Anyway “The Imperial Japan did it, so we are totally in the clear to do it too” isn’t the flex Trump seems to believe it is.
The same Imperial Japan that Hitler’s emissary wrote back saying basically “those people are monsters, you can not make an alliance with them!”
Followed up with “You people believe in surprise more than we do!” Fucking incredible. I don’t know what could have been said to make that exchange more awkward and uncomfortable. Not only was that some shit from 90 years ago, for which they were fucking nuked (twice!), he had to throw in some racism as well. I try to minimize the clips I watch of that clown speaking while still following his actions, but I had to see if he actually made that wild comment, and it was worse than reported.
I really don’t see this as much of a scandal. So what? It’s true, when attacking, you don’t broadcast it. Japan didn’t when they attacked Russia in 1907 or whatever it was and wiped out their fleet either. Their code didn 't require a declaration of war.
The president is a pos don’t get me wrong. No one hates him more than I.
that’s not the same as telling, or better asking, your allies heads of states. you know, so they can warn you about consequences you may have overlooked, get their citizens out, or ready their armies or tell you if they aren’t ready.
also, there has been a pre-blitzkrieg time, when it was considered honourable to formally declare war, before one attacks. different behaviour was considered uncivilised. declaring war gives peace an extra chance. the enemy may surrender without even a single shot fired. civilians can evacuate and the battles can even be just between two armies. no schools with kids still inside get wiped out etc.
also, there has been a pre-blitzkrieg time, when it was considered honourable to formally declare war, before one attacks.
Actually, Imperial Japan wanted to do just that before the attack on Pearl Harbour, too, but fucked up due to blatant incompetence and a tight schedule. The official declaration of war was to be delivered half an hour before the attack (in time to formally save face, but too late to allow for any meaningful preparations), but it took the embassy staff much longer to decrypt than anticipated, so they ended up delivering it only after the attack had already started. US intelligence had by then already decrypted and read it for long enough (actually, US intelligence, by that time, could regularly decrypt Japanese embassy ciphers faster than the Japanese themselves) to technically be able to effect a warning, but due to incompetence on the US side, that warning also didn’t make it to the relevant people in time. (There were more warnings that went unheeded. For instance a Radar station picking up the air raid while still miles out, dismissed as a scheduled flight of US bombers into one of the air bases on Hawaii, and a patrol ship detecting and sinking a submarine trying to sneak into the harbour, dismissed as the relatively inexperienced ship commander imagining things) So it was just a whole lot of incompetence on all sides.
