Suffering For The Better? | Teen Ink

Suffering For The Better?

February 22, 2010
By Samantha Rock BRONZE, Kansas City, Missouri
Samantha Rock BRONZE, Kansas City, Missouri
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

It was just a normal day at Pearl Harbor, so the sailors thought. Work began normally and life was normal around the island. Then they saw scores of planes fly overhead. They asked themselves why were there so many planes flying over Pearl Harbor when gas mileage was low and they couldn’t make it to California. They knew the planes are military grade, so why not land at the only major military base in Hawaii? Then chaos struck. Bombs began dropping; missiles bean launching and guns began firing. The attack on Pearl Harbor had begun.


Now any attack on any country must have a pretty significant motive. But multiple conspiracies out there lead me to believe that the United States knew this was coming.
In the beginning of 1940 Franklin Roosevelt ordered the Pacific Naval Base to move from the west coast to Hawaii. Multiple people warned him that Hawaii was an easy target for water and air attacks. One specific person, Admiral Richardson, protested this. He was immediately replaced. Almost two years before this terrible attack FDR knew there was a possibility for thousands of American soldiers to die. Did he listen to anyone or keep the base close to central land not easily accessible by other countries for attacks? No. Murphy’s Law states “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong”. Putting a naval base on an island in the middle of an ocean near a country we already have a large amount of tension with is asking for something to go wrong.
On October 7, 1940, a Navy IQ analyst wrote a memo on how to force Japan into war with the United States. Including an American Oil Embargo against Japan, not allowing Japan to have any oil trade with America is a cause for disaster. Not only that but every memo was accomplished.
In September 1941 a message was deciphered coming from a Naval Intelligence base in Tokyo to a Japanese base in Hawaii. They were requesting exact locations of the ships in Pearl Harbor. Roosevelt was told about the message and made no effort to warn Hawaiian officials at Pearl Harbor. Japan had no military/economic to Hawaii anymore so this couldn’t be for documental or surveying use for Japan. I can think of only one reason they would need the location of the ships in Pearl Harbor: to attack it.
On November 26th , 1941 Washington D.C. ordered the Enterprise and the Lexington out of Pearl Harbor. Also included were about 40% of aircraft vehicles. Pearl Harbor was not at its full capacity of ships, so why take some away? The answer is simple; less damage done during an attack.
Cordell Hull told FDR that there would be an attack in early December on Pearl Harbor. In the 1940s being the aggressor was bad. I think America didn’t want to look like the “aggressor “. So why ruin our image when Japan can attack us and America look like the victim. Over 2,000 Americans died in this battle we knew was coming. FDR obviously forgo about being “the aggressor” several years later while bombing Japan. If Japan knew that was coming, I believe they would do anything to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent citizens. Someone once said “There is no such thing as a good war or a bad peace”. We could’ve just made a good peace and prevented a bad war.


Similar Articles

JOIN THE DISCUSSION

This article has 1 comment.


sknopik said...
on Feb. 27 2010 at 8:03 am
Great insight into our government's hidden agenda. I want to read more about this now!