| SamuelRSmith said: Worst: 1 - FDR: soviet-style planning of agriculture, introduction of soviet-style rationing system, looking up citizens for the "crime" for being of Japanese decent, laws controlling gold ownership, public-works programs that led to the ideas of Keynes being locked into the political mindset until even today, questionable actions in regard to dealing with Japan before Pearl Harbour. 3 - Wilson: Prohibition. Federal Reserve. |
Without either of these two men, your sorry ass would be speaking German.
Republicans are and have always been isolationists, that was one of the stark differences with G.W. Bush, he is the first and only US president ever to wage a preemptive war against an aggressive nation (Iraq). The realities of this were clear in the US with most conservatives either outright supporting Hitler and his war effort, or cautioning the FDR administration about any involvement in war. Wilson had essentially the same situation, but a less clear reason to engage in war.
And don't be an apologists for Imperialist Japan. Had it not been for the British, the Japanese would never have been able to mount an air war against the US. It was British advisors that taught the Japanese how to properly engineer and build planes and it was British manufacturers that licensed production of planes to Japanese manufacturing plants.
In 1924 Gen. Billy Mitchell of the US Army Air Force warned if the coming attack by the Japanese against the US base at Pearl Harbor. A warning that Harding ignored, and one for which Mitchell was drummed out of the military for.
How were the actions of the FDR administration questionable before the war? Japan was engaged in a war of expansion. China being the non-aggressors in the situation, were allies of both the US and the UK, in a war against Japan. Japan on their part were committing atrocities left and right. The only two things the US could do, besides continued talks (which they did), was cease trade with Japan so they couldn't wage war and provide military aid to China, which they did. The reason Japan attacked the US was two-fold, one simply is oil, the other was to draw the US into a two front war that the Japanese mistakenly thought would bring the US to better terms.
It was Japan that deceived the US while in negotiation. It was Japan that attacked the US unprovoked. It was Japan that took over an hour after the attack to notify the US that it was ending negotiation with the US. Did the US have knowledge of that before we were given it by Japan? Yes. However, the information wasn't acted upon quickly mostly because of the fact that we were still in negotiations with Japan. In fact, a formal declaration of war wasn't presented to the US until 10 hours later. Had officials used the Navy's telegraph system rather than the Army's, Pearl Harbor might have been aware of the situation in time. But again, you're talking about a nation not in a state of war, in negotiations with a trade partner, subsequently being blindsided. Japan was actively planning and preparing to wage war against the US months prior to the actual attack. The US was not planning to wage war with Japan. You may argue that we should have known better, but hindsight is 20/20.
I mean, the British should have known that aiding the Japanese in engineering and manufacturing of aircraft, a nation that routinely had been aggressively attacking its neighbors since the late 1800's, might wage war with airplanes if it had them. Then again, what am I thinking. The Brits were all about capitulating to Hitler and Churchill boasted state secrets on how the Allies were able to decode German transmissions in his memoir of WWI. Ultimately resulting in the Germans creating one of the best encryption/decryption schemes in history and stymieing the Allied efforts in WWII.
So, what exactly did the US do wrong again in saving your limey asses? Twice.
