• ElHexo [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      I never said they were trying to liberate Hawaii mate?

      It was obviously two imperial powers having an imperial conflict - but it’s interesting how unexamined the attack on pearl harbour justifying US entry to WW2 among Americans is, given Hawaii is a relatively small island 4,000km from the US mainland and had only been annexed a handful of decades prior (and wouldn’t become a state for another ~20 years).

      • 420blazeit69 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        I understand you didn’t say that. What I meant was, had Japan been trying to liberate Hawaii and the U.S. reacted by trying to maintain control, I would see that as U.S. imperialism. But that wasn’t the case – it was more like Napoleonic France launching an attack on British India and Britain invading France as a response. Both are imperial powers, sure, but one metropole attacking another in response to its colony being attacked is really stretching the definition of imperialism. And it helps to have somewhat restricted uses of terms like imperialism so they don’t just become meaningless (see libs calling everything done by any Bad Country “genocide”).