Why Europe should thank the US

Bah! it's long standing banter dating back to his posts on the Should England join the US and leave the EU? thread

I was putting forward the question of how exactly he thought a poorly trained and equipped army saved Britain and France.

Do you have a link to these documents?

Unfortunately I don't. I really wish I did because I was writing a paper on PH and they would have come in handy. My teacher got them in the mail from the government and had copied them onto one of those transparent pieces of paper that project onto the wall on an overhead, so he didn't get them online. It took him several, and I mean probably five or six years to get cleared to get the papers and work through the bureaucracy, so if you want them it's probably not going to happen, especially if you're not American. I've thought about asking if he could copy them and I could stop by my old school and pick them up, but I don't really give enough of a crap to bother going all the way back to my old school.

No offense, but some secret documents that apparently prove a government conspiracy, but which you can't even name or provide an internet link to, that apparently took your teacher six years of clearance to get hold of, that you've mentioned on a student internet forum no less...well surely you can see how that sounds?
What were these 'provocations' FDR authorised that you mentioned?

Yeah, it does sound super-sketchy, but it's the truth. You don't have to believe me if you don't want to. I probably wouldn't believe me if I were you, but I know what I'm saying is the truth because I saw the copies of the documents with my own eyes.

I can't remember exactly what they were, but I remember they were either relating to military action or economic hardship for Japan.

Okay! I actually found something. It isn't the exact document that I'm looking for (the one I'm looking for has FDR's name on it and has a clear list of the exact things the US planned to do to provoke Japan), but this one has a similar list, and if you think about it from Japan's perspective, many of the actions laid out in the list are threatening.

Here are copies of declassified documents
Skip down to section 9 for the part most specific to what I'm talking about.

I found the link to the above on this page, and it gives more information. I would defo read this in its entirety if I were you.

Again, you can choose to either believe this information or not, but those documents are real and provide backing for what I've said.

and if you think about it from Japan's perspective, many of the actions laid out in the list are threatening.

This is your great conspiracy? That in the midst of global turmoil and war, the United States looked to consilodate it's position in the Pacific and South East Asia? That the United States was actively seeking to support it's de facto ally the UK by take over responsibility of the Pacific? That the United States was supporting the Chinese?
These are widely known facts.

This is the key statement really. If you think about it from America's perspective, Japan was a war mongering nutcase that was ravaging through Asia and was leaning heavily towards Germany. The Japanese government had made little effort to hide their disdain of westerners and their intentions to 'liberate' Asia. Since America had alreadly declared that it would defend the Dutch and British in the event of an attack, there was no way Japan could have ever attacked them without attacking America. What do you expect the US government to have done? Sat on their arses twiddling their thumbs?
What exactly is the conspiracy here? What exactly here justifies the Pearl Harbor attack in your mind?

You just put words into my mouth with the last sentence. Look back at my posts: I never said the attacks on Pearl Harbor were justified. I just said they were provoked.

The "conspiracy" (which I don't think it should be considered a conspiracy because it has proven to be factual) is that the United States government was not just sitting by innocently in Pearl Harbor. They were trying to provoke Japan into attacking them so that in the eyes of the voters, joining in on WWII would be justified.

IDK what you guys are taught in the UK, but over here most of us are taught that the government was completely innocent and caught off-guards, so it is considered a conspiracy by many in the US. Not sure what you're getting upset about? I've not said anything that I haven't backed up...

And, honestly, the government didn't really give a **** about Japan.

They were interested in Germany. It was the American people who, after Pearl Harbor, were most interested in the War in the Pacific. The government was more worried about the war Africa and Europe. They just used Japan as a means to an end.