[duckfang]

Lets remind us our dates.

July 4, 1898, the Newlands Resolution was a joint resolution by the United States Congress to annex the independent Republic of Hawaii. In 1900, Congress occupied the Territory of Hawaii, despite the opposition of most native Hawaiians.

Dec 7, 1941 is when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Honolulu, Hawai'i, an occupied territory.

August 21, 1959 is when they were forcibly turned into a state, after 60 years of occupation.

Note that Japan did not bomb native settlements and cities where civilians and natives lived - only the occupying force.

Edit: both posts are at -4. And indeed it's sad to see close minded nationalism take and keep hold. The world is bigger than from Hawai'i to Maine, and the USA is often the aggressor. I liken to consider myself a citizen of the earth, and not any one nation.

[monoideism]

> Dec 7, 1941 is when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Honolulu, Hawai'i, an occupied territory.

With the end objective of occupying themselves, like they occupied so many countries during WWII.

> Note that Japan did not bomb native settlements and cities where civilians and natives lived - only the occupying force.

Yes, because those settlements had no military value, so they focused on targets of military importance. When able, the Japanese had no hesitation about killing or raping local inhabitants of the places they occupied during and before WWII - see Nanking and Korean "Comfort Women".

I'm OK with someone criticizing US conduct in Hawaii in the years leading up to WWII, but let's not pretend that imperial Japan was some kind of benign force for good in the world during the same time period.

[pdonis]

> With the end objective of occupying themselves

The Japanese had no intention of occupying Hawaii. They simply wanted to incapacitate the US Pacific Fleet. Had the US Pacific Fleet's carriers been in port at Pearl Harbor at the time, they would have succeeded.

[duckfang]

I suggest you look up some reading on the subject, and try to shy away from the US propaganda.

No Choice but War: The United States Embargo Against Japan and the Eruption of War in the Pacific

https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvqmp3br Beyond Pearl Harbor: A Pacific History

And you'll find out that there was continual and worsening relations with Japan due to US imperialism. Hawai'i was only one such territory colonized and conquered.

And there were economic sanctions from 1931 to 1941 for various products.

But this is also out of the US playbook to surround an enemy or proposed enemy, pull out economic sanctions, and then pull out the single bad thing. For example, here's the AFB's around Iran https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-4d67205db3b8a9d820ca77... , but we're supposed to only look at Natanz nuclear refining.

Now, I'm not saying that Japan was honorable in combat. They death-marched Chinese. The "comfort women" were rape and murder victims. But really, all nations have similar horrific stories. Japan, alike the US, was no different in that regard.

[travisjungroth]

The history of US colonization of Hawaii is legitimate and relevant. The hint that WWII Japan was gracious towards island natives is absolutely wild.

[JustFinishedBSG]

> Note that Japan did not bomb native settlements and cities where civilians and natives lived - only the occupying force.

Ah yes, Imperial Japan, known for it's incredible humanity toward civilians.

[mc32]

Yeah especially considering their attitude toward civilians in Nanking/Nanjing, Manchuria and The Philippines.

[umvi]

Japan didn't bomb native settlements because doing so would have been a waste of resources that offered no strategic advantage. It would be like during the revolutionary war if Britain had focused on destroying the (largely neutral) Native Americans settlements instead of the "occupiers".

[whoooooo123]

Also, Japan brutalised and terrorised every nation it occupied during the war (and before). If Japan brought no harm upon the "occupied" Hawaiians it certainly wasn't out of any ethnic good will towards them. Does anyone seriously thank that, had Japan won the war and occupied Hawaii, it would have treated the natives any better than it treated the Chinese or Vietnamese?

[samatman]

Credit where credit is due: painting Imperial Japan as an anticolonial liberating force is novel.

It's risible and insane, but novel nonetheless.

[whoooooo123]

As long as we're bringing up historical facts that are only tangentially relevant to the topic at hand, let's also remind ourselves of the rape of Nanking, the Burma death railway, Unit 731, the tens of thousands of PoWs that Imperial Japan murdered in its camps and the twenty million people who were killed (many of them by chemical and biological warfare) in Japan's genocidal campaign against China.

[goodcanadian]

I would point out that 94% of residents voted for statehood.

[AnimalMuppet]

Fair, but what fraction of the population was natives at that point?

[bialpio]

Thanks for the history lesson, but what was the point of it? Are you arguing that Japan was a liberator here, responding to calls for help from Hawaiian government-in-exile? In any case, they had attacked US military assets in full conscience, did they expect it not to lead to war?