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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: haqihana who wrote (135503)	4/4/2001 5:43:30 PM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

OK, but I have never been convinced......

To: haqihana who wrote (135503)	4/4/2001 5:52:17 PM
From: Kevin Rose	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769667

The reason that the Pacific fleet was in Hawaii, and not San Diego, was because FDR was 'rattling the sword'. FDR and Hull thought that having the Pacific Fleet in Hawaii would deter the Japanese. Unfortunately, it didn't, and they HAD to keep it there (in their minds) because moving it back to San Diego would make it look like we were backing down. Sound familiar? This is how wars start; one side tries to back the other down, and so on, until war is inevitable. Now, MacArthur should have been CANNED. He had a full 12 hours or more of warning, and STILL his air fleet was caught on the ground. The Japanese could not believe their good fortune. I wonder why MacArthur was not courtmartialed; probably won't have been prudent to can 'the hero of Bataan and Corrigidor'.

To: haqihana who wrote (135503)	4/4/2001 6:16:16 PM
From: Kevin Rose	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

It's funny, I actually did a paper in high school with the premise that FDR knew the Japanese were going to attack. My theory was that he needed it because he knew we had to get into the war, and being attacked was the quickest way to get public support. Unfortunately, I ended up coming to the conclusion that there was no evidence. It seemed that mostly there was a lot of lethargy and feet dragging involved. Although some commanders believed that an attack on the Phillipines was distinctly possible, no one really dreamed they were bold enough to attack Pearl. Then, a series of real screwups prevented the word from getting out.