Pearl Harbor, the Cadiz Raid, and War Crimes

Americans are more likely to know the fictional histories of Middle Earth or of Westeros than actual world history. Most, however, have at least a vague idea of the Battle of Pearl Harbor, memorialized every December 7. So too it is hard to miss the story of the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. But few know of the Raid on Cadiz. When it comes to issues of war and war crimes, you should consider Cadiz along with these other historic events.

The Cadiz Raid of 1587 was part of the struggle between Spain and England (which was partly a religious struggle between the reformed Christian churches and the Roman Catholic Church, which is not important to the context of this essay). Sir Francis Drake can be fairly said to have been a pirate operating under license from Queen Elizabeth I. The Spanish Armada was assembling in a number of ports, preparatory to the invasion of England, following the beheading of Mary Queen of Scots in February 1587, which made a Roman Catholic (and pro-Spain) succession to Elizabeth unlikely. Leading a fleet of only four vessels, Drake surprised the Spanish fleet at Cadiz and destroyed 37 ships in April 1587.

The Raid on Cadiz, in both English and American history, is a glorious moment. The following year Drake and the English navy and a fortuitous storm repelled the Spanish Armada, saving England from the Spanish Inquisition.

But what if you stop and think about whether the Cadiz Raid was right or wrong, or a war crime?

Is building an army or navy the same as actually waging a war of aggression? What if the intent is to wage war? What if the intent is to bully, so obtain some advantage without actually waging the war?

Would the Cadiz raid be legal because the English knew Spain was planning a war? Or was it illegal since negotiations were taking place that might have averted war?

[300 pages of legal and ethical discussion later...] Let's look at some other historical events using our Cadiz decision [(1) it was an act of aggression and war crime, or (2) it was an act of defense, and not a war crime] as a legal precedent.

Fast forward a few hundred years to the Battle of Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. First, you need to know some important facts that are not in most U.S. history books, where Pearl Harbor is characterized as a "surprise" attack. The U.S. and Japan were already fighting in China, with the U.S. air force thinly disguised as a volunteer unit under the dictator Chiang Kai-shek. In addition, the U.S. commander in the Philippines, General Douglas MacArthur, had been given permission to attack the Japanese, and a large U.S. invasion fleet was steaming towards the Philippines. The U.S. had broken the Japanese cryptographic codes. The declaration of war by Japan, simultaneous with the attack, was no surprise to Cordell Hull or President Franklin Roosevelt. Though it seemed horrific, the actual attack did relatively little damage to the U.S. fleet. The U.S. was in a massive naval construction program, and had over 10 times the industrial capacity of Japan. The good new battle ships at Pearl Harbor had mysteriously sailed out to sea, well away from the battle. The Japanese sank mainly easily replaceable World War I relics.

So, back to your Cadiz choice. Maybe Pearl Harbor was Japan's Cadiz Raid. The Japanese government knew that its plan to drive the White Race out of their Asian colonies was about to lead the U.S., with its astonishing industrial capacity, to initiate a war allowing the U.S. to fulfill its dream of ruling China and Japan (and maybe take Indochina from the French, too). Pearl Harbor was defense. If you believe Francis Drake should be treated as a hero for his Cadiz raid, then you should treat the Japanese fleet as heroes too.

But what the hey, Cadiz was a long time ago, and Drake was a Brit, not an American, so maybe to preserve the "day of infamy" status of Pearl Harbor you want to go with Cadiz was an act of aggression and a war crime, as you already believe Pearl Harbor was. Then if one nation is planning to attack another nation, even a weaker nation sure to lose a war, the small nation has no right to a pre-emptive strike. They have to wait until the big bully starts the war before they can defend themselves. Like in the recent Iraq war: if Saddam Hussein had shot first, he would be a war criminal. Even though his fight with the U.S. was purely defensive, somehow he was still the war criminal.

American Presidents and most citizens actually prefer to toss out logic. America is always right! If we initiate an attack, we are right! If we are attacked and retaliate, we are right! If we kill civilians in ways that are clearly war crimes under the Geneva Conventions, we play the Americans get out of war crimes free card. Franklin Delano Roosevelt's pontificating against aerial bombardments of cities, and calling those actions war crimes, when the U.S. was not yet in World War II, did not mean his later ordering the obliteration of Japanese and German cities was a war crime.

Apparently international law is not really something peacefully agreed upon. As a man who knew something about killing people who disagreed with him once remarked, "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." One nation's hero is another nation's pirate. As long as America has chumps stupid enough to buy our bonds, we can keep our guns and our national debt and our freedom from prosecution for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Independence and the 200 Year Hangover

The first independence day was July 4th, 1776. The Declaration of Independence, written by committee but attributed with some cause to Thomas Jefferson, was meant to explain to the world why the gentlemen assembled in Philadelphia did not want to be ruled by Great Britain.

The Declaration carefully skirted at least two of the main reasons that select group of mostly rich men were so eager to split up with England. Before examining them in detail let me say clearly: I believe in democracy. I believe that the U.S. colonies of England should have become independent. I just believe that much bad policy was packaged up in the independence deal.

The idea of independent colonies, bound together or not, was not new in 1776. It had had advocates for decades. But interestingly, until 1772, agitation for independence had gotten nowhere. Why did things change in 1772? Because of a court case in Great Britain.

A slave of African descent from Virginia, named Somerset (or Sommerset or Somersett; spelling was no exact science in those days) had run away from his master, who had taken him to be his servant in London. After lengthy procedings a British judge, Lord Mansfield, declared Somerset to be free. He declared that slavery did not exist in England; that English soil was free soil; that whatever you prior status, when you stepped on English soil you became free. [See Slave Nation by Alffred and Ruth Blumrosen].

This decision, which Ben Franklin wrote about, endangered the livelihoods and thus the liberty of slave owners in Virginia and other U.S. colonies. Thomas Jefferson and other slavers formed the now famous Committees of Correspondence, linking up with certain New England merchants who were also keen on independence. They did not demand representation in Parliament, for that would have made it even clearer that American soil was English soil and that the slaves would have to be freed. Instead they moved the country steadily and inexorably towards independence and their own liberty to continue to own slaves. The American Revolution was underway.

Another thing that was bothering a great number of wealthy (and some not so wealthy) Americans, and here George Washington is the perfect example, was something called the Line of 1763. Most wealth in America was accumulated by land speculation; native American Indian land had to be seized for this game to continue. But the British Crown had negotiated with various Indian tribes for peace and guaranteed that no land would be stolen beyond this line of 1763. State legislatures, being even more corrupt back then than they are now, had granted certain individuals vast lands that lay past the line. Washington belonged to such an investment group. To make the claims good the land speculators had to convince king and Parliament to forget about the treaties and line. The king and Parliament did not want the expense of another Indian war, so they protected the Indians from the colonists.

The two-hundred year hangover came not from independence itself, but from the institution of slavery and greed for other people's land. During the American Revolution the British freed American slaves (funny how we know about the Emancipation Proclamation, but not the earlier granting of freedom), but the freed slaves were handed back to their owners, including Washington and Jefferson, when England lost the war.

The treaty ending the war also ceded lands beyond the 1763 line to the the United States. The fact that these lands belonged to Indian nations was immediately forgotten. The grabbing did not even stop at the Pacific Ocean; the government of the greedy, by the greedy, for the greedy eventually grabbed Hawaii and the Philippines.

For the most part the Native Americans were simply exterminated, but the African slaves became an internal problem, such were there numbers. The Dred Scott decision held the opposite of the Somerset case: in the U.S. you remained a slave even if you lived on the soil of a state that had abolished slavery. In theory slavery was abolished after the Civil War, but the Democratic Party (the party of slavery and the Confederacy) enacted Jim Crow (segregation) laws in the states it controlled that lasted until the 1970's.

Now we celebrate Independence Day (the Fourth of July) in an era of global interdependence. Green house gas emissions in the United States caused global warming that expands deserts in China; plastics manufactured in China accumulate their toxic burden in America's landfills.

Independence Day should be a day for somber reflection and for resolutions to do better. The hangover from today's foolishness looks like it will last much longer than a mere 200 years.

More data:

Line of 1763
Declaration of Independence
Somerset case