Opposition paper

Many would argue many points saying that FDR could and would never let so many people die just so he could get America into the war. Now it's a very good point since it is human nature, specially for a president, to not be able to sacrifice thousands of lives just for his wants. The attack at Pearl Harbor alone caused 2403 deaths and 1178 wounded soldiers and citizens. It moreso wounded the Nation and made it harder to attack back, but a must. Now many will say that they cracked the Japanese military code long before the attack and knew it was coming, but no one is sure of these dates even to this day since the log was taken and never found again. It is argueable that the Americans did decifer the code but that they had no idea where the attack was to occur. In FDR's December 8, 1941 speech, he states, "It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time, the Japanese government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace." Now this statement shows that America had no idea or intentions of ever attacking Japan or getting involved in the war at all. He continues, "I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost. In addition, American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu." Would someone really say and act like they have so much regret about this tragedy and not mean it? Its hard to say. Now as for FDR choosing to cut off supplies to Japan being the start of their contention, he had a good reason for it. Japan was using those supplies to try and take over other Countries and attacking them, and as U.S. was staying neutral, we had no other choice but to stop with the help we were giving them. Even though it backfired and caused contention between the U.S. and Japan, it stopped them from making major moves they were planning. As it has been stated, the bomb threat message was translated days before the attack, but according to the translators, a location was never discovered. Then FDR was scrambling, knowing an attack was coming but not knowing where, he called over to Pearl Harbor and told them if they sensed or saw anything coming to man down and let them attack first before doing anything to get them back. That is where catastrophy occured since the U.S. had no knowledge of an attack coming there way, they couldn't be prepared to fight back until most of everything was destroyed. By the time they could fight back, there wasn't much they could do except wait for it to be over. The Japanese finally retreated before their third wave since they had lost the aspect of surprise and felt they had done enough damage to get their point across and really damage the Americans. They, however, forgot to hit the oil tanks which would have stale mated everyone at Pearl Harbor and kept them from being able to do most of anything.




"But in the end, Admiral Yamamoto and the Japanese planned and carried out the attack. It was not through the willingness of FDR to let the attack happen but through the ineptitude of commanders of Pearl and the Japanese plan of attack that it was such a devastating blow. I am sure FDR had to have known Pearl was in Japan’s sights, but no one knew it would be at 5:30 a.m. on December 7, 1941, a day that will live in infamy." (3)