April 12, 2004
IS HE IGNORANT, OR DOES HE ASSUME WE ARE?
Pre-9/11 doings are coming to light (James P. Pinkerton, Newsday, 4/9/04)
If you knew that President Franklin D. Roosevelt had received a memo a month before Pearl Harbor entitled, "Japanese Determined to Attack the United States in the Pacific," and that he had done nothing about that information, would that knowledge change your perception of FDR as a wise war leader?Leaving aside the idiocy of the Pearl Harbor analogy, which proves the opposite of what Pinkerton thinks it does, and the equal idiocy of arguing that "inside the United States" is a specific location, this column is, in its own way, a perfect example of why our adversaries always assume that democracies can't go to war. (It also answers a question bouncing around the blogosphere: Ben Veniste felt free to wrench the PDB so completely out of context because he knew that those whose opinion matters to him would laud him for his "courage" no matter what.)Roosevelt received no such memo, of course, but President George W. Bush got a blunt warning five weeks before 9/11 and he did little or nothing. He even presided over a stand- down in preparations, concentrating on other concerns.
The Washington Post reported in May 2002 that Bush had received a President's Daily Brief on Aug. 6, 2001, entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." . . .
[Ben-Veniste] wasn't prohibited from asking Rice the title of the PDB. And she obliged: "I believe the title was, 'Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.'" Ouch. Just moments after she had said intelligence was "not specific" about the place of attack, here's a presidential-level document warning, specifically, that al-Qaida's target wasn't overseas somewhere, but rather the United States itself.
David Colton, Washington lawyer and veteran of the intelligence world, observes of this exchange: "Ben-Veniste hypnotized her." Colton adds, "She fell into the rhythm of a smart lawyer's questions, and so blurted out the single most damning admission of these hearings."
After just about any military action, the officers involved, up and down the line, file after-action reports. These reports are key in figuring out what happened, what went right and what went wrong, and how planning and preparation could have been better. After 9/11, there is an obvious need for that type of investigation. But rather than a useful, productive investigation, we have one that is self-consciously involved in partisan politics, that conducts its business in public, with commissioners who grandstand for the media, and in which those involved are judged against a standard of perfection informed by hindsight. Unless Kean and Hamilton do a superhuman job, nothing of use will come of the commission, which is a pity.
Posted by David Cohen at April 12, 2004 9:32 AMWhy leave aside Pearl Harbor? The example seems at least comparable, if not even more damning of FDR. Not only were we quite certain that the Japanese were going to attack us, he goaded them into it by actions like the oil embargo. The problem was that he and his administration were so contemptuous of them for racial reasons that he failed to imagine they might attack the fleet at Pearl. Indeed, he overruled objections by the Navy and kept it stationed there even though they warned of the likelihood of an attack and about our vulnerability.
Likewise, we knew al Qaeda wanted to attack on our soil but we drastically underestimated just what they could achieve.
Posted by: oj at April 12, 2004 9:42 AMI should have said, "Leaving aside the idiocy of Pinkerton's misunderstanding of Pearl Harbor . . .". This is a pretty good overview of the run up to Pearl Harbor.
Posted by: David Cohen at April 12, 2004 9:51 AMArticles like these are bad for the old blood pressure. This is like the charge that Iraq was invaded without a postwar plan. Why does the media give wide play to accusations like this without demanding the accuser state what exactly he or she thinks should have been done?
That was a rhetorical question.
It's fine to ask how many American deaths Iraq is worth, but who will have the guts to ask how many a presidential defeat is worth?
Posted by: Peter B at April 12, 2004 10:09 AMMr. Judd;
As painful as it is, I must provide some defense for FDR, even if he was one of our worst Presidents. It needs to be remembered that before the actual attack, it was considered technologically impossible to successfully attack ships in Pearl Harbor from the air. This is actually another way the two attacks are similar, in that part of the complacency came about because the actual mechanics of the attack were out of the bounds of the then current thinking.
I think FDR was far more culpable for the sorry state of our bases and assets in our other Pacific holdings, particularly the Philipines.
I'll also point out that FDR's "goading" of the Japanese isn't far from President Bush's current policy. FDR's embargo and other efforts against the Japanese before the war were a direct challenge to Japan's conquest and devastation of China, just like the dispute with Iraq stems from their conquest and devastation of Kuwait. The Rape of Nanking was in 1937-1938, not after 1941. Mr. Cohen's cited article mentions this, although the author seems to not realize that Korea had been conquered long before Japan invaded China.
Posted by: Annoying Old Guy at April 12, 2004 10:24 AMJust over a year ago Pinkerton was talking about how the inital incursion by U.S. troops into Iraq would be a disaster, so he has a habit of every so often going off on tangents and overhyping his own beliefs into a pessimistic prediction of the future outcome for the war on terror and for Bush's re-election hopes in general (I believe the clinical term for this is "Bill Krystol disease").
Posted by: John at April 12, 2004 2:55 PMIf you're going to praise Hanson in one post, it makes no sense to disparage Roosevelt in another.
FDR was in no position to confront Japan militarily, because of Republican pacifism.
His officers did send out a "war warning" to all commanders in November, and they provided Hawaii with nearly all the modern interceptors that we had.
That an incompetent like Short was in command and made no provision to use them can hardly be laid at a president's foot.
I'd agree there are valuable lessons to learn from what went on in 1941, but you have to know what did go on first to understand the.