>>>But why did the USA impose those embargoes? Was it because Japan was run by a bunch of militaristic shits who had decided that they had a divine right to run East Asia<<<

Yes. According the US and Britain (as the Opium Wars will amply testify) that was THEIR job not some upstart like Japan whom they had never been able to take over. It was a matter of pride, after all.

>>>THAT was why the U.S. stopped selling scrap metal to Japan (they were turning it into weapons) and the reason for the oil embargo.<<<

Right, everybody knows only the United States and those countries that suck up to it are allowed to make weapons. Any other country who does so or that the US even thinks is doing so (ahem Iraq) is what they now euphemistically label "Terrorist."

As for Japan's depredations, no one denies they weren't committing them but, come on, the US LOVES to back countries that commit depredations on innocent people (the aforementioned Opium Wars would be a good example) just so long as the US gets a cut of the pie. The US installed some of the worst dictators the world has ever seen in Central and South America and toppled democratically elected leaders in order to install those dictators. So I'm completely unmoved by Firth's phony crocodile tears.

As for Pearl Harbor being a surprise attack, let's face it--Pearl Harbor was ripe to be attacked by someone. Those planes were detected long before they got to Hawaii and the US did nothing. A mysterious U-boat was seen off the Hawaiian coast and no one bothered to investigate it. Now, I am a proud veteran of the United States Navy and they taught me how to stand watch and it wasn't like that. Those guys should have been put on report, court-martialed, stripped of their rank and some should have been sent to Leavenworth.

The purpose of a military is protect the country against attack (which are usually not announced beforehand) and the US failed. Too bad. But then I don't really believe the govt wanted Pearl Harbor to be vigilant because if they did, Pearl Harbor wouldn't have happened. So either the people in charge of Pearl Harbor were incredibly and criminally negligent or they were simply doing what someone high up in the govt told them to do. That's all the choices you get.