Dear Arjay,

The US was caught flatfooted when Japan attacked. It is true that the US cut off oil to Japan. however, that was not a reason for Japan to attack the US. They got their oil by invading what was then the Dutch East Indies. There is a tendency to blame the US for all the ills in the world. I remain thankful that the power of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were done away with. I am also thankful that the Soviet Union imploded under the pressure of the Cold War.I am also thankful that Gorbachev allowed it to implode rather than try to unite the country by war. With all its faults I prefer the US as the superpower rather than Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan or Soviet Russia.

You wrote: "We warned the US that an attack on Pearl Harbour was about to happen. The US knew all about it but needed an excuse to join WW2 because the US people did not want war. The Russians could have defeated the Nazis alone but the British needed a force to counter act the Russians."

If the US knew an attack was about to happen they would have been prepared. I know what the US people wanted at the time because I was a US teenager who later went into the army. We expected a war, and the recruiting stations were jammed after the attack. Most Americans of German, Japanese and Italian descent supported the war effort and were loyal Americans. It is uncertain that the Russians could have defeated Germany by itself. The Germans were deep into the Soviet, and the Soviet got much aid from the US.

Pilger and you can rewrite history, but I don't buy it. The war was touch and go, and until 1943 it looked like the Axis could win.

The US may be terrible, but it remains better than all the possible alternatives.

All the usual paranoid posters come out to play when a paranoid article like this splashes onto this forum.
At least it is a welcome respite from the usual 'Oh Hail Tony', and 'Let's Bash Labor' threads and articles we have had for months though.

I would sooner go with the history book versions of past and presents wars involving the US, that worrying about them taking over the world.

In any case, it isn't a hard decision deciding between the US or Al Qaida as world dominators....

Thank you Suse and David F.,

It's an incredibly complicated world, but there are far, far worse than the Yanks, than Obama.

I'm amazed at the Putin sluts who come out of the woodwork whenever the word comes down: sink the boot into the US. Stick up - hysterically - for anybody but the Yanks. As you suggest, Suse, accuse the Yanks of doing what (one suspects ) the sluts would do.

Obama has an incredibly difficult role: he obviously (pace Arjay and various other paranoids) doesn't want to get his country involved in another war. Yet, what should one do when another country uses poison gas ? The Left says: 'Stand aside, do nothing, Assad's one of ours', but decency cries out for a more moral response. 'These things shouldn't happen. Ever.'

Apart from the ambivalence that the pseudo-Left has about supporting al Qa'ida (not-US, therefore good) on the one hand and Assad (not-US, therefore good) on the other, the irony of all this is that, eventually, the US will - away down the track - come around to supporting Assad against al-Qai'da (pace Arjay) since it is not Islamo-fascist, merely fascist.

And yes, the world was on the brink in 1942, perhaps into early 1943, when fascism seemed like defeating all other forces and coming to dominate the world. Stalingrad, el Alamein, Kokoda, all played their parts in driving the reactionaries back and those who sacrificed their lives in those places will forever be heroes.

I wonder where the pseudo-Left sluts would have been back in those days. In some dim Paris coffee-house probably, arguing about the validity of existence.

Joe

Loudmouth et al,are reduced to ad hominem and name calling because logic and facts fail their ideological perspective. Truly pathetic Loudmouth. Empty vessels make the most sound.

Empty vessels ? But Arjay, on the internet, no-one can hear you scream :)

Interestingly I had lunch with a great friend in Jakarta yesterday. A radical woman journalist she told me that her colleagues have been filming in Turkey and their findings support what Pilger says.

I am no fan of Pilger who is at worst sanctimonious, but at times he does say things that we need to hear. The US is not a nice country.

The filmmakers report that the US is actively supporting Erdogan against the majority secular Turks who don't want Islamic hardliners defining their lives. The hardliners include this US creation Al Queda, which is a funky title for an assumed enemy..The US has engaged in diplomatic hypocrisy for ages and the objective is oil.. boring as that sounds they are oil junkies as the nation is so ridden with corporate politics they have been unable to plan for an alternative future.Living in Asia we get the blow back from this stuff, and i think our reporters have more guts. My friend tells me the same is true in Indonesia. Her investigations indicate US meddling and destabilisation using Islamic factionalism. This once united country that boasted religious tolerance is now faction ridden with boys in frocks taking to the streets in incoherent yelling against .. well anything really
Assad is the only thing standing between Christians and massacres. Remember that 54% voted for him in elections... more than voted for Tony.. shall we call Nato in to bomb Canberra? Remember all the other PR wide screen we got on Sadam?? Now Foreign policy just released transcripts of the discussion where the US agreed to give Sadam chemical weapons to kill the Iranianshttp://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/08/25/secret_cia_files_prove_america_helped_saddam_as_he_gassed_iran