This note is going to get me in some trouble with some of you. Some of you will cry “America Hater”; some will say “he’s retarded” (probably closer to the truth) and most of you will say… “meh”. That’s OK. Those of you that know me, know I am not an America hater, or a person that is gratuitously anti-war. But something is not quite right in this country, and it's not Obamas fault or Bushs' fault, etc, etc, etc. It is a grievous wound & it is deep.
My Uncle Marsh was there that morning, at the base depot, getting some spares for the gun turret he & his team were repairing. He was a civilian shipyard worker at the time - that wouldn’t last long. Eventually, three more of my uncles would join Marsh & my Dad in the Pacific War.
Pearl Harbor has been frameworked as a sneak attack by massive naval air forces by Imperial Japan. The term “sneak attack” is not a precise one. We knew the Imperial Japanese Fleet was underway when they left Yokosuka, earlier in November. And while conspiracy folks will claim Roosevelt knew the where & when, this is not accurate either. Target lists included the Guam, The Philippines & Wake Island. All were attacked in the 3 day period between December 7th and 10th. Excuse for entry into the war, to help Churchill? Consider for a moment, that Adolf Hitler did NOT declare war on the USA on December 10th. What excuse then? No European Theater for us! What if, in a fit of pique (over Japans refusal to help Germany, by invading Siberia), Hitler declared war on JAPAN instead, announcing he would ally Germany with the US against them? Neutralizing ANY effort to help Great Britain. Good Lord!
And while it’s always interesting to explore these scenarios, they are not the subject of this rant. The Pearl Harbor attacks’ effect on our psyche, our way of thinking since, indeed, our way of like as Americans, is.
The response to Pearl Harbor, even now, reflects a general viewpoint in harmony with the belief that we were dealing an isolated occurrence, unrelated to Asian history or world affairs, and is to be considered, even now, as a subjective event to be seen through the eyes of a politically naive sailor, several decks down on an exploding ship, or a housewife standing on a rooftop five miles from the embattled Base, describing the smoke and the noise of the explosions. And editorial writers still produce copy which reads like more indignant screeds contemporaneous with the event. For most journalists, it is simply another occasion to tie the past into contemporary opportunism and to use it to buttress current policy, in one way or another. The fact is, Pearl Harbor was anything but an isolated incident, and it’s effects linger still in the psyche of American foreign policy. Lets look at some facts, through the lens of present-day policy.
The United States has 6,702 installations, some large, most small (less that 50 personnel) around the globe. 96 large bases are in U.S. territories around the globe, and 702 of them are in some 130 plus foreign countries. But as Chalmers Johnson has documented, the figure of 702 foreign military installations is too low, for it does not include installations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Kosovo, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Qatar, and Uzbekistan. Johnson estimates that an honest count would be closer to 1,000.
The number of countries that the United States has a presence in is staggering. According the U.S. Department of State's list of "Independent States in the World," there are 192 countries in the world, all of which, except Bhutan, Cuba, Iran, and North Korea, have diplomatic relations with the United States. All of these countries except one (Vatican City) are members of the United Nations. According to the Department of Defense publication, "Active Duty Military Personnel Strengths by Regional Area and by Country," the United States has troops in 135 countries.
The question is why, and the answer is never approached. I did several Google searches today on “present-day effects of Pearl Harbor” & the like. Not a single hit advanced anything outside of the “indignant screed” I previously referenced, or a stereotypical “hater” commentary about the USA being a terrorist state, provoking the Japanese, blah, blah, blah. Every single sane entry was focused on the all-to-famialr recitation we are familiar with - the "sleeping giant" reference, Admiral Yamamotos' admonishment that he could "run wild" in the Pacific for only 6 months. the event as a mobilizing factor for US citizens... we know all this already. None of these views informs the evolution of American foreign policy, Intelligence and military frameworks due to the Pearl Harbor attack, in my opinion.
Before World War Two (the so-called “inter-war” period), the USA was a sleepy country, still in the throes of the Great Depression. Military reserve readiness was minimal, with just over 127,000 active duty Army troops, and just under 180,000 for the Navy & Marine Corps. Pre-war mobilization in 1940 called for ramping up to 1.2 million troops via National Guard mobilization. The Senate did not ratify the League Of Nations Treaty (pre-war version of the UN), and the American People were distinctly Isolationist (led by none other than Charles Lindberg) in their attitude toward foreign policy. Pearl Harbor changed all that, and permanently.
During the war, in order to ensure victory, Generals Marshall & Arnold led the effort to totally integrate industrial production & innovation into military operational objectives-- the so-called "military/industrial complex" the US had been evolving since the Civil War (and that President Eisenhower warned us of) was now a matter of fact...
Demobilization after the war was swift and led to a grievous shortfall of men & materiel when The Korean War began in 1950. This would not do, so during and after that conflict, things would change. Funding for the military did not demobilize much of anything, bases were constructed from Antarctica to Greenland, and CIA was tasked with more covert missions, with the money to carry these out. From Guatemala to Iran, CIA was on the move worldwide to shape the world as our foreign policy saw fit. In 1952, the National Security Agency was founded, and the “Puzzle Palace” began an epic sweep of electronic signal intelligence & analysis everywhere. And so the “Pearl Harbor-iztion” of national military/State department policies began.
Our continuous military buildup since World War II and the 702 plus military bases we currently maintain in other people's countries is the result. Yet as 9/11 so heinously points out, such expansion, amounting to military Keynesianism, has not brought us all that much increased security. The question has to be asked - is this buying us anything?
Honestly, I just don’t know. I can see the point that a lot of this infrastructure is wasted time, effort & money. But on the other hand, we DO have enemies that should not be ignored. Then again, this expansion may explain why we are hated around the world. The concept of "blowback" does not just mean retaliation for things our government has done to and in foreign countries, something I have direct personal experience with. It refers to retaliation for the numerous covert operations we have carried out abroad, that were kept totally secret from the American public. This means that when the retaliation is visited upon us -- as it did so spectacularly on September 11, 2001 -- the American public is unable to put the events in context. So they tend to support acts intended to lash out against the perpetrators, thereby most commonly preparing the ground for yet another cycle of blowback.
I'm often asked why we have 530,000+ troops in over 53 countries worldwide... why NSA & CIA scarf up every electronic signal in existence, why Americans appear so paranoid, and why all this effort fails from time to time. Pearl Harbor seared & embedded the fear of sneak attack into the psyche of this nation, affecting us right down to the present.
I make no judgement for good or ill, but some peeling back has to be done, for we just can’t afford this either in national morale, statecraft or monetary terms.
No comments:
Post a Comment