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Pearl Harbor and 9/11

SDC

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This is something I have noticed recently: Trutherians seem to be justifying their views on 9/11 = LIHOP (at least), by reference to the notion that FDR and the US government provoked the Japanese into the Pearl Harbor attack. Yes, I know this notion has been frequently discussed (Pearl Harbor LIHOP, I mean), and has gotten somewhat into the mainstream; I don't believe it, mind, but it has gotten out.

I'd be glad to hear what others think. Also, am I correct in thinking that this justifying reference is becoming more frequent? If so, perhaps that is because even Trutherians are coming to see that they have no real evidence for 9/11 LIHOP or MIHOP, and so their casts are net... damn, nets are cast ever wider, in desperation.

My first thread. I blush.
 
There is an even older conspiracy theory. Some people thought that the Soux were led by a renagade westpoint officer. After all there was no way that an ignorant teepee dwelling savage could have defeted General Custer!
 
That's kind of funny. I can hear them now... "You expect me to believe that the finest military organization in the hemisphere with the most battle tested cannons and horses that history had EVER seen were defeated by some barefoot injuns with bows and arrows!? Come on!!"
 
Well, Custer seemed to have misplaced his Gatling guns...

Custer had already weakened his command earlier in the campaign by leaving behind a battery of Gatling Guns, which would certainly have changed the outcome of the battle
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I smell Cornspiracy! Why would he leave them behind? It must have been an insoid jerb!

(wiki caveat. YMMV)
 
Alferd_Packer said:
There is an even older conspiracy theory. Some people thought that the Soux were led by a renagade westpoint officer. After all there was no way that an ignorant teepee dwelling savage could have defeted General Custer!
Click to expand...

This was actually not an unusual theory whenever the Indians proved annoyingly competent at warfare. It was often blamed on unreconstructed Confederates (well, it was just after the Unpleasantness Between the States).

And if you go back to the Colonial period and the Revolutionary War, there were, in the eastern tribes/ nations, leaders with mixed ancestry or educations who fought on the French or British sides (depending on the war).
 
I recommend Gordon Prange's books "At Dawn We Slept" as the best account of Pearl Harbor. An essay in the Appendix throughly dismantles the Conspiracy Theories.
 
FDR definitely and absolutely and positively wanted to provoke Germany into war with us. Hitler knew that, shrewdly avoided it as long as he could.

But war with Japan? No. Not what FDR wanted. According to the people closest to him when this attack occurred - he was thoroughly shaken and devastated by the attack. His biggest fear was that he'd go down as the worst president in the history of the USA - not preventing that attack.

If you can - check out the PBS special American Experience: FDR.
 
SDC said:
This was actually not an unusual theory whenever the Indians proved annoyingly competent at warfare. It was often blamed on unreconstructed Confederates (well, it was just after the Unpleasantness Between the States).

And if you go back to the Colonial period and the Revolutionary War, there were, in the eastern tribes/ nations, leaders with mixed ancestry or educations who fought on the French or British sides (depending on the war).
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I strongly recomend the book "Son of the Morning Star" by Evan S. Connell for anyone interested in the Custer saga. It is an interesting read into how some people are not only unable to learn from past mistakes, but are unable to even recognize past mistakes.
 
Alferd_Packer said:
I strongly recomend the book "Son of the Morning Star" by Evan S. Connell for anyone interested in the Custer saga. It is an interesting read into how some people are not only unable to learn from past mistakes, but are unable to even recognize past mistakes.
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I prefer Robert Utley's "Cavalier In Buckskin" as a book on Custer,but Evan S Connels is not bad.
 
SDC said:
This is something I have noticed recently: Trutherians seem to be justifying their views on 9/11 = LIHOP (at least), by reference to the notion that FDR and the US government provoked the Japanese into the Pearl Harbor attack. Yes, I know this notion has been frequently discussed (Pearl Harbor LIHOP, I mean), and has gotten somewhat into the mainstream; I don't believe it, mind, but it has gotten out.

I'd be glad to hear what others think. Also, am I correct in thinking that this justifying reference is becoming more frequent? If so, perhaps that is because even Trutherians are coming to see that they have no real evidence for 9/11 LIHOP or MIHOP, and so their casts are net... damn, nets are cast ever wider, in desperation.
Click to expand...
I also have the impression that the Pearl Harbor reference is now more frequent with 9/11-CTists than say two years ago.
I think the reason is that the specific arguments that were used to "prove" that 9/11 was an inside job (NORAD standdown, faster than freefall, inside the footprint, outside the footprint, pull it, living hijackers, bla, bla, bla ...) have been debunked a hundred times.
The CTists are retreating to more generic conspiracies, essentially the good old NWO. Pearl Harbor, and also the FED-CT's, are part of this generic conspiracy.

SDC said:
My first thread. I blush.
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Nice. :)
 
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Salon.com also has a column on FDR/Pearl Harbor conspiracy fantasy here:

http://archive.salon.com/books/feature/2001/06/14/fdr/index.html

Pearl Harbor and 9/11 fantasists have one thing in common: An ability to take isolated details or events, strip them of their context, and then recast them in an absolutely suspicious light. The truth gets wrapped in a package of lies and/or misdirection, and unfortunately that serves as a trap for the uninformed. Hell, I nearly fell for the "steel melting" myth about the Twin Towers way back when; that, in fact, is what got me studying the whole topic of 9/11 conspiracy fantasy.

Anyway, think about the stripping of context to buttress truther arguments when you think about Pearl Harbor fantasy. Haven't we all seen the stuff about Imperial Japanese communications intercepted and decrypted by the US? Sure, that's a fact, but again, look at the context: A good deal of those intercepts weren't decoded until well after the attack, and a few very late into the war. Do the fantasists ever admit that bit of history? And there are so many more examples of that sort of context-stripping and details-isolation in Pearl Harbor fantasy, let alone any other topic of fantasists.

There's so much history there to analyze without the need to make up stuff. Sometimes I wonder why exactly some minds accept the least probable explanation as long as it has a conspiracy angle. It seems so relentlessly paranoid and dysfunctional to do that. If the facts really do point at a conspiracy, that's one thing, but to isolate and manipulate the narrative in order to paint such a picture? That's a whole other thing altogether, and no longer history at that point.
 
The thing with Custer, the Indians pretty much used the same tactics they always did. Custer put himself in the tactical situation where their tactics worked better than his.

Recent battlefied research suggests that rather than 7th being the elite fighting force remembered by history. It was undertrained, poorly supplied and badly led, and was reduced to a rabble fairly early in the battle
 
MG1962 said:
Recent battlefied research suggests that rather than 7th being the elite fighting force remembered by history. It was undertrained, poorly supplied and badly led, and was reduced to a rabble fairly early in the battle
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Yes. I once read a report on recent battlefield archeology there. Do you have information on that? Any references? I can't remember what it was.

Ever see "They Died with their Boots On"? I think that's the Errol Flynn version.
 
Alferd_Packer said:
There is an even older conspiracy theory. Some people thought that the Soux were led by a renagade westpoint officer. After all there was no way that an ignorant teepee dwelling savage could have defeted General Custer!
Click to expand...


That's funny I just saw August Schellenberg (played Sitting Bull in HBO's "Bury my heart at wounded knee" on a flight from LA. Just the white mans ego at play IMHO.


http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0770763/
 
SDC said:
Yes. I once read a report on recent battlefield archeology there. Do you have information on that? Any references? I can't remember what it was.

Ever see "They Died with their Boots On"? I think that's the Errol Flynn version.
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I will see what I can find for you. The concept was brilliant. They combed the battlefield for bullet cartridges. Then began matching those bullets by profile, in a sense, seeing how a particular gun moved around the battle field. For example, the famous firing line along the ridge was in fact a headlong paniced withdrawal.

One thing they did prove was the Indians version of the last stand. Army obseravtions always claim it was at the top of the hill where the memorial is. But the researches found that a body of mounted troops did attempt a break out down the hill towards a copt of trees at the river. Although they could follow the fighting down the hill. No one has ever found any evidence of the fighting by the river. Very strange

Their conclusion of the force loosing disicipline was based on the clustering of the men. I am no expert on this, but the claim is as men begin to panic in a fight, they cluster closer and closer together. The retrieved cartridges seems to confirm this effect was happening.
 
Japan was in Imperialist expansion mode and at some point that would have brought them into direct conflict with the US. They just decided to get it over with before they spread themselves too thin.

As to the US knowing that Japan was going to attack, well yes, they did. Just not in the manner the CT's like to claim. My favorite account of US foreknowledge is the first chapter of "The Codebreakers" by David Kahn
 
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