the contrarian – The Truth About Pearl Harbor
December 07, 2009
by Dave McGill
gather.com

Today lives in infamy, but not for the reasons you’ve been told.  The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, exactly 68 years ago today, was not an unprovoked, dastardly assault on an unsuspecting nation. It was a carefully orchestrated trap, engineered by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. FDR’s purpose was to overcome domestic opposition to America’s involvement in the European war thousands of miles from the Pacific isles.

A tri-party agreement between Japan, Germany and Italy, executed one year earlier, gave Roosevelt the key he needed to get into Europe through the “back door.”   The agreement stipulated that a war against any one of the parties would be considered to be a war against all three.

These facts would still be buried in the dustbin of history but for some sixteen years of work by author Robert Stinnett, uncovering and examining documents under the Freedom of Information Act. His eventual book on the subject is entitled Day of Deceit.

Because of the controversial nature of the information uncovered, Stinnett’s findings were subjected to considerable scrutiny before being endorsed and promoted by the Independent Institute of Washington, D.C., an organization that sponsors studies by top scholars on major policy issues.

The Independent Institute has a reputation for adhering to high standards in its pursuit of the truth, regardless of public opinion, political implications or social considerations.

It’s an indisputable fact of history that, prior to Pearl Harbor, Americans were very much against getting involved in “Europe’s war.” The isolationist movement was spearheaded by, among others, the Hearst newspaper chain, Henry Ford, the American hero Charles Lindbergh, and many of the nation‘s business and financial leaders, including Prescott Bush, grandfather of ex-President George W. Bush.

It is also clear that Roosevelt feared the threat that Nazi Germany represented to the United States, which presented him with a quandary.

The paper trail that Stinnett uncovered reveals that Roosevelt seized on the “back door” approach to solving his problem and developed a very specific plan to induce Japan into attacking us. The components of the plan are discussed in detail in Stinnett’s book, including the names and ranks of the military personnel directly involved.

The plan involved eight actions designed to accomplish FDR’s purpose. Two of these had the greatest significance.

The one identified in the historic documents as Action F created the plum that FDR dangled before the Japanese hierarchy. It required that the fleet remain bottled up in Pearl Harbor.

The other important directive, identified as Action H, called for the embargo of Japan’s access to resources, including oil, from Southeast Asia. This turned out to be very effective. The president instituted it in July, 1941 and, by doing so, he began to starve Japan of the vital lifeblood it desperately needed to survive. Within months he had literally forced that nation down the last leg of its pathway to war.

Of additional interest, Roosevelt initiated a companion program which involved sending cruisers into Japanese territory to annoy and antagonize that country‘s leaders. Roosevelt called them “pop-up cruises.”

He was quoted in the documents as saying: “I want them popping up here and there, but I don’t want to lose five or six cruisers. I don’t mind losing one or two.” Each cruiser was manned by 900 sailors.

He also apparently didn’t mind losing the 3,000 lives that were claimed by the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor, in that their sacrifice essentially paved the way for the eventual defeat of Nazi Germany.

Stinnett’s research also confirmed that we had broken Japan’s code, and that the same personnel who were overseeing the grand design for the president were also abreast of Japan’s every move.

The plan, of course, worked perfectly. As we all know, the attack on Pearl Harbor ignited America, and public opinion immediately shifted towards an unprecedented support for the war that carried through to its conclusion.

Only a fraction of the Pearl Harbor survivors lived long enough to learn the truth. There were 20,000 alive in the 1960’s, according to the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association, but today they number less than 3,000.

If there is a lesson to be learned here, it is perhaps that, even in an advanced society such as ours, we should always be on the alert for efforts intended to shape our opinions by manipulative means. And, it should not escape our attention that the mainstream media is likely to be a vital partner in the process.

Original article here.

Dave McGill, News Correspondent

Dave’s column, “The Contrarian,” generally published every Friday, to Gather Essential News and other groups will sometimes present a contrary view to various aspects of the news, or an alternate take on the conventional wisdom of the day. It will also often appear on other days of the week

Dave has been a senior officer of an eastern insurance company, involved in economic projections and investment strategy, president of a Midwestern mortgage banking company, and a financial consultant in Southern California, serving clients in the field of commercial real estate development.

You can find all of Dave’s “the contrarian” columns at: http://gather.com/thecontrarian. Keep up with Dave’s other postings and Gather activity by joining his Gather network at: http://atadaskew.gather.com. You’ll find Dave and other News correspondents, plus celebrity content and plenty of news experts at: news.gather.com.