Brzezinski’s Warning Re Possible Pretext for War Against Iran
This article was brought to my attention by Jim Oberg
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Could al Qaeda Attack Trigger War With Iran?
by Gareth Porter, Published on Wednesday, June 6, 2007 by Inter Press Service
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WASHINGTON - Following revelations of a George W. Bush administration policy
to hold Iran responsible for any al Qaeda attack on the U.S. that could be
portrayed as planned on Iranian soil, former national security adviser
Zbigniew Brzezinski warned last week that Washington might use such an
incident as a pretext to bomb Iran.
Brzezinski, the national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter from
1977 through 1980 and the most senior Democratic Party figure on national
security policy, told a private meeting sponsored by the non-partisan
Committee for the Republic in Washington May 30 that an al Qaeda terrorist
attack in the United States intended to provoke war between the U.S. and
Iran was a possibility that must be taken seriously, and that the Bush
administration might accuse Iran of responsibility for such an attack and
use it to justify carrying out an attack on Iran.
Brzezinski suggested that new constraints were needed on presidential war
powers to reduce the risk of a war against Iran based on such a false
pretense. Such constraints, Brzezinski said, should not prevent the
president from using force in response to an attack on the United States,
but should make it more difficult to carry out an attack without an adequate
justification.
Brzezinski¹s warning came a few weeks after the publication in late April of
former Central Intelligence Agency director George Tenet¹s memoirs, which
revealed that CIA officials had told Iranian officials in a face-to-face
meeting that the Bush administration would hold Iran responsible for any al
Qaeda attack on the United States that was planned from Iranian territory.
The Bush administration has made persistent claims over the past five years
that Iran has harboured al Qaeda operatives who had fled from Afghanistan
and that they had participated in planning terrorist actions ‹ claims that
were not supported by intelligence analysts.
Pentagon officials leaked information to CBS in May 2003 that they had
³evidence² that al Qaeda leaders who had found ³safe haven² in Iran had
planned and directed terrorist operations in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere.
Then Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld also encouraged that inference
when he declared on May 29, 2003 that Iran had ³permitted senior al Qaeda
officials to operate in their country.²
The leak and public statement allowed the media and their audiences to infer
that the ³safe haven² had been deliberately provided by Iranian authorities.
But most U.S. intelligence analysts specialising on the Persian Gulf
believed the al Qaeda officials in Iran who were still communicating with
operatives elsewhere were in hiding rather than under arrest. Former
national intelligence officer for Near East and South Asia Paul Pillar told
IPS in an interview last year that the ³general impression² was that the al
Qaeda operatives were not in Iran with the complicity of the Iranian
authorities.
Former CIA analysts Ken Pollock, who was a Persian Gulf specialist on the
National Security Council staff in 2001, wrote in ³The Persian Puzzle²,
³These al Qaeda leaders apparently were operating in eastern Iran, which is
a bit like the Wild West.² He added, pointedly, ³It was not as if these
al-Qaeda leaders had been under lock and key in Evin prison in Tehran and
were allowed to make phone calls to set up the attacks.²
Although most elements in the Bush administration appear to oppose military
action against Iran, Vice President Dick Cheney has reportedly advocated
that course. He has also continued to raise the issue of al Qaeda officials
in Iran.
Cheney told Fox News in an interview May 14, ³We are confident that there
are a number of senior al Qaeda officials in Iran, that they¹ve been there
since the spring of 2003. About the time that we launched operations into
Iraq, the Iranians rounded up a number of al Qaeda individuals and placed
them under house arrest.²
Cheney did not say that the al Qaeda officials who were communicating with
other operatives outside Iran were under house arrest.
As recently as last February, Bush administration officials were preparing
to accuse Tehran publicly of cooperating with and harbouring al Qaeda
suspects as part of the administration¹s strategy for pushing for stronger
U.N. sanctions against Iran. The strategy of portraying Iran as having links
with al Qaeda was being pushed by an unidentified Bush adviser who had been
³instrumental in coming up with a more confrontational U.S. approach to
Iran,² according a report by the Washington Post¹s Dafna Linzer on Feb. 10.
As Linzer revealed, the neoconservative faction in the administration was
still pushing to link Iran with al Qaeda despite the fact that a CIA report
in early February had reported the arrest by Iranian authorities of two more
al Qaeda operatives trying to make their way through Iran from Pakistan to
Iraq.
The danger of an al Qaeda effort to disguise an attack on the U.S. as coming
from Iran was raised in an article in Foreign Affairs published in late
April by former NSC adviser and counterterrorism expert Bruce Reidel.
In the article, Reidel wrote that Osama bin Laden may have plans for
³triggering an all-out war between the United States and Iran,² referring to
evidence that al Qaeda in Iraq now considers Iranian influence in Iraq ³an
even greater problem than the U.S. occupation².
³The biggest danger,² Reidel wrote, ³is that al Qaeda will deliberately
provoke a war with a Œfalse-flag¹ operation, say, a terrorist attack carried
out in a way that would make it appear as though it were Iran¹s doing.²
In a briefing for reporters about the article, Reidel said al Qaeda officals
have ³openly talked about the advisability of getting their two great
enemies to go to war with each other², hoping that they would ³take each
other out².
Reidel, now a senior fellow with the Saban Centre for Middle East Policy at
the Brookings Institution, was one of the leading specialists on al Qaeda
and terrorism, having served in the 1990s as national intelligence officer,
assistant secretary of defence and NSC specialist for Near East and South
Asia up to January 2002.
Supporting the warnings by Brzezinski and Reidel about an al Qaeda ³false
flag² terrorist attack is a captured al Qaeda document found in a hideout of
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq in 2006. The document, translated and released
by the Iraqi National Security Adviser Mouwafek al-Rubaie, said ³the best
solution in order to get out of this crisis is to involve the U.S. forces in
waging a war against another country or any hostile groups².
The document, the author of which was not specified, explained, ³We mean
specifically attempting to escalate tension between America and Iran, and
America and the Shiite[s] in Iraq.²
Gareth Porter is an historian and national security policy analyst. His
latest book, ³ Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War
in Vietnam ³, was published in June 2005.
June 7th, 2007 at 9:08 am
Foreknowledge of the World Trade Center attacks was telegraphed to the media in the years and months leading up to 9/11/2001, in a manner that’s quite similar to this. There were multiple articles from various intelligence sources appearing over an extended period of time, pointing towards a “new pearl harbor” event. For the details, see Chaim Kupferberg’s articles at globalresearch.ca, and Paul Thompson’s 911 timeline.
So it seems very likely to me that the scenario described here by Brzezinsky will also come to pass.
In the Open Forum #3 thread, Katrin Reichold mentioned that “I have heard that no president in the history of the US has ever been physically as unprotected as G.W. Bush. (meaning, he sometimes walks, and meets with people alone).” This is another clue, folks! My guess is that this next upcoming terrorist attack will take the form of an assassination of GW Bush, leaving Dick Cheney in the president’s office. Considering Tecumseh’s curse (presidents elected to office on a 20-year cycle have always died in office, except Reagan who was severely damaged and terrorized by Hinckley’s assassination attempt), and considering GW Bush’s Skull & Bones name (”Temporary”), the only problem with this prediction is that it seems too obvious to be correct.
The leading Democratic presidential candidates might also be taken out in this attack, leaving Cheney with no choice but to postpone the elections. And of course Cheney will take vengeance against Iran.
As the war in Iran develops, the flow of oil exports through the Persian Gulf will be disrupted to some extent, and a world economic crisis will follow. The value of the dollar will fall dramatically, and China will try to cash in its reserves before they become worthless. But the US government will expropriate the Chinese government’s reserves, and of course a trade war would ensue. The result of all this will be a devastating drop in the standard of living here in the US and (to a lesser extent) throughout the world. I don’t see how we can avoid continuing the trend towards fascist dictatorship in the US in this situation.
Eventually, I think China will need to join a war against the US in the Middle East, to secure some share of the oil resources there.
And if the Bushite elements aren’t able to carry out exactly the scenario I’ve described, then Hillary or Gore or Obama will take a more careful approach, with years of covert (undeclared) warfare against Iran before they finally undertake an invasion of a weakened opponent. But the final result will be more or less the same, perhaps a few years later.
Regarding yesterday’s question (the situation 50 years hence) all I can say is that the world will still be emerging from these cataclysmic events.
June 7th, 2007 at 10:32 am
This accusation makes no reality-based sense since Al-qaida is a Sunni Muslim group whose enemies are the Shiites like Iran. But Karl ‘turdblossom’ Rove, the consigliere of the gangster Bushite regime, thinks that reality can be twisted into any shape he wishes if his truths are repeated often enough, and the capitalist mass media obliges, largely by what they do NOT say.
At least partially to disguise and distract attention from their crimes, and from turning the US powerstate into liberal fascism, the Bushites need to not only intensify the war in Iraq, and probably Afghanistan later, but to EXPAND the War on Terror to other Muslim countries. The US is ALREADY attacking Iran military, arming, training and advising minority groups within Iran.
The US is also conducting military operations in Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan, Tunesia, Palestine and who knows where else. This INCREASES the War on Terror, which is partially the point. Terror is the best thing that ever happened to Bush politically and he wants to keep it going. It is also greatly to the power interests of the weapons makers, the oil industry currently gouging the American population, and the Theocons, notably the Ziocons.
The Dem wing of the Dem-Gop coalition at least passively support this expansion of the Terror War, so the only way to stop it is to organize the population against the US power structure, and threaten the ruling class with a loss of power and money. This is a long term historical strategy, and the wars are taking place now. It doesn’t look good.
June 7th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
Jerry’s comment that the next terrorist attack may change the people and policies at the top of the US power system conflicts with the imposition of liberal fascism, developing a fascist system with the liberal institutions still in place.
On the other hand, if as seems likely, some of the Bushites were complicit in some way in the 9/11 attacks, they would do anything to cover this up. The assassinations of the 60’s, and the accident to Paul Wellstone, changed the balance of domestic power in the US. And there is a long history of US violence involving presidents and a history of cover it up.
for example, Michael Parenti, in HISTORY AS MYSTERY, details the strange death of Zackary Taylor who supposedly died by eating cherries and milk. Parenti gives strong evidence that he was poisoned, and this changed the balance of domestic power that led to the US civil war (which of course would probably have occurred anyway).
The point is that Jerry’s scenario is not utterly farfetched. And blaming a terrorist incident on Iran and bombing it as a distraction is no wilder a scenario than what has already happened in Iraq. As Nafeez Ahmed has detailed in THE WAR ON TRUTH, attacks on US symbols of power, by elements of the US, has traditionally preceded US wars and acts of violence.
June 7th, 2007 at 2:22 pm
“attacks on US symbols of power, by elements of the US, has traditionally preceded US wars and acts of violence.”
I don’t know what instances comprise this “tradition.”
The explosion on the Maine was evidently NOT, as Hearst et al declared it, an attack by the Spanish on a U.S. ship. But from what I understand, it was an accident and this fact was not then understood by the authorities of the time. So that wouldn’t fit.
The notion that FDR somehow allowed the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor has surfaced again in recent years. BUt aside from my not buying that idea, even if it were true it would not change the fact that it was Japanese planes, not “elements of the U.S.” that carried out the attack. So that wouldn’t fit.
And with those two, I’m out of even candidates for this alleged “tradition.” What are the instances that Ahmed “details”?
June 7th, 2007 at 5:14 pm
I agree with Andy, that if in fact the Bush administration was responsible or involved in organizing 911, it would be a first in American history. The “Northwoods” documents described a plan for the US to carry out fake terrorist attacks to justify a war on Cuba, but this plan was never carried out.
The more common pattern has been to to provoke or invite an attack or incident by the intended enemy. Stinnett’s book “Day of Deceit” documents how FDR provoked the Japanese, and then invited the Japanese attack by failing to provide a defense for Pearl Harbor. But I agree with Andy that they were a real enemy.
Other examples of this pattern would include the sinking of the Lusitania, and the Gulf of Tonkin incident. In both of these cases, as well as the explosion at the Maine, the importance of these triggers was spun all out of proportion by the media.
I think GW Bush is a front, without much real power. So his assassination would be consistent with “liberal fascism” and it wouldn’t involve any significant change in “people or policies”. And Morley might be right to imply that a President Cheney would not take any unnecessary steps (like calling off elections) that would call undue attention to the erosion of constitutional government.
June 7th, 2007 at 10:06 pm
Jerry, regarding this statement: “Stinnett’s book “Day of Deceit” documents how FDR provoked the Japanese, and then invited the Japanese attack by failing to provide a defense for Pearl Harbor.”
I wonder: how much confidence do you have regarding the truth of these statements?
I know that my knowledge of the facts is insufficient for me to say with any strong degree of certainty whether they are true or not. As I indicated earlier, I’m inclined to disbelieve them. That’s on the basis of having heard the matter discussed and having been more persuaded by the rebuttal than by the accusation. Also I brought up the issue with a couple of people –historians– subsequently, and they rejected the accusations. So I’m left, in my mind, with a kind of 80-20 impression that the accusation is false.
Do you –or does anyone else here on NSB– have enough knowledge to speak with any authority on the subject of whether FDR intentionally brought on the Japanese attack?
June 8th, 2007 at 8:22 am
The reason that the population, and the Educated, cannot believe how they are manipulated by the powerful, and attacked by them, is because of the censorship that occurs by the truth managers of the PROGRESSIVE publications. They are in the forefront of publishing articles that state that there are no violence conspracies against the population, and no cover-up conspiracies.
Progressive publications publish ad homenim attacks against truthers who provide evidence for assassinations while not printing the evidence or assertions of the conspiracy truthers that subvert the offical explanation.
The most notorious of these attacks was one by Alex Cockburn who called truthers, including scientists and academics, and these include hundreds by now, who provided evidence that Bushite elements probably were complicit in the 9/11 attacks. He argues that the official explanations by the Commissions on the assassanitions and 9/11 are true and that anyone who challenges it is paranoid. All the progressive publications, Nation, Progressive, ZNet, etc printed his article without allowing the 9/11 truthers to reply. Chomsky also argues that spending time and energy proving conspiracies diverts attention from more important matters, those he focuses on.
Parenti in DIRTY TRUTHS is astonished at the vehemance of progressives against conspiracies and the attacks on conspiracy truthers, since Watergate, Iran-Contra and other revealed conspiracies by the president is on record.
The obvious reason is that the truth managers are part of the power structure, and an understanding that the powerstate works often in secret and against the population de-legitimates the power structure. This despite intelligence agencies are in fact conspiracy organizations, which mount conspiracies routinely as part of their operations.
Even so, polls have shown that an increasing fraction of the population believes that the Bushites were involved in some way in 9/11, nearly half of New Yorkers a few years ago. Over three quarters believe that Kennedy was assassinated by a conspiracy despite the coverup in the mainstream media.
The original book RUSH TO JUDGEMENT could not be published in the US and was only published in Britain with the help of Bertrand Russell and other notables. Russell plugged the book and Roper, a famous historiam, wroite the preface.
That is why the population must distrust their leaders, including their progressive leaders. Like Cindy Sheean they assumed that the progressive powerful were on the side of the population, that they actually meant what they said, and people are being deceived, largely by what is not stated. The Commission explanations of these conspiracies are intellectual garbage, and consequently can only be defended by censorship and personal attacks.
June 8th, 2007 at 10:26 am
Andy,
I read John Toland’s book “Infamy” several years ago, and I found it convincing in terms of demonstrating that Washington had plenty of evidence that some sort of attack was coming, although it left open the possibility that there was some cloud of uncertainty about when, where and how. And it did a good job of showing that Kimmel & Short, the commanders in the field, had wanted to take a more defensive posture that would have prevented the surprise attack from succeeding so thoroughly.
I haven’t read Stinnett’s book, although I saw some reviews, interviews and excerpts. Stinnett unearthed the McCollum memo, which described Japan’s alliance with Germany and Japan, and expressed a concern that if Britain was defeated, the US would be the next target of the Axis powers. Therefore it recommended an eight-step program to inhibit the Japanese, including an embargo on oil shipments (including Dutch oil) and support for the Chinese. It concluded “If by these means Japan could be led to commit an overt act of war, so much the better.” Roosevelt went on to implement all eight steps. Under the circumstances, all of this might have been good policy, but I think it was understood that Japan was likely to respond with a counterattack.
Apparently the most controversial aspect of all this, is whether the US had intercepted Japanese communications specifically stating that Pearl Harbor would be attacked on or about Dec. 7, 1941, and whether FDR saw those communications. Stinnett states that he has incontrovertible proof of this, but I see (looking around the Internet) that he hasn’t convinced everyone. I’m not sure whether it’s worth the time to sort out the claims and counter-claims on this aspect.
Stinnett interview:
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=408
June 8th, 2007 at 10:38 am
“The obvious reason is that the truth managers are part of the power structure, and an understanding that the powerstate works often in secret and against the population de-legitimates the power structure,” says Morley.
I would say that if one found a consistent and invariant resistance and denial, among some group (”truth managers,” whoever they may be, or some other group), one would find it “obvious” that some such truth-denying reason was in operation.
But if the denial of conspiracy is only partial, and seems to be a pattern of distortion perhaps only from the point of view of those for whom conspiracies are ubiquitous and persuasive, then another kind of reason is even more obvious.
That reason is this: the belief in conspiracies is one of the most conspicuous human DISTORTIONS of reality known to serious and responsible scholars of human consciousness.
This is true at the individual level, where the belief in conspiracies –among psychotics, among Alzheimer patients, and so on– is part of the pathology. “The FBI are talking to me through the fillings in my teeth,” “there are people following me,” everyone in the stadium is whispering about me,” etc.
And this is true at the level of societies and social movements. The right-wing loonies from the 1950s, whom I studied in the 1960s, who believed that rock and roll was a communist plot. And that the reason that churches had more glass in them than synagogues (an uncertain observation to begin with) was because Jews ran the glass industry (also uncertain) and arranged (though the glass industry does not design buildings) that churches would have more windows so that when the nuclear bombs went off the Christians would be killed by flying glass and the Jews would survive. And then there’s fluoridated water (a conspiracy theory on which was based General JAck D. Ripper, in DR. STRANGELOVE, and his fantasies of the commie plot to pollute our “precious bodily fluids.”
So I would say that there is GOOD REASON to believe that in his human world of us, of the various conspiracy theories that arise, a fairly high proportion of them will be false.
Which is not to say that a wise person will disbelieve in ALL conspiracy theories. As Morley indicates, there have been and are a great many conspiracies in history. Why WOULDN’T unscrupulous actors work in secret to achieve their nefarious purposes– and there are indeed plenty of unscrupulous actors, and such people are more than randomly represented among those who seek and possess power.
I for one do believe in some conspiracies of the kind Morley describes. Though I am not certain about the truth of the JFK assassination, and am given pause by the number of responsible-seeming people who came round to believing the Oswald-acting-alone theory, I have believed since the mid-60s that the Warren Commission Report was (possibly deliberately) not true, and that there was some kind of conspiracy (though not so huge a one as depicted by Oliver Stone).
I also believe that what I am calling the rise of evil forces to take control of America (perhaps from some time in the 1970s up through this Bushite regime), cannot be fully understood without reference to a fair amount of behind-the-scenes, concerted actions among the various fascistic components of these forces.
Others I am agnostic about. But I feel that the pattern of my belief and disbelief is at least a reasonably PLAUSIBLE representation of what reality might be like, given that there are good reasons to believe BOTH that 1) there is a tendency of the system to deny (or even cover up) actual conspiracies, as Morley suggests, and 2) there is a tendency for certain kinds of individuals, groups, and belief systems to give rise to false FANTASIES of conspiracies.
I wonder if there are any of the main leftist, revisionist conspiracy ideas that Morley rejects.
June 8th, 2007 at 10:51 am
Jerry, I too looked around the Internet last night. In particular, I read a reasonably lengthy piece on Wikipedia about the “FDR had prior knowledge of Pearl Harbor” idea. And I, too, could not find there any consensus of views.
One question I have would be “Why?” Why would FDR want to leave Pearl Harbor open like that? If he wanted America driven into the war, all he needed would be SOME attack by the Japanese on ANY American forces or facility. Are we to believe that ONLY by leaving Pearl Harbor inadequately defended would he get the Japanese to attack?
That doesn’t quite compute.
I just watched part of the fine film from the early 1970s, TORA! TORA! TORA!, which is a re-enactment from both the American and the Japanese sides of the Pearl Harbor attack and the events surrounding the event. THe part I just saw indicates that the Japanese Admiral overseeing this attack was DISAPPOINTED to find that the American aircraft carriers were NOT at Pearl when the attack came. It was for that reason, according to the movie, that this admiral –to the great disappointment of his warrior pilots– decided not to carry out the planned second wave of attack: he was afraid that his fleet might be caught unprotected by those missing American carriers.
Now, if something so gross as the absence of the carriers came to the Japanese as a surprise, then it would seem that the Americans might have been a WHOLE LOT MORE PREPARED at Pearl Harbor WITHOUT the Japanese knowing about it, and thus without changing their determination to attack.
And if that is the case, why would FDR prefer an absolutely devastating attack on Pearl to one where the losses would have been less?
After all, that attack left the American navy in the Pacific VERY MUCH WEAKENED, and the American situation against the Japanese was made much more dangerous than any president would want, assuming that he not only wanted the country to go to war against Japan but also to WIN it.
So, without drawing any firm conclusions about what FDR actually did or didn’t do, I am left wondering: IS THERE A PLAUSIBLE MOTIVE to explain the alleged behavior on the part of the American president?
June 8th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
Here’s another article by Stinnett:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/stinnett1.html
He mentions that 80% of the American public at the time were opposed to involvement in the European war, even though German U-boats were attacking US ships. It’s hard for me to even imagine this state of public opinion, which seems so different from today.
But under the circumstances, it’s not obvious that just any little skirmish with Japan would have gotten the public reaction FDR wanted.
June 8th, 2007 at 12:40 pm
Jerry, do you think that an air attack on Pearl Harbor –even if it did not catch the U.S. Pacific Fleet entirely flatfooted (and remember, the accusation is that FDR deliberately left Pearl Harbor in a more vulnerable condition)– would have been just “any little skirmish with Japan”?
June 8th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
Roosevelt wanted to, and did, attack Germany before Japan. Therefore the weakness of the navy in the pacific was less important than the galvanizing act that jolted the American people into the war.
Paranoids have a tendency toward conspiracy theories. schizoids have dissaciated behavior which parallels the fragmentation, disconnection and restriction of the range of truth of the mainstream conceptual language.
The latter is the language of the Educated and Responsible truthers. [accusation deleted] But as the intelligence agencies say, some paranoids have REAL enemies.
June 8th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
If there’s a response in your comment, Morley, to the question I framed as to why FDR would have any need or motive to leave Pearl Harbor in so vulnerable a condition –if the Japanese didn’t know whether the carriers were in Pearl, was my argument, they could hardly have known whether the Americans were alert or asleep, whether the planes were stacked up for easy demolition or well distributed for greater security– I didn’t notice it.
Turning from that to the one factual assertion you make about the European vs. the Pacific theaters of the war….
I wish I knew everything, so I’d know if the statement that Roosevelt attacked Germany before Japan was correct. It doesn’t SOUND correct. Americans were fighting in the Pacific before they were fighting in Europe. Do you mean North Africa? I don’t think Patton was even IN North Africa, “attacking” the Germans, until 1943. The invasion of Sicily came after that. Meanwhile, the battle of the Philippines was initiated –and, of course, won –by the Empire of Japan in 1941. And the Battle of Midway came in mid-1942.
I’m not sure when the AMerican bombing of German targets in Europe began. So maybe you could make a case there, though I doubt there was nearly as much action altogether of Americans “attacking Germany” as there was in dealing with the aggressive assault from the Japanese in the first half year of America’s involvement in the war. But as I said, my knowledge is incomplete.
But regardless, the question has to do with whether FDR deliberately allowed the disastrous results at Pearl Harbor to be inflicted. And I still wonder why –even if he were eager to “jolt” the American people into the war, and even if he were willing to “conspire” for that purpose– he’d have to have done that.
June 8th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
Let me put the matter more precisely. Europe was, and is, far more important to the power interests US capitalism than the pacific rim, especially at the time. The US did not want Europe united against us, either under Germany or the Soviet Union. Compared to that possiblity, Japan’s depredations in the Far East were far less important.
So the US policy was to let Germany and the Soviet Union bleed each other until they were weakened, and then come in at the end to maintain the balance of power, a constant foreign policy objective of Britain. After that the US would then attack Japan.
So the initial thrust of the over ten million persons mobilized was in reponse to the European theatre, while the US pacific fleet confronted the Japanese fleet in a much less massive engagement, which included terror bombing. When the European theater was won, the US turned to the Far East theater.
This is just standard geohistory; its not controversial among historians. As to your question as to why the carriers were ordered away from Pearl Harbor, the answer is obvious. Roosevelt wanted a galvanizing act that would weaken the US militarily as little as possible.
June 8th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
I agree with you here Morley in everything you say –up until the final paragraph, where you speak as if you know more than I’d bet you know– except for this statement: “When the European theater was won, the US turned to the Far East theater.”
Europe was indeed the more intense theater, and one in which more was at stake for the U.S. But the two were much fought much more in tandem than that statement of yours suggests. VE Day was in May, 1945. VJ Day was but three months later. There was plenty going on in the Pacific before VE Day, and for that matter before the successful invasion at NOrmandy.
June 8th, 2007 at 4:16 pm
Perhaps it would be good to identify for the readers here what the META-ISSUE is in this discussion of FDR, Pearl Harbor, World War II, etc. For on the face of it, the discussion might seem like a mere irrelevancy, since all that is long past.
This discussion began with Zbig’s warning that the Bushites might be preparing a pretext to launch a war against Iran. That has led directly to our discussing how typical in American history would such a dishonest ploy be.
This fits into a larger, many-layered debate here –generally involving the same participants– about a really important question: to what extent is established power in our civilization to be seen as a consistent channel of evil and lies and injustice, and to what extent can we reasonably hope for that established power to be a channel for goodness?
Whether or not FDR is guilty of the allegations repeated here regarding Pearl Harbor does not, of course, decide that larger question. It is quite possible for those particular allegations to be false, but the overall rejection of our power systems as pervasively evil could still be true. And conversely, FDR might have done what he’s here accused of –deliberately provoking a Japanese attack, and deliberately leaving Pearl Harbor defenseless– but it could still be true that our system has a good deal more goodness in it than the radical critics here will acknowledge.
At the same time, “it is no accident,” as the Marxists say :), that the conversation has focused on FDR. He is, after all, the one president that I’ve singled out as exemplifying what great leadership in America could accomplish. (I’ve never said, of course, that everything about him was great.) I posted a piece here in April about the FDR memorial –”The Road from FDR to GWB: Reflections After Visiting the Memorial to Franklin Delano Roosevelt on the Mall” at http://www.nonesoblind.org/blog/?p=565– and I used FDR there as a contrast with what we have now. The same participant who is more eager to prosecute him here now also submitted a comment then to tear FDR down. I did not post that comment, because it seemed so reflexive that any attentive regular reader here might have predicted it, and indeed could have ghost-written it. I did not think it advanced anything to make public what seemed to amount to just an automatic raising of the leg to piss on any aspect of American leadership or institutions that was being held up as something worthy.
But FDR is just one of a number of such “battlefields” here over that larger question I articulated above.
Back in March, it was suggested that Harvard Business School should be equated, in moral and spiritual terms, with the fascist capitalism being advanced by the Bushites. I argued, based on some knowledge that I have of that institution, that while Harvard BUsiness School is intriciately connected, of course, with American capitalism, there are there some serious people who are making a serious effort to instill more of the force of ethical principles into American capitalism through how they educate the prospective business leaders enrolled there.
I argued then that this is how goodness manages to work in the world.
And I argued the same thing again during the past week on yet another front. The issue there was religion, and this participant declared that all religions serve the needs of power rather than the needs of people. I took the position that religion is an interweaving of different strands: those that do indeed show the corruptive and unjust effects of power, but also those that are embodiments of spiritual principles through which goodness is trying to move the world in a more positive, more humane direction.
I don’t know for any certainty the truth about FDR and Pearl Harbor. I’d be willing to place my bet, if we had some reliable and agreed-upon way of resolving it, and I’d feel pretty good about my chances. BUt in the larger picture, the facts of that particular case are less than crucial.
But what IS crucial, in my view, is whether we understand how to find and how to support goodness in the world. And that requires seeing correctly that old matter of NUANCE vs. BLACK-AND-WHITE thinking that keeps coming up. In the actual world of civilized human beings –for as long as there has been civilization, and for as far forward as we can clearly see– there will NEVER be pure good in the realm of power, but there will be important forms of goodness often acting through the instruments and channels and people in the systems of power.
Only by recognizing and supporting those channels (however imperfect) through which goodness does its work –only by making those “nuanced” distinctions between the better and the worse– do we have a chance of helping raise the level of the world.
June 8th, 2007 at 5:35 pm
Andy,
Are you saying that if it was true that FDR knew about Pearl Harbor in advance, it would lower your estimate of his level of goodness?
“I don’t know for any certainty the truth about FDR and Pearl Harbor. I’d be willing to place my bet, if we had some reliable and agreed-upon way of resolving it, and I’d feel pretty good about my chances.” Is that some sort of expression of bias?
Are you afraid of where this research might lead if you followed it through?
June 8th, 2007 at 5:50 pm
Yes, Jerry, if FDR knew about Pearl Harbor in advance and did not act to protect it, that would count against him.
WIth my ethic of consequences, I do make provision for the real possibility that even a godly man in a position of power will at times have to do less than pure things to achieve good purposes. And I suppose it is conceivable that a case could be made that the good of the world and of the nation required that the American people become willing to join in the fight against fascism in World War II, and that achieving this might have required some deceptions and other misconduct of the kind that FDR is accused of by some.
But –and this gets to be at the core of the dilemma I explore in NOT SO STRAIGHT-AND-NARROW– there are terrible dangers from going down that road. For the president of the United States to engage in manipulations of that kind –even for ostensibly good purposes– in itself threatens to have other terrible consequences that are not intended.
So if FDR did what he’s accused of, that would indeed lower my “ESTIMATE” of his goodness. I emphasize “estimate” because it would make me more suspicious of his genuine purposes, values, etc., and it would therefore reduce what I BELIEVE to be a proper evaluation of the man in moral terms.
But as for my being afraid of where this research might lead, of course not! The truth is what the truth is. Let the chips fall where they may. Nothing solid is very likely to be built upon lies or illusions.
June 8th, 2007 at 7:50 pm
After reading Toland, I was convinced that the whole situation had a stench about it, that the only possible reason FDR could have left the red meat out for the Japanese (in the face of pleas by Kimmel & Short, and especially Richardson) is if he wanted exactly what he got. But I understand that sort of reasoning is not going to convince everyone.
Stinnett says: “At least 1,000 Japanese military and diplomatic radio messages per day were intercepted by monitoring stations operated by the U.S. and her Allies, and the message contents were summarized for the White House. The intercept summaries were clear: Pearl Harbor would be attacked on December 7, 1941, by Japanese forces advancing through the Central and North Pacific Oceans.” Stinnett’s debunkers seem to be claiming that the messages weren’t decoded, translated and summarized until after the war. See:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3926/is_200307/ai_n9291658/pg_1
So we need to look for evidence as to when the intercept summaries were prepared, and evidence that FDR saw them. In the interview link I posted earlier, Stinnett claims that he can prove that McCollum and/or Beardsall were personally responsible for delivering these intercepts directly to FDR.
June 8th, 2007 at 9:46 pm
Again, Jerry, I don’t know. You seem to place a lot of credence on Stinnett. Since I am not really familiar with him, I do not know if that credence is warranted or not. Is Stinnett a trained historian? Does he have an agenda that precedes his studies and drives his conclusions?
There are excellent historians who argue otherwise. Are they to be believed?
This afternoon, I called the man who, of all the people I know, is most deeply knowledgeable about World War II. He is not ideologically driven, but at the same time he’s not an iconoclast– and maybe would not be the most likely person in the crowd to see through a false orthodoxy. He’s also one of the most decent and honorable people I know.
Anyway, I told him about our discussion, and asked him if he felt he knew enough to have any conviction about whether the accusations were true. He did not pronounce any certainties.
He did go into the issue of the decoding of the messages, however– the very point you now raise. And, after thinking that I’d not mention this conversation here, it is your bringing that up that prompts me to report what my friend said. He said that the many messages that had been picked up showed clearly –once they were all decoded and put together– what was happening, but that prior to the event, such clarity was not available. And in any event, he didn’t think that the pieces were filtering up to FDR much prior to the attack.
He also said, I might as well report while I’m at it, that while there was much talk of a possible Japanese attack, IT WAS NOT AT ALL EXPECTED THAT THE ATTACK WOULD COME AT PEARL HARBOR. The Philippines, maybe, or some other place he mentioned. BUt it was not thought that Pearl Harbor was within reach– and indeed, so my friend said, but for some fortuitous weather circumstances, that fleet would not have been able to get within reach of Pearl Harbor undetected.
Anyway, one thing I would suggest from all this is that it is not so easy for an honest non-specialist to responsibly reach firm conclusions. You write about becoming “convinced” after reading Toland that “the only possible reason” is such and such. You’ve suggested that perhaps if I read such-and-such a book I could draw my own conclusions.
But regardless of whether one reads two or three or four books, that doesn’t mean that there are not an equal number of APPARENTLY EQUALLY WELL-RESEARCHED AND WELL-ARGUED BOOKS that will argue the other side. It is like whether you watch FOX News or Countdown: your choice of your source of information may determine your conclusions, and so your pre-conceptions and inclinations and not any open and honest inquiry may be what create your image of reality.
The lesson in this is NOT to just throw up one’s hands and declare the quest for knowledge to be futile. The lesson includes, however, being tentative in one’s conclusions, and skeptical about certainties.
Some people will spend a lifetime, or at least a number of years, earning the right to draw their own conclusions. They look at the actual evidence, and not just the evidence or “evidence” someone has gathered to argue their case.
But for the rest of us, who depend upon those other kind of people, we’re best off being skeptical about our sources, and skeptical about our own pre-dispositions, and to come to our conclusions without closing the door to learning more from elsewhere.
Unless someone has something really significant to introduce into this discussion, I am inclined to leave the FDR-Pearl Harbor issue behind us for the present.
June 9th, 2007 at 3:49 am
Andy,
Your friend “did not pronounce any certainties.” Yet he made a number of statements: that the messages were not decoded… that clarity was not obtained… that the information didn’t get to FDR… that the attack was not expected at Pearl Harbor (does that remind you of what Rice said about the possibility of terrorists using airplanes to attack buildings?)… that the Japanese fleet got to Pearl Harbor undetected.
I don’t see how your friend could know all these things unless he’s clairvoyant, since they depend on proving a series of negatives about thoughts & conversations at the White House that might well have gone unrecorded. For a long time, there was evidently no way to know for sure one way or the other. I have my opinion, based on Toland, and I’ve seen some of those other books that look about as credible to me as Fox News.
The reason why Stinnet is noteworthy is his claims to have obtained by new FOIA research, actual documentary evidence that the the attacks were expected at Pearl Harbor, that the Japanese fleet was detected on approach, and that FDR knew exactly what was happening.
There are some arguments that Stinnett has overblown and misinterpreted his new evidence, and thus we’re still in the same boat as before, faced with uncertainty. I don’t claim to have sorted this all out. I haven’t read the book. I don’t know whether he has any credence, or what his agenda might be.
But it seems really odd to me that you’re in such a hurry to close out the discussion, just when we seem to be approaching a new level of understanding. Too bad if we walk away from this, each with our prejudices intact, when the truth seems to be so much closer to being within our grasp.
About all those academic historians who have diligently maintained a level of uncertainty about America’s entry into WWII, here’s an interesting article by Gary North (not my favorite author, but it covers some basic bibliographical facts you might find interesting, as well as more anecdotes about off-the-record conversations with historians.)
http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north26.html
June 9th, 2007 at 11:22 am
“Your friend “did not pronounce any certainties.â€? Yet he made a number of statements…”
Looking at how I conveyed my friend’s statements, I believe that I represented them as being more certain in his mind than how he actually put them to me.
I encouraged him to come here to share his perspective, but there’s so much on his plate right now that this will not happen at least for a number of weeks, if not months.
I don’t know if my “prejudices” are intact, but my agnosticism on the issue is. And if you feel that “the truth” is close to being “within [y]our grasp,” then more power to you.