Awful Truth

A Dark Heart

 We are witnessing a horrible truth. We arm ourselves with our beliefs, our words, and our actions to the point of mutual destruction. The barbaric measures being employed by Putin and his troops are the result of insular thinking. Thinking that only I know the way. Only I have the the answers, and anybody who would dare disagree is vermin, scum and traitors, impure, and deserve to be destroyed. His threats of using supersonic missiles and bombs, capable of knocking out underground shelters have already become a reality. His plan seems to be to flatten Ukrainian cities. The death of civilians is incidental, because they are subhuman (see the names). He rarely calls his enemies by name. 

Mutual Destruction

So far, the western allies have refrained from direct armed response, but how much longer will that restraint hold. During the Cold War there was mutual restraint. It was called mutually assured destruction. It kept the US and Soviet Union from from stumbling into a hot war. Historians refer to the nuclear arms race of the Cold War as an example of Mutual Assured Destruction since it was clear to both the United States and the Soviet Union that if either attacked the other, then it would ultimately lead to total destruction for both. historycrunch.com. 

Putin has already used chemical and biological warfare in previous confrontations, he has made clear he will use supersonic weapons, and now threatens the use of nuclear weapons. He blows up civilian targets, hospitals schools and cultural sights. Putin justifies it all because he sees himself as on a mission from God to save democracy from the hedonist western alliance. 

Brut force is a means to an end.

Facts Matter: Three Myths About Pearl Harbor

Misinformation and Distortion

A Time Magazine article by Olivia Waxman punches holes in three myths about Pearl Harbor.

#1 The war did not start World War Two. Japan invaded China in the early 1930s, and Germany invaded Poland in 1939, drawing much of Europe into the conflict.

#2 The attack started a huge volunteer movement in the US to fight Japan. In fact, most combatants were drafted.

#3 The attack woke a sleeping giant. The fact is the giant was already awake with a draft in place, Lend-Lease and sanctions against Japan.

Deja-Vu?

"The U.S. was certainly not “sleeping” at the time of Pearl Harbor. The Roosevelt administration had been playing hardball with the Japanese for years, trying to get Japan to lay off its war of conquest in China. The U.S. had embargoed all sorts of strategic goods and raw materials to Japan: weapons, aviation fuel, scrap iron. And in the the summer of 1941, Washington had actually placed a freeze on all Japanese assets in the U.S. and made it impossible for Japan to purchase oil."

"The country was deep into the process of converting the economy from consumer goods to wartime production. So the giant wasn’t really “sleeping”, even if the fleet at Pearl Harbor was surprised by the initial blow."

"As to that Yamamoto quote? Well, it’s been impossible to find the actual source. Most of us first heard it in the blockbuster film Tora! Tora! Tora! in 1970, so it’s more Hollywood than history. The producer said the screenwriter found [the quote] in a letter, but no one has really been able to produce the letter or confirm who the recipient was."

Getting It Right Matters

Over time, as stories are told and retold, they change. That may be because of our inability to remember narratives exactly as they were told to us. This is innocent enough. It could also be intentional like the reframing of the narrative of the Civil War by Southern historians to The Lost Cause. The Lost Cause offers justification to the cruelties of slavery and Jim Crow laws that denied human dignity. They even used the Christian Bible to reinforce their claims. Check out The Curse of Ham. The same thing is happening now around the false narrative of the January 6th insurrection. Trump and his enablers would have us believe their attempt to violently overthrow a lawful election is their patriotic duty.

Now What?

The sanctions against Japan sound familiar. Kind of like the threats against Russia today if they invade Ukraine. And the proposed sanctions against China as it flexes its military might. Are we headed down that path? This is unsettling, to say the least. Do we even have a choice? Jumping immediately to conflict leads to...what? What we do depends on getting the lessons of the past right.