Lies the government told you by Andrew Napolitano (best e reader for epub TXT) 📗

down thousands of newspapers and charged thousands of editors and writers with treason. Many of Lincoln’s critics were executed, and many more were jailed, because of their exercise of free speech. Our leaders do not employ such drastic measures today, but they lie and instill fear in us to argue for the necessity of war. Unfortunately, we do not discover their true motives until it is too late.

Lincoln’s war killed over 650,000 Americans, more than have been killed in all wars in American history combined. He arrested newspaper editors, state legislators, and even a Republican congressman who merely spoke out against him. He suspended the writ of habeas corpus. His soldiers robbed American banks, burned American courthouses, raped American women, and killed American civilians—all with legal impunity.

In 1898, President William McKinley used the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor, Cuba, to gather American support for the eventual Spanish-American War. President McKinley claimed that the Maine had been sunk by a Spanish mine on February 15th 1898, while the American captain of the ship asserted that it was sunk by a coal bin explosion. On April 19th 1898, Congress issued a resolution ordering Spain to give up Cuba. It also authorized the president to use force if Spain did not comply. On April 25th, the United States declared war on Spain. The United States fought for about four months in the Spanish-American War, and it cost us 2,446 American lives, 385 of which were lost in combat.3

These events show that when the United States government wants to go to war, it uses certain incidents and circumstances to make the use of force politically palatable to American voters. It happens all the time.

“Your Boys Are Not Going to Be Sent

into Any Foreign Wars.”

—President Franklin Delano Roosevelt4

After World War I, the country was disillusioned by the failure of America’s idealistic commitment to make “the world safe for democracy.” The overwhelming majority of Americans favored isolationism over fighting another war. In September 1940, a Gallup Poll revealed that 88 percent of Americans opposed war with Germany. This poll was taken after Hitler annexed Austria and occupied Poland and blitzed London. Germany had conquered most of Europe and was sinking American ships in the Atlantic Ocean, but Americans at home wanted no part of Europe’s war.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt purported to adhere to American public opinion, stating numerous times that he would not enter “Europe’s War.” Roosevelt, however, wanted to get involved in the war, believing that a Nazi-dominated Europe would execute his bellicose but freedom-preaching second cousin, Winston Churchill, and would prove a difficult trading partner for the United States. Surmising that Americans would only rally to oppose an overt act of war on the United States, Roosevelt and his advisers sought to provoke such an overt act.

Roosevelt targeted Japan, which on September 27th 1940, signed a mutual assistance treaty, known as the Tripartite Pact, with Germany and Italy; the three countries were known collectively as the Axis Powers. If Japan committed an overt act of war on the United States, Americans would certainly not object to attacking Japan. Based on the treaty, Germany would then have to come to Japan’s defense, and thus, the United States would be able to sidestep American popular opinion, and get a crack at the Nazis.

On October 7th 1940, just ten days after Japan entered into its Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy, Lieutenant Commander Arthur McCollum of the Office of Naval Intelligence submitted a memorandum proposal, known as the “McCollum memo,” to Navy Captain Walter Anderson, the Director of Naval Intelligence. In an era before the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Naval Intelligence ranked high in the President’s armament of intelligence-gathering government agencies. The memo outlined options available to the United States in response to Japan’s actions in the South Pacific. It included an eight-part plan to counter Japanese hegemony in East Asia. The memo also indicates that at least one individual in the Office of Naval Intelligence promoted the idea of provoking Japan into going to war with the United States. The memo states, “It is not believed that in the present state of political opinion the United States government is capable of declaring war against Japan without more ado [ . . . ] If by [the eight-point plan] Japan could be led to commit an overt act of war, so much the better.”5 From this point on, the Roosevelt administration worked to implement McCollum’s plan, showing that it was absolutely committed to going to war.

On October 8th 1940, President Roosevelt called Admiral James O. Richardson, Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Fleet, to the White House to discuss the provocation plan. Richardson objected to the plan, and Roosevelt subsequently fired him. In his place, Roosevelt installed Rear Admiral Husband E. Kimmel as commander of the fleet in Hawaii on February 1st 1941. Major General William Short was promoted to lieutenant general, and Roosevelt gave him command of the U.S. Army troops in Hawaii. These were two promotions that each of these selfless military men would live to regret. They became pawns in FDR’s murderous scheme to provoke the Japanese Navy to slaughter American sailors.

For most of 1941, the United States implemented its eight-point plan and gauged Japan’s reaction by intercepting and decoding its naval communications. In response, Japan’s militarists rose to power and coordinated the military for war against Great Britain, the Netherlands, and the United States. The United States got word of the Pearl Harbor attack in January 1941, eleven months prior to the actual event. The United States continued to monitor Japanese communications, but did not actively attempt to prevent the attack.

In fact, Roosevelt and the military implemented the so-called “Vacant Sea” policy in late November 1941 to goad a Japanese attack. Navy officials declared the North Pacific off-limits to all American and allied shipping, military and commercial, forcing ships to use the Torres Strait route in the South Pacific between Australia and New Guinea. The strategy was simple: Leave