Steve,

Your claim of self-defense rests upon two rather obvious events: Pearl Harbor and Hitler's subsequent declaration. 

OTH, my claim is that the Nazis and Japs were provoked, and that said events were foreseen consequences of our own behavior.

For example, I believe that you cannot claim 'self-defense' if you refuse to negotiate a reasonable treaty in which your own security is assured. Likewise, you cannot sell war material to the Brits. Nor, far worse, should you declare that upon the Jap abrogation of the tonnage treaty that you'd go on an 8-year plan to build the greatest navy, by far, the world has ever seen.

This is not to say that I would have opposed the war--au contraire! Rather, that self-defense was the pretext given to a reluctant public. Regardless of our ability to have secured a treaty with the Japs and Nazis (again, refuting the self-defense claim!), war was still the right thing to do. Inother words, there is no way that the emotive factor can be takebn out of politics...

WH

Steve,

First, we need to clarify our general agreement that America was totally justified in entering WW2.

So when I talk of 'pretext' and 'provocation' it's strictly within the historical context of America's reluctance in the late 30's to get involved. Likewise, with 'negotiations' and 'security'--- as they were the buzz-words of the late 30's, as well. In other words, it was more or less assumed by all parties that the best way to ensure security was parity of weapons. These were the protocols that were abrogated by the nazis and japs.

In other words, 'self-defense' must be met with reasonable criterion as to 'how much' is necessary. Yet by all standards, the navy of '43 was meant for world domination. That it easily flattened the japs is okay with me, but then again, one must remember that the projetct of domination began in 1935.

I suppose that we disagree on the issue of jap intent and capacity to threaten the sovreignty of the US. My understanding is that it was far more about negotiating for Indionesian oil and a free hand in China.

In other words, there was no objective reason as to why America could not have negotiated a better deal with the Nazis and Japs than with the Brits and Russians. that we choser the later pair was a matter of justifiable, emotiional, hatred towards the former.

WH

Steve,

America created a 'back against the wall' scenario for the Japs. That they got in the first blow is, I feel, somewhat irrelevant, other than the fact that they were hugely successful. Yamamato drove six carriers thru the North Pacific in the middle of the winter-- risky beyond belief, but their only real chance.

To this end, his famous quote, "I can promise you a year of victorys, but no more" should be put into context that we Americans were not secretive about what would happen in '43: the great roll-out which, form that point onwards, made the Pacific war a forgone conclusion.

The crisis, of course, was in '42, but even then, Midway was not a 'miracle'. Hide three (far superior) carriers behind a fortified island that your enemy, with four carriers, wants to attack an seize..and you'll win every time.

Moreover, had Midway occured a week later, the fighters would have arrived on the island.At that point the japs would not only have lost their carriers, but perhaps the battle ships and troop transports (30,000 soldiers), as well. Of course, Yorktown would have been saved.

The 'negiotiating', or failure thereof, took place in the 30's. It more or less involved two issues: naval tonnage and China. The Japs refusal, IMO, constituted de facto agression from the 'objective security' pov of tonnage, and the moral outrage of China. So I'm obviously not talking of Post- Pearl negotiations.

In order to defend you have to assume that it's necessary to dominate. When the Japs abrogated the tonnage treaty, FDR said, "Okay, the rules are off. Come '43, you'll  be leaving China one way or another."

His error, as it were, was to re-deploy the existing American fleet in a forward position that was, in reality, a bottleneck, or self-imposed Cannae. It would have taken hours to have gotten the fleet thru the narrow passage and out of the sul-de-sac. That  means complete pull-out on the 6th.

All this about in-the-air warnings being ignored is pure Hollywood nonsense. had the fighters been scrambled, they would have lost, yet deterred the second wave on the facilities. Either way, the Japs would have had sufficient superiority to have taken out the capitals, obvilously their main objective.

Yes, I do believe that had we wanted to,we could have negotiated with Japs n Germans after Europe and Pearl. We would not hve been 'next' by any means. After all, the entirey of documents demonstrate that the japs had assumed we'd negotiate after having lost the capitals.To this extent, participation in the war involved a moral, or emotianal commitment.

Kindly explain your comment that FDR was 'in love' with Stalin...

So no, I'm not a 'revisionist' because what revisionists believe is that we should not have gone to war precisely because we should have negotiated after Pearl. Likewise, that we had no stake in a who won a Hitler vs Stalin war. 

This is not to say that revisionist history of the German-Russian War isn't interesting. For one, russia had planned their own attack on August '41, the Germans simply got the jump on them., etc...

Lastly, I have no idea as to what Eva, my ten-year old granddaughter, might think of WW2. Sitting on my lap as I write, 'Sweet Pickles' reads my stuff and likes to sign her name to it, as if... 

As for another 'Eva', I don't read back posts, so I really wouldn't even care.

FH

Steve,

I'm afraid you've misunderstood my point, having reversed the causal arrow, as it were.

FDR put Japan's backs to the wall because of their rape of China.

In other words, because of the horrific behavior of the Japs and Nazis, FDR did everything he could do --in light of the fact that prior to Pearl, a huge swath of the American public opposed involvement.

therefore, creating a situation in which they had to react was the best, politically, he was able to do.

i really don't know where you got the idea that I felt that the Nazis had no choice in comitting genocide.

What we know now of the Nazi occupations of Poland, Ukraine, and Russia is far different than the state of knowledge in 39-41. What we also know about is the Soviet attrocity at Katyn, which did not prevnet us from taking their side.

We also have to understabnd that the 'final solution, discussed at Wannasee, was only a rumor until the liberation of death camps by the Red Army in Poland, winter of 44.

So if you were to ask, 'Knowing in 39  what we know now as to the Nazis intents of occupation, would a treaty been viable? Obviously not. But in 39 we knew about Molotov/Ribbentrop and the Soviet  occupation of eastern Poland. Likewise, the Soviet aggression in the Baltics and Finland. From that prespective, did the pro-German, kill the draft' Americans have a point" Indeed.

WH

Steve, you're still mis-reading what I wrote..or else I was not clear.

First, there was jap imperialism, which included the take-over of east Asia. along with this behavior the japs had abrogated the tonnage treaty, and were building a huge, dominant navy.

Our (totally justifiable) response was to increase ship production to the great 1943 send-off of an unbeatable force. 'Unbeatable' means that the entirety of the world's navies, together, would have lasted about an hour on the high seas against Nimitz's forces.

Re jap imperialism and atrocities, we (justifiably) put their backs to the wall by freezing their assets in American banks. We also informed them (justifiably) that if they invaded Indonesia to obtain oil, our fleet would interdict. for this strategy, we had to move the fleet to hawaii form San Diego, as to be as close to the theater of potential war as possible.

Now these are obviously intentions to wage (justifiable) war. That the real version sharply contrasts with an 'innocent & peaceful & non-involved America'

is not my problem...

WH

Steve,

I disagree: yes, these actions as cited by you are prima facie intent to provoke a war, as justified as the war might have been.

My further disagreement resides in your assumption that only 'bad guys' provoke. Again, in the 30's FDR was obliged to take an indirect course against the japs (provocation, versus outright intervention) because of opposition on the home front.

Of course attacking Hawaii was necessarily 'forced' from the Jap pov because that's where our main forward station resided.

Interestingly enough, however, our 'shorthanded' strategy of '42 worked so well because the jap empire had expanded so much that halsey's attack carrier groups wereeasily able to penetrate the periphery, ie Doolittle's raid on Tokyo. In this strategic sense, the jap seizure of non-oil east Asia up to Burma was hopelessly stupid.

WH

To say I'm 'morally relativist' would mean that I somehow see the Japs as having a good point or two, and/or that America acted in ways somehow unbecomung. Neither is the case, as a reading of my texts will easily demonstrate.

What's 'abhorrent', therefore, is both your own inability to read and your misunderstanding of the term 'moral relativism'.

My brother in law's father passed away a couple years ago.   He lived a quiet life, worked at a dairy for most of his life.   Except in his youth.

In his youth, he was a musician of sorts, played the trumpet.    He was also a gunners mate and bugler on the USS Intrepid.  Leyte Gulf.    He once told the story of how after the war, sailing into San Francisco Bay with everyone lined up, he threw his bugle into the water with disgust.  He hated that bugle.   He'd played it alot at sea, burying other young men.  Never wanted to play a bugle again.

My father , who spent 40 years as a toolmaker/master mechanic at a steel fab plant, told a similar story, but with him, it was playing cards.  He was first with the 5th Armored, in Huertgen Forest, and later with what was left of it, the 2nd Armored, as a TSgt/gunner who repaired tanks.   They would draw from a deck of cards to determine what tanks took lead in their formations.   He hated cards.

I would love, if it were possible, but it's not, to hear their and millions more reactions to how easy that war was.   Especially from their 400,000 buddies who were left in a meatgrinder, providing for us every breath of freedom we've taken in our lives since.

Fred,

When asked about his time in WWII, my dad would just make some humerous remark, and sidestep around saying anything else.  He was so good at that, that it wasn't until I was about 30 that it occured to me that there was a very tough time behind that habit.  I remember seeing a fleeting look on his face when someone his age would joke or brag about something in the war, like having to jump our of an airplane.  The fleeting look of disgust on his face was a look reserved for those that would brag or joke about something that was to awful to be treated that way.

He volunteered after Pearl Harbor as many did.  After basic training and OCS, he shipped off to Ireland as new first Lieutent, and from there it was to North West Africa. From there to Scicily, then to land on the beaches of South France.  He traveled the length of France, into Austria, and Germany. He was in Austria when the war ended.

He finally described some of what he went through... about what a battlefield smelled like, and how you could be driving down a road and smell death around the corner. How you didn't know whose bodies - ours or theirs - you were about to see.  About the body parts scattered across the road. He never did tell my brothers or I what happened to him to get either of the two purple heart medals, or what he did to get the Bronze star.

There was only person I think that he really opened up to:  my uncle, his brother-in-law, Colonel Charles Hunter.  Hunter was second in command to General Merrill of Merrill's Maruaders in the Burma Campaign.  Uncle Chuck was actually in charge most of the time because Merrill was pulled out early on after having a heart attack.  Out of the 3,000 troups that started that long march through the jungles of Burma during the monsoon season, fighting one battle after another, only 2 - only 2 men out of 3,000, weren't hospitalized or killed by disease or by the wounds received.  Charles Hunter was one of them.  They had started with a couple thousand mules to pack their gear. None of the mules survived.