You make some fair points, Rev Andy. But I have to start by pointing out the riposte "no one is making that claim" is actually a fair one. If you mean Perry's opening Japan led her to emulate the west in building the tools of imperial expansion, then yes, I can agree with that. I just don't agree that the idea of imperialist expansion came from the west.
Incidentally, did you know there is a memorial commemorating Perry's mission in Kurihama? It was built in 1901, torn down during ww2 (not surprisingly) & later rebuilt.
When you argue that the US had no right to take Japan to task for the brutality she inflicted on Korea, China & SE Asia because of our own actions in both the Pacific & Latin America, I just can't agree. What point am I missing?
As you say, multiple wrongs don't make a right. The Nazi propagandists used to argue that the US & Britain had no right to criticize the Nuremberg Laws because of Jim Crow, or British treatment of Indians. But it's still wrong. And deserved condemnation. One need not be pure oneself to try to correct a wrong.
FDR knew the US would have to enter World War Two eventually, however unpopular doing so might be with the American people. So he provoked both Japan & Germany to the point where both declared war. Granted Washington was remiss with its war warnings & alerts. Yet the belief that authorities knew Pearl Harbor was liable for imminent attack but failed to act just doesn't make sense. I don't see them accepting such a lopsided defeat.
So, no, they didn't have fair warning. That business about approaching planes was something Oahu's radar station picked up before signing off. Operators knew a flight of B17s was due in & they assumed it was them.
I'm no fan of GWB, but no, it doesn't require stupidity, negligence or conspiracy to explain either Pearl Harbor or 9/11. In the case of Pearl as I wrote the Japanese plan was so audacious & risky, no one could have expected it. When Yamamoto was first tasked with neutralizing the US Pacific fleet he thought of using maybe one aircraft carrier in the striking force, but had otherwise envision a more traditional naval battle. His planning staff had the vision & balls to propose an air attack (remember, at that time the dockage at Pearl was too shallow for aerial torpedoes; the Japanese had to overcome that first).
I don't claim that the bombings of other cities justified use of the A bomb, but rather, from the POV of the time it was essentially a means to produce the same effect using far fewer resources & risking fewer US lives. If you want to destroy an enemy city & have the choice between using one bomber or a thousand, which does the alert military planner choose? Granted, today nuclear weapons are seen as more than an alternative method of delivering ordnance to the battlefield. But at the time the whole horror of the long-term damage wasn't well understood.
Some historians believe that even the A bomb didn't influence Japan to surrender as much as the Soviet declaration of war, because the Japanese had been counting on the Russians to intervene & negotiate on their behalf. Not sure if I'd go that far. I do agree it was more of a demonstration of US power than just a war-ending tactic, however.
Finally, you take FDR to task for not meeting personally with the Japanese, but what did he have to offer, but to continue supplying petrol & steel & other material that would allow Japan to further the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. This would put more pressure on Great Britain, which we were supplying through Lend-Lease, the transfer of destroyers & in fact fighting a de-facto naval war in the North Atlantic with the Kriegsmarine. How would that even make sense? Supplying a key ally on one side, & weakening her on the other?
