[Marxism] Re: Pearl Harbor (was: Cockburn on 9/11

[Tom O'Lincoln <suarsos@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Lou Proyect mentioned a book by Mandel: could you post the details
please Lou?

I've read Stinnett's book, and my thoughts are similar to Carrol's and
Lou's. The US forced the war on Japan, and Stinnett's research is very
handy for documenting the way FDR conspired to bring this to fruition.
But once I started trying to follow his argument about the Pearl Harbour
conspiracy thing I found myself bogged down in circumstantial arguments
that never seemed to quite arrive anywhere. Which really is a diversion.

On the way FDR forced war on Japan, there was already considerable
evidence in other books. Here's a little compilation I've put together:

***

FDR?s plan, according to Interior Secretary Harold Ickes, was to ?slip a
noose around Japan?s neck and give it a jerk now and then?. A British
Admiralty intelligence report acknowledged in 1942 that ?had she not
gone to war now, Japan would have seen such a deterioration of her
economic position as to render her ultimately unable to wage war, and to
reduce her to the status of a second-rate Power?.  (Ickes quote in Overy
and Wheatcroft 1989: 249. Admiralty report quoted in Day 1988: 209).

According to a book published at the Annapolis naval academy: ?Only
after the imposition of the Allied blockade in mid-1941 did the Japanese
really face up to the twin realities that they had to contemplate a war
with Britain, the Netherlands and the United and that such a war would
come that year.? It cites British Minister of Production, Olver
Lyttleton, as saying ?in a moment of rare candour? that  Japan ?had been
provoked into attacking the Americans at Pearl Harbor.? (Willmott 1982:
p. 67)

Australian war hero Weary Dunlop said much the same thing: "Personally I
felt that the Japanese had an excuse for getting involved in the last
war. I think that the Americans put them down as a tinpot economy and
really screwed them down as a minor power. There was a lot of
provocation. (Dunlop 1993: 149.)

***

But the process whereby Japan was forced into war was a long one, within
which Japan did some forcing of its own but the driving impetus came
from the west. The factors include:

1. The western powers forcing Japan to open up, whereupon the Japanese
ruling class decided the only way to avoid becoming a colonial subject
was to create their own empire.
2. Encouragement by the western powers in Japanese aggression. For
example the Australian bourgeoisie was quite happy to have Japan seize
Manchuria, because it was alternative to "coming south", and the US was
quite pleased to see Japan get bogged down in China so Cordell Hull made
it harder for Japan to withdraw.
3. Aggressive defence of racist immigration policies. Since I write from
the Australian perspective I'm particularly aware how aggressively
Australian PM Billy Hughes campaign for white Australia, to the point
where it disrupted peace moves in the Pacific, leading British PM Ramsay
MacDonald to wirte  that ?the White Australia Policy is a menace to
civilisation.? (Quoted in Brawley:  94)
4. The 1930s depression, a product of the capitalist work market Japan
was forced into, fed into militarism.

There is much more but that will do. My work in progress on  Australia
in World War II is here:
http://redsites.alphalink.com.au/war.htm
I hope to put up a discussion of the origins of the war soon

Sources:
Brawley, Sean (1995) The White Peril Foreign Relations and Asian
Immigration to Australasia and North America 1919-1978, UNSW Press,
Sydney.
Day, David (1988) The Great Betrayal: Britain, Australia and the Onset
of the Pacific War 1939-42, Angus & Robertson, Sydney.
Overy, Richard with Andrew Wheatcroft (1989) The Road to War, MacMillan,
London.
Willmott, H.P. (1982) Empires in the Balance: Japanese and Allied
Pacific Strategies to April 1942, Naval Institute press, Annapolis.
Dunlop, Edward ('Weary') (1993) 'Reflections, 1946 and 1991', in
McCormack and Nelson.





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