Re: [Marxism] Pearl Harbor, etc.

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Bob:
> But after a short aside in which he uses the voice of Thomas A. Bailey to
> call Roosevelt a liar, Zinn continues on the same page: "One of the judges
> in the Tokyo War crimes trial after World War II, Radhabinod Pal,
> dissented from the general verdicts against Japanese officials and argued
> that the United States had clearly provoked the war with Japan and
> expected Japan to act. Richard Minear (Victor's Justice) sums up Pal's
> view of the embargoes on scrap iron and oil, that "these measures were a
> clear and potent threat to Japan's very existence." The records show that
> a White House conference two weeks before Pearl Harbor anticipated a war
> and discussed how it should be justified."
>
> Well, that happens to agree with what Stinnett wrote.

No, it does *not*. The USA understood that it was on a collision course
with Japan over control over raw materials and markets and fully expected a
war. But expecting a war with Japan in general and having foreknowledge of
a specific attack on Pearl Harbor are not the same thing.

> Lacking proof at the time he was writing (20 years before Stinnett
> provided the proof), Zinn uses the voices of Thomas A. Bailey, Richard
> Minear and Radhabinod Pal (rather than his own) to get across the point
> that the US got Japan to attack Pearl Harbor. (But while Zinn realizes the
> importance of the blockades in goading Japan into a war, he's unaware of
> the provocation of the US fleet entering the Sea of Japan and the infamous
> McCollum memo. )

McCollum's memo can be read here:

http://www.coincidencetheories.com/Publication/2005/Jan/images/McCollumMemoTranscribed.pdf

It recommends provoking Japan into a preemptive strike by cutting off oil.
It is fully consistent with a Marxist analysis of WWII. It has more in
common with the Pentagon Papers than anything else. The issue is not
whether US and Japanese expansionism led to war, but rather whether the USA
had foreknowledge of the specific raid on Pearl Harbor and did nothing.

> The key sentence from the McCollum memo is: "9. It is not believed that in
> the present state of political opinion the United States government is
> capable of declaring war against Japan without more ado;"

Right. A raid on Pearl Harbor broke down pacifist and isolationist moods.
But we don't have hard evidence that the USA facilitated a raid on its main
base in the Pacific.

> On the other hand, Zinn seems to be unaware of either the wartime
> correspondence between Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt as well as Karski's
> memoir or the controversies regarding moving the fleet from the safe haven
> of the US Pacific coast to an unprotected Pearl Harbor.

I think that you are far too smitten with controversies.

> One problem faced by Stinnett was that some previous writers taking a
> similar position regarding Roosevelt, were deemed to be too sympathetic
> towards the Japanese. Stinnett is not. He merely describes the actions
> Roosevelt took to get a population that opposed the war by a large margin
> to change their opinion and volunteer for service in the military. Another
> is that many of the people who agree with Stinnett are right-wing
> nationalists like Pat Buchanan.

Right-wing nationalists? That's putting it charitably. He gets rave reviews
at http://www.vanguardnewsnetwork.com/, a website whose home page
announces, "No Jews. Just right." They also like him over at
http://www.ihr.org, a holocaust revisionist website.

> Finally, I realize the fun you have at trying to poke holes in what people
> say, interspersing your comments in a line-by-line or
> paragraph-by-paragraph manner like a professor grading a paper. If you're
> going to do it with me why not stick to what I actually wrote. I said
> nothing about holes in the Pentagon or about the CIA contacting Mohammad
> Atta. I did not quote from Rense either. You seem to want to divert
> attention by pointing out that there are conspiracy theorists (like Rense)
> who are very easily criticized. It's similar to the other side pulling Pol
> Pot out of a hat to 'prove' the evils of socialism.

I have a better idea. Why don't you begin to participate here on the same
basis as everybody else. Is it that you have no interest in broader
questions of the class struggle?


Louis Proyect
Marxism list: www.marxmail.org


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