Powell gives additional information about Stinnet's book, but I don't remember (having read the book years ago) that the evidence was conclusive that FDR engineered the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. After all, we only got a partial release by our masters in the ruling capitalist class:
After eight years of further research and a prolonged case at law under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain partial release of these materials, Stinson published Day of Deceit (2000).A full release might make this inference conclusive. However, it was enough for most rational people to conclude that indeed FDR suckered the Japanese into the attack which then justified USA's entry into WWII. (Could it be that our fascist-loaded ruling class in 2000 didn't really like the reforms that FDR passed to stifle any revolutionary movements in the 1930s?) FDR along with other anglophiles in the US ruling class saw that the Axis powers were threatening the rule of the British Empire. This was not in the game-plan of most of the Western ruling capitalist classes who loved fascists because they were expected to destroy the Soviet Union--an anathema to the rule of capitalists. USA's own fascists joined the anglophiles and presciently saw this war as an opportunity to establish their own American empire--and they did.
What I object to is the very title of the book which emphasizes only one "day of deceit". Ruling classes always justify their nation's participation in wars in order to get ordinary people to sign up, to disrupt their personal plans to marry, establish careers and families, rather to travel long distances to kill other ordinary people of behalf of the same ruling classes. Lying is built in to this scenario, and the same scenario has played out ever since gangs formed to rule over ordinary people--some 10,000 years. So, what's new?
The fact is that ruling classes always lie--not only about their wars--to their subjects because if the latter knew how unjust ruling classes were, there would be revolts. These scoundrels do this by creative writing of histories, protecting religious clergies to preach sermons that justify their rule over ordinary people, keeping ordinary people looking toward a non-existent afterlife to seek their rewards, and keeping the latter in ignorance about their lies and self-serving activities.
One doesn't have to delve into ancient history to find prime example of such lying. Look at only the history since WWII and you will find a mountain of examples of such lies. They lied about their assassination of the John and Bobbie Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and numerous Black Panthers. They lied about their well executed plan on 9/11 to justify their subsequent military campaigns in the Middle East. In fact, ruling classes rarely tell the truth. Nowadays, lying is only getting worse. But most humans, with a few rare exceptions, throughout history have devoted their attention to sustaining their families and enjoying their comforts and distractions, and shied away from believing that their masters would ever lie to them.
Now capitalist ruling classes are lying to ordinary people about global warming and the destruction of our habitat because such information would interfere with their addiction to profits and power (over the rest of us). But, as we shall soon see, this is their final lie--a lie that will end all lies. Humans, and unfortunately many other species, will be disappeared from planet Earth which gave birth to them, and new life forms will arise. Hopefully, these life forms will not be fractured into classes in which one self-serving class tells lies to the other classes.
