Pearl Harbor and 9/11

Today this year marks the tenth aniversary of the attack on the world trade center.This year in December will also mark the seventy years since the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.Two attacks changed a generation and probabbly defined a generation.Nowadays the aniversary of Pearl Harbor is overshadowed by 9/11 but I see both attacks as tragic in different ways than none.

I dont think the two are comparable. I mean, pearl harbour was a local event between two armed forces. September 11th 2001 was a crime done to maximise death and destruction. Also September 11th changed the world whereas Pearl Harbour shortened the Second World War.

Pearl Harbor was a military attack. A cheap shot, insofar as a military action can be considered "cheap," but a military attack, nonetheless. Can we be mad that they did it? Sure, since they were the assholes and we weren't doing anything but telling them they couldn't commit genocide. But it was, in fact, a proper act of war conducted in an orderly fashion.

9/11, on the other hand, was simply mass murder. Of civilians, to boot, using civilian resources—i.e. they weren't wearing uniforms.

So, no, it's not a very good comparison. And Pearl Harbor wasn't really a tragedy. It was a defeat.

How does shortening the Second World War not count as "changing the world," by the way?

Because Decolonisation and stuff would have happened anyway?

...not... necessarily. Or at least, not in a good way.

I think both incidents were a tragedy.Yeah,Pearl Harbor was more of an act of war and 9/11 was a message to America.Another thing I notice was the negative backlash afterwards.Anti-Japanese setmenient was rather similiar to anti-Muslim and anti-Middle Eastern looking people.

Hows that different from what happened. But thats offtopic.

• Pearl Harbour = "legitimate" attack by one state onto another state.
• September 11th = A mass murder of 3000 civilians used by one state to then attack others

edited 11th Sep '11 1:39:08 PM by whaleofyournightmare

How is that a tragedy?

I mean, yes, it's the death of 4,000-odd American soldiers and civilians. That's very bad. But it was an act of war against soldiers.

It's not a tragedy, it's a defeat, as I said. The reaction (war) is the same, but the thought process is not.

I don't think really it should be called an act of war because at that time the US was going neutral.I just think it was a dirty move for the Japanese to do.I know they were embargoing Japan because they were doing some cruel stuff in China.

Yeah,9/11 was a terrorist attack and the other one was a dirty move.But both have sunk into the minds of the American psyche.

Do you know about the Land Lease act? The US was far from neutral especially after the British won the Battle of Britain.

We were neutral only in name.

I mean, you're right, Japan was being purely dickish. But it was still a proper act of war. The only thing we can accuse them of is fucking up (probably deliberately) on the declaration of war, and we more than paid them back for it.

A tragedy is something that can be held as bad for people outside of those affected by it. I.e. the rest of the world can appreciate 9/11 as a tragedy because those people never did anything to deserve that. A defeat is just a nation losing militarily. It sucks for us, and we can mourn, but what does the rest of the world care for?

And the Japanese sent a War Declaration. OK, there was a series of clusterf***s during the delivery, which meant that the U.S. received it very shortly after the beginning of the attack, but on the Japanese side, they were relatively honest and it wasn't really their decision to attack during "peacetime": when the planes took off, Yamamoto was sure that they would attack ships belonging to a country he would be at war with.

And, well, the attack itself was inspired from a similar raid the Brits did against an Italian base, IIRC.

Anyway, Pearl Harbor attack ultimately failed, as the CV weren't there...

@Shinra

The Battle of Taranto?

Although there was precedent for surprise naval attack by the Japanese from before, circa the Russo-Japanese War of 1905.

Just like there was precedent for bombing attacks on the WTC, via the '97 (I think) attack on it...

Hold on, let me drag out a book. This is from Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy Fourth Edition by Mark M. Lowenthal. It quickly and accurately describes the distinction between the two attacks, in my opinion.

edited 11th Sep '11 2:06:36 PM by Pentadragon

Also, while the two attacks had similar death tolls, virtually all of the casualties at Pearl Harbor were members of the military, killed while operating military equipment, while the 9/11 victims were almost all civilians.

Where the attacks are similar is in the fact that both attacks shocked the American public, then galvanized the nation for a ruthless war of annihilation against those responsible.

there smilar overall, but the reason behind them are differnt. japan wanted to hit us unaware to win the war. the terrorist purposely murdered thousands of innocent civlians. big differnce. the sneak attack part was pretty much the same though.

One other thing they had in common was the fact that both were filmed.

In fact, the filming of Pearl Harbor is the only reason I still don't completely dismiss some of the conspiracy theories about that attack (as opposed to 9/11, which is just silly).

Pearl Harbor and 9/11 are similar in some ways. They were both an act of war. They are both filmed. They were both a tragedy.

How can we not consider Pearl Harbor a tragedy? Yes, they were soldiers, but they were also people!

2,403 people died. Soldier or not, it was a tragedy, at least to me.

Well, in that case, how do you call every single battle in wars? Tragedy is often something that should have been avoided, which doesn't make any sense, where everyone loses. Pearl Harbour was a battle, same as Stalingrad (around 1 000 000 deaths), Iwo Jima (more than 25 000 deaths) or the Somme (around 450 000 deaths), but those three aren't called tragedies when one speaks of them. Even Hiroshima and Nagasaki aren't called tragedies by everyone, as they probably allowed to avoid millions more deaths.

Pearl was useful since it broke the battleship strength of the U.S., Iwo Jima was useful as it gave a useful airbase for the attacks on Japan, Stalingrad was useful as it stopped the German advance and allowed the Soviets to counterattack. The Somme was... oh, wait, it wasn't useful, as 450 000 people died to gain... 12 km (7 mi). The 9/11 attacks can be called a tragedy, yes, but not Pearl Harbor.

edited 12th Sep '11 4:57:29 AM by RufusShinra

Anytime when that many people die is a tragedy, whether it's viewed as that or not.

Anyways, this is the wrong thread for this argument.

lol wut

I'd really like to see his reasoning for claiming that Axis were an "existential threat" to the United States.

Well, they could send a lot of strongly worded letters delivered by U-Boot. Not much more unless they managed to build nuclear weapons before the U.S., which is more of the realm of Alternate History with a truckload of Alien Space Bats than reality.

For Want Of A Nail. Change a single event in the war, that favored Japan or the Axis over America(America loses their Carriers at Midway instead of Japan, for example, and the US loses the Pacific)... That is an existential threat. America(and the Allies) could have lost the war...

edited 12th Sep '11 5:14:37 AM by Swish

The Axis not so much, the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy oh yes. The IJA and IJN were the only nation on Earth outside the British who could actually challenge the US Navy and Army and win. They had the capabilities to land 50,000 or more troops on the West Coast within days of Pearl. If they really wanted to gear up for an invasion of the US they could have landed possibly 1 million troops within 3 months. (We on the other hand didn't have 1 million available troops until after July 1942.)