Originally posted by NUKE
You truly do not know what you are talking about AKAK. Japan had been on a rampage for decades in Asia. They annexed Taiwan, annexed Korea in 1910, conqeured Manchuria in 1931 and invaded China in 1937, then withdrew from the league of nations.
The US finnally responded, after Japan's invasion of China and their abandonment of their economic treaty with the US in 1940 by prohibiting the export of some oil and scrap metal to Japan....hardly threatening Japan's existance.
Japan's survival was not threatened by the US refusing to sell oil and scap metal to Japan......they were gobbling up countries left and right for years by then. What would you suggest we have done, send them more oil and give them arms?
Japan was a complete beligerant. The US policy was to be nuetral towards all beligerants. We did not want to get into any war.
Japan's very existance was threatened by the embargo we placed on them. Japan has very little natural resources and is entirely dependent on outside sources for oil and almost outside dependent for steel. That's one of the reasons (besides historical) Japan invaded China (to secure natural resources needed) and annexed Korea. After we placed the oil embargo on them, that meant they no longer had a source of fuel and which then prompted the Japanese to invade and conquer the Dutch Indies, to secure more natural resources (oil and natural gas).
Whether or not we wanted to enter the war is not the point. The point is our foreign policy started us on a course where war was the inevitable out come. Whether the policy was right or wrong isn't the point either, just the outcome.
Meanwhile we have Germany, completley re-armed ,not helpless .....not humiliated any longer. Why did Germany feel the need to begin annexing land, then just plain invading countries? You think it's justified because they lost WWI and had to pay repairations? Germany had rebuilt itself by 1939, so why did they have to go to war? Germany was a complete evil horror come to life, and the US had NOTHING to do with the path they chose for themselves.
If you were to read any history books on the causes of the 2nd World War, you'd find out that one of the motivating reasons behind Hitler was to erase the humilation suffered at Versailles. Why else do you think he forced the French to sign their surrender in the same rail road car the Allies forced the Germans to sign the Treaty of Versailles in 20 years earlier? Why do you think most of the Prussian Wermacht general officers followed along? While some did it because they believed the crap shoveled by Hitler, a great deal of them (Rommel and Cannaris were some of these) believed that Hitler would erase the humiliation of Versailles and restore Germany to its rightful place. This is also another reason why Hitler had so much home grown support.
The US had about 0% blame for Japan and Germany being war-mongering fanatics bent on bloody carnage and land grabbing. Don't ever try to peddle that garbage to me, cause Im not buying it.
War would have been inevitable with Hitler's Germany, there's no doubt about it but to say that our actions on how we (the allies) dealt with Germany after the 1st World War didn't influence what was to happen 20 years later, flies pretty much in the face of historical evidence.
Same thing with Japan. Competing national interests would have led to an inevitable clash between the U.S. and Japan, but again to say that our policies towards Japan didn't influence events that led up to the war again flies in the face of historical evidence.
Go read history yourself AKAK. I have read plenty about WWII. One book, Churchill's memoirs, gives a lot of first hand political insight into the causes of WWII , from Churchill's first hand experiences in WWI and throughout WWII.
Then I'm really suprised that you find this as some sort of surprise.
ack-ack
