this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2023
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They literally made them a protectorate after fighting a bloody four year war that Japan started. Then denied them the right to field a military so that they wouldn't start their shit up again.
What was the US supposed to do after Pearl Harbor? Shrug it off?
I find your claims of Japan being undermined by the US to be dubious at best. Japan has done very well since WWII. The US gave them their largest market (when many other Asian imports were blocked) and remains their second highest trading partner after China. They have the third largest economy in the world. That's not exactly a "vassal."
Looks, I get it, "US bad" no matter what. But out of all the examples of shitty things the US has done, picking Japan is just silly.
LOL
You mean the attack the USA deliberately provoked by moving its naval assets to encircle and blockade Japan with the express goal of provoking an attack to create the necessary pretext to go to war? That Pearl Harbor?
How many other nations do you know of that were defeated in war that were prevented from having a standing military for nearly a century and instead was occupyied by the victor's military forces and the Supreme Court of that country ruling in favor of the military interests of the dominator?
Your lack of imagination and historical awareness is not an argument for why the USA isn't engaged in imperialism.
https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2019/09/11/washingtons-old-japan-problem-and-the-current-china-threat/
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1989/05/containing-japan/376337/
https://www.nber.org/system/files/chapters/c8717/c8717.pdf
https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/24/business/us-china-trade-war-japan-intl/index.html
Again, your ignorance is not a point of view that commands respect. Japan did everything it could to work within the US rules and in doing so began to actually compete with the US economically. So the US used its outsized power to launch a trade war against Japan and ultimately forced its hand into signing lopsided trade deals, because Japan is a vassal and must comply with the will of the hegemony of the North Atlantic as expressed through the USA.
We don't need to only critique the USA for atrocities. It's important to see the world for how it works. Japan's occupation of Okinawa is still terrible and this action to put a US military base is a good example as to why. If Okinawa was fully assimilated into Japan, it wouldn't be the dumping ground for USA military bases enforced by the Japanese Supreme Court. Likewise despite people thinking Hawaii is an assimilated part of the USA, it wouldn't be the tragedy that it is.
The largest minority group in Japan are the Ryukyuan people of Okinawa and Japan won't even recognize them. Japan is a junior imperialist partner of the Western imperial block executing to advance the interests of the USA and, by proxy, the North Atlantic bourgeoisie.
The idea that this should be above reproach because it's not the worst thing the USA did is ridiculous. The idea that Japan deserved it is just bog standard liberal bloodthirst.
Funny how almost all our battleships were in Hawaii, then. Not much of a blockade. Perhaps you mean that we stopped trading with them and they declared it an "act of war?"
In any event, the US didn't need an excuse to join the war. Germany was giving us plenty already.
Germany wasn't allowed a standing military, either. They managed to convince the allies that they could contribute to NATO, and were allowed to do so again.
Japan is forbidden to have a military by their own constitution. Certain parties have tried to have it amended to allow a more active military (the SDF is almost purely self-defense), but so far the political will hasn't been there for it.
The "ruling in the interests of the dominator" bit is your words. I wonder if the Supreme Court of Japan would agree with your description of their decision. I somehow doubt it.
Yeah, the trade balance with Japan was heavily skewed on Japan's side. The US and Japan worked out a rebalance of the system. What, exactly, is so evil about that?
Tell me you've never been to Okinawa without telling me you've never been to Okinawa. It's not some hick island full of yokels. It's a modern, fully-integrated Japanese prefecture. A bit more laid back than the mainland, but that's to be expected.
The bases there were built before the US decided to return Okinawa to Japan. The US has been slowly decommissioning bases and returning them to Japanese control ever since.
Did you even check what the supreme court was ruling? They're not building a new base. They're relocating MCAS Futenma, because it's smack dab in the middle of a city and can't do night operations without waking everyone up and filling the air with jet fuel fumes.
What is it with you tankies and Hawaii, anyway? Have you spent any real time there? I have. Saying it's not fully part of the United States is bizarre. It's a state. The only way it could become more a part of the United States is if you somehow towed the islands to California.
They're Japanese citizens, with all the rights and responsibilities of every other Japanese citizen. You want to talk about disenfranchisement, talk about the Ainu. I'm sure you'll figure out some way to blame that on the US too.
"North Atlantic bourgeoisie" - that just cracks me up.
I never claimed anything was above reproach. I said it wasn't a good example of imperialism and that you should choose another example if you want to criticize the US.
Now tell me some unrelated nonsense (maybe bring up Hawaii again?) and that you're "not going to post anymore" because it's useless to talk to me (which it is - you're very clearly in the wrong on this one), so we can get this behind us.
When the US declared war on Japan in response to the attack on Pearl Harbor, it did not declare war on Germany; Germany declared war on the US three days after the US declared war on Japan. The U.S. was the ideological predecessor to Nazism [1] [2], and only joined the war when they were threatened.