Pearl Harbor and 9/11

Pearl Harbor and 9/11
Two attacks, two responses, two outcomes

� Bryan Zepp Jamieson
12/27/05
http://www.zeppscommentaries.com/VRWC/twoattacks.htm

One of the favorite stances people writing about the attacks on 9/11/01
like to take is that of comparing the attacks to the Japanese attack on
Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. There?s comfort in that, because
there?s widespread belief among Americans that the nation responded by
jumping to its collective feet with an angry roar, and promptly thrashed
the Germans and the Japanese, saved the Jews and England, and made the
Germans stop behaving like Europeans.

People like to cling to that, even though things haven?t gone exactly
the way things went after Pearl Harbor. It has been four years, four
months, and sixteen days since 9/11. In terms of time after Pearl
Harbor, that would be the equivalent date of April 23rd, 1946. Hitler
and FDR were both dead over a year by that point, Japan was taking the
first steps toward regaining self rule without the military involved,
and the world was making a slow recovery from the years of madness.

In America, people were finally believing that the end of the war didn?t
mean the return of the depression, and in fact, America was beginning
the biggest economic boom in her history.

In other words, in the amount of time that we?ve seen since 9/11,
America had fought World War II, and everything was settling back into a
peaceful prosperity.

But if the aftermath has proved a disappointment to fans of Vengeance
America, the fact is that the actual events had some major differences, too.

Americans felt far more smug and secure in 1941 than they did in 2001.
There was still a depression, but it was nowhere near as bad as it had
been in the grim years between 1929 and 1934. Americans knew that they
might well get drawn into the European War (and Congress knew it, too,
passing the first peacetime draft in 1940 and authorizing the $50
billion lend-lease program in 1941), but it wouldn?t be as bad as The
Great War had been. The Japanese, when they were thought of at all, were
regarded as comical little half-monkey half-men with buck teeth and
thick glasses who lisped when they spoke. Many Americans believed that
the Japanese were physiologically and mentally incapable of piloting a
plane, and that the Japanese air attacks were conducted by Germans who
flew and designed the Zero. (Both were Japanese accomplishments).

Suddenly, America had to confront the reality of what they faced. In
Europe, Nazi Germany controlled nearly the entire continent, and much of
Russia. (In fact, the tide was already turning against Hitler at that
point; England had won the Battle of Britain, the French resistance was
beginning to take a toll, and, despite himself and at a horrific cost to
his own people, Stalin had lured the German army into its first Russian
winter. But few in America knew that).

The Japanese Empire was even bigger, covering nearly an eighth of the
globe. And suddenly the Japanese went from funny little monkeymen to
ruthless, terrifyingly intelligent high-tech beings who would fight for
three days after their heads were cut off.

If there?s anything stupider than a racial stereotype that makes your
target group look inferior to you, it?s a racial stereotype that takes
that same group and makes them into some sort of diseased supermen.

Americans panicked in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, and with good
reason. The might and determination of the Axis was evident, and even
without the silly racial stereotypes, the Japanese atrocities and the
cold precision of the Pearl Harbor attack made it obvious they were a
deadly and implacable foe.

America was not a super power. Her military was considered less powerful
than France?s, which Germany took only two weeks to demolish. Rumors
wildfired. The Japanese had taken the Aleutians. Then it was that they
had taken California. Axis war craft sailed along both of America?s
coasts with impunity, adding to the general alarm.

Americans did some foolish things in their panic. Congress passed and
FDR signed HR1776, which rounded up Americans of Japanese descent and
threw them in concentration camps. Less foolish, but questionable
activities also transpired. The government worked with the studios to
produce a lot of war time propaganda, and citizens were encouraged to
report suspicious activities. The court made one funky decision
regarding foreign nationals sneaking into the country with malicious
intent, and embarrassedly overruled themselves the first time such a
case popped up after the war.

But that?s where it stopped. Americans didn?t throw away their rights,
and FDR, despite his huge popularity, never tried claiming the only way
America could win the war would be if he were to have the ability to
snoop on every American to make sure they weren?t selling military
secrets to Tojo.

There were the usual stuffy cardboard patriots around who questioned the
patriotism of anyone who complained or questioned, but all cultures have
those in all wars. If they do little good for homeland morale, they also
usually do little harm.

When 9/11 happened, it was generally assumed that America would hunt
down the people responsible, punish them, and move on. Nobody dreamed
America would permanently occupy one land that had some contacts with
the people behind the attacks while blissfully ignoring other countries,
such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Egypt, that had far greater
involvement with the people held responsible for the attacks.

Then, of course, Putsch attacked a country that had nothing at all to do
with 9/11, pressured Congress not to investigate 9/11 (Pearl Harbor had
four major Congressional investigations in the first year ? yes, while
America was in a state of war. President?s own party controlled
Congress, too) and had all the evidence removed and destroyed (most of
the wreckage at Pearl is STILL there, as a national memorial).

People held still for that, which is mind boggling. Americans were told
they were right to be afraid, that these rag-tag little bands of
malcontents thousands of miles away were a far greater threat than Nazi
Germany and the Japanese Empire combined, and that America faced a far
greater peril if government did not scrap rights to privacy and the
fourth amendment and proactively ?protect? us.

And Americans BELIEVED this. A vast majority at first, but the numbers
are dwindling as time goes by, and the threat becomes just part of the
background hum, along with lightning strikes and shark attacks.

But millions of Americans, party loyalists to the GOP mostly, still
chant that anyone who questions the war is a terrorist sympathizer, and
that Putsch has the right to monitor our phone conversations. After all,
that Methodist Pastor up the street admits he didn?t vote for Putsch in
either election ? he might be a terrorist sympathizer!

What?s happening here is NOT politics as usual, and this goes well
beyond the games of party partisanship.

Americans were frightened after Pearl Harbor, and FDR led, and gave them
confidence and courage to face what at first must have seemed a daunting
task.

This time, Americans were frightened after 9/11, but as time went on, it
became clear that the threat behind 9/11 was, for all the spectacular
horror of that day, really a minor one. But Putsch didn?t make Americans
confident and resolute. Instead, he worked hard to keep us all
frightened, and he and his administrations pushed the endless chant of
?Terror! Terror! Terror!? to keep Americans frightened.

He is working against America?s best interests, exploiting whatever
happened on that terrible day for his own agenda. It?s no coincidence
that he and his party of greedy jackals decided within weeks that
erecting a police state and passing tax cuts for the rich were the only
way to fight this foe.

And now we have the warrantless wiretap thing. Millions of people that
Putsch is listening to; suspect groups like the Audubon Society, or
Quakers, and Peace Activists. Librarians are the enemy in this
administration?s eyes, along with any Congressman who asks why we are
fighting in Iraq.

Anyone who still supports the administration at this point is saying,
loudly and clearly, ?I am throwing away the rights of my self, my family
and friends, everyone I ever cared about, and all of America, because
Putsch has told me that is the only way I can be safe.?

And that, my friend, is not patriotism. Quite the opposite.

It is not courage. Quite the opposite.

It is not resolve. Quite the opposite.

Anyone who supports Putsch at this point is an appeaser who is selling
out his country because he let George frighten him.

The folks who remember Pearl Harbor would have nothing but contempt.