Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Blood For Oil

  A lot of the revisionist history about the attack on Pearl Harbor is actually pretty old; charges that President Roosevelt had foreknowledge of the attack and allowed it to happen started the day after the attack and have never gone away.  

  There is also a popular theory that the Japanese were really the victims of American aggression. The United States cutting off supplies of vital resources, especially oil, was an offensive act that forced the Japanese to attack lest their industry, therefore economy and people, suffer.  I've found this theory particularly interesting because it gets trotted out with predictable regularity during online discussions about American policy and shows just how compartmentalized people's thinking can become.  

  Typically, someone will make this charge.  I wait, then ask them to explain more fully.  After they do so, I state "So you think America is justified in invading Iraq for oil."   I can hear the gears grinding.  Fine sport.

  What's odd is that they just recoil and make a different charge.  I was on a forum in which a woman stated that the U.S. was using the International Monetary Fund (Jooos!) to impoverish North Korea, which was why North Korea was so belligerent.   I thought I spoiled the party by pointing out that North Korea didn't belong to the IMF.

  Blink. Blink.  Whirrr...

  "The AmeriKKKans are keeping the North Koreans poor by preventing them from joining the IMF."

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