A discordian take on this please...

[Disco Pickle]

In The Reluctant Admiral, Hiroyuki Agawa, without a citation, does give a quotation from a reply by Admiral Yamamoto to Ogata Taketora on January 9, 1942, which is strikingly similar to the famous version: "A military man can scarcely pride himself on having 'smitten a sleeping enemy'; it is more a matter of shame, simply, for the one smitten. I would rather you made your appraisal after seeing what the enemy does, since it is certain that, angered and outraged, he will soon launch a determined counterattack."

Yamamoto believed that Japan could not win a protracted war with the United States, and moreover seems to have believed that the Pearl Harbor attack had become a blunder — even though he was the person who came up with the idea of a surprise attack. The Reluctant Admiral relates that "Yamamoto alone" (while all his staff members were celebrating) spent the day after Pearl Harbor "sunk in apparent depression." He is also known to have been upset by the bungling of the Foreign Ministry which led to the attack happening while the countries were technically at peace, thus making the incident an unprovoked sneak attack that would certainly enrage the enemy.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isoroku_Yamamoto%27s_sleeping_giant_quote

Personally I find it completely without merit to even for a moment think that we would sacrifice the amount of naval firepower and trained seamen lost at Pearl Harbor.

technically at peace, but we had frozen all Japanese assets and instituted an embargo in order to assist China and the Allies.

The Japanese likely saw them for the act of war that they were.  

and since we were engaging in naval battles with Germany despite being officially "neutral", based on the Axis position that anyone who attacks any of them is an enemy of them combined, you would think we'd have been better prepared for an attack by the one geographically closest to us.

[Adios]

In The Reluctant Admiral, Hiroyuki Agawa, without a citation, does give a quotation from a reply by Admiral Yamamoto to Ogata Taketora on January 9, 1942, which is strikingly similar to the famous version: "A military man can scarcely pride himself on having 'smitten a sleeping enemy'; it is more a matter of shame, simply, for the one smitten. I would rather you made your appraisal after seeing what the enemy does, since it is certain that, angered and outraged, he will soon launch a determined counterattack."

Yamamoto believed that Japan could not win a protracted war with the United States, and moreover seems to have believed that the Pearl Harbor attack had become a blunder — even though he was the person who came up with the idea of a surprise attack. The Reluctant Admiral relates that "Yamamoto alone" (while all his staff members were celebrating) spent the day after Pearl Harbor "sunk in apparent depression." He is also known to have been upset by the bungling of the Foreign Ministry which led to the attack happening while the countries were technically at peace, thus making the incident an unprovoked sneak attack that would certainly enrage the enemy.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isoroku_Yamamoto%27s_sleeping_giant_quote

Personally I find it completely without merit to even for a moment think that we would sacrifice the amount of naval firepower and trained seamen lost at Pearl Harbor.

technically at peace, but we had frozen all Japanese assets and instituted an embargo in order to assist China and the Allies.

The Japanese likely saw them for the act of war that they were.  

and since we were engaging in naval battles with Germany despite being officially "neutral", based on the Axis position that anyone who attacks any of them is an enemy of them combined, you would think we'd have been better prepared for an attack by the one geographically closest to us.

BUT we were also currently under negotiations with Japan. We were discussing a peaceful settlement. Remember in those days we used men with binoculars in high places as early warning systems.

[Cain]

Did some checking around....it looks like it was fairly well known the Japanese would attack at some point, but precisely where and how is never actually made explicit.  For example:

In Tokyo, the American ambassador to Japan heard something about a possible surprise attack. "There is a lot of talk around town to the effect that the Japanese, in case of a break with the United States, are planning to go all out in a surprise attack at Pearl Harbor," the ambassador, Joseph Grew, wrote in his diary. "Of course I informed my government." It was January 24, 1941.

Edgar Mowrer, the journalist, was at a bar in Manila, having a drink with a man who worked for the Maritime Commission. It was late October 1941, and Mowrer was on a spy mission for Colonel Donovan....

The maritime man in the bar, Ernest Johnson, said he had a daughter in San Francisco. He didn't expect ever to see her again. "The Japs will take Manila before I can get out," Johnson said.

"Take Manila?" said Mowrer. "That would mean a war with us."

Johnson nodded. "Didn't you know the Jap fleet has moved eastward, presumably to attack our fleet at Pearl Harbor?"

Roosevelt's army chief of staff, George Marshall, had some reporters--from Time, Newsweek, the Times, the Herald Tribune, and three wire services--into his office for a briefing. "We are preparing an offensive war against Japan," Marshall said.... The aim was to "blanket the whole area with air power." Keep it a secret, he said. It was November 15, 1941.

Henry Stimson was writing in his diary. He, Knox, Stark, Hull, and Marshall had been in the Oval Office with the president, batting around a problem that Roosevelt had brought up. The Japanese were likely to attack soon, perhaps next Monday, the president said. "The question was how we should maneuver them into the position of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves," Stimson wrote. "It was a difficult proposition." It was November 25, 1941.

That an attack would come at some point and that it would likely attack Pearl Harbour seems obvious, and to have been understood by those in goverment at the time.  There doesn't seem to be any indication that the exact date and time of attack was known, however, or that it could have been prevented.

[Adios]

I want that book.

[Cain]

Obviously I'm not going to take the assertions of a single book as gospel, but those give you statements and sources that can be checked, should anyone want to look into it further.

[Adios]

Obviously I'm not going to take the assertions of a single book as gospel, but those give you statements and sources that can be checked, should anyone want to look into it further.

Isn't the real truth usually a handful of seeds strewn in a patch of weeds?

[Cain]

Well, that and two independent sources reporting the same thing, or original documents.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

STOP THE MUTHAFUCKIN PRESSES!!!!!

SINCE WHEN IS DOK HOWL AN ASSHOLE!?!?!?!?

MY WORLD IS FALLING APART!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I should have been honest with you from the beginning.  I'm also a horrible cunt.

And a terrible pervert. The things you let Nurse Enabler do to you. It's shameful.

She says she'll beat me with shitty sticks if I don't.

Yeah, but you LIKE it, and that's why you're a perv.

At least you're not a Welsh.

[Freeky]

STOP THE MUTHAFUCKIN PRESSES!!!!!

SINCE WHEN IS DOK HOWL AN ASSHOLE!?!?!?!?

MY WORLD IS FALLING APART!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I should have been honest with you from the beginning.  I'm also a horrible cunt.

And a terrible pervert. The things you let Nurse Enabler do to you. It's shameful.

She says she'll beat me with shitty sticks if I don't.

Yeah, but you LIKE it, and that's why you're a perv.

At least you're not a Welsh.

He IS canadian, though, that's got to count against him somehow.

[Doktor Howl]

STOP THE MUTHAFUCKIN PRESSES!!!!!

SINCE WHEN IS DOK HOWL AN ASSHOLE!?!?!?!?

MY WORLD IS FALLING APART!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I should have been honest with you from the beginning.  I'm also a horrible cunt.

And a terrible pervert. The things you let Nurse Enabler do to you. It's shameful.

She says she'll beat me with shitty sticks if I don't.

Yeah, but you LIKE it, and that's why you're a perv.

At least you're not a Welsh.

He IS canadian, though, that's got to count against him somehow.

Lies.

[Nast]

But they still made us look like a pack of unwashed mannerless barbarians. (But we sure showed them just how "cultured" we were in WWII)

Sure, if you were a male noble.  For everyone else, it sucked balls.

Troof.

The Heian period, which is considered to be the Golden Age of Japanese culture that produced such things as the world's first novel (The Tale of Genji), was perhaps one of the most refined and aesthetic-based societies to have existed. Everything, from the seasonal flowers one was supposed to attach to ones letters to the carefully layered colors of a court-lady's voluminous attire were given the most thorough scrutiny. Beauty was equated with virtue, which is reflected in the word for aristocracy, "yokibito", literally "the good people".
Of course he nobility made up a fraction of 1% of the population. Those who didn't serve as provincial governers lived in one palace complex in one city. It was a highly cultivated and insular society.

The peasantry, however, lived in loathesome huts and ate fern roots and the seeds of wild grasses to survive. Plagues and fires and earthquakes ravaged the capital, and the life expectancy was about 30 years.

[Cain]

The Italian Renaissance has more of a claim to being a humane and enlightened culture, and even that period included rulers like Galeazzo Visconti (though admittedly no-one, even back then, thought of him as an exemplar of Renaissance Humanist values).

[Jasper]

You guys don't give a rats ass about truth.

Newsfeed?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

But they still made us look like a pack of unwashed mannerless barbarians. (But we sure showed them just how "cultured" we were in WWII)

Sure, if you were a male noble.  For everyone else, it sucked balls.

Troof.

The Heian period, which is considered to be the Golden Age of Japanese culture that produced such things as the world's first novel (The Tale of Genji), was perhaps one of the most refined and aesthetic-based societies to have existed. Everything, from the seasonal flowers one was supposed to attach to ones letters to the carefully layered colors of a court-lady's voluminous attire were given the most thorough scrutiny. Beauty was equated with virtue, which is reflected in the word for aristocracy, "yokibito", literally "the good people".
Of course he nobility made up a fraction of 1% of the population. Those who didn't serve as provincial governers lived in one palace complex in one city. It was a highly cultivated and insular society.

The peasantry, however, lived in loathesome huts and ate fern roots and the seeds of wild grasses to survive. Plagues and fires and earthquakes ravaged the capital, and the life expectancy was about 30 years.

That sounds like civilization to me. Strict hierarchies and highly formalized, rigidly enforced codes of behavior?

Yup. Civilization.

[Nast]

But they still made us look like a pack of unwashed mannerless barbarians. (But we sure showed them just how "cultured" we were in WWII)

Sure, if you were a male noble.  For everyone else, it sucked balls.

Troof.

The Heian period, which is considered to be the Golden Age of Japanese culture that produced such things as the world's first novel (The Tale of Genji), was perhaps one of the most refined and aesthetic-based societies to have existed. Everything, from the seasonal flowers one was supposed to attach to ones letters to the carefully layered colors of a court-lady's voluminous attire were given the most thorough scrutiny. Beauty was equated with virtue, which is reflected in the word for aristocracy, "yokibito", literally "the good people".
Of course he nobility made up a fraction of 1% of the population. Those who didn't serve as provincial governers lived in one palace complex in one city. It was a highly cultivated and insular society.

The peasantry, however, lived in loathesome huts and ate fern roots and the seeds of wild grasses to survive. Plagues and fires and earthquakes ravaged the capital, and the life expectancy was about 30 years.

That sounds like civilization to me. Strict hierarchies and highly formalized, rigidly enforced codes of behavior?

Yup. Civilization.

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not. 

Anyway, I think the Japanese have produced many  unique and beautiful things. They have also, as a society, both experienced and perpetuated a terrible lot of suffering. So, they're like everyone else in that respect.

It's sort of difficult to reconcile a society's cultural achievements with its human rights record.