Remember Pearl Harbor the Day of Infamy

Sixty-six years ago on December 08, 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivered his famous speech, in regards to the attack on Pearl Harbor.

December 8, 1941
To the Congress of the United States:
Yesterday, Dec. 7, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy - the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with the government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific.

The above is an excerpt of FDR's speech. History is usually interesting and always relevant. The importance of remembering such events is so we don't allow America to fall asleep again. It is easy to attack a sleeping giant, and Americans forget very quickly. The attacks on September 11, 2001 (9/11) are a glaring example of this intentional forgetfulness. Denial and conspiracy theories are not a new phenomenon born from the terror attacks on 9/11. There was widespread conspiracy theories advanced shortly after the Japanese attacked the U.S. and many of those theories are still entertained today, I'm sure sixty-six years from now the same will still hold true. The attack on a civilian target on 9/11 caused more casualties than the attack on Pearl Harbor. At our peril, we forget the lessons that history holds.

The reliability of our national intelligence capabilities is understandably questioned. Logic and evidence, however, should not be ignored. The results of numerous world intelligence reports regarding Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction was relied upon as a precursor to the war against Iraq. The failure to recover WMD's post or pre invasion caused the consternation of many, to say the least. What was forgotten was the ridicule Hans Blix the UN weapon's inspector suffered first at the hands of Baghdad with the consistent cat and mouse games employed by the Saddam Hussein regime and then at the UN when he reported the discovery of suspicious equipment and/or activity. It was apparent that it was politically expedient for the inspector and his team to come up empty handed. What was forgotten or ignored by many were the threats by Saddam, the prior use of WMD's, the aid and succor provided to terror groups. We failed to recognize the threat by the Saddam Regime.

Today, we have a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) produced by the U.S. National Intelligence Council (NIC). The latest NIE CYA (cover your posterior) report on Iran reveals that Iran stopped its nuclear endeavors in 2003. I do not doubt this report, just the significance and the political intent. The Irony of the report indicates that President Bush was correct in assessing Iran's nuke race in 2003. Recently, Hillary Clinton found the courage or political savvy to join President Bush and V.P. Cheney in declaring the Iran guard a terror outfit.

The NIE is a CYA report due in part to the following excerpt gleaned from sections of the actual report available to the public, and can be found here in its entirety for your perusal: NIE Report.

An excerpt:
This NIE does not assume that Iran intends to acquire nuclear weapons. Rather, it examines the intelligence to assess Iran's capability and intent (or lack thereof) to acquire nuclear weapons, taking full account of Iran's dual-use uranium fuel cycle and those nuclear activities that are at least partly civil in nature.

This Estimate does not assess how Iran may conduct future negotiations with the West on the nuclear issue [end]. The bold emphasis was from the report.

Interestingly, what is consistently ignored is Iran's desire to "wipe Israel off the map", remain an enemy of America, and defy UN resolutions in the pursuit of uranium enrichment. The CYA aspect of the report is clear. If Iran does develop nuclear weapons, the NIC can point to its plausible deniability and if Iran does not continue to develop, the NIC can say, "I told you so"

The basic layperson on national intelligence matters can easily grasp the concept of intelligence not being an exact science and will have the luxury of flexibility. With that said, it should be obvious that we need to rely on the totality of evidence at hand. This includes the enemy's rhetoric, and historical occurrences. History is always relevant. Again, I do not doubt the veracity of the NIE. This layperson made similar estimates as to Iran's nuclear acquisition in "Our Withdrawal Implications" article previously submitted. That estimate was derived from a simple check with a private intelligence firm. What this writer won't do is dismiss threats made by foreign leaders or forget history. Knowledge is power. If we continue to bury our heads in the sand regarding our enemies we may soon find the same removed from its host.

Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto had lived in the United States, studied at the U.S. War College and at Harvard University, and had served as a naval attaché in Washington, D.C.. Twenty years after his studies in the U.S. Yamamoto planned and executed the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 07, 1941.

Will America show her enemies that we are unwilling to fight for our way of life and that we will continue to bury our heads in the sand regarding the very real threats facing this nation?

I dare say, at the risk of being labeled a jingo, that America despite her internal detractors and revisionists will remain a vanguard for Freedom. In the true spirit of Americanism, we will fight for our way of life by any means necessary and put up with the apologists for our enemies. This is what our present day enemies such as Islamic jihadists, to their peril, do not realize. Freedom will be our salvation.