Misguided Critics Of Pearl Harbor Attack 1941

Posted: 9/9/2017

Trigger

In recent times, I have seen a number of libertarian articles quite critical of the Pearl Harbor Attack of 1941 and the subsequent U.S. intervention in World War II.

Here is one of them: Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy

Similar, critical articles come out almost on cue every anniversary of the attack.

Recurring Themes Of The Critique

Usually, we find following typical arguments in those articles:

1. The U.S. intelligence service was able to crack one of the Japanese government cipher codes
2. The U.S. first imposed severe economic sanctions on imperial Japan, which is for e.g. naive libertarians akin to an act of war
3. The Commander in Chief of Pearl Harbor (Husband E. Kimmel) and the second in command (Walter Short) were made scapegoats in the aftermath of the infamous attack

As far as the story of successful cracking of imperial Japanese cipher codes are concerned, the story is not that simple as you may guess from reading about it on e.g. the NSA Museum website:

1. It were the diplomatic messages not the military messages that the U.S. was able to read
2. Would it have been prudent to save Pearl Harbor, but jeopardize the capability to continue to read secret messages? What would you have done, had you been in the shoes of the decisionmakers at the time?

I don’t think, the U.S. imposed economic sanctions on imperial Japan preceded the brutal invasions and attacks carried out by the military of imperial Japan on its Asian neighbors.

That Kimmel and Short were probably made scapegoats was all too human in the face of such a devastating attack. Hopefully, one day a U.S. President will find the courage to restore these two officers.