Re: The joy of actual numbers, was Democracy

In comp.os.linux.misc Computer Nerd Kev <not@telling.you.invalid> wrote:

In comp.os.linux.misc Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:

The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> writes:

On 12/11/2024 21:40, Scott Lurndal wrote:

not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) writes:

In comp.os.linux.misc The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:

On 11/11/2024 20:41, D wrote:

On Mon, 11 Nov 2024, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 11/11/2024 19:45, rbowman wrote:

On Mon, 11 Nov 2024 11:51:14 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Isolationism led to Pearl  Harbour...and 911

>
Wrong on both counts. Stick to philosophy; your grasp of history is
deficient.

Wrong on both counts. Stick to parochial matters

>
I think rbowman has impressed me the most with his grasp of history, and
our differences when it comes to philosophy speak for themselves. So no
points for you I'm afraid. ;)

>
This inst a fucking debating society.
This is the future of civilisation.

>
Oh, so _this_ is where the future of civilisation gets decided.
>
Now where was that group where people talk about computers?...
>
But actually I was slightly looking forward to an explanation of
how Pearl Harbour and 9/11 were consequences of isolationism. It's
not my understanding of history either.

NP has seemingly conflated WWI with WWII.

>
Not sure what 911 event happened in WW1
>
Pearl harbour happened because the Japanese, having been allowed to
rape china concluded that the USA was a soft target.

 
Agreed that Pearl Harbour was, to a certain extent, a consequence of the
US attempting to sit out WWII. (But also, a consequence of astoundingly
bad decision making in Japan, which would have also been the case if the
US had got involved earlier, albeit presumably with different
consequences.)

 
The key motivation of the Japanese was to secure their oil supply
after the USA imposed an embargo on oil exports to Japan (followed
by Britain and the Dutch East Indies) in reaction to their
brutality in China. The USA was trying to force them to pull out of
China and break their allegiances to the axis powers. All quite
interventionist.
 
Then the only way Japan could obtain oil was by force. Perl Harbor
represented the military power of the USA to resist Japanese
invasion of oil-producing countries (modern-day Indonesia) or
disrupt their resulting shipments of oil back to Japan, so Japan
tried to take it out of the equation.

But they did a very bad job of that, even forgetting to destroy the
USA's own oil stockpiles there.

Do not forget that we (USA) caught a very lucky break in that on the
mmorning of the attack, all the aircraft carriers were out on
exercises.  Were they not out on exercises they too would have been in
Pearl Harbor, and who knows how much damage they would have taken.  We
might have lost most, or all, of the aircraft carriers, and had that
occurred as a result of the attack, mounting a successful pushback in
the pacific theater would have been immensly more difficult.