Posted on 11/19/2006 7:56:32 PM PST by davy
Thanks for the welcome, Tench, it's good to be here.
I was watching the Disney-made Pearl Harbor (I know, I know, it's a monstrosity in historical accuracy...) earlier and was rather moved by the scene where the US sailors went down with their ships. Then I came across this gem while surfing, and was REALLY, REALLY p'd off by the line
"Reuters news agency quoted a statement from the shrine that said it was reviewing all the museum's exhibits - and would be seeking the opinions of experts - in line with the fifth anniversary of its renovation.
"In order to make the exhibits more substantial, we will also review the historical accounts," the statement said."
I guess they don't have any history books in Japan that they must consult "experts" about what I learned as 7th grade history...
What does IBTZ stand for?
The US embargo was in response to years of Japanese agression against China and East Asia, enslavement of millions, vast numbers of murders, etc. etc.
To say the US "provoked" Japan into WWII is like saying "we can invade anyone we want, and if you object we will invade you, too!"
Still, FDR and others were quite naive in not realizing fully that to the militarists of Japan the only appropriate response to the embargo would be war, and most likely via surprise attack as they had previously used against the Russians. It required profound ignorance for US leaders to imagine that the Japanese military would simply say "ooops, US embargo, we'd better back down...."
Similar puzzlement arises when looking at the irrational faith in the value of "sanctions" and "diplomacy" today vs. Iran and North Korea. What rational person thinks that either of those governments is going to be constrained by the mere inconvenience of sanctions??? Sure, they won't feel they can get away with launching a surprise attack on the USA ala Pearl Harbor, but both of those countries are certainly willing to practice plenty of brinksmanship while improving their nuclear programs, and external pressures only make their internal controls clamp down even harder.
That would be a great movie.
"Japan was the aggressor in the Pacific and they started the war 10years earlier with their invasion of Manchuria and eventually China. We didn't provoke them into invading Manchuria or China."
The Japanese government claims they were never in Manchuria. That, would make you a liar, Bringbackthedraft.
But seriously, some of my younger friends still in college told me that in their exchange programs to Japan (they're graphic design major, closely related to Japanese cartoons), they noticed Japanese history books have no mention of Pearl Harbor. You can look those two words up in the index, but they're not there. This worrys me; will future Japense generations eventually blame us for the casualty they took from the war? If the US started WWII with Japan, than those nukes would eventually be interpreted as our fault too.
For your reference, specifically the B.C. and FR parts.
Thanks for the explanation, pal. No worries, I'm DEFINITELY not one of them "we had it coming on Sept. 11" crowds.
What's DU?
Complacency kills many felines.
Of course they will. They will have a bagman deliver it quietly in an unmarked container ship, rather than a horde of planes with the Iranian flag painted on them, that's all.
Japanese proclaim Koreans and Chinese forced them to invade, rape, pillage, slaughter and enslave said peoples. Said Kuki Iminsana, "They made us do it. We were peacefully fishing, growing rice and watching kabuke when Japan was forced to travel far away and teach the inferior subhumans of China and Korea that Japan was superior."
No clearer explanation is there.
Back to our regular inane programming.
You may be right, alas - that's why every US government from here forward needs to promise these various scumbags a policy of "multiple deterrence" -- if any WMD attack is conducted against the USA, here or abroad, from any unknown sources, then ALL of the scumbags will suffer retaliation -- Iran, North Korea, Syria, etc...... we can no longer afford the luxury of trying to figure out who has attacked us when 9/11 style attacks or worse can happen without any return address.
Of course, that is why pre-emption is more important than ever, though the Demagogues and their UN butt-buddies seem determined to tie down the USA's Gulliver in Lilliput.
DU - "Democratic Underground" - a toxic cesspool of subhuman debris.
Which is why Hitler was dumb enough to declare war on the United States. If he had not, the United States would have thrown its full effort into the war against Japan.
Yeah, but if nuke (or heaven forbid multiple nukes) should go off in any US city then all bets are off - I doubt even the weasel Demagogues would dare to stand in the way of American wrath and retaliation, though of course they would re-assert themselves over time ala Jimmy Carter.
Actually, in some ways, the claim is absolutely correct.
FDR went out of his way to harm the Japanese economy with our own efforts against them there. FDR WANTED Japan in the war so he would have an excuse to attack the Nazis.
He thought Japan would be easy to defeat and he could move on the Hitler, whom FDR thought the real threat (not that Hitler wasn't a threat, of course).
Of course, the economic avenue would not have been successful if the Japs had not been so militaristic and aggressive in the Pacific Rim in the first place. Sure, FDR wanted to defeat Japan, but it wasn't because Japan was so mean to it's neighbors. He just wanted a way at the Nazis that he could get past US voters who put him back in office NOT to go to war (he promised he would stay out of the war, and lied the whole time as he was constantly LOOKING for a way in).
FDR was one of our worst liars ever to hit the White House. Even worse than Clinton.
Mind you, in 1939 the Japanese tried to attack Soviet forces on the Battle of Khalkhin Gol the Japanese were thoroughly defeated by the command of one Georgy Zhukov, who would later command Soviet troops on their invasion of Germany in 1944-1945.
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