Re: [OFFICIAL] Missile Ideas

Mikko Kurki-Suonio writes:
@:) On Fri, 4 Apr 1997, Joachim Heck - SunSoft wrote:
@:) 
@:) > [ Why didn't the Japanese give up earlier? ]
@:) 
@:) Whoa there! Aren't we ignoring the American "only unconditional
@:) surrender accepted" policy?

  I wasn't _ignoring_ anything.  The Japanese could have surrendered
if they wanted to.  Later in the war, the Emperor DID want to.	It was
never impossible.

@:) The japanese tried negotiation to lift the oil embargo.  Guess who
@:) turned that down?

  Ok, uh... was it the US?
 
@:) Guess what options that left for the Japanese?

  Brunei, apparently.
  
@:) Aren't we forgetting which "Defenders of The Free (White) World"
@:) refused to put a clause for *racial*equality* in the Versailles
@:) Peace Treaty after WWI?

  What that has to do with the Pacific war I have no idea.  If we
didn't respect the Japanese rhetorically, we certainly respected them
in battle.  Inferior or not they were perfectly capable of killing US
soldiers.  I'm sure the Japanese wouldn't have been too thrilled with
"racial equality" either.  That would have made it less politically
correct to subjugate all of southeast asia.

@:) It's amazing how black & white *both* sides still see the issue
@:) after 50-60 years.

  I don't know how the Japanese see the issue, frankly.  I think in
America the war tends to be glorified somewhat, but I've never heard
the war in the Pacific called a "battle for democracy" or anything
like that.  It is usually explained at the most abstract level as
being simple revenge.  They attacked us without provocation and we
decided to make sure it could never happen again.  As far as I can
tell from my (admittedly cursory) readings on the subject, it was
actually a conflict between two expanding empires.  We got Hawaii,
which pissed them off.	They got China, which pissed us off.
Something was bound to happen eventually.

@:) I'm curious: What does the average American high school history
@:) book have to say about the political situation before Pearl?

  I don't think it says much.  I do not recall learning anything about
that at all.  I don't really recall learning much, generally, about
the Pacific war in high school though.	I think the war in Europe was
covered in somewhat more detail, and definitely the political
situation in Europe was covered fairly well.

  I'm pretty curious to know what Finnish high school history books
have to say about the issue.  You guys were pretty much uninvolved so
you may have a less biased view than we do.  Probably not so re the
European theater and the Soviets.

-joachim