factors pushed Japan to the act of war against the U.S

[arnadstephen]

THE TRUTH IS SOMEWHERE BETWEEN WHAT
PAT BUCHANAN SAYS AND WHAT OTHER SAYS

BUT I THINK THIS ADDS SOMETHING TO THE
DISCUSSION, PAT BUCHANAN's ANAYLSIS


Pat Buchanan wrote an article on what events led Japan into World-War II.


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Pat Buchanan

Why did Japan attack us?

Of all the days that will "live in infamy" in American history, two stand out: Sept. 11, 2001, and Dec. 7, 1941.

But why did Japan, with a 10th of our industrial power, launch a sneak attack on the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor, an act of state terror that must ignite a war to the
death it could not win? Were they insane? No, the Japanese were desperate

... it goes on.....

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=25637

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[Mandylion]

"And so Japan attacked. And so she was crushed and forced out of Vietnam, out of China, out of Manchuria. And so they fell to Stalin, Mao and Ho Chi Minh. And so it was that American boys, not Japanese boys, would die fighting Koreans, Chinese and Vietnamese to try to block the aggressions of a barbaric Asian communism. "--Ah, the benefit of hindsight. The catch is that at the time, Japan was just as bad as Stalin, Ho Chi Minh, and Mao combined. The first two are irrelevant to his argument, one, because Stain was busy enough in the west and the only threat Russia played to Japan was colonial exploitation in China, and two, Ho Chi was more a product of the French. Japan helped to harden Chinese feelings and did more to produce communism in China than Pat would like us to believe.

"Had FDR met Prince Konoye, there might have been no Pearl Harbor, no Pacific war, no Hiroshima, no Nagasaki, no Korea, no Vietnam. How many of our fathers and uncles, brothers and friends, might still be alive?" --As long as someone else dies it is okay? Additionally having a Japanese 1940’s style regional policeman would be like trusting Stalin with Eastern Europe- oh wait, we tried letting a fascist government do that type of thing already.
"Now Japan is disarmed and China is an Asian giant whose military boasts of pushing the Americans back across the Pacific." – I cannot for the life of me comprehend where he got this little gem on China.

Interesting article, but I have to disagree with the tone and reasoning. Japan was not some democracy populated by cosmopolitan thinking foreign service career veterans who could seek a way out of sanctions. Not getting anything done with Konoye didn’t impact much of anything at all. The Japanese military was already running by its own whims in China and controlled domestic policy to boot. Japan decided it wanted an empire, realized the embargo would prevent that and so decided to go down swinging as opposed to negotiated withdraw. When your gov. is populated by generals what more can you expect? Can the US fill the role of hapless victim? Certainly not. But neither can Japan simply say they were forced into it.

[arnadstephen]

I agree, just that Pat Buchanan (an American !), wrote
an unusual perspective on this.

Pat Buchanan, can be very controversial. His views on WORLD-WAR-II, for me, go "too far".

I just think its intresting to keep his perspective in mind. Maybe its what the military in Japan was telling the people of Japan. We, the Japanese military, were forced to attack America.