[Stultis]

One might also note the double standard whereby Japanese attempts to establish a colonial empire in China and SE Asia were branded evil and subjected Japan to international opprobrium, while existing European and American colonial adventures in China and SE Asia were perfectly acceptable and legitimate. Thus, Japanese attacks on Indo-China and the Indonesian archipeligo are "agression" while existing western colonial subjugation of the same is evidence of western munificence.

Sorry. Not buying the equivalence here. The Western powers established these colonies against weak, pre-modern states that mostly refused to trade with us. Granted it wasn't pretty. The Western nations forced trade under, at least initially, an unfair mechantilist system. But still they were basically economic colonies.

By the time Japan attacked it's neighbors they were far closer to modern states and would in most cases have been willing to trade with Japan. Japan simply wanted to TAKE their resources, without even the unbalanced merchantilist trade system. Furthermore the Japanese were not merely establishing economic colonies but were also consciously and systematically carrying out genocidal campaigns. Incidents like the Rape of Nanking (never mind the systematic use of germ warfare against civilian populations) bore little similarity to occasional bloodlettings in European colonies, which were almost always related to putting down revolts.

You make it sound like the embargo of Japan was economic aggression by America. This wasn't something that America wanted to do. It wasn't something that was for America's economic benefit. It was a sanction for Japan's aggression against China. It was a measure that had overwhelming popular support in America and indeed was demanded by the American public. The Japanese could have ended the embargo by withdrawing from China.

[Andrew Byler]

You make it sound like the embargo of Japan was economic aggression by America. This wasn't something that America wanted to do. It wasn't something that was for America's economic benefit.

The continued American economic domination of the globe since 1941 bely this arguement. WWII was extremely lucrative to the US, which managed to destroy or allow the destruction of every single conceivable competitor to American global economic domination - Germany, Japan, China, Russia, and the British and French Empires.

You are correct that this was not something America wanted to do if by America you mean her people. 80%+ of them were opposed to war and were deeply isolationist and even more opposed to the attendant social engineering of America which took place as part of the war and its aftermath. However, it was something America wanted to do if by America you mean her ruling elite - the East Coast WASP establishment of patrician Democrats and internationalist Republicans. These people were extremely eager for the opportunities the war presented, and were itching to overturn the existing financial order of things whereby New York answered to London. Their success remains to this day in the global domination of the Dollar and Wall Street in terms of ordering the world's economic structure and sending the benefits of it flowing primarily to America and into their pockets.