NEWS > EVERYONE ELSE >U.S. TO DO NOTHING ABOUT POSSIBLE NORTH KOREAN ATTACK ON PEARL HARBOR

U.S. TO DO NOTHING ABOUT POSSIBLE NORTH KOREAN ATTACK ON PEARL HARBOR

June 18 2009

Washington, D.C. – Until the events of September 11, 2001 there was no attack on American soil as traumatic or cataclysmic as the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. Like 9/11 the Pearl Harbor assault drew the United States in a massively expensive and incredibly important war that ultimately led to the redrawing of the world. Though the
events of December 7, 1941 have passed far into memory for many Americans, the legend of the attack still resonates throughout the country’s collective unconscious, stirring at the very mention of the name. Now as a new enemy threatens the Island oasis of Hawaii, the United States is once again playing the waiting game.

Japanese intelligence officials issued a warning on Thursday that North Korea may be planning on launching a missile towards Hawaii and Pearl Harbor. The warning comes as fears of a resurgent nuclear program in North Korea has started to reach a pinnacle but is still falling on largely deaf ears in the military and
legislative sectors of the U.S. Government. Part of that indifference comes from fact that the country issuing the warning is the one that attacked Hawaii all those years ago, and part is belief that despite its chatter, North Korea doesn’t really have the goods to pose a real threat much like Japan did not on December 6, 1941.

“The missile, believed to be a Taepodong-2 with a range of up to 4,000 miles, would be launched in early July from the Dongchang-ni site on the north-western coast of the secretive country,” read the report in Japan’s best-selling newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun. “Both Japanese intelligence and U.S. reconnaissance satellites have collated information pointing to the launch.”

Early indications are that the planned launch will occur on July 4th, Independence Day in the United States.

“There is some indication and a whole lot of speculation that the U.S. government and military knew about the planning for the attack on Pearl Harbor well beforehand and would have been able to stop it before it was ever initialized. The thinking goes that they allowed the attack to occur in order to have an excuse to enter World War II, something the government had been wanting to do for a number of years but been restricted by congress and the American people,” said Scrape TV North Korean analyst Lee Joo-Chan. “That has never been proven of course but the speculation continues and that has informed a lot of the thinking here. If the North Koreans did launch an assault on American soil
then they would all of a sudden have the obligation to go into a full scale war with them, giving them the opportunity to deal with a persistent thorn in their side. True it would mean the deaths of many Americans, but that was the case in 1941 and they allowed that to happen.”

Details of what the Americans did or did not know prior to the Pearl Harbor attack has long been sketchy but the general consensus is that they knew something was going to happen but did not know what or where it would take place.

“The suspicious thing here is that Japan is the one so up and excited about the possibility. Since the end of the war they have not been able to re-arm and that has
no doubt stuck in the craw of a lot of people both in the military and in the public in general. After all there are few countries that have the kind of military history that the Japanese have and it has hurt them to be so passive for so long. This attack would give them the excuse to start re-arming,” continued Lee. “For the Japanese a North Korea with this kind of missile capacity, coupled with nuclear warheads and a very aggressive posture would pose a serious threat. That is perhaps part of the reason the U.S. is so cool to the news about the attack. They realize the Japanese have a vested interest in making the North seem like bad guys. In a roundabout way this could be a whole new attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese.”

Early reports the missiles being deployed bore Japanese lettering have proven to be poorly worded. Officially the U.S. doesn’t see the missile threat as ‘All that big a deal’, echoing words from the Roosevelt administration.    

Emil Uliya, International Correspondent

NEWS > EVERYONE ELSE >U.S. TO DO NOTHING ABOUT POSSIBLE NORTH KOREAN ATTACK ON PEARL HARBOR