Thursday, February 21, 2008
FDR's prewar intentions
It seems to me that FDR wanted to get into the war so bad that he provoked Japan into attacking the US. Even though 80% of the US population did not want to get into another world war, FDR continued to aid England and cut off the life blood of Japan by not trading goods that could be used for war production. This is a great example of President singlehandedly leading us into a confrontation that could have have been avoided. Although I am glad that FDR had the foresight to realize that both Nazi Germany and Japan's empires were evil and led us into war, I question his tactics because perhaps many of the deaths of Pearl Harbor could have been avoided if FDR had stated his position in the war sooner.
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3 comments:
While FDR may have been able to spare lives in Pearl Harbor had he told people he wanted to go to war, I dont think he would have been able to pursuade people he was right to join the war. While I am not condoning the "allowance" of Pearl Harbor, it was probably the only way to get the American people to support entering the war.
Many people were not upfront with each other. Secrets cause problems, but if FDR was upfront about this something else would have probably convinced American people to join the war. This was something that would most likely have had to happen for one reason or another. The Axis powers were quite determined.
FDR cutting off the lifeblood to Japan was a non-violent way to respond to Japan. Presumably they thought without supplies Japan would ultimately give up and go home. Instead, Japan chose to ultimately respond in a violent way (and FDR had no control over that. There may have been a misunderstanding of, or failure to recognize the culture difference - but up until Pearl, the US had in fact been engaging in diplomacy and economic rather than tactical maneuvers. It just didn't work.
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