The US did not start that war Rick.
I didn't say we did.
Japan's assets had been frozen and sanctions by the western powers were strangling their economy. It was basically an economic blockade enforced by the U.S. They were in a desperate position. I'm not saying they weren't cruel people but their only options seemed to be extreme national poverty or to do what they did in hopes of wearing the U.S. down in a very bloody war. As it turned out they were able to get a conditional surrender.
They had a THIRD choice, become civilized. The Japs were about the most racially intolerant culture, and genocide was justifiable in their Imperial minds. They threw everything into establishing an east Asian empire. Wiping out inferior cultures, especially the Chinese, was justified by the same racial superiority that Hitler foisted onto the Germans. Our embargo got in the way of their conquest. All they had to do was become a peaceful industrious modern culture, and they could have conquered the economy in east Asia. The warlike thugs that wrested control of Japan painted Japan into a corner of isolation and the resulting poverty of isolation. They then saw war as the only way out. They got it and got what they deserved.
