On Oct 14, 2012, at 11:33 AM, Carrol Cox wrote:
> Suppose...had been an independent nation in 1940.
> Would so many have died in the Japanese invasion of 1942? That's
> probably
> absurd, but it gestures toward the problem.
Indeed. If the Philippines had been an independent nation--no Clark Field!--the Japanese would have had even less reason to invade the Philippines than they had to invade Thailand. Under Aguinaldo the Philippines would have been, if anything, pro-Japanese. But of course there would have been no war, because without the Philippines the USA would have been in no position to attack Japan in the first place.
Shane Mage
"Thunderbolt steers all things." Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 64