'Remember Pearl Harbor' important slogan for those of us who don't

It's easy to criticize war movies, and with good reason. For the most part, they're produced through the filter of current events, each generation of filmmakers adding the prejudices and distortions it feels will attract the most viewers.

For the most part, World War II movies have given way to films about Korea, Vietnam, Gulf Wars I and II and other conflicts, but films and documentaries about "The Good War" still provide an important service for those of us who don't remember the events they portrayed.

For the United States, Wednesday marks the 70th anniversary of one of the most important events, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and that means first-hand witnesses are becoming rare indeed, most of them 90 years old or older.

And, most of them were probably unaware, at the time, of the factors leading up to the attack. Japan and the United States had been on a collision course for decades.

Like European empires before it, Japan was seeking to expand its influence throughout the world, invading China and protecting its economic future by seizing control of regions supplying commodities like oil and rubber, vital to a modern industrial nation.

The United States isolated itself longer than it should have, perhaps, finally cutting off exports of oil to Japan in July 1941 after the island nation invaded French Indochina -- later Vietnam -- after France fell to Germany.

Finally, preparing further expansion, Japan sought to neutralize the U.S. Pacific Fleet, which had been moved to Pear Harbor from San Diego only months earlier in response to increasing tensions in the Pacific.

The Japanese attacked with 353 fighters, bombers and torpedo planes in two waves, launched from six aircraft carriers.

All eight U.S. battleships were damaged and four sunk, but only two never returned to service later in the war. Three cruisers, three destroyers, an anti-aircraft training ship and one minelayer were sunk or damaged. Some 188 U.S. aircraft were destroyed, 2,402 Americans were killed and 1,282 wounded.

In return, the Japanese lost only 29 aircraft and five midget submarines, 65 servicemen killed or wounded, and one Japanese sailor was captured.

The attack ended any pretense of U.S. neutrality, focusing U.S. military and industrial power on defeating the Axis powers.

By the time the war ended four years later, as many as 78 million people -- civilians and military, including as many as 20 million from war-related disease and famine -- were dead.

The governor has ordered flags to fly at half staff Wednesday in honor of those who died at Pearl Harbor, and television channels are likely to be clogged with movies like "Pearl Harbor" and "Tora! Tora! Tora!" as well as new documentaries.

It wouldn't be a bad idea to take in the best of them and think about the implications for today.

Perhaps the old "Remember Pearl Harbor" slogan is as important today as it was 70 years ago -- not as a rallying point for fighting a foreign enemy, but as a reminder of the need for diligence and willingness to take decisive action, when necessary, to avoid another worldwide conflagration.