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Example research essay topic: U S S World Trade Center - 1,976 words

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Many have compared the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 to the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. They argue that both attacks were just as astonishing, unwarranted and unpredictable. The World Trade Center buildings in New York City still lie in ruin, an icy reminder of the terrorist attack. Both the U. S. S.

Arizona and the U. S. S Utah remain on the floor of Pearl Harbor, each a ghostly, decaying tomb reminding all of the thousands that gave their life on that fateful day, also, they are both reminders of seemingly how easily the attack was carried out and of how America, the worlds big brother and perhaps the most powerful nation in the history of the world, was caught with 'its guard down. ' The attacks are also similar in that, generally, those who lived through them divide time: time before the attack and time after. After Pearl Harbor, the United States declared war on Japan, and thus Germany and Italy with the signing of the Anti-Comintern Pact and latter the Tripartite Pact, and after was slingshot into the Cold War, and after the September 11 attack, concepts that may have been unthinkable before the attack are being considered such as torturing detainees and racial profiling and, arguably, security has been further fortified in airports and other public places.

Both attacks were turning points in American history; they had and will have profound effects on life after them. The details of the September 11 attack are still buried in distant lands while the on Pearl Harbor happened over 60 years ago; therefore most of the documents and information concerning the attack have been released. When analyzing the documents and accounts of the Pearl Harbor attack, historians are not able to avoid the fact that many warning signs of the approaching attack existed. The neglect of these signs can, in most cases, be attributed to some sort of human error in dealing with those signs. Although human error played a large part in the reason that those in power did not take further advantage of those signs, it was not the only reason. Most of the signs were neither tangible nor very specific of the location, date or degree of ferocity at which Japanese would attack.

Another reason is that for years before the attack, a feeling of isolation and thoughts that the United States need not interfere in European matters presided over the minds of many Americans. But those reasons aside, the United States should have been more prepared for the attack on Pearl Harbor. Japans imperialistic and expansionist doctrines that dominated Asiatic and Pacific goings-on for years before the attack caused the Japan-United States relations, that had been deteriorating for years, become increasingly hostile. The United States also received general warnings of the attack from men, such as Joseph Grew. However, perhaps the most convincing and specific signs, came in the early morning hours of December 7, from a string of radar that were to guard the harbor and from patrolling vessels that spotted Japanese submarines that morning. All four of these aspects should have warned Washington of the impending attack.

On November 26, 1941, all six Japanese aircraft carriers and over four hundred aircraft left Hitokappu Bay, in northern Japan, headed for Pearl Harbor, the operating base for the United States' Pacific Fleet. Pearl Harbor is located on the southern end of Oahu Island, Hawaii. In the early morning hours of Sunday, December 7, they attacked swiftly and efficiently. This is the account of George Partner, who was aboard the U. S. S.

Arizona when the 1, 760 -pound armor-piercing bomb hit its forward magazine. He recalls: We could hear and see there were airplanes. I looked across the bow of the ship and could see large plumes of smoke coming up from Ford Island. At first, we didn't realize it was a bombing. It didn't mean anything to us until a large group of planes came near the ship and we could see, for the first time, the rising sun emblem on the plane wings. a deafening roar filled the room and the entire ship shuttered.

It was the forward magazine. One and a half million pounds of gun powder exploding in a massive fireball disintegrating the whole forward part of the ship. (Schaaf) This is just one of the eyewitness accounts from those who survived the attack. The consequences of the attack were devastating. There were " 2, 403 dead, 188 destroyed planes and a crippled U.

S. Pacific Fleet that included 8 damaged or destroyed battleships" (Ibis). The U. S. S.

Arizona and the U. S. S. Utah were completely destroyed and the U. S. S.

Oklahoma capsized. President Roosevelt called December 7, a day which will live in infamy. If some of the people in power-position in Washington would have realized the merit of analyzing Japan-United States relations and Japanese behavior in the years preceding the attack, then Pearl Harbor, and all who perished there, may have been spared or at least warned. One indicator of the possibility of Japanese aggression should have been their behavior in the years preceding 1941. Before 1941, the Japanese had been behaving very imperialistically. During the late 1800 s and early 1900 s, Japan had been invading and seizing territories on their conquest for what they called the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, but what the rest of the world came to know as total Pacific domination.

In 1895 Japan seized Formosa, in 1910 Korea, in 1914 the Marshall, Mariana and Caroline Islands, the list continues (Shapiro 91). In July of 1941, the Japanese Empire invaded the remainder of French Indochina. The publicized reason was: with the complete embargo, the Japanese forces badly needed oil, rubber and other raw materials to support their conquests. It was theorized by some of Roosevelt's staff, however, that realistically, they did this to get ever so closer to the American outpost at Pearl Harbor, to gain a strategic area that would be very instrumental if Japan ever decided to expand towards the Hawaiian Islands and other south Pacific territories. Commercial access to these raw materials had gradually been reduced as their expansion continued and they 'stepped on peoples' feet' in the south Pacific: The Americans and British were also well aware that the economic sanctions which they had already imposed against Japan could prompt military retaliation. As an industrial power with few natural resources, Japan was vulnerable to a blockade in raw materials.

Many of its east Asian neighbors were colonies of Britain, France or the Netherlands. A US state department memo in December 1938 acknowledged the possibility 'that any attempt by the Unites States, Great Britain and the Netherlands to cut off from Japan exports of oil would be met by Japan's forcibly taking over the Netherlands East Indies. ' (Nassim) Even in this State Department memo, Japanese aggression is noted and warned against. One should have been able to deduce that, most likely, the aggression might continue towards the power that was instituting the crippling embargo. Also, in 1931, the Japanese provocatively invaded Manchuria, a province located in northeastern China, brutally killing tens of thousands of Chinese. Along with this invasion, they also withdrew from the League of Nations. Ultimately, the conflict came down to the fact that Japanese imperialism collided with western imperialism, and it happened in the Pacific: The US was not along in its plans to seize the wealth and labor of southeast Asia [with the bloody seizure of the Philippines].

The British, French and Dutch imperialists had already invaded and carved out rich colonies for themselves. and everyone knew that Japan, which was emerging as a newly industrial nation, would be working to seize for itself secure sources of rubber, oil, and labor. (Revolutionary) Simply put, the western empires and the Japanese empires crashed in the Pacific and Japan was the first to strike; the United States had an empire that Japan wanted. However, government officials should have foreseen this problem and prepared one of the furthest and most diplomatically important military bases further against the possibility of Japanese aggression. However, Pearl Harbor was neither further prepared nor reinforced against the possibility that the expanding Japanese forces would come their way. What should have been done, was that the military base on Pearl Harbor should have been further secured against a surprise attack, if it ever occurred, that is. As a result of the expansionist trends that Japan had been exhibiting in the years leading up to the attack, Washington should have realized as Japan expanded into Southeast Asia that Pearl Harbor would have been on their agenda as they expanded.

Another sign was that the Japanese attack was not the first time that there existed hostility between the Japanese Empire and the United States. Earlier in 1941, the Japan-United States relations were already embittered and quickly deteriorating. In July of 1941, the islands were put on alert when two American measures against Japan further weakened diplomacy: the complete embargo and the activation of American troops in the Philippines. The previous point of Japans imperialism also correlates with the embargo: By 1941, the Japanese imperialists were starting to encroach on areas that the U. S.

considered its vital interests including threatening key U. S. sources of rubber and tin in southeast Asia. On July 26, 1941, Japan began occupying the strategic rubber-growing area of southern Vietnam.

The next day the U. S. froze all Japanese assets in the U. S. and forced Britain and Holland to follow suit. (Revolutionary) With Japan being a small, overpopulated, almost wholly non-arable island, far away from its Axis allies in Europe, the embargo thoroughly damaged their war effort and their way of life and forced them to rely on Dutch oil, which was also depleting quickly because of Allied pressure. In this case, Roosevelt was waging a form of economic and underground warfare that was so effective that it virtually crippled the Japanese.

Because the effect of the embargo was so paralyzing and provocative, Washington should have realized that this might bring about some sort of Japanese aggression towards those imposing the embargo, which could encompass anything from activation of Japanese troops to attacking the fleet. Also in July of 1941, only four months before the attack, Roosevelt activated troops in the Philippines, which were purposely close to the Japanese Empire and, more importantly, ever so closer to the territories that Japan had hoped to 'acquire' through its imperialism. Roosevelt's justification for activating the troops was that when the Japanese invaded Manchuria and other provinces in Asia, they 'stepped' closer to the United States and other western powers as well as committed numerous war atrocities against Chinese civilians; he therefore wished to indirectly caution the Japanese against their imperialistic plans and the means by which they carry them out. He wanted to warn the Japanese Empire against expanding too far because its expansion aspirations might have eventually been aimed towards the newly formed and democratic south Pacific countries and other sensitive areas. This generally imperialistic behavior and forceful manner should have been interpreted as dangerous to American military bases, especially outlying ones that interfered with Japan's growth, and therefore defensive measures at those outposts, such as Pearl Harbor, should have been augmented as a precautionary measure. Another tense period was in October of 1941.

The reason was that the Konoye Cabinet, a generally moderate and peaceful ruling cabinet, was replaced by the Tojo Cabinet, headed by General Hideki Tojo, which was, because of its Prime Minister, extremely militaristic, aggressive and imperialistic in nature (Wohlstetter 71 - 140). In this case, when a extremely militaristic and ferocious cabinet replaces a moderate one, this should have set off 'bells and whistles' in the United States government be...


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Research essay sample on U S S World Trade Center

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