Israel Verifies Death of 38 Hostages Who Were Believed to Be Alive

[thucythucy]

98. I read the material you sent in your PM to me

and I don't see anything about the US threatening war with Japan.

What I did read was material I already knew and which is pretty much common knowledge.

Which is that in response to the Japanese occupation of what was then "French Indochina," the US imposed an embargo on various items crucial to Japanese war making ability, most especially an embargo on oil. This embargo would have been lifted if the Japanese military had agreed to withdrew from Indochina and began a serious effort to end its aggression against China. The Netherlands, which at that time controlled the oil fields in Indonesia, also imposed a partial embargo, offering to sell Japan enough oil to meet its peace time needs, but not enough to continue to fuel its war machine. At that point Japan had enough in its oil reserves to fuel its military for another six or eight months, assuming it continued its war against China and its continued occupation of Indochina, after which it would face a crisis.

The Japanese government then had a choice. Agree to the US conditions for a resumption of trade, or go to war in an attempt to seize the resources on its own. Indonesia, at that time "The Dutch East Indies" had oil fields that could potentially make the Japanese military self sufficient. But in order to seize those oil fields Japan would have to make war on the US, the Netherlands, and Great Britain. To protect its connection to the oil it would have to seize the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, and then Indonesia. In order to seize Malaysia it had also to attack and occupy Thailand and Burma, neutralize Australia, destroy the American fleet at Pearl Harbor and the British installations at Hong Kong, Singapore, and Sri Lanka.

In retrospect this course of action was simple insanity. Which is why the Japanese action was so unexpected. As Churchill wrote, it was inconceivable that any sane government would undertake such an absurd enterprise. But, as Churchill went on to say, the one advantage of insanity is that it carries with it the element of surprise.

The fact is Japan is more prosperous today, and its people have a higher standard of living, than it ever had as an imperial power. Its wars--against Manchuria, China, the US, Britain, the Netherlands, Australia and the rest of the British empire, were doomed from the start.

Japan's leaders in 1941 were thus hopelessly deluded and criminally negligent.

One final note: while the US may have "wanted the rubber" this was hardly a reason to threaten, let alone go to war. As it turned out the Japanese occupation of the rubber plantations in Indochina made not one whit of difference when it came to the US waging war. And Japan's near monopoly on the manufacture of rubber did absolutely nothing to forestall its total defeat.