• Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      I didn’t forget about pearl harbor, that’s why I said arguably WWII, I think that’s the last time the US experienced a military attack. I’m not including terrorism here, but you could argue 9/11 was a military strike. I wouldn’t tho.

    • Soggy@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      It’s complicated. (Ignoring for the moment that we deposed the sovereign government of the Kingdom of Hawai’i for a strategic outpost and tropical farmland.) Japan wasn’t trying to invade the United States at all, they didn’t want us to interfere with their attacks on the rest of the South Pacific and thought crippling our fleet would buy them the time to do that. And we were already putting pressure on Japan with a naval blockade so it’s not like Pearl Harbor was unprovoked. (And we had been supplying their enemies.) It’s not really a “defensive war” for the US like it was in Europe.