It's true that UK and France declared war, but the first thing either of them did, besides defending themselves (and unsuccessfully in the case of France) was for the British to engage in a war in North Africa whose main goal was to guarantee British control of the Suez Canal, the traditional route to India. The outdated nature of Churchill's imperialist concern is given by how soon after the war India achieved its independence. Barkley Rosser -----Original Message----- From: Brad De Long <delong at econ.Berkeley.EDU> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Date: Friday, September 17, 1999 10:22 AM Subject: Re: Buchanan: taking on Hitler was a mistake
>>
>>...The other
>>war was America's war for racial supremacy over the Japanese following
>>the collapse of the British and French empires in East Asia...
>
>Why forget the fact that the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor? Why
>forget the fact that the reason the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor
>was because the U.S. had embargoed oil shipments to Japan--and
>declared that oil shipments would not be resumed until Japan
>abandoned its attempt to conquer China? (Where its soldiers had
>already slaughtered Chinese civilians by the hundreds of thousands?)
>
>>
>>The allies never did make the mistake of taking on Hitler...
>
>
>Why forget the fact that Britain and France were the only countries
>to declare war on Hitler's Germany? Everybody else waited for the war
>to come to them...
>
>History done with a selective memory is a truly amazing thing...
>
>
>Brad DeLong
>
>