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meatcleaver -> RE: Japan not the aggressor in WWII (10/31/2008 5:14:38 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: slvemike4u
Japan's war did not start on Dec 7'th,cutting off oil imports to Japan was a direct consequence of Japanese aggression in Manchuria and China proper...in other words the man's opinion is ridiculous.
One can't look at history as one event. Japan wanted to be left alone in the 19th century, the US forced Japan to open its ports and sign what became known to the Japanese as the humiliation of the unequal treaties. Britain was another western country involved, they forced treaties on China. That is the seed from which Japanese militarism grew. Japan could see that if it didn't modernize, it would become a western colony. Once Japan got to some strength, it wanted what western countries had, empires and it wasn't just Europe that had empires, the US made imperial expansions into the Pacific. So the idea that the Japanese invasion of Mancuria was bad, what are we to make of western imperial powers (US included) subjugating lands in the Pacific? Western countries portraying themselves as victims of Japanese aggression while not accepting their own aggression is a refusal of western countries to take a good look at themselves. The US was an aggressive power, as was Britain, as was several European countries. What the fuck was all these western countries doing in that region of the world, setting up vacation destinations or ripping off the locals? The mistake Japan made was to be more brutal to the people in lands they conquered than westerners, otherwise they would probably have been welcomed as liberators.
This Japanese officer is doing exactly the same as westerners do, Europeans and Americans, pretending to be innocent victims when both were as bad as each other.
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