The Horo

Courtesy Of: Ancient Discoveries, Collection 09 of 18, Ancient Special Forces

American WWII GIs Were Dangerous Sex-Crazed Rapists

The French Feared American GI's As Much As The Germans

• - Book 'debunks myth that the GI were manly and always behaved well'

• - By 1944 women in Normandy 'filed complaints about rapes by US soldiers'

• - Debauchery, lawlessness and institutional racism are chronicled in book

• - Penned by Mary Roberts, a history professor at the University of Wisconsin

• - Veterans Affairs rep says there is 'no way' to reprimand the U.S. soldiers

• - Comes just after Sexual Assault Prevention Month in the U.S., where the military is under fire for string of high-profile assault cases

• - Japanese politician also just claimed that American soldiers used their women as 'sex slaves' during WWII

By MAIL FOREIGN SERVICE

Swapping stockings for kisses and teaching girls how to jive, American GIs were meant to be a welcome ray of sunshine in war-torn Europe.

But a new book has revealed the dark side of Europe’s liberation after the Second World War. 

Professor Mary Louise Roberts, from the University of Wisconsin, said within months of D-Day ordinary French women came to fear their American ‘liberators’.

American soldiers seen here (who are not related to the book's content) disembarking from Coast Guard landing craft at the shores of Normandy. In an explosive book, Roberts claims that some soldiers terrified French citizens

The professor said previous historical research on the subject paid little attention to this 'dark side' of Europe's liberation. The people in this picture are not related to the book's content

She tells how, by the summer of 1944, large numbers of women in Normandy filed complaints about rapes by US soldiers.

And their arrival prompted a wave of crime all over France, with American soldiers caught committing robberies and petty thefts. 

Professor Roberts said: ‘My book seeks to debunk an old myth about the GI, thought of as a manly creature that always behaved well. The GIs were having sex anywhere and everywhere.

‘In the cities of Le Havre and Cherbourg, bad behaviour was common. 

‘Women, including those who were married, were openly solicited for sex. Parks, bombed-out buildings, cemeteries and railway tracks were carnal venues.

‘People could not go out for a walk without seeing somebody having sex.

‘But the sex was not always consensual, with hundreds of cases of rape being reported.’ 

The locals of Le Havre were shocked by the soldiers’ behaviour and wrote letters of protest to their mayor.

Mary Louise Roberts on rape, race and the American GI

One complaint, from October 1945, said: ‘We are attacked, robbed, run over both on the street and in our houses. 

ONGOING PROBLEM: SEXUAL ASSAULTS IN THE MILITARY

The book, which was released in June, focuses specifically on the soldiers of World War II and their interaction with the French people, but problems of sexual assault in the military persist to today, though now the victims are those in uniform as well. 

The Pentagon is reeling from a series of sex-related scandals in recent weeks, including cases in which military advocates for victims of sexual assault were themselves accused of sex crimes.

Figures from the Department of Defense show a 37 per cent increase in reports of unwanted sexual contact, from groping to rape, last year. About 26,000 cases were reported in 2012. 

'Sexual harassment and sexual assault in the military are a profound betrayal - a profound betrayal - of sacred oaths and sacred trusts,' Mr Hagel said. 'This scourge must be stamped out.'

His comments came a day after President Barack Obama delivered a similar message to graduates at the U.S. Naval Academy in Maryland, saying sexual assault threatened to erode trust and discipline in America's armed forces.

‘This is a regime of terror, imposed by bandits in uniform.’

Le Havre’s mayor, Pierre Voisin, complained to Colonel Thomas Weed – the commander of US troops in the region.

‘Scenes contrary to decency are unfolding in this city day and night,’ Voisin wrote, adding it was ‘not only scandalous but intolerable’ that ‘youthful eyes are exposed to such public spectacles’. 

The mayor suggested the Americans set up a brothel outside the city to avoid public outrage and contain the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. However although US officers publicly denounced the behaviour they did little to curtail it. 

The book also claims the US army ‘demonstrated a deep and abiding racism’, suggesting they pinned a disproportionate number of rapes on black GIs. 

Documents show that of 152 troops disciplined by the army for rape, 130 were black.

Professor Roberts said: ‘American propaganda did not sell the war to soldiers as a struggle for freedom but as a sexual adventure.’

She points out that The Stars and Stripes, the official newspaper of the US armed forces, taught soldiers German phrases like ‘waffen niederlegen’ meaning ‘throw down your arms’.

However the French phrases it recommended to soldiers included ‘you have charming eyes,’ ‘I am not married’ and ‘are your parents at home?’ US magazine Life even fantasised that France was ‘a tremendous brothel’ inhabited by ‘40,000,000 hedonists, who spend all their time eating, drinking and making love’.

A cafe owner from Le Havre said at the time: ‘We expected friends who would not make us ashamed of our defeat. Instead, there came only incomprehension, arrogance, incredibly bad manners and the swagger of conquerors.’

The author claims that when the first soldiers swarmed ashore at Omaha Beach in Normandy (pictured) on D-Day, it was 'a veritable tsunami of male lust'

Controversial: Mary Louise Roberts wrote the book to uncover the reality about some GI soldiers

WIDESPREAD PROBLEM: JAPANESE MAYOR CLAIMS AMERICAN SOLDIERS USED WOMEN IN JAPAN AS 'SEX SLAVES' DURING WWII

Controversial: Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto said that soldiers used 'comfort women' as ways to release tension during WWII

The book comes just one day after a Japanese politician sparked an international row after claiming the use of sex slaves during WWII was justified has tried to shift the blame by accusing other country's of using the same practice. 

Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto, co-leader of an emerging nationalist party, argued Japan's wartime practice of forcing Asian women into prostitution was necessary to maintain military discipline and provide relaxation for soldiers.

But following the public outcry over his comments, the mayor has attempted to deflect criticism by accusing America and Britain of using sex slaves for its own soldiers.

He said: 'It is a hard truth that even these nations used local women for sexual reasons. This is a historical fact and there is hard evidence that proves it was true.'

Historians say up to 200,000 women, mainly from the Korean Peninsula and China, were forced to provide sex for Japanese soldiers in military brothels. While some other World War II armies had military brothels, Japan is the only country accused of such widespread, organized sexual slavery.

The Pacifist War

Is War Looming As Japan Strengthens Its Military Power and Tensions Escalate Over Disputed East China Sea Islands?

Courtesy Of Al-Jazeera

In the waters of the East China Sea, a daily show of aggression is displayed around the uninhibited Senakaku/Diaoyutai Islands. Coast guards from China and Japan play a dangerous game of cat and mouse as both sides try to lay claim to the disputed resource-rich territory. The concern is - that the two powers are riding towards war.

101 East presenter Steve Chao takes a trip to the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyutai Islands, 200km from Taiwan and 2,000km from Tokyo. This region is home to rich fishing grounds and potential gas deposits.

With China’s growing hostility and nuclear missile threats from North Korea, Japan’s newly-elected Prime Minister Shinzo Abe vows to strengthen the country’s military power to defend the islands at all cost. And that task falls on Japan’s Self-Defense Force (SDF), made up of ground, maritime and air units.

During this time of heightened tensions, Japan’s Self-Defense Force granted 101 East rare and exclusive access into its operations to showcase the depth of its military prowess. No other media outlets have had this level of openness. We are allowed deep into the inner workings of the force and speak to commanders and soldiers who – for the first time in generations – are preparing to put their lives on the line to protect the country.

Japan’s Self-Defense Force was formed in 1954. It is Japan’s first defense unit since the country was forced to end its aggressions after World War II. Under government guidelines, the force is meant to be defensive, not offensive, and leaders have so-far prevented labeling it, as a military – although it is increasingly seen as such internationally.

101 East speaks with General Shigeru Iwasaki, chief of defence staff, who says the current threats around Japan justifies the SDF.

In order to understand the strength of the force, we went onboard the Hyuga-class carrier. It is a 13,500 tonne contradiction – the constitution forbids the building of an aircraft carrier. Instead it is reclassified as a destroyer class vessel.

We also visited the F15 Squadron at the Naha airbase in Okinawa. It is the closest airbase to the Senkaku/Diaoyutai Islands. In the past year, they scrambled 306 times against foreign incursions.

In January this year, an F15 incepted a Chinese aircraft headed for the islands. Japan’s ally, the US have since sounded warnings to China about the intrusions.

On the ground, Japan’s elite force, the 1st Airborne Brigade holds wargames and military exercises as a very public demonstration to China. The mission – be prepared to retake the islands if necessary. In a potential armed conflict, the unit is expected to be the first deployed as a rapid reaction force. We speak to the commander and elite paratroopers of the 1st Airborne Brigade and they have very bold answers on how the SDF should be changed, and China’s perceived threats.

As Japan begins to reshape, rename and transform what many consider its “military power”, constitutional advisors, like Setsu Kobayashi worry that a change in the hands of its current leaders will restore militarism, going against longheld and cherished ideals of pacifism for which Japan stands for.

Katsumoto Saotome, the director of the Tokyo Air Raid Museum, is also hesitant of Japan changing its constitution to allow for a full military. The museum, he says, is a reminder of love and peace for the next generation, a place where the Japanese can learn from their past mistakes. The photographs displayed there paint a picture of devastated Tokyo after the US bombing raids in the late 1940s.

Japan Switches To Stimulus and Gets Growth

It's rare to see a macroeconomics experiment play out in real time in the way we are seeing it right now in Japan and in Europe. Prime Minister Shinzō Abe has embarked on aggressive measures to stimulate Japan's long-moribund economy since he took office in December, and the result so far has been strong growth -- and, perhaps, liftoff after a triple-dip recession. Europe, on the other hand, remains mired in the muck of austerity and economic contraction.

To briefly recap Japan's economic woes: the Japanese economy has been largely stagnant for the last two decades.

Since the financial crisis in 2008, it has gone through three bouts of negative growth.

Its economic output per person -- GDP per capita -- was actually lower in 2012 than it was in 2008.

In the economics profession, this is what they refer to in technical terms as "not good."

However, Japan's economy surged in the first quarter of this year, growing at an annualized rate of 3.5 percent. For its part, the Abe administration credits a three-pronged economic strategy, dubbed Abenomics: "unprecedented monetary stimulus, a big boost to government spending, and structural reforms designed to make Japanese industry and institutions more competitive."

Then there's Europe, which refuses to shift away from austerity. Its economy shrank for the sixth consecutive quarter, the longest downturn since World War II.

"The real economy is responding [in Japan]," said Adam S. Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. "The last five months, six months, there's been a mini consumer boom. All the things that people said could never happen in Japan have turned around."

He added: "Japan's central bank is supporting recovery, and it's working. The European Central Bank is supporting stagnation, and it's working."

Some in Europe understand that austerity is not the solution, but rather the problem. Unfortunately, that "some" does not include the people making the decisions:

"'The elites in Europe don't learn,' said Stephan Schulmeister, an economist with the Austrian Institute of Economic Research. 'Instead of saying, Something goes wrong, we have to reconsider or find a different navigation map, change course, instead what happens is more of the same.'"

Schulmeister added that German Chancellor Angela Merkel -- austerity's champion and the one person who could push Europe to change course -- is "not willing to learn" the lesson offered by Japan's recent switch from contraction to growth.

Apparently, Europe (read: Germany) sees austerity as a kind of "morality play" whereby the profligate must suffer for their sins. And yet the people most responsible for Europe's economic crisis -- bankers and politicians -- are the ones suffering the least from austerity. Although unemployment in the eurozone reached a new high in March, you don't see bankers and politicians on the unemployment line. What's really immoral is an austerity policy that punishes the innocent while one guilty party bails out the other.

Regardless of who is hurting, austerity is simply not always the best way to achieve its supposed goal: reducing government deficits. As Europe reminds us, it prevents recession-battered economies from growing. The alternative is to prime the economic pump by having governments engage in fiscal and monetary stimulus.

When economies grow under this approach, Keynesian economists like Paul Krugmanargue, governments collect more in the way of revenues, straightening out their finances faster than they would by reducing their spending. Once a country's economy is again operating at capacity, government should cut spending -- and increase taxes on those who can afford it -- in order to deal with the problem of deficits in a balanced, moral way that neither grievously harms the economically vulnerable nor sacrifices the long-term investments by government that are necessary to further growth over time.

The lessons to be drawn from the recession are counterintuitive. The dominant morality tell us to tighten our belts and save up. But if the government as well as the private sector hoards cash during a recession, the economy slows to a crawl. That is the kind of economic suicide that Europe has leaped into: painful cuts, no growth, and rampant unemployment. America has avoided the worst of Europe's fate thanks in part to the stimulus passed in 2009, and Japan, at last, looks to be hurtling in the opposite direction due to its recent stimulative policies. The key question is whether the pro-austerity politicians who currently control the purse strings in Washington and Brussels will take a hard look at the evidence accumulating around them -- or retreat back into their comfortable, self-righteous views of the world.

John Maynard Keynes, the father of the proactive approach to economic policy that now bears his name, had something to say on this topic as well. Responding to a critic who questioned his shifting position on monetary policy during the Great Depression, the British economist answered: "When my information changes, I alter my conclusions. What do you do, sir?"

End Of The Samurai

Stunning Portraits Of Japan’s Warrior Class Captures Men At The Height Of Their Power Before 19th Century Demise

They were once Japan's highest social caste, remembered for their fearsome fighting skills and immortalized in popular culture since their demise at the end of the 19th century.

But a collection of fascinating portraits of real Samurai warriors taken in the decades before reforms saw the warrior class abolished and a western-style conscripted military drafted in, give an authentic insight into military life in pre-modern Japan.

Some are clad in their distinctive tosei-gusoku, or plated armour, while some look slightly less ready for combat in kimono style robes.

Ruling class: A group of samurai warriors in their traditional armour and brandishing bow and arrows and swords are pictured in the 19th century

Armed and deadly: These Samurai are both seen clutching katana, or swords. The Samurai was the highest social caste until it was abolished as part of the Meiji reforms in the late 19th century

But almost all are clutching the Samurai's most famous, and perhaps most deadly, weapon - the iconic Samurai sword.

Two of the images depict a group taking part in a ceremonial suicide known as harakiri, part of the warrior code which saw Samurai disemboweled to fall with honour rather than be defeated by their enemy

Thought to have been taken in the 1860s, the portraits were made at a time when of great change in terms of rule for Japan.

The Edo period had seen the feudal military government the Tokugawa Shogunate rule Japan for more than 250 years, and the establishment of a rigid social caste system that would see the Samurai placed at the top.

But Edo, or modern Tokyo, was about to fall and Emperor Meiji was to sweep to power, spelling the beginning of the end for the Samurai, or bushi as they were also known.

The Samurai originated in the Heian period dating back to 710 and in particular campaigns to subdue the native Emirishi in the Tohuku region of the northern part of Honshu.

Last hurrah: A group from the Satsuma clan are pictured during the Boshin War in 1868, shortly before the demise of the samurai

Respect: A pair of warriors take part in a traditional samurai ceremony. The samurai were bound by a set of Confucian influenced rules that came to be known as bushid¿

Over the centuries they became more and more powerful and eventually became the 'warrior nobility' of Japan, making up the ruling class from about the 12th to the 19th century.

The Samurai followed a set of Confucian influenced rules that came to be known as bushidō - literally 'the way of the warrior'.

The unwritten and unspoken code emphasised frugality, loyalty, martial arts mastery, and honor unto death.

But the code also evolved to stress heroic bravery, fierce family pride, and selfless, at times senseless devotion of master and man.

Ritual: A group of samurai pictured taking part in a ceremonial suicide known as harakiri, part of the bushido code which saw warriors disemboweled to fall with honour rather than be defeated by their enemy

During the 15th and 16th centuries there were many warring factions, but later wars reduced in number.

THE WAY OF THE WARRIOR: TRADITIONS OF THE SAMURAI

The traditions of the Samurai have developed over more than a millennium and are deep routed in Japanese society.

Samurai were the military nobility of pre-industrial Japan.

The Samurai followed a set of rules that came to be known as bushidō - literally 'the way of the warrior'.

The unwritten and unspoken code emphasised frugality, loyalty, martial arts mastery, and honor unto death.

But the code also evolved to stress heroic bravery, fierce family pride, and selfless, at times senseless devotion of master and man.

The fearsome warriors wore plate armour and a vast array of weapons including the bow and arrow, spears, guns, and of course, the Samurai sword.

But as peace seemed to endure during the Edo period, many became teachers, artists or bureaucrats as the need for martial skills became less important.

And when Emperor Meiji came to power in 1868 he began to abolish the Samurai's powers.

Firstly, he stripped their right to be the only armed force in Japan and began to introduce a western style conscripted army from 1873.

One of the pictures in the collection shows some of the Satsuma faction of the Samurai fighting in one of its last hurrahsin 1868, the Boshin War - an attempt to return political power to the imperial court.

The Samurai became the shizoku, merging with another social class under Meiji reforms and the right to wear a katana (sword) was lost along with the power to execute anyone who disrespected them in public.

The name shizoku continued to be a part of Japanese culture until the end of World War Two but was outlawed in 1947.

Despite the Samurai making up no more than 10 per cent of the Japanese population at its height, its influence is still heavily seen in Japanese culture, in particular modern martial arts.

Doomed: A kneeling samurai warrior understandably looks glum as he is about to take part in a ritual suicide ceremony

Source: The Daily Mail

Giant Squid Filmed In Pacific Depths

Japan's National Science Museum succeeded in filming the deep-sea creature at a depth of more than half a kilometre (a third of a mile) after teaming up with Japanese public broadcaster NHK and the US Discovery Channel. 

The creature is thought to be the genesis of the Nordic legend of Kraken, a sea monster believed to have attacked ships in waters off Scandinavia over the last millennium. 

Modern-day scientists on their own Moby Dick-style search used a submersible to descend to the dark and cold depths of the northern Pacific Ocean, where at around 630 metres (2,066 feet) they managed to film a three-metre specimen. 

After around 100 missions, during which they spent 400 hours in the cramped submarine, the three-man crew tracked the creature from a spot some 15 kilometres (nine miles) east of Chichi island in the north Pacific. 

Museum researcher Tsunemi Kubodera said they followed the enormous mollusc to a depth of 900 metres as it swam into the ocean abyss.



NHK showed footage of the silver-coloured creature, which had huge black eyes, as it swam against the current, holding a bait squid in its arms. 

Kubodera said the creature had its two longest arms missing, and estimated it would have been eight metres long if it had been whole. He gave no explanation for its missing arms. 

He said it was the first video footage of a live giant squid in its natural habitat—the depths of the sea where there is little oxygen and the weight of the water above exerts enormous pressure.

"Researchers around the world have tried to film giant squid in their natural habitats, but all attempts were in vain before," Kubodera said. 

Kubodera said the two successful sightings of the squid—in 2012 and 2006—were both in the same area, some 1,000 kilometres south of Tokyo, suggesting it could be a major habitat for the species. 

The giant squid, "Architeuthis" to scientists, is sometimes described as one of the last mysteries of the ocean, being part of a world so hostile to humans that it has been little explored. 

Researchers say Architeuthis eats other types of squid and grenadier, a species of fish that lives in the deep ocean. They say it can grow to be longer than 10 metres. 

Via: "Phys"

Japan Explores War Scenarios With China

... three of five scenarios explored by the defense ministry recently involve the Self-Defense Forces squaring off against the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

While contingencies involving North Korea’s ballistic missiles and Russia were among the scenarios the defense ministry explored, the top three all involved a crisis in the East China Sea. 

The first scenario examined a war between China and Japan over the disputed Diaoyu/Senkaku islands in the East China Sea. Earlier on Tuesday Japan summoned the Chinese ambassador in Tokyo for the first time since Shinzo Abe was sworn in as prime minister to protest the continued presence of official Chinese ships in waters around the islets, which are claimed by Japan, Taiwan and China.

The second scenario, meanwhile, expands on a Senkaku contingency and looks at a widening war involving PLA attempts to seize the Ishigaki and Miyako Islands west of northern Taiwan.

The third, and perhaps most controversial, scenario focuses on how Japan would react to a Chinese invasion of Taiwan in 2021, a date reportedly chosen because it coincides with the 100^th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). According to the scenario, the PLA would rely mostly on amphibious vehicles, special forces, ballistic missiles, and a fighter blockade to achieve its ends.

Although the latter scenario makes it clear that the hostilities would primarily involve the PLA and Taiwanese military forces, it nevertheless raises the possibility that China would attack U.S. and Japanese bases on Okinawa, while using long-range ballistic missiles, such as the DF-21D and DF-31, to threaten aircraft carriers in the region and the Western United States should U.S. forces attempt to intervene in the conflict.

Interestingly, Japan would have a responsibility to come to Taiwan’s aid in the event the PLA engages Taiwanese forces, the Japanese-language Sankei Shimbun said in its reporting on the scenarios on Jan. 1.

There has been much speculation over the years about whether Tokyo would intervene if the PLA ever invaded Taiwan. 

Reports in 2007 alleged that Japanese and U.S. officials, alarmed by growing Chinese might, were considering a plan to coordinate their actions under such a contingency, with Japan providing rear-area support for U.S. forces as stipulated under the Guidelines for Japan-U.S. Defense Cooperation. It is no coincidence that the efforts in 2007 also occurred when Abe, who is regarded as pro-Taiwan, was in power.

The two countries late last year also agreed to negotiate possible changes to the bilateral guidelines to better reflect changes in the strategic situation as well as give Japanese forces more room to maneuver.

While the scenarios remain in the realm of speculation, Japan’s inclusion of a Taiwan contingency again underscores the importance Tokyo places on Taiwan remaining de-facto independent. Certainly, China’s assertiveness in 2012 in both the East China and the South China Sea has done little to reassure Tokyo that it could live comfortably with a CCP-controlled Taiwan so close to its waters and territory. As such, rather than being amenable to “abandoning” Taiwan, as a handful of U.S. academics have been arguing for the sake of “improved” ties with Beijing, Tokyo may become more inclined to ensure that the island continues to serve as a natural barrier to Chinese expansion.

Via: "The Diplomat"

How U.S. Economic Warfare Provoked Japan's Attack On Pearl Harbor

By Robert Higgs
Courtesy Of "The Mises Institute"

Many people are misled by formalities. They assume, for example, that the United States went to war against Germany and Japan only after its declarations of war against these nations in December 1941. In truth, the United States had been at war for a long time before making these declarations. Its war making took a variety of forms. For example, the U.S. navy conducted "shoot [Germans] on sight" convoys - convoys that might include British ships — in the North Atlantic along the greater part the shipping route from the United States to Great Britain, even though German U-boats had orders to refrain (and did refrain) from initiating attacks on U.S. shipping. The United States and Great Britain entered into arrangements to pool intelligence, combine weapons development, test military equipment jointly, and undertake other forms of war-related cooperation. The U.S. military actively cooperated with the British military in combat operations against the Germans, for example, by alerting the British navy of aerial or marine sightings of German submarines, which the British then attacked. The U.S. government undertook in countless ways to provide military and other supplies and assistance to the British, the French, and the Soviets, who were fighting the Germans. The U.S. government also provided military and other supplies and assistance, including warplanes and pilots, to the Chinese, who were at war with Japan.[1] The U.S. military actively engaged in planning with the British, the British Commonwealth countries, and the Dutch East Indies for future combined combat operations against Japan. Most important, the U.S. government engaged in a series of increasingly stringent economic warfare measures that pushed the Japanese into a predicament that U.S. authorities well understood would probably provoke them to attack U.S. territories and forces in the Pacific region in a quest to secure essential raw materials that the Americans, British, and Dutch (government in exile) had embargoed. [2]

Consider these summary statements by George Victor, by no means a Roosevelt basher, in his well documented book The Pearl Harbor Myth.

Roosevelt had already led the United States into war with Germany in the spring of 1941—into a shooting war on a small scale. From then on, he gradually increased U.S. military participation. Japan's attack on December 7 enabled him to increase it further and to obtain a war declaration. Pearl Harbor is more fully accounted for as the end of a long chain of events, with the U.S. contribution reflecting a strategy formulated after France fell. . . . In the eyes of Roosevelt and his advisers, the measures taken early in 1941 justified a German declaration of war on the United States—a declaration that did not come, to their disappointment. . . . Roosevelt told his ambassador to France, William Bullitt, that U.S. entry into war against Germany was certain but must wait for an "incident," which he was "confident that the Germans would give us." . . . Establishing a record in which the enemy fired the first shot was a theme that ran through Roosevelt's tactics. . . . He seems [eventually] to have concluded—correctly as it turned out—that Japan would be easier to provoke into a major attack on the Unites States than Germany would be. [3]

The claim that Japan attacked the United States without provocation was . . . typical rhetoric. It worked because the public did not know that the administration had expected Japan to respond with war to anti-Japanese measures it had taken in July 1941. . . . Expecting to lose a war with the United States—and lose it disastrously—Japan's leaders had tried with growing desperation to negotiate. On this point, most historians have long agreed. Meanwhile, evidence has come out that Roosevelt and Hull persistently refused to negotiate. . . . Japan . . . offered compromises and concessions, which the United States countered with increasing demands. . . . It was after learning of Japan's decision to go to war with the United States if the talks "break down" that Roosevelt decided to break them off. . . . According to Attorney General Francis Biddle, Roosevelt said he hoped for an "incident" in the Pacific to bring the United States into the European war.[4]

 These facts and numerous others that point in the same direction are for the most part anything but new; many of them have been available to the public since the 1940s. As early as 1953, anyone might have read a collection of heavily documented essays on various aspects of U.S. foreign policy in the late 1930s and early 1940s, edited by Harry Elmer Barnes, that showed the numerous ways in which the U.S. government bore responsibility for the country's eventual engagement in World War II—showed, in short, that the Roosevelt administration wanted to get the country into the war and worked craftily along various avenues to ensure that, sooner or later, it would get in, preferably in a way that would unite public opinion behind the war by making the United States appear to have been the victim of an aggressor's unprovoked attack.[5] As Secretary of War Henry Stimson testified after the war, "we needed the Japanese to commit the first overt act." [6]

At present, however, seventy years after these events, probably not one American in 1,000—nay, not one in 10,000—has an inkling of any of this history. So effective has been the pro-Roosevelt, pro-American, pro-World War II faction that in this country it has utterly dominated teaching and popular writing about U.S. engagement in the "Good War."

In the late nineteenth century, Japan's economy began to grow and to industrialize rapidly. Because Japan has few natural resources, many of its burgeoning industries had to rely on imported raw materials, such as coal, iron ore or steel scrap, tin, copper, bauxite, rubber, and petroleum. Without access to such imports, many of which came from the United States or from European colonies in Southeast Asia, Japan's industrial economy would have ground to a halt. By engaging in international trade, however, the Japanese had built a moderately advanced industrial economy by 1941.

At the same time, they also built a military-industrial complex to support an increasingly powerful army and navy. These armed forces allowed Japan to project its power into various places in the Pacific and East Asia, including Korea and northern China, much as the United States used its growing industrial might to equip armed forces that projected U.S. power into the Caribbean, Latin America, and even as far away as the Philippine Islands.

When Franklin D. Roosevelt became president in 1933, the U.S. government fell under the control of a man who disliked the Japanese and harbored a romantic affection for the Chinese because, some writers have speculated, Roosevelt's ancestors had made money in the China trade.[7] Roosevelt also disliked the Germans in general and Adolf Hitler in particular, and he tended to favor the British in his personal relations and in world affairs. He did not pay much attention to foreign policy, however, until his New Deal began to peter out in 1937. Thereafter he relied heavily on foreign policy to fulfill his political ambitions, including his desire for reelection to an unprecedented third term.

When Germany began to rearm and to seek Lebensraumaggressively in the late 1930s, the Roosevelt administration cooperated closely with the British and the French in measures to oppose German expansion. After World War II commenced in 1939, this U.S. assistance grew ever greater and included such measures as the so-called destroyer deal and the deceptively named Lend-Lease program. In anticipation of U.S. entry into the war, British and U.S. military staffs secretly formulated plans for joint operations. U.S. forces sought to create a war-justifying incident by cooperating with the British navy in attacks on German U-boats in the northern Atlantic, but Hitler refused to take the bait, thus denying Roosevelt the pretext he craved for making the United States a full-fledged, declared belligerent—a belligerence that the great majority of Americans opposed.

In June 1940, Henry L. Stimson, who had been secretary of war under William Howard Taft and secretary of state under Herbert Hoover, became secretary of war again. Stimson was a lion of the Anglophile, northeastern upper crust and no friend of the Japanese. In support of the so-called Open Door Policy for China, Stimson favored the use of economic sanctions to obstruct Japan's advance in Asia. Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau and Interior Secretary Harold Ickes vigorously endorsed this policy. Roosevelt hoped that such sanctions would goad the Japanese into making a rash mistake by launching a war against the United States, which would bring in Germany because Japan and Germany were allied.

The Roosevelt administration, while curtly dismissing Japanese diplomatic overtures to harmonize relations, accordingly imposed a series of increasingly stringent economic sanctions on Japan. In 1939, the United States terminated the 1911 commercial treaty with Japan. "On July 2, 1940, Roosevelt signed the Export Control Act, authorizing the President to license or prohibit the export of essential defense materials." Under this authority, "[o]n July 31, exports of aviation motor fuels and lubricants and No. 1 heavy melting iron and steel scrap were restricted." Next, in a move aimed at Japan, Roosevelt slapped an embargo, effective October 16, "on all exports of scrap iron and steel to destinations other than Britain and the nations of the Western Hemisphere." Finally, on July 26, 1941, Roosevelt "froze Japanese assets in the United States, thus bringing commercial relations between the nations to an effective end. One week later Roosevelt embargoed the export of such grades of oil as still were in commercial flow to Japan." [8] The British and the Dutch followed suit, embargoing exports to Japan from their colonies in Southeast Asia.

Roosevelt and his subordinates knew they were putting Japan in an untenable position and that the Japanese government might well try to escape the stranglehold by going to war. Having broken the Japanese diplomatic code, the American leaders knew, among many other things, what Foreign Minister Teijiro Toyoda had communicated to Ambassador Kichisaburo Nomura on July 31: "Commercial and economic relations between Japan and third countries, led by England and the United States, are gradually becoming so horribly strained that we cannot endure it much longer. Consequently, our Empire, to save its very life, must take measures to secure the raw materials of the South Seas."[9]

Because American cryptographers had also broken the Japanese naval code, the leaders in Washington also knew that Japan's "measures" would include an attack on Pearl Harbor.[10] Yet they withheld this critical information from the commanders in Hawaii, who might have headed off the attack or prepared themselves to defend against it. That Roosevelt and his chieftains did not ring the tocsin makes perfect sense: after all, the impending attack constituted precisely what they had been seeking for a long time. As Stimson confided to his diary after a meeting of the War Cabinet on November 25, "The question was how we should maneuver them [the Japanese] into firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves." After the attack, Stimson confessed that "my first feeling was of relief . . . that a crisis had come in a way which would unite all our people."[11]

Notes

[1] See "Flying Tigers," Wikipedia. Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Tigers.

[2] Robert Higgs, "How U.S. Economic Warfare Provoked Japan's Attack on Pearl Harbor," The Freeman 56 (May 2006): 36-37.

[3] George Victor, The Pearl Harbor Myth: Rethinking the Unthinkable (Dulles, Va.: Potomac Books, 2007), pp. 179-80, 184, 185, emphasis added.

[4] Ibid ., pp. 15, 202, 240.

[5] See Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: A Critical Examination of the Foreign Policy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Its Aftermath, edited by Harry Elmer Barnes (Caldwell, Id.: Caxton Printers, 1953).

[6] Stimson as quoted in Victor, Pearl Harbor Myth, p. 105.

[7] Harry Elmer Barnes, "Summary and Conclusions," in Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: A Critical Examination of the Foreign Policy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Its Aftermath, edited by Harry Elmer Barnes (Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton Printers, 1953), 682-83.

[8] All quotations in this paragraph are from George Morgenstern, "The Actual Road to Pearl Harbor," in Barnes, ed., Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, 322-23, 327-28.

[9] Quoted in Morgenstern, "The Actual Road to Pearl Harbor," 329.

[10] Robert B. Stinnett, Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor (New York: Free Press, 2000).

[11] Quoted in Morgenstern, "The Actual Road to Pearl Harbor," 343, 384.