Just like Poland provoked Hitler.
Not this **** again.
Someone tell Buchanan we’ve been hearing this **** for over 50 years.
I supposed not handing over Hawaii to the Japanese could have been considered to be a “provocation” in some people’s eyes.
My father, a Navy veteran of Veracruz and WW-I, was called back to active duty in the US Navy in April 1941. Our nation was most definitely preparing for war eight months before Pearl Harbor.
The US refused to concede the Pacific to the Japanese, so of course we started it. lol.
Stupid isolationists
bfl
I’ll spare posting the pictures from the “Rape of Nanking” and “Unit 731”. But you get my point.
Interesting. But I wonder how much of this was deliberate on FDR’s part. There was no doubt that FDR was fixated by the threat from Hitler’s Germany. Also, there was a strong “China Lobby” within the US State Department. Perhaps it was a case of US policy toward Japan “being on autopilot”.
I don’t know how peace was possible given that Japan was committing crimes against humanity in China. FDR’s problem, however, was that he engaged in a series of provacative actions against Japan, yet did not prepare for war. As a result, the Japanese thought America was so weak, they felt confident enought to sail halfway across the Pacific and try to blow up our Navy. Had they gone back for a successful 3rd strike on Dec. 7, one wonders how the war would’ve turned out.
years ago read the book A Republic, Not an Empire by Pat Buchanan. He was under the opinion that FDR antagonized the Japanese
I still don’t know why Lithuania provoked the Germans to bomb Pearl Harbor.
Probably, and FDR was probably a jackass, but the jackass did good in kicking the Japanese in their behinds.
I can easily believe that he may have considered war an antidote to this problem.
“Did FDR Provoke Pearl Harbor?”
The cruise of the Great White Fleet under Theodore Roosevelt’s administration was partially a message to check Japanese expansionism. The Japanese were determined to dominate Asia- they proved that by thrashing China in 1895, and then Russia in 1905, their seizure of Germany’s Asian possessions in WWI, and then their expansion into China after 1931. Opposition to this expansion- and that was the general thrust of US policy beginning with T.R.- pretty much set Japan against the US, regardless of what FDR thought or did.
Had we not faced the Japanese after 12/7/1941 we would have faced them later when they were stronger. FDR was right.
Attack on PH *caused* the Vietnam War.
Umm.....ok. Yeah, right.
We didn’t start the war —I’m happy we won.
But did FDR *want* to war on Japan with no moral responsibility for STARTING it? Why, yes —that’s absolutely true.
And Churchill very badly wanted FDR in the war, and the two had been working for quite some time on how to manage it, when presto, finally the Japanese threw the solution right into their laps.
Did Japan deserve to get whipped? Oh sure..!
They didn’t attack just the USA —they attacked Hong Kong, Singapore, Malasia, Vietnam, Australia, the British, and others, and ALL AT ONCE.
In fact, in Singapore when they took over the hospitals, they went from bed to bed, simply bayonetting doctors and patients. They even shot nurses and doctors performing surgery.
It also turned out that the IJA had made absolutely NO PLANS AT ALL for provisioning for POWs and conquered peoples —nothing at all.
Billy Mitchell predicted Japan would attack back the 20s
As usual, PB expresses some truths mixed with incomprehensible morality.
The US pursued a policy of non-conciliation with the Empire of Japan. In my opinion, this policy was moral and correct.
There is a legitimate argument that it was not wise, at least in the short run. There is no question that a more conciliatory policy could have prevented war, but it also would have been arguably immoral.
gee I thought it was in response to japans aggression and ethnic cleansing in china that caused us to slap japan with a boycott that led to pearl harbor