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1st point is whataboutism, that still doesn't mean the US provoked the attack. 2nd point was in like 1860, 80 years prior, and no one is advocating that it was

1st point is whataboutism, that still doesn't mean the US provoked the attack. 2nd point was in like 1860, 80 years prior, and no one is advocating that it was a good thing. Those are two very weak points if you're trying to make the case that the US "provoked" the attack.

coldtea 5y ago
>1st point is whataboutism Well, I don't care for though-stoppers like "whataboutism". I'm also neither American nor Japanese, so I do care about putting both in perspective, and seeing the historical progress and causes of their grievances, their relative guilt and so on - not about picking this or that target and slice of time, and condemn them in isolation (which is great for posturing and patriotism, but the total opposite of studying history to understand it and to properly assign the required blame). >2nd point was in like 1860, 80 years prior, and no one is advocating that it was a good thing. Yes. And in the US slavery was 150+ years prior today, so? Things have consequences in history, there don't die when the year passes, or someone changes the topic. Contrary to what Americans think, decades or even centuries matter in history, politics, and affairs of state. "That was long ago" might absolve the children of those responsible, but doesn't absolve a state, nor does it change relations between states (unless corrections have been made, or the point is no longer a threat. But US expanding in the Philipines and SE Asia in 1940, was more a threat to Japan that the US of Perry that forced it to open its borders "because I say so". And in the following decades after the war US would also meddle where it had no business being in Asia, in Vietnam, Korea, all the way to Suharto's Indonesia). (In any case, for countries with long historical experiences - like Japan -, "80 years prior" is nothing, there are disputes and continued attacks that go back to millenia in many cases). China, for one, still considers what they had to go through during the "century of humilliation" in its politics (and does very well for doing so).
- reducesuffering 5y ago
  The US was pulling out of the Philipines when WW2 started, as it had been decided almost a decade earlier to slowly transition to Philippine independence. Your entire justification for Japan attacking the US was that America was no saint and had done terrible things previously. What I'm advocating is that a major source of unnecessary wars all over the world is continued eye-for-an-eye long-held grievances resurfacing, mostly because it is convenient for a state to resurface them in accomplishing whatever they wanted to do in the first place (expand their territory and resources to enrich themselves). Your equivalent today would be a country saying "look what they did to us 80 years ago, let's go attack them." Almost everyone sane has realized this doesn't lead anywhere productive, even when the grievances were true. Should China invade or attack Japan today for the Rape of Nanking? That's what you're justifying. Lastly, US being world police is a hotly contested issue for good reason. You can advocate they had "no business" in Vietnam and Korea, whereas others can point out that without the US, the fate of South Korea would be a North Korean state over all of Korea, at the expense of millions of Korean's rights and welfare. Following what the US prevented in Korea, and without any hindsight, they thought they could do the same in Vietnam, though in hindsight this was fraught for many other reasons.

coldtea 5y ago

>1st point is whataboutism Well, I don't care for though-stoppers like "whataboutism". I'm also neither American nor Japanese, so I do care about putting both in perspective, and seeing the historical progress and causes of their grievances, their relative guilt and so on - not about picking this or that target and slice of time, and condemn them in isolation (which is great for posturing and patriotism, but the total opposite of studying history to understand it and to properly assign the required blame). >2nd point was in like 1860, 80 years prior, and no one is advocating that it was a good thing. Yes. And in the US slavery was 150+ years prior today, so? Things have consequences in history, there don't die when the year passes, or someone changes the topic. Contrary to what Americans think, decades or even centuries matter in history, politics, and affairs of state. "That was long ago" might absolve the children of those responsible, but doesn't absolve a state, nor does it change relations between states (unless corrections have been made, or the point is no longer a threat. But US expanding in the Philipines and SE Asia in 1940, was more a threat to Japan that the US of Perry that forced it to open its borders "because I say so". And in the following decades after the war US would also meddle where it had no business being in Asia, in Vietnam, Korea, all the way to Suharto's Indonesia). (In any case, for countries with long historical experiences - like Japan -, "80 years prior" is nothing, there are disputes and continued attacks that go back to millenia in many cases). China, for one, still considers what they had to go through during the "century of humilliation" in its politics (and does very well for doing so).

reducesuffering 5y ago
The US was pulling out of the Philipines when WW2 started, as it had been decided almost a decade earlier to slowly transition to Philippine independence. Your entire justification for Japan attacking the US was that America was no saint and had done terrible things previously. What I'm advocating is that a major source of unnecessary wars all over the world is continued eye-for-an-eye long-held grievances resurfacing, mostly because it is convenient for a state to resurface them in accomplishing whatever they wanted to do in the first place (expand their territory and resources to enrich themselves). Your equivalent today would be a country saying "look what they did to us 80 years ago, let's go attack them." Almost everyone sane has realized this doesn't lead anywhere productive, even when the grievances were true. Should China invade or attack Japan today for the Rape of Nanking? That's what you're justifying. Lastly, US being world police is a hotly contested issue for good reason. You can advocate they had "no business" in Vietnam and Korea, whereas others can point out that without the US, the fate of South Korea would be a North Korean state over all of Korea, at the expense of millions of Korean's rights and welfare. Following what the US prevented in Korea, and without any hindsight, they thought they could do the same in Vietnam, though in hindsight this was fraught for many other reasons.