Thank you! I’ve been defending them since my time as a university student (the Senate cleared them around the time I graduated).
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You are very much welcome and I commend you on that effort for redemption which they both absolutely deserve!
In hindsight and of of the comfy couch it is so easy to be critical or indifferent, which is why I joined the Timeghost Army and very much appreciate the way that fellow armymembers like you, respectfully converse and also can agree to disagree.
As far as I am concerned, this new place, the Timeghost Army, is already really feeling like home. I look forward to discuss a lot more in the near future.
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Make yourself at home. And I’m also doing voice chats with a few members. You can join in sometime! 
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I’ve listened to the argument for most of my adult life-‘Washington saw Pearl Harbor coming and let it happen’ H Norman Schwartzkopf may have said it best: In an era before satellite images, GPS and global instant communication, it was the commanders in the field that made the difference whether surprise attack was successful or detected and thwarted. The best Washington could do in 1941 is make the local commanders aware of the diplomatic circumstances and ask them to be ready for war. If they failed, they are held accountable.
Notices were issued to all US bases in the Pacific in late November.
The notice from Washington to Peal Harbor of November 27, 1941, to Admiral Kimmel, began, “This dispatch is to be considered a war warning.” It then went on to say that negotiations had ceased. Then directed the admiral to “execute an appropriate defensive deployment.” Kimmel was ordered to undertake reconnaissance and any other measures he deemed necessary. In addition, a communication to General Short the same day declared that hostile action was possible at any moment. He was also urged measures of reconnaissance.
The warning has not adequately heeded and no one could have predicted the catastrophic event that motivated a nation for total war. When 2000 soldiers die in a peace time attack, on Dec 8, the buck had to stop at those field commanders, rightly or wrongly as we gauge the topic 80 years on. Although we can say, probably not fair as we all know, how the Navy didn’t have enough PBY’s, etc. etc.
One thing for sure, you can’t look at those warnings with a 1941 mindset and assert that Roosevelt was malicious on the matter and could have possibly intended to orchestrated the outcome.
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I agree on your analysis that we very much need to keep in mind that the level of technology and intelligence was very different back then. However I do believe that FDR had a double agenda because of his own feelings concerning the morality of the Axis forces and their inhumanity. Also, in my humble opinion, I think he wanted to get the USA more involved in world politics because of economical opportunities and he, I suspect, foresaw the threat of a growing power in the east that could eventually threaten not only the USA but the whole world. His own New Deal was failing so it’s his way out, I guess.
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A lot of historians do ignore or downplay the extent of the failings of the New Deal sadly, speaking as one myself.
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Again, we’re on the same page, my friend 
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A surprise attack on Dec 7 and the massive losses at Peal Harbor traumatized and motivated the US citizens and Govt. to end the aggressive Empire of Japan unconditionally-FDR simply could not have planned that.
I can understand why such a dastardly act that backfire so completely, could be contemplated many years later as an internal ploy in which FDR was active. In the end, the US had significant political influence and a robust economy. However the gent that struggled with his own congress and New Deal was not the architect of that ‘grand strategy’. Evidence of such a pre-planned masterstroke has remained illusive all these years.
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As always I very much appreciate your contribution to any discussion.
I really do believe that FDR not only was aware of the risks he was taking by isolating Japan staying put on sanctions and supporting the UK where he could to break loose of his own isolationist Americans and create a perfect pretext to get involved in a war which he so desperately needed to realise his ideas on getting US leadership within the United Nations, though not yet founded but surely his mind was set on this!
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Yes Harry, always a good friendly discussion. This forum is such a good place to share our passions!
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It sure is!
I hope for a long long time 
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Yeahhh, The lesson is that hindsight is so easy, and battle readiness can only be trained in battle. So a tough job for the first going in. Went to Pearl Harbor in 2001 and met Kermit Tyler. In all his military career has always got the same question: Are You THE Kermit Tyler that said “dont worry about it” when the Opana boys rang - Yeahh - that was me
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Went there a decade earlier and have met some prominent survivors as well, like Richard Fiske of the West Virginia.
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Yes, met him too, and for the first time a lot of japanese veterans were attending. There were a week long historical conference and a bus tour to all relevant places. We must put something similar together again some time.
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It is just too bad that the planned trip to Pearl couldn’t go through because of Covid. It is and interesting place and being in the “paradise” in the middle of nowhere kind of explains why no one expected a 6 Carrier attack to come through on the worst great weather Sunday morning ever.
A more continuous Catalina and naval screen would have made more sense in hindsight but putting the planes close together to prevent sabotage actions too. If we go back in time and warn them of a Kido Butai showing up we would have been declared idiots (like in the Twilight Zone episode).
It is really hard to expect such a massive Japanese gamble attack.
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The 1958 episode is too good not to post and has some great advice for anyone of us with plans to time travel to 1941 (stay off the double scotch and bring the USS Nimitz to the party!)
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Intelligence on the other hand was out there indicating that they should have paid attention to the possibility. Taranto was an indicator of what was possible and the Japanese interest in studying that might have given clues.
As usual though this is a lot of hindsight. Usually signs are there but you never see them until after the smoke clears. All the finger pointing after 9/11 is a classic example of this. Pearl Harbor is equivalent.
Interesting how both have huge conspiracy theory industries built around them.
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Never prepare for what You think the enemy might do, but for what the enemy can do. Japan was incomprehensible underestimated by US starting with the navy treaty from 1923, where Japan was allowed a navy same size as France and Italy. From that day ww2 was only a matter of time. Fairly threated Japan would have become a strong ally, so in my opinion the Japanese / US war was the most unnesseary war ever fought.
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Two things here. Your first statement I wholeheartedly agree with. US military planners did not anticipate what the Japanese might do. Of course neither did the British, Dutch or just about anyone else. We looked down on them and I would admit there there was a degree of racist thinking that goes back at least 100 years before that.
I do not agree that treated right we could have been good allies. As long as Japan was bent on wars of conquest, we were bound to oppose this. The cruelty inherent in the Japanese approach to war would have turned the stomachs of American citizens to know they weee working with the Japanese.
Of course all it took for us to become friends was beating the snot out of each other. What a Hollywood movie theme.
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Yeahh - like a marriage. Once they loved each other, they had a short but hefty argument, and now they love each other again 
And the world still wonderes what caused the argument.
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