Saturday 6 August 2011

War Crimes Against Britain

The bombings of Hiroshima (66 years ago today) and Nagasaki were anti-British no less than anti-Japanese acts, designed to prevent the War from instead being ended by the British re-conquest of the Empire in Asia and the Pacific, the end to which the British Pacific Fleet had been cheered into Sydney Harbour because it was not the American one that had been expected to turn up and require that Australia and New Zealand cut all trading and migration ties to Britain, abolish the monarchy, adopt American spelling, teach American rather than British history in schools, and so on. Those remain key American objectives.

10 comments:

  1. Does anyone in this country, apart from successive prime ministers who crave the world stage, believe that we have a special relationship with the USA. Or, more to the point, that the politicians of the USA believe they have a special relationship with us.

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  2. You caught us. We ran the most expensive weapons program in history just to replace "s" with "z."

    Our CIA will be dispatching an officer to you to negotiate the terms of your silence. Please don't attempt to hide; it only irritates him.

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  3. Brit, on both counts, no.

    Xenocles, Britain's very close ties to Japan always irritated America, which forcibly cut them by means of the Washington Naval Treaty. Had that not happened, then nor would subsequent events have happened. Hiroshima and Nagaski were the culmination of a decades-old strategy, as much anti-British as an anti-Japanese, and arguably even more so.

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  4. Dude, you're pretty far into the weeds on your anti-British conspiracy.
    "decades-old strategy, as much anti-British as an anti-Japanese"
    Why did FDR hang with the Brits for 3 years with lend lease? ...instead of just letting the Hun slit their throats?
    Why did FDR agree to a "Europe first", "Pacific later" strategy preferred by Churchill and shunned by the average American who had never been threatened by Hitler? Was it another clever anti-Brit strategy?

    The US may have been anti-imperialist and insisted on dismantling the Asian French/British Empire as part of the War settlement, but the "special" relationship goes back to the French Revolution, American Civil War, WWI and the Cold War. You can't deconstruct it with vague references to the Washington Naval Treaty. British interests were attacked by the Brit loving Japs at the same time as American interests were attacked in the Pacific.
    By all rights, the predominant Italian, Irish and German population of America should have sided with the Germans in 1939. Now...just admit your post was satire...I can take the joke

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  5. "close ties to Japan always irritated America, which forcibly cut them by means of the Washington Naval Treaty. Had that not happened, then nor would subsequent events have happened."

    The Prince of counter-factuals has spoken. What say ye about Cain and Abel...Adam and Eve

    ...and what if the British had shown more balls during the Treaty of Versailles negotiations.?

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  6. I didn't read past "Dude", I don't expect that anyone else did.

    All right, I did. But if you think that Lend Lease, of all things, was some sort of favour, then ... well, where does one even begin? All debt from it was repaid a few years ago, though. So no debt to the US from the War any longer exists.

    Anonymous 2:14, don't use words that you don't understand.

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  7. Yes, we do have a special relationship with Austrailia and New Zealand. For one, it is easy for our visitors to communicate with the natives.

    Austrailia provided assistance to the US in Vietnam, and Austrailia, for which we are grateful.

    US also had close relationships with Japan, and by the way, does now. Alas, Japan had to invade Korea to protect Japan, had to invade Manchuria to protect Korea, had to invade China to protect Manchuria, had to invade French, Brit and Dutch colonies to protect their operations in China....

    Well, we know where that ended.

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  8. The poisoning of the relations with Australia and New Zealand, though not helped by the heavily American-backed British accession to the EU, really goes back to the Fall of Singapore, one of the many marks against the staunchly "Atlanticist", wildly overrated Winston Churchill. Also in one of my forthcoming books. The same one, in fact.

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  9. I'd say it was only in response to Britain's attempts to shoot our first President before he ever took office.

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  10. http://davidaslindsay.blogspot.com/2011/08/nothing-special.html

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