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Things Trump Is Doing Right
#93
(05-09-2017, 03:21 PM)Galen Wrote: Considering the consequences of the embargo on Japan it is clear that Pearl Harbor was FDR's fault.  I learned about all of this in a class on World War II history in the eighties and The Rising Sun by John Toland touched on the subject.  His later book Infamy is devoted to just that subject.

I would have preferred that the US would have stayed out of the First World War which would most likely led to a more equitable peace and probably avoided World War II which was in many ways a continuation of World War I.  It is worth noting that without US entry into that war both sides would have had to sue for peace and neither could have impose anything like the terms of the Treaty of Versailles since they were simply running out of men to throw into the trenches.  It is also very likely that the German High Command would not felt compelled to send Lenin back to Russia and there might never have been a Soviet Union.

You might actually want to spend some time with actual history rather than the comic book version we all get from the public schools.



Wrong about Japan. Japan could have avoided the embargo had it ceased its aggression against China. Japan at the time was an Evil Empire in its own right -- witness massacres by the Japanese Army, massacres so inexcusable that even Nazi Germany condemned them. by Pearl Harbor, thug Japan was already looking for easy conquests, and took over most of French Indochina (letting Thailand snip off pieces of what are now Cambodia and Laos after its own military intervention) from Vichy France. Japan treated the peoples of Indochina badly.

The unintended consequences were that the Japanese sought sources of petroleum for its war machine and rice for its soldiers (because the Japanese military machine had drafted so many farm laborers for its army and navy, it was running out of food) and found them, especially in British and Dutch possessions. The Philippines had little oil, but ti did have rice. Peoples of Southeast Asia and Indonesia would be starved to feed the Japanese armed forces.

FDR did not believe that the Japanese leadership would do something so stupid as to attack Britain and the USA. The Japanese leadership did the stupid and cruel thing. That's what irresponsible regimes do when there are resources to grab. Blaming FDR for the Japanese thrust into southeast Asia is like blaming a retail clerk for the armed robbery when a vicious criminal robs the store.

World War I was a mistake that everyone should have stayed out of. But seemingly everyone on the Continent except those countries that ended up in it was spoiling for a fight over territory or for the hurt feelings of near-absolute monarchs... it seems only a matter of time before war would erupt. Had it not been for the assassination of the Archduke there would have been some other pretext.

The USA was been better off evading the war, and it did its best to avoid it. It was only with the Zimmermann telegram that offered Mexico chunks of the American Southwest in return for waging war with the USA (Mexico was wise enough to reject the offer) that war became a certainty.

The problem with World War I was the vindictive settlement against Germany  followed by

(1) rigorous enforcement of terms with the relatively-pacific Weimar Republic which never committed an act of military aggression, and

(2) lenient treatment of Hitler's vicious regime.

Let's see -- the cops go hard on juvenile offenders who do nearly-trivial offenses and then kiss up to mobsters. That's not how the cops would do things if I were the mayor. Maybe the analogy between the Axis Powers and mobsters isn't perfect... but mobsters and fascist tyrants seem to share the critical thread of sociopathic attitudes.

The US insisted upon treating liberated Germany and Japan with leniency after World War II. Seventy years later I have more faith in German and Japanese democracy than the gutted democracy that we Americans know. I expect to go to Canada soon after I get a passport; I expect to send back cards that read "Greetings from FREE Toronto"!
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


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Messages In This Thread
Things Trump Is Doing Right - by X_4AD_84 - 04-07-2017, 10:22 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by pbrower2a - 04-07-2017, 10:30 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Warren Dew - 04-07-2017, 11:24 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by David Horn - 04-10-2017, 10:24 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Galen - 04-08-2017, 08:35 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by pbrower2a - 04-08-2017, 11:42 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by pbrower2a - 04-08-2017, 07:37 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by FLBones - 04-08-2017, 05:59 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Emman85 - 04-08-2017, 06:59 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Galen - 04-08-2017, 11:15 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by David Horn - 04-10-2017, 10:37 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Warren Dew - 04-16-2017, 12:17 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by pbrower2a - 04-10-2017, 10:27 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by pbrower2a - 04-10-2017, 11:17 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by pbrower2a - 04-12-2017, 01:27 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Warren Dew - 04-16-2017, 11:54 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Warren Dew - 04-17-2017, 08:50 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Warren Dew - 04-17-2017, 07:16 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Ragnarök_62 - 04-17-2017, 11:19 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Ragnarök_62 - 04-18-2017, 01:13 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Warren Dew - 04-18-2017, 09:32 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Warren Dew - 05-02-2017, 10:54 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Warren Dew - 04-17-2017, 08:30 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by David Horn - 04-18-2017, 10:12 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by David Horn - 04-18-2017, 03:05 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by David Horn - 05-03-2017, 03:22 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Warren Dew - 05-04-2017, 08:21 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by pbrower2a - 05-03-2017, 02:43 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by pbrower2a - 05-04-2017, 08:14 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Odin - 05-06-2017, 08:55 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Galen - 05-06-2017, 11:50 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Odin - 05-08-2017, 06:47 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Galen - 05-09-2017, 03:57 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Odin - 05-09-2017, 06:35 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Galen - 05-09-2017, 03:21 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by pbrower2a - 05-09-2017, 06:29 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Odin - 05-11-2017, 07:14 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Odin - 05-12-2017, 07:19 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by David Horn - 05-09-2017, 09:58 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by pbrower2a - 05-07-2017, 07:04 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Galen - 05-07-2017, 06:27 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by pbrower2a - 05-08-2017, 12:29 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Galen - 05-09-2017, 04:04 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Warren Dew - 05-09-2017, 12:20 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by pbrower2a - 05-08-2017, 07:27 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by David Horn - 05-10-2017, 10:53 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by pbrower2a - 05-10-2017, 01:03 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by pbrower2a - 05-10-2017, 01:55 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by pbrower2a - 05-13-2017, 09:04 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by pbrower2a - 05-15-2017, 08:46 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by David Horn - 05-15-2017, 10:13 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by pbrower2a - 05-15-2017, 05:23 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by David Horn - 05-16-2017, 09:35 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by David Horn - 05-16-2017, 05:08 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by pbrower2a - 05-17-2017, 08:15 AM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by Mikebert - 09-19-2017, 03:49 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by David Horn - 09-20-2017, 03:35 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by pbrower2a - 05-15-2017, 04:15 PM
RE: Things Trump Is Doing Right - by FLBones - 05-17-2017, 10:38 AM

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