established that
quote:President Roosevelt (FDR) provoked the attack, knew about it in advance and covered up his failure to warn the Hawaiian commanders. FDR needed the attack to sucker Hitler to declare war, since the public and Congress were overwhelmingly against entering the war in Europe. It was his backdoor to war.
What FDR knew is not really the question here. I think we would have gone to war in response to a Japanese attack even if it hadn't been a surprise.
And there were other reasons than the Lusitania for entering WWI.
But I do think that reasons (sometimes valid, sometimes not) for war are often "foggy" and more complicated then the slogans used to get the country riled up.
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: Moreover, I read at least two mainstream articles early this week quoting pentagon officials explicitly saying that they didn't know where the radio transmission came from.
Every single reference to the video I have seen has mentioned that it was spliced and that the origin of the radio transmission was unknown.
The press has been reporting the possible identity of the prankster for 3 days now.
The specific part of the story that seems to be missing in the mainstream media is the growing body of evidence cited in the article I linked that the pentagon and Bush appointees planted the story.
How many times will Americans put up with this adminstration playing the "we were just victims of bad intelligence" game before they catch on.
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quote:What FDR knew is not really the question here. I think we would have gone to war in response to a Japanese attack even if it hadn't been a surprise.
What about the evidence that FDR deliberately provoked the attack and the evidence that they deliberately failed to warn the Hawaiian commanders. Without those two deceptions, Pearl Harbor might not have even occurred and certainly would not have been as deadly. If the attack had gone differently the US would like have at least waited longer before entering the war in Europe. Remember that following Pearl Harbor, Hitler declared war on the US (not visa versa).
But here is the really important question. In retrospect, even I, an avowed pacifist, will agree that the US needed to oppose facism and that by 1941, entering the war was the only effective way to do that. With that as a given, why did FDR need to lie to get the Americans to support the war?
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posted
I imagine until there's a draft, to be perfectly honest. There's supposed to be one official and one unofficial bulwark between the BS from the White House and the people. The official one is Congress, who are asleep at the wheel, and the unofficial are the press, who aren't asleep at the wheel, they're at the wheel but taking directions from www.mapquest/whitehouse.gov. Barring both those filters, we either believe it, or we don't believe it but don't do anything about it.
But I think the real problem is elections. Elections are the way we stop them from pulling this stuff off. Congress has zero fear right now that if they screw up they'll be punished in November, so they keep it going. Hell, Democrats are probably pissed but maybe 10% giddy every time this happens because it puffs up their chances for bigger wins. Can't say I blame them, it's what FDR was probably thinking when Pearl Harbor happened. It's pragmatic.
We're worried about ourselves. If the economy is good then we're spending big and living high, if it's bad then we're agitated and concerned for our personal well being, but by and large, other than a lot of lip service (and don't get me wrong, that's an important step, up there with protesting, which we've done too), sufficient numbers of Americans haven't taken that concern with them to the voting booth to make a change. If Democrats had sufficient numbers in Congress I really think they would be slapping down a lot of this. But with a razor thin majority, they might as well not be in charge at all. At least we're starting to see some more oversight from them (or any at all), but they feel defeated (and they should). Until enough people, more than just a slim majority of those who cared to actually vote (!), stand up and say "Enough!" it'll keep going, and I think that will last until we get ourselves into such deep hot water that it takes a draft to get us out. Then we'll wonder how in the world it ever got so bad so fast.
Rabbit, while it's probably neither here nor there, I don't really think Pearl Harbor fits in the same category as what's been described to far. What's been mentioned so far were all trumped up fake stories. Pearl Harbor WAS attacked. How it happened and how we didn't turn it from a surprise attack to an actual battle is debateable and certainly a point of contention, but there's no denying it was attacked, and I think it would've led to war regardless.
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posted
FDR was not above manipulation or blatant suppression. And I hold his administration responsible for not taking enough action against the death camps.
But I can't believe he believed there was an impending attack against Pearl Harbor.
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posted
Because there were an awful lot of German and Italian immigrants. WWI was a hard sell, too.
Germany declared war on us when we declared war on Japan because of their treaty. We still waited a long time before actually entering the European war.
I think (pessimistically) that we will keep accepting poor reasons to go to war as long as we need that sense of identity that comes with defining someone else as "other". Patriotism feels good. As long as we want to succumb to that feeling the PTB will be able to exploit it in the service of corporations.
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posted
I can accept that Roosevelt knew that cutting off all petroleum to Japan would goad them into attacking the US out of sheer desperation, and I think he was right to get us to oppose fascism.
I don't believe he knew all the pivotal details about the Pearl Harbor attack and actively made sure it happened.
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posted
From the PBS specials I remember watching, the Japanese government actually intended to announce that it was attacking beforehand. The diplomat whose job it was to give the information was waylaid and came late - then was surprised at the extremely icy reception he got.
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quote:Originally posted by Noemon: From the beginning of this, the Navy has been very clear about the fact that they spliced the audio and video together, saying that they did so to illustrate how the situation was perceived by the seamen involved rather than as an official record of what had happened.
Thanks, Navy. I didn't know they were so concerned about making sure people watching T.V. at home could experience " how the situation was perceived by the seamen involved " instead of just releasing an " official record of what had happened. "
Seriously no one needs the Navy add film editing to their list of duties.
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quote:Originally posted by Phanto: FDR was not above manipulation or blatant suppression. And I hold his administration responsible for not taking enough action against the death camps.
What should he have done, exactly - bombed the camps?
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quote:What about the evidence that FDR deliberately provoked the attack and the evidence that they deliberately failed to warn the Hawaiian commanders.
How did he go about that, exactly? I'm not arguing that he didn't know about it in advance and let it happen, since I am uncertain (though I tend more towards he did not know it would happen myself), but I wonder what fits the bill for 'provocation' in your book here.
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quote:Seriously no one needs the Navy add film editing to their list of duties.
Seriously, we need to leave this important job to our serious, dedicated, and competent media organizations.
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh:
quote:What about the evidence that FDR deliberately provoked the attack and the evidence that they deliberately failed to warn the Hawaiian commanders.
How did he go about that, exactly? I'm not arguing that he didn't know about it in advance and let it happen, since I am uncertain (though I tend more towards he did not know it would happen myself), but I wonder what fits the bill for 'provocation' in your book here.
Embargoing Japan certainly doesn't qualify as 'nice'.
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Bomb the rail lines. Bomb the camps and you might hit the people you're trying to save, bomb the rail lines and they have no way to bring in more people or supplies to the camp. That's what was discussed when they found out about the camps, but it was dismissed.
Blayne -
Seriously? We're under no obligation to supply our enemies and their war efforts against our allies. That's insane. It's not our fault they abused our trade relationship and decided to use those materials to play at Empire. Besides, I can't believe they were demented enough to believe that they could really invade mainland America. Alaska in the 50's fine, but Los Angeles? No way. They hoped that a quick attack would stifle us and reopen trade, and even that was a stupid assumption. Attacking us was the dumbest thing they did in the first half the century, and it's not our fault they did it.
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quote:Bomb the rail lines. Bomb the camps and you might hit the people you're trying to save, bomb the rail lines and they have no way to bring in more people or supplies to the camp. That's what was discussed when they found out about the camps, but it was dismissed.
And then the people in the camp, deprived of supplies, die more quickly. Or even when they're blown up in a cattle car on the way to a camp.
Why not focus bombing on the war effort, to end the war more quickly, and stop people from being sent to the camps altogether?
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posted
Rakeesh, it is possible those in the camps would have died more quickly -- but unlikely, given the camps' primary purpose was to kill them.
Most of the survivors I know say that the single thing the Allies could have done to reduce camp deaths was to bomb the rail lines. Killing Jews and other undesirables in the cities and the ghettos tended to disturb the local populace and result in sanitary problems. That's why they developed the camps.
Now, had the rail lines been disrupted, would they have come up with an alternative? Given enough time, likely so. But there's a good chance they would not have had enough time. The rail lines were easy targets, and disrupting would have done several things to bollix the German war machine. But first of all, with a very small investment of firepower, many lives could have been saved.
However, for the US government to make that investment, they had to believe that the reports about those caps were true. And too many were unable to do that until presented with undeniable photographic evidence. Some not even then.
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quote:Rakeesh, it is possible those in the camps would have died more quickly -- but unlikely, given the camps' primary purpose was to kill them.
Unlikely, I agree. But that was a *comparison*, not a decision made in a vaccuum; compared to the total certainty that, for example, bombing a factory that produced ball bearings would seriously harm the war effort.
quote:Now, had the rail lines been disrupted, would they have come up with an alternative? Given enough time, likely so. But there's a good chance they would not have had enough time. The rail lines were easy targets, and disrupting would have done several things to bollix the German war machine. But first of all, with a very small investment of firepower, many lives could have been saved.
I was speaking of the people already in the camps, not future victims. They, once it became clear what was happening, would probably have all been murdered very quickly.
We unfortunately did not have a limitless air force. Every bombing on exclusively camp targets would not just have been measured by the tangible cost of those missions, but in other missions not done. And all the costs of not doing those missions.
quote:However, for the US government to make that investment, they had to believe that the reports about those caps were true. And too many were unable to do that until presented with undeniable photographic evidence. Some not even then.
This is true, except for the 'small' part re: investment. But then again, if I had lived in a pre-Holocaust world (and I mean me as I am otherwise in 2008), I'm not sure I would have believed it without really damning evidence, just because it's such a horrifying event.
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posted
There was some pretty damning evidence. I hate throwing around accusations of anti-semitism, but there is some indication that was a factor for some who chose to ignore the evidence.
The investment in bombing rail lines, since it did not have to be nearly as accurate as bombing factories (yet missing nearby buildings), would not have been that large. And as I mentioned, would have done much more than prevent movement to the camps.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
I was just watching "The Jewish Americans" on PBS, and they had some interesting information on this. Apparently one of FDR's close advisors started trying to help European Jews once it became clear to him what was going on-- and found himself blocked by a clearly anti-semitic head honcho in the State Dept. It took preparing a detailed, irrefutable report on the death camps and the harm America's inaction was doing before FDR acted-- and then it was too little, too late. But at least in part, FDR really was underinformed because there were at least some anti-semitic officials around him. He obviously had some willful disbelief going on, too, but much of America did at the time. Who wants to believe that humans are capable of doing that to other humans? I know it has happened, and so have other atrocities, and still I don't want to believe it-- I just have to because I know it's true.
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: ... and their war efforts against our allies. That's insane. It's not our fault they abused our trade relationship and decided to use those materials to play at Empire.
In a weird way, it *was* your (the United States') fault. Arguably, it was the American Commodore Perry that forced Japan to open up to Western trade and started Japan on its strange emulation of the Western colonial powers. Japan wouldn't even have *had* a trade relationship with the United States if he had not threatened to blow up their stuff.
The lesson here is: Don't force someone to trade with you through military force. They might just very well learn the lesson you're teaching and use their newly acquired military arms (that you traded to them) to force you to trade with them when you don't want to
Also, Japan's war efforts against allies before Pearl Harbour? Plural even? Who are you referring to? I was under the impression that Japan attacked British and other allied forces in the Pacific after Pearl Harbour, not before. If you're referring to China, China under the Nationalists didn't even ally with the United States until after Pearl Harbour and I don't think the Communists ever allied with the States for the obvious reason. ex:
quote: On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, which brought the United States into the war. China officially declared war on Japan on December 8, 1941. It refused to declare war earlier because receiving military aid while officially at war would break the neutrality of the donor nation.
quote:Also, Japan's war efforts against allies before Pearl Harbour? Plural even? Who are you referring to? I was under the impression that Japan attacked British and other allied forces in the Pacific after Pearl Harbour, not before. If you're referring to China, China under the Nationalists didn't even ally with the United States until after Pearl Harbour and I don't think the Communists ever allied with the States for the obvious reason.
Since when do we have to be officially an ally with someone for them to be our allies?
quote:The lesson here is: Don't force someone to trade with you through military force. They might just very well learn the lesson you're teaching and use their newly acquired military arms (that you traded to them) to force you to trade with them when you don't want to
While it's a pithy lesson you're offering, it's not a very good one. In Japanese warfare, the sudden surprise attack has a long history for one thing. And they had tried before they'd ever met an American to conquer China.
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Since when do we have to be officially an ally with someone for them to be our allies?
?
quote: And they had tried before they'd ever met an American to conquer China.
I have no idea what you're referring to. The only things that I can think of that come close would be a Mongol attempt to invade Japan and a short-lived Japanese attempt to invade Korea.
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