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I seem to remember reading that General 'Billy' Mitchell warned about the same thing. In fact he forecast Pearl Harbor being attacked in much the same way as it was. Ironically it might have been his own bombing experiments against warships in the 1920s that gave the Japanese the idea.

PS. http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/history/postwwi/gbm.htm
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Or at least prooved that it was possible.

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  They were planning on taking as much of the Pacific as they could for a long time; the Philippines, for example, were a major bone of contention as regards the US (our history of occupation there is not exactly stellar, either).  They wanted more land and more resources (esp. oil), and knocking over the islands of the Pacific would be a snap compared to attacking their mainland neighbors like China or Russia... and the US fleet was the only major obstacle.
I'd imagine  the attack on the US Pacific fleet(Pearl Harbor was targeted because most of the fleet was there) was in the works even before Hitler came to power. I was just describing how Germany and Japan wound up at war against the US at the time they did.

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Aha... the lure of History beckons, beware, once you go down that path, there is no turning back!  You will spend hours, nay, DAYS, pondering such questions as whether it was the longbow or the lay of the land that doomed the French knights at Agincourt? Did the French really HELP the nascent American colonies in their War of Independence, or were they using the overt help to wiggle their way into the upper echelons of American life and twist to their advantage?  How did the Romans use their famous short swords against "barbarians" with longer weapons??

You are hooked by a pox from which there is no escape!

MUAHHHHAAAAhAAAA!

Actually Rotty...

The Japanese had attacked China and had been at war with the since the early 1930's.

Events such as the rape of Nanking and their trreatment of prisoners of war told of the unspeakable horrors and atrocities that they were capable of.

You must remember that the Japenese firmly believed in their own superiority as a warrior nation. Their code of honor said you kill yourself, you do not surrender to you enemy. If you surrendered you lost not only your own honor but that of your famlies as well. They expected their enemies to act the same way and when they didnt they were classed as sub-human and were treated as such. Many captured prisoners had their heads cut off or were shot because of that code.

That is why to this day there is so much resentment towards the Japanese around the world and why China was gravely offended by the Japanese Prime Ministers visit to the monument to honor Japanese war dead.

The Japanese didn't consider attacking the US until the US stopped sending scrap iron, oil, and other raw materials to Japan to protest Japan's war against China.

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How I forgot about that I have no idea... embarassing. I had a kung-fu teacher who was a rifleman with the Chinese Army during that awful period; he was very proud of his service. Good thing he doesn't visit these forums... he's old, but can easily  kick my butt...   

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Well if you consider the Gulf War to be for oil then it has to be pointed out that Japans intentions were not solely for oil but for coal, metal ores and everything as mainland Japan had little in the way of any natural resources. So on those grounds it could be said that the Gulf war is the first war when oil is of the most primary concern whereas Japans invasion of China was just an all out resource snatching affair.

Woodlouse2002

I disagree.  Although they went after all the raw resources, but they had great priority for the oil.  And the history bears this out.  First off, Admiral Lockwood created the doctrine that his submariners go after Japanese shipping, with oilers being given high priority.  Also, as Lockwood's doctrine began showing results, the Japanese had to do their war planning around the availability of oil.  Prior to operation A-Go, the Japanese Mobile Fleet couldn't venture far away from Tawi-Tawi because there they could get raw bunker-c oil that didn't need to be refined, so bad was their need for oil to prosecute the war.

As many know, as the war progressed, Japanese aviators lacked sufficient training, why?  Because the lack of oil.  The Yamato's sortie to rendevious at Okanawa to disrupt the American landings was a suicide mission.  The knew this.  Why?  The fueled the small fleet with enough oil for a one-way mission.  They lacked enough oil to top off their tanks, so desperate was their need for oil.

Addition for a point of accuracy:  Although they fueled the fleet for a one-way mission, the officer in charge of dispensing the fuel-oil, out of sympathy, disobeyed orders and gave Yamato more fuel to attempt a return trip, just in case they survive.

....anyway,

The Japanese had the rubber and steel to build the ships and planes, but they lacked the oil to fuel them.

It was the 1st war for oil.