22-07-2003 11:50									#31
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quote: Hmm, possibly. I forget. I was probably overstating anyway.

No, he did know about the impending attack. But only just before it happened I believe, leaving little reaction time. He needed a good excuse to get involved with Japanese aggression in mainland Asia, something to drum up support from a nation growing weary of war in Europe. Pearl Harbour wasn't perfect, by any stretch of the imagination, but we must play the cards the universe deals us.

War requires difficult decisions based on incomplete data. You can't know every fact every time. You can only take steps to minimize errors when they happen, or better, prevent some errors from happening. It is up to our elected leaders to determine whether they are making the RIGHT decisions for the RIGHT reasons, as it is also their obligation to own up to their mistakes when they happen...or are discovered.

	22-07-2003 11:54									#32
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quote: It may be, and probably is, my imagination, but I had a perception that news about Afghanistan increased noticeably in volume in July and August of 2001 . . .

Wasn't that around when the Taliban destroyed all those Buddha statues?

	22-07-2003 11:56									#33
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The fleet was in the harbor - they got bombed without fighting back.

The problem was that communication wasn't clear between various agencies. The guy who was overseeing the defense of Pearl Harbor got warnings about a possible attack and concluded that the attack would be from the natives which he distrusted. Combine that with the attitude most servicemen had about a possible attack on Pearl Harbor and you get radarmen fitting what they've hear to what they see (planes incoming must be scheduled bombers even though they're coming from the wrong direction).

	22-07-2003 12:27									#34
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Looking at the day's events, it is awfully scary that NORAD could have beaten any plane to it's location with F-16s, but a) they apparently don't, b) they couldn't do a thing because Bush was reading a book about a goat.

	22-07-2003 13:15									#35
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The carriers were not in Pearl Harbour. The carriers stopped the Japanese from winning the war at Midway.

Intelligence is a very strange thing. Yes, you are reading the enemies transmissions and decoding many of them. However, if you act in certain ways, the enemy will suspect or know that you are reading their transmissions, and they will completely change their systems.

So, you can't totally evacuate Pearl Harbour. To do so would tip the Japanese off that you knew they were coming. You save the most precious assets, the carriers, and hope that that is not suspicious enough to lead them to wholesale changes in signals pracitices that will leave you in the dark after that point.

The Americans did not totally evacuate Pearl. The Japanese felt they were unlucky instead of expected. The Americans continued to read their messages. Midway happened, and the rest of the war was all she wrote from that point on.

The British faced similar moral and command problems with Enigma and other signals intel. Churchill knew Coventry was going to happen, but they could not tip the Germans that they knew. They had to do nothing unusual and let it happen. I would not want to be the guy at the top who had to make such decisions, but those decisions are the difference between victory and defeat.

	22-07-2003 13:36									#36
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Definetely a lot of oddities.

This :

quote: Nov 12, 2001—Mar 25, 2002: 13 renowned microbiologists mysteriously die over the span of less than five months. All but one or two are killed or murdered under unusual circumstances. ...

is very weird.

	22-07-2003 14:29									#37
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quote: Originally posted by Dissident Who thinks G.W. knew about 9/11 and is using the aftermath of that to drum up support for his war on Iraq?

	22-07-2003 14:33									#38
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I hate Bush as much as the next decent human being, but I seem to recall this Paul Thompson guy is associated with Mike Ruppert who is a notorious conspiracy theory wacko.

	22-07-2003 14:34									#39
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about afghan news.

When was that story about those americans held prisoner in Afghanistan? I think they were teaching something they weren't supposed be teaching. So much has happenned since then, I can barely remember.

That is one reason there was a buildup of news regarding afghanistan.