Compartmentalizing and Japan's Attack on Pearl Harbor

[Cynthia Stults]

One of many things that struck me during Dr. Yamashita's lecture was that the architects of the Pearl Harbor attacks had been educated and spent a great deal of time in the United States. This was incrediby surprising to me, as I would assume (you know what they say about assuming things...), that once you had spent time with a group of people, it would humanize them as a group, and to go back and design an attack meant to destroy and kill would be morally impossible. It is always easier to hate and demonize a group that you have never had personal contact with. This makes me wonder if this is just part of the compartmentalization that many military personnel do on a regular basis, or was their experience in the States so distasteful or negative that they had no problems attacking the country where they received a portion of their education?