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[kristopher]

25. No argument about the cupability or the motives of the Japanese

That is absolutely true and I think it is largely how FDR saw it, too.

However it does miss one thing, the Japanese were modeling their strategy on what the west had been doing for the past 200+ years.

The entered into a colonial phase just as the rest of the world was starting to move away from it, true; however we should be mindful that the role model they were following was pretty ugly itself. Their entire modernism drive was motivated by what they saw colonialism doing to other countries. They had been completely isolated for centuries and when US Admiral Perry sailed into Tokyo Bay and initiate his gunboat diplomacy they saw a world split between those with military power who used it to take what they wanted and those who were the victims of those with the power.
They made a considered decision to be part of the first group rather than the second. It would have been wonderful if they had a tradition of growing Enlightenment such as was flowering in the West, but they didn't and they took the lessons from events that they were most able to internalize. It was tragic for them and the rest of the world.

If you want to criticize them for their actions from that point to the end of WWII I think you'll find a huge pool of like minded people among the present day Japanese.

http://factsanddetails.com/japan.php?itemid=516&catid=16&subcatid=108
http://www.economist.com/node/1907601


Did you ever read Sam Clemens on the Moro Crater Massacre?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moro_Crater_massacre

I can't find an online copy of Grief and Mourning for the Night but it is one of the most powerful pieces I've ever read. I strongly recommend the works in this snip on Clemems. They give good insight into what those like the Japanese were seeing as the nature of the world.

..Theologically, he appears to have maintained a deistic point of view somewhat similar to that of Paine and Jefferson, but his rejection of conventional religion was as thorough and angry as his rejection of conventional patriotism. Much of what he wrote on these subjects was too controversial for publication and did not see the light of day until years after his death. For those who would like to know this side of Mark Twain, I would especially recommend two small volumes, A Pen Warmed Up In Hell and Letters From [The] Earth, both available in paperback.

His reportorial style is at times reminiscent of H.L. Mencken in its merciless exposure of ugly facts. An example is his account of American atrocities in the Phillippines ("Grief and Mourning for the Night" in A Pen Warmed Up In Hell). If you have not read his "The War Prayer," then you should. This is included in the same volume, as is also his "Battle Hymn of the Republic (Brought Down to Date)," the last stanza of which reads:

In a sordid slime harmonious Greed was born in yonder ditch,
With a longing in his bosom -- and for others' goods an itch.
As Christ died to make men holy, let men die to make us rich --
Our god is marching on.

http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/twainver.htm