Around this time of year as a patriotic american I am very divided. It is hard to hide my power level in response to people claiming "the japanese were the agressors" or somehow implicating that the Pearl harbour attack was done by the Japanese.
We need to remind people of the reality of the situation.
The first question: Why were the battleships the only ships left in Pearl harbour?
The morning of the attack, all Aircraft carrying vessels were told to depart the port, and go on sealane patrols. During the attack, they were told to divert to San Francisco.
The assumption is that japanese scouts saw them leave and made haste to tell the fleet about the vulnerability of the port. That is a many hours long flight, though, and a longer steam to the port. So I find it hard to believe there was a hidden massive fleet within striking distance of Pearl Harbour, and then the navy would tell its main anti-aircraft ships to leave.
During the early 1940's there was a major push to lobby against the old "outdated" battleships and bring in a new era of naval warfare. I believe the battleships were specifically exposed to "prove" the lobby's arguments about muh old battleships being vulnerable.
The second, and most critical point of contention, is this: Why would the Japanese, with their 100% detailed scouting of Pearl harbour (according to the written "history"), forget to find out where their fuel depots are?
According to Admiral Nemitz:
"Every drop of fuel in the Pacific theater of war is in top of the ground storage tanks five miles away over that hill. One attack plane could have strafed those tanks and destroyed our fuel supply. That's why I say the Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could make or God was taking care of America."
You can consider us the luckiest people in the world, or you could question all the strange confluences of details in this event.
To summarize: Pearl harbour was caused by the internationalists to draw us into WW2 to save communist slave governments from muh ebil nationalists.
The fact that a) the entire anti-aircraft battlefleet was removed directly prior to the "attack" b) the only ships targetted were battleships and c) zero bobms were dropped on, or near, any vital infrastructure, including fuel depots, which would have crippled the entire island for the forseeable future. The reason they DIDN'T go "all out" in this attack is because the base was needed to them attack the Japanese, so they couldn't go too far or else risk hamstringing their effort.