From: Guy Alcala
Date: 9/22/2004 6:24 PM Central Daylight Time
Message-id:

B2431 wrote:

From: "Guinnog65" lid
Date: 9/22/2004 12:20 PM Central Daylight Time
Message-id:


My point was that the defences at both outposts of empire were perhaps
ineffective *because* the US and UK defenders under-rated the fighting
abilities of the Japanese and had therefore not planned for the events
which
subsequently took place. As a look up the thread would confirm.


And your anti American bias is showing here too. The U.S. was nowhere near
being an "empire" at the time.

Dan, I think the indigenous people of Puerto Rico, the Marianas, Hawaiian
Islands, and the Philippines at the time would disagree. I forget how the
takeover went in the case of the Marianas, but the others were all acquired
as a
result of wars. In the case of Hawaii we kicked out the local rulers. In the
case of the Philippines, we defeated the Spanish with the help of Filipino
"freedom fighters" who'd been fighting against the Spanish since 1896. Once
McKinley had decided to keep the islands (made trade with China so much
easier)
and the Filipinos started to resist our takeover, they were relabeled
"insurgents" or "insurrectionists", and it took us another two years to
defeat
them. Moro uprisings continued to flare up for at least another 10 years.
While
the US attempt at European-style empire was (thankfully) relatively short, we
certainly had one.

Guy

Good point.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired