Washington, DC December 7th, 1942 (Rooters)

A wide consensus of security experts concluded that the President's recent address before the League of Nations failed to offer conclusive proof of collaboration between the German, Italian and Japanese governments in the recent series of attacks by fanatical Shinto extremists, and other incidents. On the other hand, some on the extreme fringe argue that the President did not go far enough to "connect the dots," which they claim would link even actions generally not thought to be terrorism as part of the pattern.

The President had sought to establish a pattern of cooperation between the Japanese regime of Prime Minister Tojo and the German National Socialist state of Mr. Hitler. According to him, the attacks by Shintoist extremists on US naval vessels at Pearl Harbor a year ago, and the mysterious explosions on US tankers and merchant vessels in Atlantic waters over the past year were part and parcel of a "Second World War" actively being coordinated by Tojo, Hitler, and Mussolini.

Most experts and professional "profilers" doubted this analysis. "The President is indulging in fantasies about mysterious German submarines lying in wait and torpedoing American vessels. It's far more likely that this is the work of domestic white terrorists from the Ku Klux Klan and alienated lone white males from the 'torpedo subculture.'"

FBI sources indicate that the recent tanker sinkings off Miami were the work of a disgruntled torpedo engineer who secretly built torpedoes in his garage using stolen gyroscopes from the Navy lab in which he worked. The FBI cited eyewitness accounts at the scene who described an unknown white speedboat in the area immediately after each sinking.

Conspiracy theorists disagree. "Those were high-quality torpedoes with excellent guidance systems. It's highly unlikely that they were manufactured in a garage by a single individual. As for the white speedboat, do you know how many white speedboats there are off the Florida coast? Once the Coast Guard had issued a warning to look out for white speedboats, they were reported everywhere. Nobody was looking for periscopes."

Some on the extreme conspiracy fringe even seek to establish a link with the Ku Klux Klan conspiracy that sank the USS Panay in China back in 1937, for which several Klan-connected sailors were expeditiously hanged after a speedy court-martial.

Conspiracy theorists cite early eyewitness reports of low-flying airplanes with Rising Sun insignia and "Oriental-looking pilots" leaving the scene shortly after the explosion. However, Navy investigators maintain that those reports were quickly discredited and attributed to post-incident shock and confusion.

Experts also dismissed the recent capture of torpedoists Gunther Kraut and Jack Hitler in the waters off Miami, who have been charged with some recent torpedo incidents. Despite the fact that they were captured in a rubber raft with German Navy markings, wearing German Navy submariner's uniforms, and that Hitler was an American citizen who had recently changed his surname from "Smith," FBI sources said that any actual German or National Socialist connections were "tenuous" and "probably irrelevant to the case."

In an apparent attempt to increase the volume of the war drumbeats, some conspiracy theorists are now claiming a link between the German-Japanese "Axis" and the recent mysterious explosions that sank the USS Yorktown in the Pacific. They use this as justification to claim that the "War against Extremism" is in fact a bona-fide, literal war against Germany and Japan--one which will not end until both Berlin and Tokyo have been invaded and occupied.

Most scoff at the notion, of course. The majority of informed analysts believe the sinking of the Yorktown and other Navy vessels to be the work of Shinto extremists angered by American interference with Japanese ambitions in Asia, and by the detention of large numbers of Japanese Americans following the terrorist attack of a year ago, or even the random acts of deranged individuals.

But in case it's not the latter, the consensus is that the President should reconsider the nation's "pro-China" foreign policy, and release all of the detainees. He must also be more vocal, many claim, in his admonition not to discriminate, and continue to affirm that Shinto is basically a religion of peace.

One highly-placed anonymous State Department source stated, "Sure, Hitler and Tojo aren't up for any Peace Prizes, but they can be contained, and we can actually work with Mussolini to help moderate German ambitions. After all, if he can make Italian trains run on time, what can't he do?"

Another well-placed Washington source said, "The President is stretching the facts in order to build the case for a League of Nations resolution permitting the use of force for regime change in Germany. But this will only get in the way of America's search for justice against the Shintoist extremists who somehow managed to hijack Japanese Navy aircraft and bomb Pearl Harbor. Germany and Japan are quite different, and in some ways mutually opposed ideologies. Their only real link is mutual resentment against America. This does not add up to proof that they are conspiring together."

"In any event, they are only a threat to their own regions, and there's no concrete evidence that either of them have made any plans to attack America, despite their open declarations of war. To wage war on them would be the greatest of folly, with the potential for destabilizing the whole of Europe and Asia, and it will only increase the latent and growing anti-American sentiment in those countries."

"This problem will only be solved by tightening up our homeland security, increasing surveillance on white extremist groups, and instituting tighter controls and background checks over purchases of torpedoes and their components. All must share the burden of protecting our nation--we cannot single out groups of people or nations for the actions of an extreme few."

As for how to deal with the admittedly problematic states of Germany, Italy, and Japan, a coalition is forming within the League to propose to consider contemplating sending in weapons inspectors. Debate on the issue is expected to start by late spring.

Copyright 2002 by Jim Bennett (and Rand Simberg)

Rand, what I want to know is how it's possible to obtain these records of that alternative reality, given that it must have annihilated itself sometime during the 1960s...

Or is this a reverse Bellesisles situation, of being able to consult records despite their having been destroyed?

The Japanese National archives in San Francisco probably declassified the data 50 years after the victorious end of the conflict despite complaints from the German Propoganda ministery.

It's a well known fact that this war FDR wants to fight is simply a ruse for him to become the new Julius Caesar and to destroy our civil liberties. After all, do you really think he'll just stop with locking up Japanese-Americans? If I were Senator Taft, I'd watch out. (g)

The Truth About Islam

Can someone please tell my why so many humanoids refuse to recognize that the holy scripture of Islam specifically calls for the murder of non-believers?

Can someone please tell me why so many humanoids refuse to recognize that Muslims, faithful to those words, are our enemies?

Can someone please tell me why so many humanoids listen to idiots like: Jimmy Carter, Walter Cronkite, Susan Sarandon, Harry Belafonte, and Michael Moore?

Can we win this war?

Although many benighted humanoids do indeed listen to the verbal flatulence these people produce, thank goodness there is a critical mass of more illuminated humanoids who realise that Jimmy Carter, Walter Cronkite, Susan Sarandon, Harry Belafonte, and Michael Moore make foul noises out of all their apertures.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Questions: why weren't jets launched on 9/11 - as they have been in every other case, going back thirty years, when a passenger jet ceases radio contact?

You get me a good answer to that, then I'll believe that perhaps, just perhaps, Bush and the bin Laden clan weren't in this together for the past twenty years, ever since they made him his first millions.

I'm wasting my time here, of course, but think about it, and all of the other anomalies of the time: the head of the FBI reporting that they had found an *intact* passport from one of the hijackers at Ground Zero (you can still find links to that story if you google for them).

Bush is untrustworthy. The CIA, Satan's Little Helpers, are saying that politically-cooked information is being worked into our policies as fact, and Tenet himself says "attacking Iraq is not a good idea".

Wake up you slumbering dreamers: Iraq is bad, but the real enemy is within.

Disappointingly, your piece fails to address the importance of the Washington Naval Conference's achievement, and those of Versailles, too: Germany and Japan couldn't be threats because they agreed not to build big navies or (in the case of Germany) any modern air force at all. I mean no sovereign nation would break its sacred treaty agreements. Everybody knows that!

Blah Blah Blah, you have picked a fitting pseudonym.

Careful Blah Blah Blah those black helicopters are circling your house now. Can you feel the implant warming up as we search for you.

But where does the Mossad fit in...? Did they fly the jets?

Has it ever occured to you that occam's razor applies here..?? The simplest answer is the government was simply incompetent....that our armed services were sitting around playing bridge while their country was being attacked because the Generals didnt ever concive we would be attacked..? The very same CIA that you love to quote was saying weeeeee everything is cool. The FBI was busy arresting prostitutes in various cities and the NSA was trying to find a quarter to operate its equipment.

But hey dont let simple stuff get in the way of your hallucinations.

PAPA DOC

Funny you should mention Mossad, Papadoc... see, THEY were the ones flying the planes with the Rising Sun symbol at Pearl Harbor. WW II was just a Mossad plot to found Israel after it was all over.
Blah Blah Blah told me so!

The problem with this little 'counterfactual' exercise is that the Italy/Germany/Japan combo
wasn't named "Axis" by the US President, but
by Mussolini, a member who certainly ought
to have known of what he spoke. There
were formal agreements among them.

No similar situation exists now. There are lots
of other problems. The Nazis and Japan began
invading other nations long before 1942, and
had held the territory.

Also, I don't know why people on the right think
that left-center people give a rat's ass about
what liberal celebrities think. When Streisand
shoots her mouth off, or Alec Baldwin, it generally gets covered in the entertainment media, not in any serious forum. Actually, I'm wrong.
Conservative pundits will waste yards of column space 'rebutting' a liberal celebrity,
as if the celebrity was actually some kind of
influential 'idea leader'.

Streisand and their ilk may have some influence
in their social circles, but they're not taken
seriously by much of anyone else. They don't
have regular pundit columns.

As far as I can tell, it's not Democrats who elect celebrities, it's Republicans. I can't really think of any elected Democrat politician who was
an actor, athlete, or similar.

Sorry Jon, I disagree.

A five minute sketch on Leno showing Bush to be a dope will negate a dozen speeches made by the President or politacal experts.

Celebrities have, for better or for worse, a grossly inflated influence over the public.

Elvis Bogart

"I can't really think of any elected Democrat politician who was an actor, athlete, or similar."

just recently in the news was Alan Page, who allegedly was passed over for replacing Wellstone in the minnesota race. i seem to remember he was a kick-ass defensive lineman for the Vikings.

that, and not his party affiliation, should disqualify him in my book.