The Other Day That Lives in Infamy

Until 9/11, Pearl Harbor was the only attack on our homeland. On December 7, 1941, the attack caused massive deaths, destroyed every ship in port, and signaled the beginning of our entry into World War II. The nation was shocked by the attack, which took place on a quiet Sunday morning. Unlike Al Qaeda, Japan focused their air attacks on US military targets. We suffered devastating losses, and President Roosevelt addressed Congress and asked for a declaration of war. Up to this time Congress had been opposed to declaring war on Germany, but we were justified in declaring war against Germany as well because they had an alliance with Japan. We were so fearful of the Japanese we proceeded to round up all Japanese Americans and intern them in the desert for the duration of the war.

Looking back, the events that preceded the war had many similarities to our predicament today. The stock market crashed in 1929. Roosevelt was elected in 1932 on a campaign of change- The New Deal. Unemployment was peaking about that time. By1934 the nation was mired down in a horrendous depression and Republicans took many Congressional seats away from the Democrats. The recovery programs undertaken by Roosevelt just couldn’t work fast enough to make people feel that economic recovery was happening. Republicans saw his first two years in office as a failure to pull America out of the depression, and they accused him of dragging America down the slippery road to ruin with a Socialist agenda. A downtrodden, unemployed America, responded by voting against his party two years after his landslide victory.

By 1936 the stimulus programs were beginning to run out. Roosevelt won re-election, but it wasn’t the landslide of ‘32, and increased Republican strength in Congress hampered his ability to enact new programs. America slipped backwards into a recession in 1937. The economy was struggling. Then Germany invaded Poland in September 1939. President Roosevelt began a massive build up of military equipment in anticipation of possible war. The military build up was a second stimulus, with all the effort being applied to employ as many people as possible. Unlike the civilian stimulus programs like the WPA and CCC, the military build up was highly bi-partisan and received the full support of Congress. Congress remained against the war even in the face of relentless blitz-kreg air bombing of England, but our entry into the war was only a matter of time.

It took a massive attack on our homeland to turn Congress in favor of declaring war. The war is credited with pulling us out of the depression. Government spending at unprecedented levels got everyone back to work and then some. The productivity of the American workers still defies believability even today. In 1943 America produced 120,000 aircraft. In one year! Today our production goals for new aircraft are in the range of one aircraft per day, or 365 aircraft a year. The greatest generation did the impossible, and they did it over and over. It was our finest hour. In less than four years we defeated two major adversaries simultaneously on two oceans and two continents.

Germany and Japan surrendered unconditionally. They stopped fighting. We never had to worry about guerrilla warfare or IEDs in Tokyo after the war. When the war ended, everyone was at peace. The enemy accepted defeat and conducted themselves with humility and compliance to our demands.

The enemy we’re fighting today in Afghanistan has no military equipment to speak of. They don’t have aircraft, tanks, ships, or submarines. They have guns, rocket propelled grenades, shoulder launched missiles, and improvised explosive devices. We have the best military equipment ever made. We have worldwide instant communications, instant satellite visual coverage of the battle space, instant location of every soldier on the battlefield, the most modern Army, Marines, and Air Force in the world. We out number Al Qaeda by over a hundred to one. Yet if we ever defeat Al Qaeda, the outcome won’t be the same. Al Qaeda will never surrender despite our overwhelming force. We continue to search out this adversary nine years after hostilities commenced.

The troops deserve our greatest respect for serving their country, but this is not our country’s finest hour. This war feels like Vietnam, despite the President’s claim to the contrary.