Replies

Don't waste your time looking for any book like that. That's a blood libel created by the American left that's been floating around for the past 80 years or so. That claim never made much sense anyway, they would have to burn through oil in order to prosecute a war in the first place. The Euro powers had no resources to defend and secure their holdings in Asia, the worldwide depression in the aftermath of the first world war had seen to that. What was left that could be deemed a credible threat to the Japs making the Pacific into their own personal lake was the Americans. They were going to attack no matter what to reduce that perceived threat. As for oil there were plans from the start to cover that, in seizing all the Euro holdings, particularly the Dutch West Indies.

What is always missed is that America and Japan had very warm relations up until the first world war ended. It went to turning sour after we would not back their claims in front of the League of Nations against territories they sought to seize in the Pacific from Euro powers. Add to that we also put specific restrictions against Japanese coming to America which really riled up not just the government but also the populace into viewing us as a bunch of nasty bigots. We got put on a s--- list after that. In their view true friends didn't do stuff like that. All of which was playing into the hands of skulkers in the Jap military who were planning a coup in the early 1920's, dashed by the impact of a hurricane disaster in 1923, if I recall correctly. That Driscoll mook at UNC took a little bit of truth and used it to build a crass misrepresentation - the Japs wanted the Euro whiteys out alright, but not for the reasons he claims. They were competitors and potential adversaries to the plans they had long worked out and were to be kicked out or killed off to clear the way for their own sphere of hegemony to establish without interference from outside parties. Leave it to academia losers to distort history into an agenda.

“What is always missed is that America and Japan had very warm relations up until the first world war ended.”

Well there were massive government-inspired demonstrations in Tokyo when Teddy Roosevelt brokered the Treaty of Portsmouth that ended the Russo-Japanese War. The way the Japanese government saw it, they were entitled to seize Russia’s maritime provinces after sinking 2 Russian Fleets. The cease-fire & subsequent treaty prevented the Japanese from doing just that, greatly simplified Japan’s strategic calculations in the subsequent world wars.

Actually, its real. Another Freeper pointed out the circumstance. I then went and looked for the info online and on my bookshelf...

“The oil embargo was a result of Japanese atrocities in China. The Rape of Nanking was the worst publicized atrocity at that time. And one of the worst atrocities in history. Even the Nazi Ambassador from Germany at the time was utterly appalled at the brutality of the Japanese. Babies were hoisted on bayonets. Rapes by the thousands and each victim murdered. Two Japanese officers had a contest to see who could decapitate the most Chinese in a day. It goes on and on. If we had done nothing it would have been an unforgiveable stain on our honor.

These people who try to blame the war on the US are disgusting. The Imperial Japanese were racial supremacists, classical ones.

They could have done what other nations do: trade for oil. Instead they decided to loot the world. They were bent on conquest of China and the entire Far East. They should be thankful it was only two atom bombs.”