Petr - To call the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour "cowardly" is just silly rhetoric. it was clever, it was savage, it was bold and imaginative, it was aggression, but it was anything but cowardly. The USA and Japan both knew war was inevitable in late 1941 or early 1942. They both knew Japan would strike the first blow. The only questions were...exactly when and where?

The US Navy had been on high alert for weeks, expecting an imminent Japanese attack in a number of places, Pearl Harbour included.

The Japanese, for their part, estimated that they might well lose half of their attacking force at Pearl Harbour (ships included) if detected on the way in, or even if NOT detected on the way in. They took American fighting ability VERY seriously.

To call it "cowardly" bears no connection to reality...it's just a knee jerk way of saying "I don't like what the Japanese did". Fine, but it was not cowardly...it was just as courageous as Custer's attack at Little Big Horn, but way better planned. He lost that one, remember? He was a scoundrel at times, and a liar at times, but he was no coward, and neither were the Japanese.

I am sick of people calling other people "cowards" when there is no basis for it and it just is used as a way of saying that those other people are evil and inciting hatred against them. Say they were wrong, say they were warmongers, say they were agressors...but they were NOT cowards.

Are your boys who drop B-52 bombloads from 20,000 feet on guys with small arms cowards? They could hardly be safer if they were sitting at home watching the World Series...

It does not follow that people who do things you do not like are cowards. The Israelis have hit the Arabs numerous times with surprise air attacks rather comparable in their effect to Pearl Harbour. Are the Israelis cowards? I don't think so.

Surprise attack is the nature of modern war...only a complete idiot, once the decision to fight has been made, tells the other side "I will be striking Pearl Harbour next week, on Sunday morning, so expect to see me there, old chap, and we'll have a jolly good battle! Tally Ho!"

And if you're going by that stupid movie they did recently, forget it. It was a joke. "Tora, Tora, Tora" tells the real story.

Carol - No government out there is fighting for "principles", they are all fighting for supremacy. Period. The deluded people who enlist and get killed are the ones who still think they're fighting for principles.

- LH