It’s Pearl Harbor Day — Trot Out the Official Fable
By Robert Higgs • Tuesday December 7, 2010 10:15 AM PDT • 13 Comments
Sixty-nine years ago, Japanese forces attacked the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, provoking the United States to declare war against Japan. When Japan’s ally Germany declared war on the United States on December 11, 1941, the United States immediately reciprocated. These actions brought the United States into open warfare against the Axis powers and made it a full-fledged participant in the greatest war ever fought. For most Americans, this story is simple: they attacked us; we fought back and defeated them.
Historians have always known, however, that the true story was nothing like this patriotic fable dispensed each year on December 7 for popular consumption. Not long ago, I briefly reviewed some of the elements of this history, linking my statements to some of the most reliable histories publicly available to one and all. (See also my account of how U.S. economic warfare provoked the Japanese attack.) It behooves every educated American to learn this honest history and to pass it along to others when an opportunity arises, because the myth has long contributed, and continues to contribute, to a false view of the U.S. place in the world and to a grave misunderstanding of U.S. foreign policy. Ceaseless dissemination and widespread acceptance of this view is the very model of how the U.S. government tends to do foreign policy: provoke foreigners to attack Americans, then tell the American people that foreigners have attacked us for no reason and therefore we must strike back to defeat them or at least to teach them a lesson about treating the United States with deference.
Along with the myth of Munich, the myth of the Pearl Harbor attack has performed magnificently in keeping Americans dumb and belligerent and in preparing them to sacrifice their children’s lives in the service of the ruling oligarchy. Unless the American people can rise above these historical myths, they stand little chance of freeing themselves from those who would make them the living, breathing but unthinking means for the attainment of their masters’ ends.
Tags: American History, Defense, Germany, Imperialism, Japan, Military, Peace, Power, Propaganda, The State, War 
Thank you for trying to introduce truth into our National conversation.
Jeremy In Kansas | Dec 7, 2010 | Reply
Thanks for the info. I was always skeptical. Related topic in book by Pat Buchanan.
ralph | Dec 8, 2010 | Reply
Nice bogus article. I like how you spend the whole article talking about this grand “truth” but you actually don’t mention it. So I’m wondering, if the US had not embargoed Japan for BUTCHERING 10s OF THOUSANDS OF CHINESE could china then come back and wage war on the US for being a supplier to the Japanese regime? How you could IGNORE the mass slaughter of Chinese is just intellectual dishonesty. Damned if we do and damned if we don’t. So if the U.S. had not embargoed Japan you’d be right now writing an article saying the Chinese were justified in attacking the U.S. for ignoring their plight and supplying the Japanese with fuel so they could continue to wage aggression against China and Mongolia. Attack us as cohorts to the Japanese. Spare us your axe grinding.
BTW, if a country embargoes the U.S. can we go to war with them? I didn’t think so. Play the game fairly or don’t bother with the double standards.
cb750 | Dec 8, 2010 | Reply
cb750,
Well, the U.S. didn’t embargo Great Britain at any point for “butchering” Chinese long before Japan did, nor for the millions of deaths the British caused in India. Nor did the U.S. itself refrain from taking over the Philippines decades before Japan did and killing 250,000 before Japan ever arrived there. In fact, the U.S. and its allies enslaved and murdered East Asians for decades before Japan built it’s first navy boat, and encouraged Japan’s annexation of Korea, so arguing that the embargo against Japan’s actions in China was brought on by a sudden attack of moral scruples is weak in the extreme.
For that matter, what was America doing with its warships and fighter planes on the island of Hawaii in the first place?
Ect | Dec 9, 2010 | Reply
Consider THE IMPERIAL CRUISE, the 2009 book by author James Bradley (FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS, 2000), wherein he argues that Teddy Roosevelt surreptitiously supported Japanese imperialism in Asia in 1905:
http://www.futurequake.com/Audio/FQShow234.mp3
(2-hour radio interview)
Bradley also discusses Britain’s and America’s support of the “opium trade” in China ... as well as just how it was “we” ended up with Hawaii in the first place.
Good info!
Frank in Spokane | Dec 10, 2010 | Reply
“For that matter, what was America doing with its warships and fighter planes on the island of Hawaii in the first place?”
Maintaining a presence in its conquered empire, of course. US warships took over the independent nation of Hawaii by force at the request of US commercial interests in the late 1800′s (before the first powered airplane flight). See here.
polista | Dec 11, 2010 | Reply
The Day That Shall Live in Infamy demonstrates the incredible durability of the lies that Napoleon said (“History is nothing but lies agreed upon”) constitute history.
Institutions (such as the US government) sustain these lies.
Should we sustain such institutions?
N. Joseph Potts | Dec 11, 2010 | Reply
What happens when American moralists (war profiteers) use the govt to police other countries ?
By now, we HAVE lost our freedom, and privacy from govt. We are not a free country anymore. Any person who opposes war waged by the U.S. govt can be blacklisted. Foreigners are being charged with espionage.
Was it worth it for us to sacrifice the young lives of earlier Americans to help other people ?
We are now as disarmed (literally) as were the Chinese peasants murdered by the invading Japanese.
The concept of patriotism has been destroyed. Americans are nothing but govt-loving, freedom-hating Nazis.
Cowards are being heroized in the news media.
The govt tells all kinds of lies to justify its actions. Our own morality, prosperity, and freedom have been destroyed (from within) because we go to war because of people like you.
James Madison warned about this problem. It was not new, it was very common.
Tory II | Dec 11, 2010 | Reply
A good rant, cb750, but you might question your assumptions if you read research in depth. I had posted an historical timeline, of key events, in as objective a way as I could. It’s on my namelink.
For something you would probably find bogus,
The Pearl Harbor Myth, George Victor
http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&tag=wwwcanoniccom-20&index=blended&link_code=qs&field-keywords=pearl%20harbor%20myth&sourceid=Mozilla-search
but it’s well-researched and detailed. This is real history whether you agree with it or not.
Have a nice day.
Novista | Dec 11, 2010 | Reply
Well....I would call Myth by Victor a summary not an original book, but it is okay. Dig deeper into my Pearl Harbor Countdown (2008) and the 2011 Why Stay at Pearl? for reasons we were at Hawaii. See Ed Miller’s Bankrupting The Enemy for a discussion of the embargoes, etc. Or, read all of Donald Goldstein’s works. Read Anderson’s book on General Short. Always a fun argument, but the writer here in Independent is correct...more Americans need to study before jumping into wars.
Skipper | Dec 14, 2010 | Reply
It was shocking when GW Bush first took office and made heroes out of the flight crew that drifted into Chinese space and were “herded” to the ground. In old times, the pilot would have ditched the spy plane instead of leaving it in China to be copied. But, it was refreshing that Obama immediately fired the general who outwardly criticized his plan.It took Truman a bit longer to can MacArthur, and by then we were in a 70 year war...similar to what Bush obligated us to in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Skipper | Dec 14, 2010 | Reply
“For that matter, what was America doing with its warships and fighter planes on the island of Hawaii in the first place?”
That was the question that got Admiral James O. Richardson, fleet commander, fired!
Skipper | Dec 14, 2010 | Reply