Little Hawk, I wasn't trying to imply that you were passing on the canard about FDR knowingly allowing that Pearl Harbor attack (some people maintaining that he knew exactly when and where it was going to happen, right down to the serial numbers on the tails of the Japanese planes [if any]). And I'm aware that you're very knowledgeable about WWII and if I have any questions about the subject, I know you're the person to ask.

Calling on my young memory of the times, I heard a lot of people (my father included) who, somewhat appalled at what the Japanese were doing in China, and regarding them as nearly as dangerous as Germany was in Europe—ambitions to conquer the world—were glad when the United States stopped selling scrap metal to Japan to be made into weapons to use on other countries. There may have been a lot of other things that pissed Japan off at the U. S., but as I recall, at the time, this was considered to be a biggy. There may have been other "provocations" (you're probably more up on that than I am), but not everyone in the U. S. was indifferent to what was going on in Europe and Asia.

What has me grinding my teeth is when neo-cons try to draw a parallel between Roosevelt's seeing the necessity of getting the United States involved in the war to try to stop the Axis cancer from growing and engulfing the world, and Bush's preemptively invading another country that was not the base for al Qaeda and terrorist attacks in general;   in fact, Bush and his cohorts knew perfectly well that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden hated each other's guts. Al Quada's activity such as the attack on the World Trade Center was a criminal act, not an act of war, and should have been responded to as such.

Trying to compare Bush with Roosevelt is like trying to compare a yapping jackal with a lion.

Don Firth