OMNI
“PEARL HARBOR
DAY,” COLONIAL PACIFIC WORLD WAR II ANTHOLOGY #9, December 7, 2024.
Compiled by Dick
Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology.
What’s at stake: So one-sided has been the reporting and
history of the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese on December 7, 1941, that
dozens of “detective” historians have been inspired to correct the record
concerning that “Day of Infamy.” These
writings are found in OMNI’s nine “Pearl Harbor Day” Anthologies beginning in 2008.
CONTENTS
Alfred W. McCoy, To Govern the Globe. Imperial
and Colonial Background. 2021.
CHRISTOPHER MCKNIGHT NICHOLS AND CAMERON GIVENS. “What
Happened After Pearl Harbor Is a Reminder of the Danger of Stereotypes and
Conspiracy Theories.” 2023.
Mark Harmon, Leon Carroll . . . .the Untold Story of Pearl
Harbor. 2024.
AFSC Defended the Persecuted Japanese in California.
TEXTS
PREVIOUS ANTHOLOGIES
#1: 2008; #2: 2010; #3:
2011; #4: 2012; #5: 2013; #6: 2013; #7: 2019; #8: 2020; #9: 2024.
TEXTS PEARL
HARBOR DAY 2024
IMPERIAL AND COLONIAL
BACKGROUND LEADING THE JAPAN’S ATTACK ON PEARL HARBOR ON DEC. 7, 1941.
Alfred W. McCoy,.To Govern the Globe, 2021. )
In February 1909 the US “Great White Fleet”
of sixteen brand-new battleships returned from a fourteen-month voyage around
the world. “In response to the forceful
rise of Japanese naval power, [President Theodore] Roosevelt had sent the ships
of the Atlantic fleet around Cape Horn to show
Tokyo that the United States was indeed a Pacific power. . . .vast cheering
crowds were stunned by the sheer size of the American armada. For the countless thousands who witnessed the
passage of those warships and the millions more who read about them in daily
newspapers, this voyage marked America’s arrival as a major military power.” (191).
BIGOTED MYTHS AND LIES
TO JUSTIFY PROVOKING AND SUSTAINING WWII IN THE PACIFIC
Robert
Fantina. Propaganda, Lies and False
Flags: How the U.S. Justifies Its Wars. Red Hill P, 2020. PP. 84-88.
US provocation of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor; embargoes on
natural resources essential to Japan; US abrogation of the Japanese-American
commercial treaty of 1911; censorship; media as a virtual partner with the
government in promoting the war;, hiding the harsh reality of war; turning the
war into games at home to make it less fearful and more acceptable; films made
to show the war and US combatants as heroic; gov. promoting myth of glorious
death for country.
Every chapter reveals more aspects of US war promotion. E.g.: “While propaganda is as old as war, it
was during the Spanish-American War that newspapers began to have a great
influence. . .as a tool to encourage U.S. war-making,” until now “so-called
‘mainstream’ media is little more than a tool in the hands of the government to
foster its imperial goals.”
Cindy Sheehan wrote the Introduction.
“It is hoped that by recognizing the ‘big lies’ that the U.S. government
tells, people will begin to believe them with less ardor and less frequency. This will be the first step toward changing
the centuries-long U.S. policy of constant war-making.” --D
CHRISTOPHER MCKNIGHT NICHOLS
AND CAMERON GIVENS. “What
Happened After Pearl Harbor Is a Reminder of the Danger of Stereotypes and
Conspiracy Theories.” lIFE (DECEMBER 7, 2023 ). https://time.com/6343399/pearl-harbor-conspiracies-crises/
. . .After WWI, the accusations only
intensified [of treachery of Japanese residents and even citizens] as part of a
renewed campaign in California to restrict the rights of Japanese immigrants.
Claims spread that Japanese spies were active in the state, Japanese farmers
were maneuvering to gain control of its food supply, and Japanese fishermen
were scouting harbor defenses—all in preparation for a coming attack.
There were two immediate effects to these
racist conspiracy theories.
First, white supremacist groups weaponized the
widespread belief in Japanese aliens’ fundamental inability to assimilate to
place severe legal restrictions on them. A new California law circumscribed
Japanese noncitizens' ability to own land. Then in 1922, the Supreme
Court disqualified them from the right to become U.S.
citizens. Finally, in 1924, Congress passed the Johnson-Reed National Origins Act, the most draconian
immigration restriction legislation in U.S. history. It banned Japanese people,
as aliens ineligible for citizenship after the 1922 court decision, from
entering the U.S.
The conspiracy theories also helped to brand
all things “Japanese” as a permanent security liability in the eyes of both
military and civilian intelligence organizations, which increasingly surveilled
people of Japanese descent—regardless of citizenship—on the basis of race
alone.
Two decades later, the legacies of this history
were unmistakable in the response to the Pearl Harbor attacks on Dec. 7.
Renewed conspiracies—alleging an imminent second strike on the U.S. mainland
and the Japanese fifth column preparing for it—created enormous political
pressure, helping push Roosevelt to issue Executive Order 9066. FDR and the U.S. government,
affirmed by the Supreme Court, abridged and overturned basic civil rights
protections to authorize the forced incarceration of Japanese Americans. The
deep roots of the response were evident for all to see. . . .
In a turbulent world, it is imperative that
Americans confront and learn from this history, resist impulsive rapid
reactions, and better separate legitimate security concerns from those
manufactured by longstanding bigotry and conspiratorial thinking. Failing to do
so will harm national security, as well as threaten core American values and
rights, such as equal protection and due process for all citizens and
residents.
Mark Harmon, Leon Carroll. Ghosts
of Honolulu: A Japanese Spy, A Japanese American Spy Hunter, and the Untold
Story of Pearl Harbor. 2024.
Putting the
spotlight on the battle of intelligence that beget one of the most devastating
days in American history, this is the kind of history that reshapes what you
thought you knew.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
"A
fast-paced debut...Espionage buffs will savor this vibrant account."
— Publishers Weekly
A U.S.
naval counterintelligence officer working to safeguard Pearl Harbor; a Japanese
spy ordered to Hawaii to gather information on the American fleet. On December
7, 1941, their hidden stories are exposed by a morning of bloodshed that would
change the world forever. Scrutinizing long-buried historical documents, NCIS
star Mark Harmon and co-author Leon Carroll, a former NCIS Special Agent, have
brought forth a true-life NCIS story of deception, discovery, and danger.
Hawaii,
1941. War clouds with Japan are gathering and the islands of Hawaii have become
battlegrounds of spies, intelligence agents, and military officials - with the
island's residents caught between them. Toiling in the shadows are Douglas
Wada, the only Japanese American agent in naval intelligence, and Takeo
Yoshikawa, a Japanese spy sent to Pearl Harbor to gather information on the
U.S. fleet.
Douglas
Wada's experiences in his native Honolulu include posing undercover as a
newspaper reporter, translating wiretaps on the Japanese Consulate, and
interrogating America's first captured POW of World War II, a submarine officer
found on the beach. Takeo Yoshikawa is a Japanese spy operating as a junior
diplomat with the consulate who is collecting vital information that goes
straight to Admiral Yamamoto. Their dueling stories anchor Ghosts of
Honolulu's gripping depiction of the world-changing cat and mouse
games played between Japanese and US military intelligence agents (and a
mercenary Nazi) in Hawaii before the outbreak of the second world war.
Also caught
in the upheaval are Honolulu's innocent residents - including Douglas Wada's
father - who endure the war's anti-Japanese fervor and a cadre of intelligence
professionals who must prevent Hawaii from adopting the same destructive mass
internments as California.
Ghosts of
Honolulu depicts the incredible high stakes game of naval
intelligence and the need to define what is real and what only appears to be
real.
QUAKERS’ AFSC (12-4-21)
DEFENDED THE INTERNED JAPANESE
Opposing
the internment of Japanese-Americans: Dec. 7 marks the 80th anniversary of the attack on
Pearl Harbor. After the attack, the U.S. government forced more than 100,000
people of Japanese ancestry from their homes into internment camps. Prejudice
against Japanese, and against all Asiatics, was so deeply ingrained in US
foreign policy and the public, that few citizens spoke out against the
blatant violation of Japanese civil liberties.
One exception were the Quakers, whose AFSC was one of the few organizations that
publicly opposed the enormous human rights violation. –D
Contents #8 December 7, 2020
https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2020/12/pearl-harbor-day-colonial-pacific-world.html
Hamilton Fish. FDR, The Other Side of the Coin: How We Were Tricked into World War
II. 1976.
Robert C. Aldridge. December
7, 1941: The Attack On Pearl Harbor. 2010.
OMNI Pearl Harbor
Newsletters #1-8
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