"A Date Which Will Live in Infamy"

"A Date Which Will Live in Infamy"

Exactly seventy years ago, on the morning of December 7th, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy launched the most devastating attack ever witnessed on American soil.

Deploying some 353 fighters, bombers, and torpedo planes launched from 6 aircraft carriers offshore Pearl Harbor, the sneak attack claimed the lives of 2,402 civilians and military personnel, wounded 1,282, sank or damaged 16 American warships, destroyed 188 U.S. aircraft and marked the beginning of our involvement in World War Two.

The “infamy” to which President Franklin Delano Roosevelt referred the next day during his address to a joint session of Congress is generally interpreted to have meant the attack itself and it was beyond infamous. However, as we learned much later, a lack of preparedness, horrendous mistakes, and possible duplicity on FDR’s part were also contributory factors in America’s losses.

Similar factors played a role sixty years later when Islamic maniacs crashed planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a vacant field in rural Pennsylvania.

If America had learned anything from the 1941 attack, we had forgotten what we learned by September 11th, 2001. If we learned anything from 2001, we have forgotten that as well. Despite security pretenses, the United States is as vulnerable to Muslim fanatics in 2011 as we were ten years ago.

We can play self-satisfying security games and wring our hands all we want, we can strip-search old ladies at airports, and we can fight wars with no strategy for winning but there is only one certain route to defeating an enemy, implementing a resolve for total victory, a resolve we sorely lack.

As a result, America will surely sustain other December 7ths, other September 11ths, perhaps more deadly than those attacks.

Let us remember Pearl Harbor Day and may God grant us the wisdom to avoid its repetition.

Another Day that May Live in Infamy Part One

Another Day that May Live in Infamy Part One

Almost 70 years ago, on December 7th, 1941, America sustained a total of 2,896 mostly military casualties at a little known naval base at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese navy staged a massive sneak attack. It took years but we eventually recovered from what FDR termed “a day which will live in infamy.”

More than nine years ago, on September 11th, 2001, America sustained a total of 2,977 mostly civilian deaths when 19 Islamic reprobates attacked the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. Again, it has taken years but we have substantially recovered, physically if not psychologically.

On Election Day, November 6, 2012 we may or may not be attacked again by Muslim terrorists in our seemingly endless war with Islam. Should that attack come to pass, barring the unimaginable, it still won’t pack the equivalent and immediate emotional shot to America’s gut that Japan’s unprovoked sneak attack on Pearl Harbor or even the devastating attacks of 9/11 accomplished.

Today, according to Obama, in cock-sure concurrence with Muslim-American political commentator, Fareed Zakaria, we are allegedly ready for anything including nuclear terrorism from which we are well able to “bounce back:” http://tiny.cc/p1jmm

Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto’s nightmare of a “sleeping giant” awoke in 1941 and defeated the Axis powers less than four years later; America has yet to fully awaken to the deadly nature of the threat posed by Islam and we are still at war with the Muslim world, fighting their war instead of fighting to win.

However, whatever happens in that endless war, we will assuredly ”bounce back” because, well, because Obama has told us so, which is damned good to hear . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=2832)

I REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR

PEARL HARBOR: I REMEMBER THAT DAY

“History is the sum total of things that could have been avoided.” (Konrad Adenauer)

December 7th ring a bell for anyone? It should, even if you’re less than 67. Sixty seven years ago today, America suffered the worst attack in its history until that dubious distinction was supplanted by the devastation of September 11th, 2001.

I was still in my mother’s womb on December 7th, 1941, yet I remember it well.

I remember that day because of the immense damage caused to our Pacific Fleet by a long-planned and well-executed sneak attack by the Japanese navy, executed coincidentally as Japanese representatives were gathered in Washington for peace talks, executed by a huge, undetected Japanese task force including six aircraft carriers.

I remember that day because of the immensity of the operation, five midget submarines and some 360 planes which began hitting Pearl just before 8 a m on a quiet Sunday morning, an assault in three waves that continued for two hours, resulting in 2,403 Navy, Army, and Marine, and civilian KIAs, wounding an additional 1282 personnel, and damaging or destroying eight battleships, three cruisers, three destroyers, a minelayer, almost 200 aircraft and numerous ground facilities.

I remember that day because of FDR’s speech before Congress asking for a declaration of war when he called December 7th, 1941, “the day that shall live in infamy” in our nation’s history, his speech serving to mobilize and motivate Americans to come together to defeat the Axis powers, which we succeeded in doing within less than four years.

I remember that day because of the controversy which still lingers: What did FDR know and when did he know it? Had he ordered the Pacific Fleet to gather at Pearl Harbor in a defensive maneuver or was that order intended to provide an inviting target for the Japanese, begging an attack to spark outrage in the citizenry and easing our entry into the Second World War?

I remember that day on the 7th of every December as well as on the 11th of every September when other sneak attacks effected an even greater loss of life and wrought far more damage not in a faraway place but on the mainland in New York City, Washington, D.C., and in a field in Pennsylvania.

I remember that day because it should always be remembered, as the events of 9/11/2001 should always be remembered. When we forget such momentous and terrible events or when we simply do not want to recall them, we expose ourselves and our nation to repeated attacks.

“Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum,” (If you want peace, prepare for war), wrote Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus some sixteen hundred years ago and they are still words to live by in 2008. We were not prepared in 1941 and we were not prepared in 2001 and the results were catastrophic.

The more relevant questions are whether we are prepared in 2008 and have we learned anything from history.

(http://genelalor.com/)