A lot of people were told the Japanese were going to do something, and as far as a bunch of heavy iron ships bristling with guns being "sitting ducks", I could only agree with that if you consider the local commanders placing less than zero value on combat readiness, and way too much on spit shined boots, swabbed decks and painted rocks outside the officers clubs. The airfields of Honolulu were bristling with plenty of combat capable aircraft.
Did anyone ever allude to it NOT being the Japanese when the first few rounds were fired and the first torpedos hit a US ship? I mean, really, show me the radio call where someone said "HOLY SHIT>>>STOP>>>WE ARE BEING HIT>>>>>STOP>>>I THINK IT IS THE PERUVIANS>>>" Hell, no, they knew the Japanese finally showed up to play. Even Yamamoto was shocked at the incompetence of the defense and called off the attack early just to have mercy on the stupid. The Japanese actually got to thinking maybe it was not even good enough for their Bushido code to take part in such a turkey shoot. It was not until they got wind of some of the radio traffic that Yamamoto figured out that he had just started a losing war, that the Americans would probably quickly change leadership at the midlevel (where the biggest failures were) and then come out for revenge that he made the statement about "waking a sleeping giant".
The war everywhere else was already being reported daily in the newspapers and on the radio. Early television and FAX were under development just for the purpose of wartime news reporting. We were already in a form of Cold War with the Japanese. The Japanese were already taking aggressive action all over the Pacific and Americans were already fighting the Japanese in China under the guise of serving as mercenaries to the Chinese Nationalist government. Nobody with half a brain had any doubt about what side the US was going to be on in that conflict.
I also don't consider the various inquiries into the extreme incompetence of the various local commanders at Pearl Harbor to be misplaced at all. They majorly fucked up and everyone knew it. They committed the ultimate military sin, the worse, the sin of the soul of sacrificing function for form. They directly and purposefully destroyed combat readiness by pushing for military form in everything, while locking up ammunition away from those who would obviously need it, placed aircraft purposefully away from easy access to pilots, and even in the early stages of the attack threatened those servicemembers who were quick to react by ordering them to hold fire. This was covered openly and plainly even in several movies made about the attack.
That's the whole gamble of command in a "peacetime" environment when you know damn well there are enemies out there who mean your people harm. Command authority is command authority, but when the enemy kicks the shit out of your forces because you decided that having well counted tent stakes and no possibility of weapons, ammo, or even loose brass being "unaccounted for" is the reason your losses went into the double digit percentages in the first few minutes of an enemy attack, you are definitely unfit to command anything resembling a combat unit. In fact, just as was called for by survivors back then, the appropriate thing to do is haul a bunch of fuckers out to the flagpole for a ceremony attended by their friends and families, subordinates and trucks bearing the bodies of those lives who were squandered under their command, stripped of their rank, lined up against a wall and shot. Plaques to their memory should be cast in bronze and placed in every urinal in every officer academy as a reminder to new cadets who NOT to emulate.
And I will tell you that is something to seriously consider even now if there is a major Al Queda attack on a US Military base where the local base commanders have restricted soldiers from off duty gun ownership on base, disregarded CCWs, and purposefully disarmed rapid reaction forces and people on guard duty. Don't forget, lots of soldiers every day get prosecuted for breaking gun laws, get rank reduced, fined, and sometimes thrown out of service. Look at Bladerunner or RT, maybe not reduced in rank, but prosecuted for NFA violations when in both cases, deals could have been made to continue service, maybe pay some fines or get some paperwork straightened out, but the government went the full prosecution route to "send a message", and those who decided to "send that message" can remain right about it in the eyes of history, that is until there is an actual enemy "Pearl Harbor" style attack which proves you need to be looking out for enemies rather than playing police state over your own people. That's when the prosecutions need to have something of a "changing of the guard" and the fuckheads who act deliberately to the detriment of combat readiness need to get put against the wall and shot.
WHEN, not "if" the Al Queda operatives who have been infiltrating this country for the last almost ten years decide to hit a major domestic military base, probably on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, is that going to be a "Pearl Harbor?" Maybe measure it in the number of weapons law violations we see prosecuted against troops between then and now. The investigative resources focused inward instead of at the declared threat. I'll tell you what will happen then, some fuckers will get taken out to the wall and shot dead and then this shit will be on. That's when war gets really declared, the gloves come off and we start emptying out prisons, handing over rifles and sending serious shiploads of new troops to invade the whole damn Middle East if we have to, might as well roll up Mexico just for the hell of it, maybe bite off Northern and Eastern Africa too.
If "they" don't approve a wartime footing, then that's fine, go to plan C, which takes a little longer - secession and revolution in part of this country and forming of one which is Canada-like, and another which goes out and takes care of business the others decide not to handle. Maybe a third country as a true freedom sanctuary, even a fourth as a frontier. We will let Berkely be their own little island state, no tax money from the rest of us though.
At least that's the way I would see it. What will probably happen is the US gets hit, and the sitting government just decides to turn the whole damn place into a police state which then surrenders en masse to the Arabs as long as the Arabs pretend that it is "UN Authority".
In the mean time, let the idiots run things and demonstrate how stupid they are when this country really gets hit.
