Michel's Commentary

12/13/2001  888WebToday
(editor's note: this column was written for December 7, a technical glitch delayed its posting kr)

 
Where were you when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor?  If you are a typical American, you weren't born sixty years ago today.  That is when Japanese Admiral Nagumo's mighty task force launched its airplanes against the American Pacific Fleet, peacefully at harbor on the island of Oahu in Hawaii.

The generation of Americans who remember WWII and who fought in it are dying off at an alarming rate.  There will soon be nobody left at all to tell us where he or she was on that "day of infamy", December 7, 1941.
 
This generation will undoubtedly remember to their last breath just where they were on September 11, 2001.  It too was a day of infamy; forever etched into the collective consciousness of the American people.

Like Pearl Harbor, the attack on the World Trade Center was a "sneak attack" that caught us unaware.  December 7th was a beautiful day in Oahu, blue and fair.  September 11th was a beautiful autumn day in Manhattan, without a cloud in the sky.

Now the fog of war is rolling in, as it did after Pearl Harbor.  How much did our government know about our attackers beforehand?  Could the attack have been prevented?  Should the fact that the attack was not prevented be charged with negligence, or some sinister design in high places?  If negligence, who was negligent.  If by dark design - then who let this happen and why?

These were questions that have been asked through the years about Pearl Harbor, chances are, similar questions will be asked about the attack on the United States that September.

Did Franklin D. Roosevelt know or have reason to suspect that the Japanese would bomb Pearl Harbor  Where there those in the Clinton Administration or even the Bush Administration that knew the attacks were imminent and did nothing about it? What purpose did their inaction serve?  Were Admiral Kimmel and General Short negligent at Pearl Harbor; and did they deserve to be dismissed from their commands?  What about NSA, the CIA, the FBI and the World Trade Center? Were they negligent?

Sixty years have passed since Pearl Harbor, but it was as recent as 1995 that historian Robert Stinnett discovered the famous McCullum memo which has forced a reconsideration of that now distant event.

The McCullum Memo was written by naval Commander Arthur McCullum and was sent to President Roosevelt.  It was an eight point program to get us into war with Japan.  It has been filed away with obscure Navy archives for decades before it was finally discovered.

Decades from now historians may still be poking in the ashes of the events of September 11, 2001, looking for new evidence that will revolutionize our understanding of what happened.  September 11th will still be remembered along with December 7th.

And those are my thoughts..........
 

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