Did FDR push Japan into attacking?

[The Sage of Main Street]

Criticizing the actions of our government is anti-American?

Yes, if the only real motivation of discrediting the government is to cripple it and leave us at the mercy of selfish and megalomaniacal private-sector powers.

[iustitia]

I think it's funny that the same whitewashed rooseveltophile keeps one-starring my topics. It doesn't mean anything, but the quiet implication being "DON'T LOOK AT THIS". Silent censorship if you will.

[Captain Obvious]

I think it's funny that the same whitewashed rooseveltophile keeps one-starring my topics. It doesn't mean anything, but the quiet implication being "DON'T LOOK AT THIS". Silent censorship if you will.

Fogetaboutit, nobody pays attention to that $#@!.

[RollingWave]

The Japanese annexed Manchuria in 1930, which started much of this, in today's term it was the same thing as Saddam annexing Kuwait and worse. It was one of the major event that ended the league of nation's existence.

FDR did actively bait the Japanese into attacking.

However, one must note that the economic sanctions laid down would not be extreme even in today's term, let alone the 1930s, the US essentially has the same thing on Iran right now and Iran has done far less .

More over, one might consider this little problem, the Japanese since 1938 have proposed the This , which you know, includes US held Philippines, they essentially stated that they were gonna invade the Philippines for many years ahead of time, and you suggest FDR to.......... do nothing?

In the end, the war dragging in China had much to do with the Japanese starting Pearl Harbor, as they realize they probably need to go into SE Asia first to complete their ambition, and they had assumed all a long (not entirely justified, but we will never know) that an attack on British holdings = American will attack. Which lead to Pearl Harbor.

Notes

1. The Japanese Navy under Yamamoto Isoroku (the guy that pulled off Pearl Harbor) was actually very very much against the idea of going to war with the US, Yamamoto had spend years in the US, and realized that it was suicidal to fight a war with the US at it's full might, Pearl Harbor was essentially his plan of giving them a 1 in a million shot of having a chance in the war.

2. The Japanese situation in the entire post feudal era was a gigantic political mess, the government did not actually command the military invade China and the rest of Asia as the Military started their own invasion and the Government had no choice but to tag along since they can neither reign in the military nor can they tell the world that hey man, our military is acting on their own it's got nothing to do with us.

[Max Rockatansky]

Did FDR push Japan into attacking?

No. That's blaming the victim, not the attacker.

Did Saddam push the US into attacking him? I bet all those applauding this meme would disagree since they are obviously America-bashers.

[Green Arrow]

No. That's blaming the victim, not the attacker.

Did Saddam push the US into attacking him? I bet all those applauding this meme would disagree since they are obviously America-bashers.

America-bashers, or realists?

[Mister D]

I agree with Wave that a clash of imperial interests occurred in the Pacific and that all the players knew war was coming at some point. I see the US-Japanese war in a better light than I do US engagement in Europe which was, IMO, a betrayal of our culture and civilization.

[Ethereal]

A. Make an arrangement with Britain for the use of British bases in the Pacific, particularly Singapore.
B. Make an arrangement with Holland for the use of base facilities and acquisition of supplies in the Dutch East Indies.
C. Give all possible aid to the Chinese government of Chiang-Kai-Shek.
D. Send a division of long range heavy cruisers to the Orient, Philippines, or Singapore.
E. Send two divisions of submarines to the Orient.
F. Keep the main strength of the U.S. fleet now in the Pacific in the vicinity of the Hawaiian Islands.
G. Insist that the Dutch refuse to grant Japanese demands for undue economic concessions, particularly oil.
H. Completely embargo all U.S. trade with Japan, in collaboration with a similar embargo imposed by the British Empire.

http://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/McCollum_memorandum

Now, this is just a guess, but if another nation had taken a similar approach to the US's sphere of influence, we would have bombed and invaded them.

[RollingWave]

I agree with Wave that a clash of imperial interests occurred in the Pacific and that all the players knew war was coming at some point. I see the US-Japanese war in a better light than I do US engagement in Europe which was, IMO, a betrayal of our culture and civilization.

I'm not entirely sure the US can avoid the war in Europe either, since Germany wasn't about the back down, half of this is Hitler's fault of not knowing when to go out on top, if he had made peace after taking France he would have walked away as a huge winner in all time. Granted, if he was someone like that he probably wouldn't have gotten to that point in the first place.

The back drop of all this is also an economic mess, the world economic order was shifting rapidly in the first half of the 20th century, it was going away from a world economic order dominated by the classic Gold Standard and the British Empire, the clash of what's left of merchantilism ideas with growing capitalist and socialist onces etc.

I'd generally say that WW2 was all but unavoidable the moment Versailles treaty went down, the US probably should have been much more forceful in the negotiation of that treaty for the British and French to lay down realistic terms, but it's power had not reach that peak yet. And WW1... well that's a even bigger mess of essentially detonating the stockpile of gunpowder that had been building for centuries.

[Max Rockatansky]

I agree with Wave that a clash of imperial interests occurred in the Pacific and that all the players knew war was coming at some point. I see the US-Japanese war in a better light than I do US engagement in Europe which was, IMO, a betrayal of our culture and civilization.

I fail to see why defending ourselves against German attack is "a betrayal of our culture and civilization." After we declared war on Japan for Pearl Harbor, Germany declared war on us. Their U-boats were just off our coast sinking freighters. What is it you think we should have done?

http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/nchist-worldwar/5908

Only seven miles away, a German U-boat had just torpedoed the 337-foot-long U.S. freighter, City of Atlanta, sinking the ship and killing all but three of the 47 men aboard. The same U-boat attacked two more ships just hours later. Less than six weeks after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, the hostilities of the Second World War had arrived on America’s East Coast and North Carolina’s beaches. This was not the first time that German U-boats had come to United States waters. During World War I, three U-boats sank ten ships off the Tar Heel coast in what primarily was considered a demonstration of German naval power. But by 1942, U-boats had become bigger, faster, and more deadly. Their presence in American waters was not intended for “show” but to help win World War II for Germany.