June 22 Iran Bombings, Pearl Harbor, Hypocrisy
June 22, 2025
by William P. Meyers

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Remember Pearl Harbor?

You do not hear the phrase very much anymore, but for the first few decades of my life "Remember Pearl Harbor" was often in the air. The Battle of Pearl Harbor took place on December 7, 1941 when the Empire of Japan attacked the U.S. Navy base in the Hawaiian Islands. It was thought to be a surprise attack, though some historians now think that President Franklin D. Roosevelt had plenty of advance warnings. His ambassador to Japan sent him warning cables. He had given his commander in the Philippines, General Douglas MacArthur, permission to bomb the Japanese in Taiwan (then Formosa). FDR ordered the truly valuable modern warships at Pearl Harbor out to sea, leaving mostly obsolete ships in the harbor to be bombed. The American people were against going to war; he needed the surprise attack to galvanize them to allow him to declare war on Japan, and shortly afterwards on Germany.

Remember Pearl Harbor was an anti-Japanese slogan, one that was used to push for American global military dominance, and heavy Defense spending, after World War II. President Lyndon Johnson used the faked Gulf of Tonkin incident in a similar way to launch his war against Vietnam.

The United States of America attacked Iran on June 22, 2025, without a declaration of war. Worse still, President Trump had given the government of Iran more time to negotiate. It was pure unadulterated bullying, only instead of beating up his fellow kids in grade school Old Bonespurs was using the world's largest conventional bombs to take out Iran's nuclear development program. To quote the bible the Trump lovers love so well, Trump should take the beam out of his own eye before worrying about the speck in the eye of another. Difficulty with metaphors? The U.S. has nuclear weapons, it is the only nation that has ever used them against cities of civilians. That is the beam. The speck is Iran's development of peaceful nuclear energy program to supplement its dependence on oil.

What was the punishment for Pearl Harbor? The war crime trials at Tokyo [International Military Tribunal for the Far East], sentenced seven Japanese to death, six of whom were generals. In related war crimes trials at least 1,133 Japanese citizens received death sentences, and thousands more were sent to prison.

I would say that, applying the same principles, at the very least the entire chain of command, from Donald Trump down to the officers who flew the B-52s and had the international responsibility to refuse to obey their orders, should be tried and executed. I would also throw Secretary of state Marco Rubio to the dogs, and VP Vance.

America was much kinder, after World War II, to the white people tried an Nuremberg. The Nuremberg trials only sentenced 12 German war criminals to death. But the Pope's friend Franz von Papen, who had been vice-chancellor to Hitler, got off, mainly because the U.S., France and Britain wanted the Pope and Catholic Church to fight communism. It was a sweet deal for von Papen.

How could a commission be set up to punish Trump and his co-conspirators? [and other U.S. war criminals who are still alive?] In theory it might be done by the Democrats winning the elections of 2028 and then trying Trump, though U.S. law is not clear. Are the World War II trials a precedent that the Supreme Court would uphold, or does there need to be a clear U.S. law against war crimes? Which there is not.

The other way would be a revolution that totally displaces the U.S. government, and in which the new government cares about enforcing international law. I think a revolution is unlikely, and at this time in the U.S. is more likely to be a right wing revolution than a left wing one.

"In Vietnam, we learned to frag, and not to fight, for the bloody rag.". Well, if someone fragged the Commander in Chief, I would say Hurrah!

So many problems so quickly, added by Trump to the existing problems of the world. The Slow Motion Apocalypse is upon us, so all bets about the specifics of the future are off.