Guest post by Tony Oliva
75 Years ago today, on a calm Sunday morning the Empire of Japan launched a sneak attack at the unaware US forces at Pearl Harbor. It was a striking victory for the Japanese that left the United States Naval Fleet crippled in the Pacific.
All told, the casualties on “the day that will live in infamy”(-FDR), was over 2300 Americans dead, the USS Arizona completely sunk, the USS Oklahoma capsized, twelve other ships were sank or beached while another 9 were damaged. 160 planes were destroyed while 150 were damaged.
There are fewer than 500 WWII Vets alive, who survived hellish day. Men who were chewed up by Zero strafing fire, who saw their friends and comrades vaporized by Japanese dive bombers, who bear the scars both physical and mental from a sneak attack of a country that had emissaries in DC playing at peace.
The Japanese Prime Minister Abe will not be apologizing for the attack when he visits Pearl Harbor in a few days.
And President Obama is telling the survivors to get over it.
From Obama’s official mouthpiece Josh Earnest:
“If I were a World War II veteran who was drafted by the United States military to go and fight for our country overseas in the aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attack, I might feel quite embittered and I think it would be a perfectly natural and understandable human reaction to not be particularly satisfied with the words of the Japanese Prime Minister.”
But, Earnest said those people who feel “personal bitterness” should set aside their feelings for the greater good of the U.S.
“And so, yes, there may be some who feel personally embittered but I’m confident that many will set aside their own personal bitterness, not because they’re personally satisfied by the words of the Prime Minister, but because they recognize how important this moment is for the United States.”
I’m not going to mince words so we’re heading right to brass tacks and I’m going to tell you what bullshit he is peddling right there.
A bunch of righteously angry veterans who stood tall on that infamous day should shut up, keep it to themselves and toe the line because Barack Obama wants to look good. It’s the final leg of his Apology Tour that he began eight years ago.
I’ve no doubt in my mind that when Obama visited Hiroshima earlier this years he was blubbering all over himself to any Japanese official he could find behind closed doors and apologized profusely for our Nuclear Strikes against the Empire. Of course he couldn’t do it publicly lest he show even those with their heads firmly in the sand what he really is and how much disdain he actually has for this country.
So now, when the Japanese Prime Minister comes to the hallowed ground and waters, bathed and buried in over 2000 souls he will not apologize and those remaining who were there that day had best keep their mouths shut lest Obama be made to look the fool.
That is what Josh Earnest is saying there.
The disrespect that Obama has for the military and the veterans who defended this country against annihilation is beyond the pale.
Obama is no commander in chief. His posturing and preening over the past 8 years from Benghazi to Pearl Harbor is evidence enough of that.
To change tracks for a second, you may be surprised that I don’t actually think the Prime Minister of Japan needs to apologize. I also don’t think the United States should ever apologize for dropping either Little Boy or Fat Man. I mean, for the Japanese it was a tactical move, underhanded to be sure, but they were allies to Socialist Germany and Italy at the time and it was in all their best interests to keep the US occupied. The problem is it blew up in their faces. Sure, a temporary success with crippling the Pacific Fleet, but if the attack on Pearl Harbor never happened, at BEST, the US limps into the European theatre of the war with a divided population between intervening and staying out of European affairs. The US would have been more quick to broker peace with Germany and the entire outcome could have been difference. My prediction would probably be three spheres of influence running north/south. The Free America’s, Socialist Germany consisting of Europe, Middle East and Africa and the Japanese Empire’s Asian Pacific domain consisting of Eastern Russia, China and everything south.
But to quote the very architect of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto:
“I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”
Truer words have never been spoken.
So with the full industrial might and unified will of the United States, we entered World War 2 and basically saved the planet from tyranny. Pearl Harbor ALSO gave us the moral authority to drop not one but TWO nuclear bombs on the Empire of Japan.
If their sneak attack never happened and the wars endgame shaped up the same way, I am hard pressed to think that Truman would actually have used such a weapon. The war would have went on for a few more years as we literally would have had to take the entire island chain by force (which was an actually contingency plan known as Operation Downfall) costing an estimated 500,000 casualties on the Allied side.
In the long run Pearl Harbor probably saved not only half a million lives but probably won the war for the Allies.
That doesn’t mean that the veterans who survived that day have to “get over it” and set aside their bitterness. If they want to be bitter more power to them because frankly, they deserve the right to feel however the hell they want and Obama can go to hell if he wants to try and strong arm these heroes into feeling anything different.
Cross-Posted From Bulletsfirst