Japan was actually lured into attacking the United States. Roosevelt knew that there wasn't support for getting the United States into WWII so Lieutenant Commander Arthur McCollum drew up an 8-step plan to get Japan to attack the United States. Here are scans of the memo that was declassified in 1994:
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/McCollum/index.html
pay particular attention to page 4. There, labed A through H are the 8-steps that provoked Japan into attacking the US. That's the reason when the navy people in Hawaii found out they were coming that nothing was done. Also, that's why no aircraft carriers were there when Japan attacked. What was there was enough to give Japan something to shoot at but not deal a KO punch to the United States.
Also, there is a book for sale at Amazon.com that goes into all of this:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0743201299/ref%3Dase%5Fantiwarbookstore/104-6856444-3755945
More info is on this here:
http://www.sierratimes.com/archive/files/jul/10/nyquist.htm
Also, there is an article at Pravda (the Russian newspaper):
http://english.pravda.ru/main/2001/09/25/16158.html
Edit: I've never read his book nor do I agree with 100% of everything I've read about this topic. I just thought I'd mention this subject and you all can come to your own conclusions.
Edited by - seawolf on 6 September 2002 14:36:57