If Pearl Harbor happened today, would the left respond by saying "we need to know why they hate us?"

Question

And blame the U.S. for the attack?

Answer 1

Thats exactly what they would do.

Answer 2

You must be a young whippersnapper. If you read your history books you will see that the so called left were in charge when the Japanese attacked Pearl. The response was to go after them with all we had and the public fully supported the war effort because we were hit by an envading force on our own Navy that killed 1,000's of Saliors, Airmen, Marines and Army. Men lined up for miles to join in the fight and at that time the pay was 50.00 per month. Pride was the key. It wasn't 20 or so indiviuals who hit us.It was a Japanese Naval Force like no one had ever seen. The attack was and would be today, blamed on a country, not a single nut case.

Answer 3

This is the exact sentiment echoed in the pages of various Leftist journals of the day. In fact Communists vacilated between supportt for the Axis powers and support for the war effort. They shifted along with the policies of the Soviets under Uncle Joe (Stalin). Funny thing about the Pearl Harbor attack in that the Left used the argument, "We should not be involved in the fight against Hitler. Germany didnt attack us at Pearl Harbor. The war against Hitler is hurting America's ability to combat the threat from Japan. By involving ourselves in the European war, we were placing too much of a burden on our already over-extended military resources. Hitler is Europe's problem"

These were among the most common anti-war arguments from Leftist "intellecutals" at the time. I have to add however that Trotskyists were as opposed to Stalin as they were to the Axis Powers.

Answer 4

Apples to oranges nut job!
There is no comparison to Iraq and Pearl Harbor. It would be like Japan attacking Pearl Harbor and we invade Taiwan.

Answer 5

911 was pretty similar to Pearl Harbor and no one on the left said that then. In fact we were pretty united as a country and most of the world sympathized with us. The left was all for going into Afghanistan and finding bin Laden. It was only after Bush gave up on bin Laden and went into Iraq, that he lost the support of left and most of the world. I for one would still like to see those responsible for 911 brought to justice. When will it happen?

Answer 6

The problem with 'terrorism' is that it is not identifyible with a specific country. "Pearl Harbor" was defined by a specific country and thus there was a definition of what would constitute a 'win' "Defeat Japan"

Unlike our situation today, the act of terrorizing is by anyone that feels 'attacked' by another group, from any country, to accomplish a cause without geographic gain.

Answer 7

If Pearl Harbor happened today I would wonder what the heck the Japanese are being so insanely stupid for by attacking one of their biggest customers. Just blame everything on the left - it makes you at least look more intelligent... NOT.

Answer 8

The US was racist, short-sighted...no, make that stupid, for not seeing Pearl Harbor coming. China was supposed to be our ally, but we let Japan rape, pillage, and burn China at will, while we sat around putting innocent Japanese people in internment camps and thinking, "it won't happen to us."

If it happened to China, why wouldn't the Japanese move to the east with their attack? I mean, Pearl Harbor was a tragedy...but it was avoidable.

Kinda like how the Twin Towers attack was avoidable. If you ignore intelligence, reports, previous attacks, tips, all that, and then say, uh, we didn't see it coming!...God help you. God help our arrogant, stupid country for seeing a threat and assuming we're too good to be attacked.

Happened at Pearl Harbor, happened on 9/11, will probably happen again unless we learn to respond to a threat before it becomes a done deal.

And as far as figuring out why they hate us...do you really think the majority of people would change even if it would avert an attack? Puh-leeze. We're too entrenched, too set in our right to be a*sholes to let a little thing like avoiding conflict to change our ways. If you told most people that they would have to change their actions, their attitudes, their relationship to the world at large to avert an attack, I mean, really told them exactly what to do to stop getting people to hate us, they'd say, f*ck that.

I'll just stay an a*shole, then slap a flag on my car and yell that we should go to war when the attack happens.

Why should we act like a*sholes to the world, then put our own people at risk to fight our battles because even though we're a big bully, we're also a big pu*sy? Wouldn't it be a hell of a lot better if we didn't present ourselves in such an antagonistic way?

The best battle is the one you never fight. If my actions could keep some soldier from having to fight, then f*ck yeah, I'll change. How many soldiers and civilians and innocent bystanders could we save if we figured out why people hate us so much and then...stop doing it?

But since I don't see that happening, we could at least use the intelligence we have to avoid further attacks. I mean, we should have helped China, for sure. But even if we don't help our allies (like, say, Britain...how long were they asking for help before we dragged our a ss over there to help them out, hmmmm?) we should at least cover our own a ss. When the same group who attacked the Twin Towers says that they're going to do it again...the least we could do is protect it. Monitor the group. Monitor the activities of its members. Monitor reports and tips.

Because who gives a f*ck what intelligence comes out after the fact. Threat response only works ahead of time.

And what exactly is wrong with introspection as a country? We SHOULD figure out why people hate us so much. Sure, it's more work, but it's important to stop being such a hated country, because we're obviously doing something wrong. It's just defensive arrogance to say that terrorists don't have a point.

Not that they should resort to terrorism to make their point--that's reprehensible.

But we should figure out why they hate us if only to stop their attacks.

Answer 9

The far left would and the media would be right behind them and if we attacked Japan if the War was not over in 30 days with no losses of life for our military and Japan's civilians we would be the war criminals.

Answer 10

Possibly. The Democrats of today are vastly different than the Democrats of the Pearl Harbor days.

Answer 11

And the press would be throwing around words like "quagmire."

Trichbopper - Germany didn't attack Pearl Harbor, either.