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History See other History Articles Title: Rainbow Five Rainbow Five by Jim Davies Exclusive to STR December 5, 2007 Have you heard of Rainbow Five? Most have not; I had not, until I read Thomas Fleming's masterpiece, The New Dealers' War. I'd say it is one of the most important documents of the 20th Century, and yet to this day it is little known. Such is history; forget its lessons, as Santayana so famously said, and you're condemned to repeat them. The story of Rainbow Five is just such a lesson. Fleming brings more of an Old Right perspective than that of an outright anarchist, but don't let that stop you buying a copy of the book--it's a treasure-trove of insight into how America was dragged into World War Two and how hundreds of thousands of American lives were sacrificed in the interests of government. His research is impeccable and his style, compelling. Before encountering the book, I had already concluded from others such as Hamilton Fish's Tragic Deception and Robert Stinnett's Day of Deceipt that FDR deliberately manipulated the United States into that War when no defensive need existed; possibly to distract public attention from his abject failure to end the Great Depression and almost certainly to bid (successfully) for a much more prominent role for the US Government in world affairs when it was all over. Even as late as December 6th, 1941, the American public wanted no part of it; poll after poll showed huge majorities in favor of letting the rest of the world destroy itself at will, with neither help or hindrance from America. That majority reversed itself 24 hours later, after FDR's master stroke brought the destruction of the Pearl Harbor fleet by agents of the Japanese government, of which my own short summary appears here. In The New Dealers' War, Fleming does not dwell on the way FDR engineered Pearl to make it look like an unprovoked, surprise attack. He doesn't deny that it was a false-flag operation, but apparently feels that even after two thirds of a century, the proof is not so overwhelming as to be taken as fact by a scholar of his repute (9/11 MIHOP theorists, please note: you may have another 60 years to go, before the evidence is hard enough). Instead, Fleming brings out two other themes of the disaster that needlessly took 400,000 American lives: firstly how FDR turned a vicious trick in the West into what he really wanted most, namely involvement in a European war to the East--which I had never previously understood--and secondly, the importance of the slogan "unconditional surrender," which I remember being bandied about when I was a boy and probably repeated myself at the time with bloodthirsty, patriotic, thoughtless gusto. So to the first of these: Rainbow Five. That was the name the Army gave to waging war on Germany , prepared as a contingency plan by then-Major Albert Wedemeyer at the Pentagon in mid-1941. That is SOP for governments; they always have plans up their sleeves for waging war on each other, just in case they see advantage in dusting them off. Wedemeyer's was a businesslike plan and was, of course, very much Top Secret. Relations with the German government were not good-- US military help had been given to Britain for over a year--but there was no state of war, much to FDR's disappointment. That huge popular opposition to involvement was reflected in Congress. The German navy, meanwhile, was under orders not to harass US shipping in the Atlantic , despite the heavy provocation of the military convoys. Hitler at the time did not want to fight the USA until he had dealt with the USSR , in a war he began in mid-1941; two-front wars are a bad idea and he already had the still-undefeated Brits battling him in North Africa and posing a threat to his Northwest. Rainbow Five proposed shipping a 5-million man army to Europe in mid-1943 to attack and conquer the Nazi empire, and specifically explained that the two-year delay was unavoidable because the needed equipment was simply not in place. And it was written, recall, before the Japanese had destroyed most of the Pacific Fleet, which might otherwise have been brought round to help in an Atlantic war. Fleming tells of how Major Wedemeyer arrived at his office on December 4th, 1941 , totally aghast to find a copy of the Chicago Tribune lying on his desk with a published copy of Rainbow Five. The Trib at the time opposed FDR, and it had been leaked by persons unknown--but certainly not Wedemeyer. Fleming reviews the few possible culprits, and concludes "no other explanation fills all the holes in the puzzle as completely as FDR's complicity." But why? The reason was that a translated copy of the Trib was brought to the desk of Adolf Hitler the next day, and he immediately took counsel with his fellow-thugs. The report, evidently authentic and Top Secret (the US press was buzzing with accusations of treachery) had completely changed his perspective. He now had solid evidence that (a) the US was planning to attack him but that (b) he had two clear years before it could begin. While Rainbow Five was under urgent review in Berlin , the Pearl Harbor attack took place, and by December 8th, war had officially started between Germany 's (defensive) ally and her potential enemy. The decision was not hard: to put Russia on hold and wage war at once on an America preoccupied with Japan, with a vigorous Navy-based campaign to put her Atlantic capabilities out of action, and a large reinforcement to his African army to knock out the British there, so forcing an armistice which he repeatedly sought. He badly miscalculated his ability to keep the Soviets quiet, but otherwise that made perfect sense in the radically new circumstances that had emerged in three days flat. Hence on December 11th, the German government declared war on the American one; by the extraordinary cunning of leaking Rainbow Five at the very time he knew the Japanese attack was pending, FDR achieved his objective of joining World War Two--with Germany as his first priority--despite an 85% pre-war popular opposition. And he had done it with both enemies in such a way as to make it seem they were the aggressors! That is statecraft at its very ugliest, and set a standard of malevolence to which even Shrub has not come close (though he does have 13 more months). The other component of Fleming's book that broke new ground for me was the Allies' insistence on "unconditional surrender." This was not just morale-boosting propaganda, it was a policy agreed to first at Casablanca in early 1943, and it was FDR's baby. Churchill, to his credit, was wise enough to count the cost before getting aboard. Arguably, FDR announced the policy to appease Stalin, who was so critical of the US/UK failure to commit to invading France that year that it was feared he would make a separate peace with Germany ; but that does not excuse its rigorous enforcement two years later. Churchill never liked it, but all three government leaders pretended unanimity and sold the concept to their domestic bases. Its importance emerged later in the war, when victory became almost certain. Then--late 1944, say--it would have been feasible to negotiate a peace with Germany , and, a few months later, with Japan too. There was substantial opposition to Hitler within his country and even within his army. Admiral Canaris, head of the German intelligence service, was a case in point. All of these were making serious--and horribly dangerous--attempts to contact the Allies to set up a dialog. The only answer was silence; the policy of unconditional surrender was the reason. Knowing that policy (the Nazi leaders made it very public), even German civilians, who by then had no heart for the war at all, saw no alternative but to fight to the death. The rest is history. Now consider the policy's cost, as Fleming so eloquently counts it: "the Americans lost 418,791 dead and wounded after the breakout from Normandy . . . the British and Canadians . . . another 107,000. If we include Russian and German losses, the total post-D Day dead and wounded approaches 2 million. If we add the number of Jews who were killed in the last year of the war, the figure can easily be doubled. If we add all the dead and wounded since 1943, when unconditional surrender was promulgated, destroying the German resistance's hope of overthrowing Hitler, that figure too could be doubled--to 8 million. Unquestionably, this ultimatum was written in blood." Franklin D Roosevelt was not the biggest mass-murderer in history; Mao, Stalin and Hitler each killed more than he. But he comes quite close; his two most notable achievements provide reliable commentary on the nature of government. Instead of allowing the market to correct itself after the 1929 Wall Street setback, Hoover and (especially) he intervened again and again, so creating massive poverty while raising the FedGov to unprecedented power in the land. Then he deliberately and craftily engaged America in its second most costly war ever in order to raise the Nation to unprecedented power in the world. His success in creating a massive government in a massive nation is universally celebrated to this day in the city where he did it, and I agree; this bloodthirsty megalomaniac is the archetypical government leader. Accordingly, all who agree in deploring the wicked deceptions of Pearl Harbor and Rainbow Five, along with the mindless savagery of the unconditional surrender policy, have no rational alternative but to deplore government itself. Digg This Discuss This Jim Davies is a retired businessman in New Hampshire who led the development of an on-line school of liberty in 2006, and who expects to experience a free society in his lifetime. Jim Davies Archive
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 14.
#1. To: Zoroaster (#0)
Smart man. He didn't say where. Because it won't be here.
His success in creating a massive government in a massive nation is universally celebrated to this day in the city where he did it, and I agree; this bloodthirsty megalomaniac is the archetypical government leader. FDR's complicity in the bombing of Pearl Harbo rmay mark the beginning of the media and big government working hand-in-hand to coverup treason at the highest levels of government. Rather than being remembered as a traitor today FDR is regarded among the greatest of America presidents. Is it any wonder that the JFK assassination and the 9/11 atrocity have been swept under the rug of history?
I don't think 9/11 is going away any time soon. Calling the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor a 'false flag' operation appears to suggest that the attackers weren't legitimate members of the mainstream Japanese government naval force, and that the Emperor and his cabinet were not behind the attacks, and that Admiral Yamamoto never uttered the words: "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve." I don't know why the writer would want to do that, but it does not speak highly of his larger intentions. The oil/iron embargo is another issue, but Japan had already signed the Tripartite agreement with Germany and Italy — solidifying the resolve of the Axis — in September, 1940. This followed the 1937 Comintern pact (November and December), which had formed the Axis powers. By the time of the signing of the Tripartite Pact, it was clear that fascism was a threat not to be ignored. Whether military intervention as in the embargo the Allies imposed on Japan was the right approach is something scholars can debate at length. Also, as General Wedemeyer notes, the Allies failed to recognize the even greater danger that communism posed. That Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, is very clear. Its resolve to drive the United States out of its perceived Pacific sphere of influence was very strong. Are there reasonable objections to America's decision to impose the embargo and denounce Japanese incursion into China? Of course. For one thing, Japan's aim of eradicating communism in China was a reasonable endeavor considering the later murder of scores of millions of people by Mao through starvation and imprisonment. This wasn't the only reason for Japan's attack on China, however. The "Co-Prosperity Sphere" was to be a benevolent colonialist occupation. Even without resistance by the Americans and British, it would have been tyrannical. Jacob Schiff's contribution to Japan before the Russo-Japanese war in 1904 is one example of American banking's manipulation of the history leading up to the second world war, more than three decades later. Should this have been permitted? Did it hasten the onset of communism on the Asian continent first in Russia, and then in China? More opportunities for debate. But FDR's henchmen at the very least were not painting red suns on the sides of hundreds of stolen Mitsubishi Zeros to fly them into the skies over Pearl Harbor in the weeks before December, 1941.
What do you think about that statement?
I think that the human race was in a world of collectivist hurt by 1939.
I think the plan was to get in bed with the Communists from the inception...
FDR's administration was apparently riddled with communists. Socialism was seen as a solution to the abject poverty Great Depression, and this closed people's eyes to the dangers of electing socialists, and tolerating their appointments to cabinet and staff positions and employment throughout government. I have to wonder if he was just a puppet, much like I've come to see the Bushes and the Clintons.
Name one POTUS in the last 80 or so years that wasn't a puppet. Even Reagan, it turns out, was (unfortunately I must admit) doing 'their' bidding...
I question the veracity of what presidential history I think I know from this century.
You're a very special person, buckeye...and not short yellow bus special either. ; )
#16. To: FOH (#14)
Well I did mean to say from LAST century, but the same goes for this one!
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