[djsumdog]

After the US et. al. cut off fuel and oil trade. They don't teach you that part in school.

The saddest thing about WWII is that the people who started the war, by funding it, were never brought up on charges at Nuremberg. Prescott Bush and Standard Oil made millions off selling fuel to both sides. IBM made the punch-card based catalogue service for the Nazis. Henry Ford's company made tank treads for both allied and Nazi tanks and even built the rails leading to Auschwitz.

The reality is that there were entire industries that actively did everything they could to get that war going, in order to profit from it. People look at Hitler and forget that wars need to be funded.

[knz]

They do teach that in some history classes. I would encourage you to read more about events such as the Rape of Nanking or Comfort Women if you have any concerns about why the Allied nations fought Japan. It was not due to the business interests of Wall Street. There were real world consequences for millions of people due to Japanese aggression and the Japanese were actively threatening numerous sovereign nations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Events_leading_to_the_attack_o...

Tensions between Japan and the prominent Western countries (the United States, France, Britain and the Netherlands) increased significantly during the increasingly militaristic early rule of Emperor Hirohito ... as part of Japan's alleged "divine right" to unify Asia under Hirohito's rule.[1]

During the 1930s, Japan's increasingly expansionist policies brought it into renewed conflict with its neighbors, Russia and China... In March 1933, Japan withdrew from the League of Nations in response to international condemnation of its conquest of Manchuria and subsequent establishment of the Manchukuo puppet government.[2] On January 15, 1936, Japan withdrew from the Second London Naval Disarmament Conference because the United States and Great Britain refused to grant the Japanese Navy parity with theirs.[3] A second war between Japan and China began with the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in July 1937.

Japan's 1937 attack on China was condemned by the U.S. and several members of the League of Nations including Britain, France, Australia and the Netherlands. Japanese atrocities during the conflict, such as the notorious Nanking Massacre.... The U.S., Britain, France and the Netherlands each possessed colonies in East and Southeast Asia. Japan's new military power and willingness to use it threatened these Western economic and territorial interests in Asia.

[bpodgursky]

Um, you must also have had a pretty spotty education, because you missed the part where the fuel embargo was to stop the ongoing genocide the Japanese were conducting against China.

Don't act like the world would have been A- ok if we had just been ok selling gas to power genocides.

[mikeash]

It's worth noting that China lost 15-20 million people in the war, which is the second highest death toll of all the involved countries, behind the USSR. And the war in China gets very little attention. If you ask people when WWII started, they'll usually say December 7th 1941 (if they're being US-centric) or September 1 1939 (if they remember Poland). Yet the Japanese had been rampaging around China since the early 30s, with very little done to stop them until they made the mistake of provoking a great power a decade later.

[AnimalMuppet]

Well... the US did stop selling some stuff (steel, rubber, gasoline, and maybe a bit more) to Japan because of what they were doing in China. That was a factor in Japan deciding to go to war with the US.

So I don't know if you count that as "little done to stop them". That was what we could do, short of war, and even that helped precipitate war.

[chrishacken]

> The saddest thing about WWII is that the people who started the war, by funding it, were never brought up on charges at Nuremberg. Prescott Bush and Standard Oil made millions off selling fuel to both sides. IBM made the punch-card based catalogue service for the Nazis. Henry Ford's company made tank treads for both allied and Nazi tanks and even built the rails leading to Auschwitz.

The difference is these all took place before the war started. We sell weapons to countries all the time. That doesn't mean we wouldn't stop them if they began committing atrocities that we currently have no knowledge of.

[lostlogin]

The weapons being sold are used for atrocities fairly regularly. Pretending this isn't happening is what we do best.

[chrishacken]

I guess that can be true, depending on which conflict you're talking about. For instance, we sell Israel weapons all of the time, and one can argue that their entry into Palestine was an "atrocity", however, I'm sure if we were bombarded by missiles as they were that we wouldn't hesitate to enter and clear out a small nation of terrorists either. Obviously their execution could use some work. We're not exactly experts at it ourselves, but war is far more complicated than what you see on TV.

[lostlogin]

I wouldn't describe Palestinian Territory as "a small nation of terrorists". If the US took an approach other than giving and selling arms (refered to as "aid" at times) to Israel meaningful peace negotiations might be possible. The areas I specifically had in mind were places like Saudi and Bahrain. Arms sales to Bahrain were briefly restricted/stopped but resumed fairly quickly once news reels stopped appearing.

[TazeTSchnitzel]

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour was a strategic preëmptive strike, because they knew the US would come after their empire at some point.

I don't think Japanese imperialism can really be defended.

Of course, Japanese imperialism was very much inspired by European imperialism in… well, everything. But that doesn't make it right either, merely just as bad.

[knz]

> because they knew the US would come after their empire at some point.

This makes it sound as if the US only acted to end competition against another Empire. Japan invaded numerous territories for access to resources and committed horrible atrocities while doing so.

The attack on Pearl Harbour may have been preemptive but the only reason for Japan to fear attack from others was due to actions of the Japanese.

[TazeTSchnitzel]

> This makes it sound as if the US only acted to end competition against another Empire.

Well, that might well have been the case. While World War Ⅱ did put a stop to some horrible things, I don't know if that was because they were horrible or merely because their perpetrators were a threat. I suspect the latter.

[boomboomsubban]

Japanese imperialism was an attempt to get out from under the boot of US imperialism. The US showed up, forced their nation open to western powers,and spent the next 70 years intimately engaged in all their important decisions.

Japanese conduct during the 30s was atrocious. They tried playing by the moral code in earlier wars, the US and other Western powers repeatedly reneged on deals and forced Japan to return any possessions.

[TazeTSchnitzel]

I don't think that's quite fair. It's true that after the arrival of the US, Japan was apparently fed up and changed its approach. But does that make invading and subjugating their neighbours justifiable?

[boomboomsubban]

Sort of. If you feel there's a greater power out there that's building up to invade you and your neighbours, forced unity can seem like the lesser of two evils. The US was not super friendly in the first half of the century, Hawaii and the Philippines were both recent military conquest dangerously close to Japan.

[dragonwriter]

> After the US et. al. cut off fuel and oil trade. They don't teach you that part in school.

They did in my public school.

> People look at Hitler and forget that wars need to be funded.

Your argument is confused. You point to profiteers (who were funded by the war, not funding the war), but then follow with this.

[shawndumas]

Are you saying that Japan's decision to go to war over a hit to their oil supplies is reasonable and understandable?

[woofyman]

They cut off the oil exports to stop the Japanese war machine.

[GunboatDiplomat]

> After the US et. al. cut off fuel and oil trade. They don't teach you that part in school.

And do you know why we did that? Was that mentioned? Did they talk about Japan's war of conquest in China or the Rape of Nanking, among a thousand other atrocities?