The American Spectator

Reader Mail

(Page 4 of 5)

A Bad Case of the Crazies : /p>

In the course of Friday's Enemy of the Week article, the writer suggested that the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese was not about oil, to contrast some of the speculative comments about our pending war in Iraq.

Actually, the attack on PH was about oil. We, the USA, had imposed an embargo on Japan (if memory serves) because of Japan's alliance with the Axis nations.

Japan (a country about two-thirds the size of the state of California, with about six times as many people) has very few natural resources and thus has to import much of what it needs. So, at the time, the U.S.-imposed embargo was huge.

p>To say that Pearl Harbor was not about oil is misleading. br> -- Brent Eldredge br> Highland, UT /p>

Enemy Central replies: Unlike Mr. Eldredge, we always take the narrow view. Our point was that opponents of any U.S. attack on Iraq fear for Saddam's oil fields and the use to which they allegedly will be put by Texas oil interests. By contrast, lovely Hawaii had no oil reserves for imperial Japan to exploit.

p> ON THE ROCKS br> Re: Michael Craig's

topics:
Education, Law, Iraq, Oil