Passing on the lessons from Pearl Harbor

Dec. 7, 1941 was a traject day for the United States. This was the day that the Japanese attacked Pear Harbor. The San Francisco Chronicle interviewed people who reflected on this day. These interviews can help us to understand the lessons from Pearl Harbor and apply them to the current.

Some of the lessons that we can learn from Pearl Harbor are; be prepared, use the intelligents, do not forget, no more war, and more. For most people today Pearl Harbor is a distant event. When we were hit on September 11, 2001, we were shocked. We had forgotten that we were still vunerable to attack. Some people who lived through Pearl Harbor think that there were lessons that we could have applied to Sep. 11, to have avoided it. For example some think that Bush know about the attack and that he let it happen because he needed an excuse to go to war with Iraq. Some think that Resevelt deployed a similar tacktic during Pearl Harbor.

S.S. St. Louis Turned Away

In 1939 the S.S. St. Louis, carrying passengers from Europe, mostly Jews who where trying to escaping the holocaust, was turned away by the U.S. goverment. On board was 937 passengers. Out of those 619 were sent to France, Holland or Belgium and fell under the occupation of Nazi rule. Of those 260 were deported to concentration camps and killed. The passengers onboard the ship were either rescued or prosecuted.

Some of the passengers that were turned away in 1939 now live in the United States. One passenger reflected on the event. He rembers when the U.S. Coast Guard rescued 125,00 Cubans in the Mariel boatlift of 1980. Today he can still not understand why such a big country like the United States would not allow 937 people in.

Reading 5

U.S. Involvement in the Philippines

Michel Goldberg wrote an article for saloon.com about the recent U.S. involvement in the Philippines. In the article he interviewed Chalmers Johnson, "who wrote the acclaimed book "Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire" and taught for 30 years at the University of California." He believes that the U.S. government is using the excuse of the war on terrorism as a way to get U.S troops back in the Philippines. He said that the Islamic groups kidnap civilians and hold them for a high ransom. He said that terrorist terrorize a large group of the population. This groups are criminals, however the U.S. used the word terrorist not criminals.

This is similar to what is going on in Iraq because the U.S. government used the excuse of the war on terror to go into Iraq. According to president Bush Suddam is supporting members of the Al Quida. However Osama Bin Ladden was in Afganistan and many members of Al Quida where also living in that country. Yet Bush did not focus on Afganistan.

Why does the U.S. government say that we need to go into Iraq to stop the terrorist when there are also terrorist in other countries?

Why have we not heard much about the Philippine conflict?

How did this conflict begin?

Reading 4

This reading compared and contrasted the Vietnam War with the current situation in Iraq. Although there are some correlations similarities between the 2 wars there are also many differences. For example there is no national protest against the war in Iraq. Also we are not facing the same amount of casualties for this war. However there are also similarities. For example we are in unfamiliar territory. Our leaders do not know what is going on. We are fighting a war that each day looks more and more like it is never going to end.

Reading 2

This reading consisted of letters written between Khrushchev and Kennedy. The first letter that Krushchev wrote to Kennedy was trying to sweat talk to him. The second letter was more hard line. Kennedy was adviced only to respond to the first letter. I think this was because Kennedey did not want to revoke a political conflict. During this time communism was a brand new idea that had not been tested. Many people thought that it might be a better alternative to democracy. Krushchev's argues at the time made sence. He argued that the Soveit Union had just the same right to practice their form of goverment as the United States had to practive democracy. He reminded Kennedy that the U.S. had missles stationed in Turkey, within striking distance of Russia. He proposed that if Kennedy removed the missels from Turkey that he would take his missels out of Cuba. Kennedy refused this offer. Kennedy beleived that if it came down to nuclear war that the U.S. could beat Russia. Krushchev understood that either the U.S. or Russia enganged in nuclear war that it would not matter if you won because both contries would be devistated. Even if you fired your missels first the enemy would fires thiers minutes latter and at that time we had no defence agaist a nuclear attack.