December 7, 1941. The Japanese launched an attack on the United States naval installation at Pearl Harbor, killing over 2,000 people and crippling the US Navy. The next day, the US declared war on Japan and Adolf Hitler declared war on the US shortly thereafter. This could have been avoided, but President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his staff wanted it to happen.
In the years prior, FDR was breaking international law by sending weapons to the Chinese (he was able to do this by denying that China was officially in a war) and to the British (via the Lend-Lease Act) and by reporting the locations of German submarines to the British. By doing so, FDR effectively goaded the Germans into attacking the US warship the Greer. In Winston Churchill's own words, "everything was to be done to provoke an incident."
The Pacific Theater is a totally different beast, but much of the same kind of activity can be found. On top of sending weapons to the Chinese who were fighting the Japanese, FDR froze Japanese assets in the US and, by setting up an oil embargo on Japan, greatly crippled them. FDR refused to negotiate with Japan who, according to the American ambassador to Japan, was willing to go so far as to remove all of their troops from China and Indochina. A little later, the fairly moderate, at least compared to his successor, Japanese prime minister Fumimaro Konoye was replaced by the minister of war, General Hideki Tojo, in October of 1941. The Japanese were in desperate need of resources thanks to the embargo that FDR organized, and they could acquire them in nearby British and Dutch colonies, but there was one thing in the way: Pearl Harbor. US Secretary of War Henry Stimson said it best when he wrote in his diary in November of 1941 that the US needed "to maneuver them [the Japanese] into the position of firing the first shot." Or did former president Herbert Hoover say it best when he wrote that FDR and his administration was "doing everything they can to get us into war through the Japanese back door."
The attack on Pearl Harbor happened days later, and too many people were drafted and killed thanks to the actions of FDR and the US government. World War II was a devastating war for everyone involved, but hey, at least it got us out of the Great Depression right?*
It is important to remember that it was not an unprovoked attack that the Japanese launched on this day 68 years ago, but one that could have been easily avoided if FDR and the US government wasn't dead-set on entering World War II.
Most of the information (especially the quotes) was taken from Thomas Woods' great book "The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History" and I would highly recommend it, and all of Tom Woods' other books, to anyone interested in history and/or economics.
*said with sarcasm
Yours in Liberty,
Andy
