Colorado Ryder said:
The Japanese had no intention of "buying" the oil. They intended to and did take the oil. The were "forced" to this action when the US put an embargo on oil exports to Japan.
The China Market in the 1930's? You have got to be kidding. 1930's China was rural and poor. There was no market. If the US was concerned about the "China market" why did the US wait till they were attacked to fight Japan? If the "China market" of the 1930's was so good the US would have responded to Japan's 1931 invasion.
What presence did the US have in China in the 1930's?
The pacific war wasn't fought over oil. It was fought over Japanese expansion. You know when they invaded China, Manchuria, Korea, Thailand, Burma, India, Indochina, Phillipines, Singapore, Indonesia, United States.
Exonerating Hirohito? The US basically dictated the surrender terms to the Japanese. What would have been the benefit of trying Hirohito for war crimes? He was basically a figurehead. The military really ran Japanese affairs.
To state otherwise would show a lack of understanding of Japanese society in the 1930's and 40's.
Maybe you should point out the US basically re-built Japan after the war. A war that the Japanese started.
The japanese were buying oil from the dutch until roosevelt put pressure on the dutch government not to sell.
If it's OK for the us to invade iraq to get their oil,why is it wrong for japan to do the same thing?
The people of china may have been poor compared to westerners,but there were billions of them.They were and are the biggest market in the worldand a source of cheap labour (then and now).
There are more ways to start a war than militarily.The us declared an economic war.Why would the us care about japanese expansion in asia.The japanese were no threat to the us mainland.If the us had no economic interest in china,why impose an embargo?
The us had a naval and marine presence in china.All the great powers did,since before the boxer rebellion.
The japanese invaded asia after britain had invaded india,burma,china and malaya,the french invaded vietnam,the dutch invaded the east indies and the us invaded the phillipines.How were the japanese any different?
The japanese did not invade the us.They attacked a naval base on a small group of islands that the us had itself invaded.Hirohito was the military leader of japan.He had full knowledge of all military actions and approved of them.If the emporor wasn't guilty,noone was.
The us did not rebuild japan after the war.They allowed japan to keep virtually everything that the japanese had looted from asia to provide the capital to rebuild.they didn't do it out of the goodness of their hearts.the japanese were in debt to us banks (morgan bank,dillon read and others) and had been since the tokyo earthquake of 1923.These banks had no way of recovering their investments if japan was not allowed to recover economically.
The japanese annexed korea in 1911.us marines invaded in1905.