U.S. ‘Trap’ Led to Pearl Harbor Attack

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tocaff
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RE: U.S. ‘Trap’ Led to Pearl Harbor Attack

Post by tocaff »

There was a thread on the UV forum about war atrocities and of course nothing was resolved as everyone had their own opinions.  Actually it did lead to one member being banned because things got rather heated.

There isn't an innocent country in the world when you study it's past, but we're talking a specific time period.  I can't be held accountable for what my country did before I was born and neither can it's present government.
 
Did Japan cross the line?  That's what this moved to.  FDR's embargo left Japan choices, they just made the one that their culture all but dictated. The UN institutes embargoes in today's world and for the most part they're ineffective, but are they wrong?
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RE: U.S. ‘Trap’ Led to Pearl Harbor Attack

Post by Mehring »

ORIGINAL: tocaff
There isn't an innocent country in the world when you study it's past, but we're talking a specific time period.  I can't be held accountable for what my country did before I was born and neither can it's present government.
If I understand you right, you're saying that every country has comitted attrocities but in the 1930s-40s it was (mostly) Japan, therfore we should approve of our country's actions at that time?

The problem with that pragmatic approach is that underlying interests endure through the changes in what might be accepted "moral" or "imoral" behaviour. Put another way, a power can show nice and nasty faces while pursuing the same goal. Would you not have to support, then, the liberation of Russia's christians from oppression by the Nazi's? It's a fact, they opened up the churches again and let people use them. There is always someone who benefits from an aggressors actions. I don't think that weighing up this and that on some moral scale is any use in determining what is good or bad for me and my kind. I need to know the goal of the powers and whether or not that's good for me. How they pursue it is, if not irelevant, certainly not the determining factor in my support or not for them.

Looking in the belligerents of WW II, and acknowledging the different levels of foreign domination/expansion, economic and cultural development in each, I find no essential difference between them. Regardless of any alliances, each country pursued nationalist objectives at the expense of all other countries and hundreds of millions of people were killed, maimed, lost parents or children, had their lives destroyed in one way or another. My conclusion from that, as the world economy enters a period which will engender similar tendencies and wars, is that we need to do away with nation states. Just as families, tribes and clans were united into nations, so now nations must unite and depose the political interests that seek to keep the world divided.
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RE: U.S. ‘Trap’ Led to Pearl Harbor Attack

Post by HansBolter »

ORIGINAL: Ambassador

ORIGINAL: Terminus

I personally subscribe to the "million shades of grey" maxim, but there is absolutely no comparison between the Japanese and their murderous rampage across Asia and anything the Western colonial powers (including the US) did to the people under their hegemony. Trying to paint the two with the same brush is arrogant revisionism on par with Holocaust denial.
Two words, before I leave this thread : Native Americans.


So how long does one have to live on a continent before one qualifies as "native"?

Their ancestors emingrated across the Bering Straights from Asia....they are no more native than I am!
Hans

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RE: U.S. ‘Trap’ Led to Pearl Harbor Attack

Post by witpqs »

Mehring,

You make plenty of valid points but also several just plain wrong ones. Entering a war is not the same as starting one. Even starting one (in terms of the actual fighting) can be right, depending upon the circumstances. The course of history is not so easily predictable as I believe you say. Looking at the past and coming up with explanations is not prediction. Just as in science predictions are only acceptable regarding observations not yet made or events not yet known, prediction is made ahead of time. Where are the predictions of history that have been tested for real?

You imply that action must be morally perfect for it to be allowed. That is impossible. You then (perhaps recognizing that, among other considerations) conclude that nation-states be done away with to avoid those (and presumably other) consequences. But one government will fare even worse. It will become (as we have seen with such institutions) one big, unopposed bureaucratic atrocity machine. Also, the consent of the governed matters, and it will not be forthcoming with anything near the universality that would be required. Division will be deep and broad. Such a government (one government to bind them all!) could not abide that, and would feel compelled to stamp it out.

It seems we agree to disagree. Peace. [8D]


[Edited to fix typo.]
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RE: U.S. ‘Trap’ Led to Pearl Harbor Attack

Post by decaro »

ORIGINAL: Ambassador
Two words, before I leave this thread : Native Americans.

Well, I have a few words for you, regardless of whether you see them or not.

During WW II, Americans employed volunteer "Native Americans" aka American Indians as "Wind Talkers" who used their native language (Navajo) as a code the Japs couldn't break.

During WW II, the Japanese literally used their fellow Asians as slave labor, i.e., in mines deemed too dangerous for Japanese civilians, as so-called "comfort women" for deployed IJ troops, etc. You would have to go back to the time of the Spanish Conquistadors to find a similar systematic mistreatment of others.
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RE: U.S. ‘Trap’ Led to Pearl Harbor Attack

Post by Terminus »

Yes, but apparently the misdeeds perpetrated by the evil imperialist Western powers count for a lot more than those perpetrated by the Japanese empire. Can't argue with fanatics.
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RE: U.S. ‘Trap’ Led to Pearl Harbor Attack

Post by decaro »

ORIGINAL: Mehring
... My conclusion from that, as the world economy enters a period which will engender similar tendencies and wars, is that we need to do away with nation states. Just as families, tribes and clans were united into nations, so now nations must unite and depose the political interests that seek to keep the world divided.

That was already tried in Mesopotamia: it was called the Tower of Babel, and it didn't work 'cause no one could understand each other.
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RE: U.S. ‘Trap’ Led to Pearl Harbor Attack

Post by anarchyintheuk »

ORIGINAL: Mehring

To say that the US would have had to enter a war had history unfolded differently is not speculation. True, the US just might have chosen to continue in an endless Great Depression and everything might have carried on in great poverty, just as a ball just might balance on the point of a triangle indefinately. But people tire of such conditions. Something had to give to gain access for the US to world markets, or the social turmoil of the 1930's in which the then militant CIO was formed, would have escalated and eventually burst. War was the other way out, and by hook or crook, Roosevelt got it.

Pure speculation. Unemployment was falling and gnp and per capita income were rising prior to the start of US rearmament (were billions were pumped into the economy) and the effects of arms, supply and food sales to UK and France had taken effect. I don't see the endless poverty. Capitalism does one thing very well . . . boom and bust.

What does the phrase 'people tire of such conditions' mean? Were the people of the US going to revolt? Demand a random war against another country? Who would have been the leaders of this movement demanding war? The militant CIO gettting control of the US government and declaring war against France, Britain, Belgium or the Netherlands (the countries controlling access to most of those world markets) sounds like a novel.

War was bringing down the very empires controlling this access regardless of whether the US was directly involved. The US was doing good business w/ Germany and Japan prior to WW2 and had no problem w/ access to those markets. As stated above, was declaring war against France or Britain to gain access to a market in the realm of possibility?

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RE: U.S. ‘Trap’ Led to Pearl Harbor Attack

Post by AirGriff »

To say that the US would have had to enter a war had history unfolded differently is not speculation. True, the US just might have chosen to continue in an endless Great Depression and everything might have carried on in great poverty, just as a ball just might balance on the point of a triangle indefinately. But people tire of such conditions. Something had to give to gain access for the US to world markets, or the social turmoil of the 1930's in which the then militant CIO was formed, would have escalated and eventually burst. War was the other way out, and by hook or crook, Roosevelt got it.
 
What rubbish.  FDR had no intention of starting a war with Japan, but he knew war was coming, that much he knew from years of trying to negotiate with the Japanese and some very good intelligence.  Naturally, he directed that US forces should prepare for this even while he sought to delay the inevitable--almost desperately sought to delay I might add. In November '41 he was looking for almost any excuse to relieve the economic pressure he knew was hitting the Japanese hard, but they refused to back down in any way.  By the time he realized he had overestimated his ability to calm the crisis down and underestimated the Japanese leadership willingness to go to war, it was too late--within 24 hours I believe.  He was much more interested in helping out against the Germans.  Without a doubt most of the major players of the time were very keen on having a big influence in China, where they saw a huge and upcoming market in development--this includes the US, British, France, Russia and of course Japan.  Even so, the US had more material interest in appeasing Japan.  The trade between Japan and the US was many many times what it was between China and America.  Same for all the Western powers, but Japan was so bent on getting their empire that it forced most of the world into putting increasingly harsh economic and diplomatic pressure to make Japan take a more civilized approach.  I am certainly not saying this was for lofty and angelic reasons the West began to pressure Japan, far from it, though there was a LOT of public outrage and opinion at the Japanese heavy handedness in the 30's.  Pick up a history book (an objective one presenting both sides fairly with authors who know their business and have lots of correlating facts) before you start spouting such nonsense.   Better yet, read several. 
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RE: U.S. ‘Trap’ Led to Pearl Harbor Attack

Post by niceguy2005 »

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

ORIGINAL: Ambassador

ORIGINAL: Terminus

I personally subscribe to the "million shades of grey" maxim, but there is absolutely no comparison between the Japanese and their murderous rampage across Asia and anything the Western colonial powers (including the US) did to the people under their hegemony. Trying to paint the two with the same brush is arrogant revisionism on par with Holocaust denial.
Two words, before I leave this thread : Native Americans.


So how long does one have to live on a continent before one qualifies as "native"?

Their ancestors emingrated across the Bering Straights from Asia....they are no more native than I am!
Long enough to call it home would be a definition that works for me.

The Native American people migrated to the North American continent several thousand years before the Europeans showed up.
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RE: U.S. ‘Trap’ Led to Pearl Harbor Attack

Post by niceguy2005 »

ORIGINAL: Joe D.
ORIGINAL: Ambassador
Two words, before I leave this thread : Native Americans.

Well, I have a few words for you, regardless of whether you see them or not.

During WW II, Americans employed volunteer "Native Americans" aka American Indians as "Wind Talkers" who used their native language (Navajo) as a code the Japs couldn't break.

During WW II, the Japanese literally used their fellow Asians as slave labor, i.e., in mines deemed too dangerous for Japanese civilians, as so-called "comfort women" for deployed IJ troops, etc. You would have to go back to the time of the Spanish Conquistadors to find a similar systematic mistreatment of others.
Actually, the Belgians were using a similar system in the Congo until quite late into the 19th century.
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RE: U.S. ‘Trap’ Led to Pearl Harbor Attack

Post by niceguy2005 »

ORIGINAL: anarchyintheuk

ORIGINAL: Mehring

To say that the US would have had to enter a war had history unfolded differently is not speculation. True, the US just might have chosen to continue in an endless Great Depression and everything might have carried on in great poverty, just as a ball just might balance on the point of a triangle indefinately. But people tire of such conditions. Something had to give to gain access for the US to world markets, or the social turmoil of the 1930's in which the then militant CIO was formed, would have escalated and eventually burst. War was the other way out, and by hook or crook, Roosevelt got it.

Pure speculation. Unemployment was falling and gnp and per capita income were rising prior to the start of US rearmament (were billions were pumped into the economy) and the effects of arms, supply and food sales to UK and France had taken effect. I don't see the endless poverty. Capitalism does one thing very well . . . boom and bust.
I agree that the economic data was showing improvement. The following analysis may sound un-PC but on a high level its true. The war did two things for the US economy that would not have occurred otherwise...
1. It put women to work. The added productivity had GDP sky rocketing. US companies were building solid manufacturing capabilities that, even when many women went back to the home, men were able to return and take their place.
2. Outside of America most of the developed world was leveled. This had two results. There was a world wide demand for products to rebuild with and it eliminated a lot of the industrial powers that might otherwise have competed for those sales.
Both of these effects were a big shot in the arm to the US economy. However, the US was already pulling out of the depression.
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RE: U.S. ‘Trap’ Led to Pearl Harbor Attack

Post by Nikademus »

ORIGINAL: niceguy2005

ORIGINAL: HansBolter


So how long does one have to live on a continent before one qualifies as "native"?

Their ancestors emingrated across the Bering Straights from Asia....they are no more native than I am!
Long enough to call it home would be a definition that works for me.

The Native American people migrated to the North American continent several thousand years before the Europeans showed up.

[:D]

I found this private letter by Thomas Jefferson of interest....

Our system is to live in perpetual peace with the Indians, to cultivate an affectionate attachment from them by everything just and liberal which we can do for them within the bounds of reason. When they withdraw themselves to the culture of a small piece of land, they will perceive how useless to them are the extensive forests, and will be willing to pare them off.....in exchange for necessities for their farms and families. To promote this, we shall push our trading houses, and be glad to see the good and influential individuals among them in debt, because we observe that when those debts go beyond what individuals can pay, they become willing to lop them off by cession of land...

should any tribe refuse the proffered hand and take up the hatchet, it will be driven across the Mississippi and the whole of it's lands confiscated.


-Pierre Berton The invasion of Canada 1812-1813

Sorry.....had to post this. I always find comparisons between the fate of the Native populations of North America to what happened elsewhere to be highly distasteful....as well as hypricritical. Yes......the US doesn't hold the world record of mass slaughter. Of course not....because the US method was far more subtle, and ultimately successful.....carrot and stick......Treaty and new Treaty....economic penetration and in some cases, exploitation and de-facto mass settlement and partioning of the land. War was a last resort but would be used if necessary. The result was arguably the only successful example of "colonialism" seen in recent times.
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RE: U.S. ‘Trap’ Led to Pearl Harbor Attack

Post by Nikademus »

ORIGINAL: AirGriff

What rubbish.  FDR had no intention of starting a war with Japan, but he knew war was coming, that much he knew from years of trying to negotiate with the Japanese and some very good intelligence.  Naturally, he directed that US forces should prepare for this even while he sought to delay the inevitable--almost desperately sought to delay I might add. In November '41 he was looking for almost any excuse to relieve the economic pressure he knew was hitting the Japanese hard, but they refused to back down in any way. 

There's truth in this, but as with most history, the devil is in the details. The Japanese actually did attempt to compromise in Nov,41 but this time it was the US that refused to back down in any way. Roosevelt indeed did [/i]not[/i] want to precipitate a conflict with Japan at that point...mainly because the US was in a critical situation at the time, trying to complete her military buildup for deterrent effect as well as the escalating "war" in the Atlantic vs. Hitler's Uboat forces. He tried to string it along but a basic problem cited by author John Caputo was that he and his administration were naive in believeing that the combination of economic pressure + military deterrence would force Japan to give up all her designs which was totally wrong. I saw that as an example of how two cultures can completely misread each other.

As dec7 approached, a snowball effect developed that engulfed both sides. On the question of whether or not Roos would have declared war ultimatley? I think he would have.....because he was correct in seeing that the US, and all the democracies could not co-exist in a sea of totalitarianism. The big what if I always find facinating to discuss is what would he have done in regards to Germany had Hitler not made his job so easy after Japan attacked. The US and Britian had already secretly worked out the "Germany First" strategy.....but at the time all the outrage was pointed at Japan thanks to the "sneak attack" Could Roos have gotten Congress to declare war on Germany? Interesting what if!

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RE: U.S. ‘Trap’ Led to Pearl Harbor Attack

Post by JWE »

ORIGINAL: Nikademus
I found this private letter by Thomas Jefferson of interest....
Pretty good Nik. In California, “native Americans” have the second highest per capita income and the highest mobility rate of any minority. Oh – did I mention – western European white people are a minority here in Cali. I for one am very pleased with the outcome.

I find it amusing that the ‘cockpit’ Euros, finding themselves totally irrelevant, have nothing better to do with their time than become nannies. As if anyone pays any attention.
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RE: U.S. ‘Trap’ Led to Pearl Harbor Attack

Post by HansBolter »

ORIGINAL: niceguy2005

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

ORIGINAL: Ambassador



Two words, before I leave this thread : Native Americans.


So how long does one have to live on a continent before one qualifies as "native"?

Their ancestors emingrated across the Bering Straights from Asia....they are no more native than I am!
Long enough to call it home would be a definition that works for me.

The Native American people migrated to the North American continent several thousand years before the Europeans showed up.


In that case, by what is "good enough for me", since I am a generation removed from immigration, was born here and call this place home, I am just as native as they are.

The point I was trying, subtly, to make is that much depnds on the point of view, that no one is truly "native" to anywhere any more than all of us are native to everywhere. If you go back far enough you can always debunk some one's claim and if you go back far enough you can always make a claim.

I throw a similar argument at those who claim reparations should be made for slavery. Who's slavery? When? Should the Italians be making reparations forever for the fact that the Romans enslaved everyone?

Who decides the cut off date? Who decides whom the target should be?

It all comes down to an agenda....some body's agenda...
Hans

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RE: U.S. ‘Trap’ Led to Pearl Harbor Attack

Post by witpqs »

Very true, Hans. This 'what your ancestor did to my ancestor' stuff is a quagmire that can be manipulated to point any which way.
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RE: U.S. ‘Trap’ Led to Pearl Harbor Attack

Post by Terminus »

ORIGINAL: JWE

ORIGINAL: Nikademus
I found this private letter by Thomas Jefferson of interest....
Pretty good Nik. In California, “native Americans” have the second highest per capita income and the highest mobility rate of any minority. Oh – did I mention – western European white people are a minority here in Cali. I for one am very pleased with the outcome.

I find it amusing that the ‘cockpit’ Euros, finding themselves totally irrelevant, have nothing better to do with their time than become nannies. As if anyone pays any attention.

John, please don't lump me in with this looney...
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RE: U.S. ‘Trap’ Led to Pearl Harbor Attack

Post by Splinterhead »

ORIGINAL: niceguy2005


The Native American people migrated to the North American continent several thousand years before the Europeans showed up.

Unless the Clovis people were, in fact, proto-French, making the Amerinds not so much Native Americans as the Asian menace. [:)]
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RE: U.S. ‘Trap’ Led to Pearl Harbor Attack

Post by Ambassador »

ORIGINAL: niceguy2005

ORIGINAL: Joe D.
ORIGINAL: Ambassador
Two words, before I leave this thread : Native Americans.

Well, I have a few words for you, regardless of whether you see them or not.

During WW II, Americans employed volunteer "Native Americans" aka American Indians as "Wind Talkers" who used their native language (Navajo) as a code the Japs couldn't break.

During WW II, the Japanese literally used their fellow Asians as slave labor, i.e., in mines deemed too dangerous for Japanese civilians, as so-called "comfort women" for deployed IJ troops, etc. You would have to go back to the time of the Spanish Conquistadors to find a similar systematic mistreatment of others.
Actually, the Belgians were using a similar system in the Congo until quite late into the 19th century.
Indeed. I never professed my country had been an angel. I am certainly not the one professing such a nonsense. Every single colonial country, and this includes nearly every european country plus a large bunch of non-european countries, had some sort of slave labor in its history. Well, in fact, I don't know any country which did not have some kind of slave labor at one point or another. Be them called slaves, indentured servants, serfs or moujiks. Forms and names change, but principle does not.

Joe : oh yes, once the US found some utility for its natives, it used them. Like France which used a large bunch of african regiments in both WW. Or UK with its gurkhas and indian units. Like us Belgians. Etc.
Want another three words ? Philippine-American War. IIRC, someone dared say the US came as "liberators" and were heartily welcomed. I guess those hundreds thousands of dead filipinos helped, and that Platt amendment helped as much as the pocket independence Cuba recieved...
Another two words ? Banana wars. Call it "independence & sovereignty" if you like, but when your neighbour reserves itself the right to "intervene" to "put you back on the right tracks", I have some doubts...
The list goes on, and on. The list would go on, and on, if I made it for Belgium. Or France. Or Russia. Or Japan. Or Germany. Or UK. Or China. Etc, etc.

No country is free of any "bad deeds" to such an extent that you can tell that they would "never" have acted so "badly" as another one. Trying to depict it so is always to the benefit of one's own country - and the untold goal is to achieve a "moral high ground", to use as leverage. Somebody's agenda, said Hans. How true.
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