Back when I was in my 16-year-old edgelord phase, I bought a book called "The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History", by Professor Thomas Woods. I could immediately tell it was going to be a good read, because there's a picture of a Confederate officer on the front right next to a glowing endorsement from "The Honorable Ron Paul". Well, looking back, it wasn't. For many reasons. But today we're just going to focus on one fairly small element of it: the criticism of Franklin Delano Roosevelt for bringing the United States of America into WW2. "But Nihlus", you may be asking, "didn't the Japan and Germany declare war on the USA first?". Well yeah, but that's just the politically correct liberals want you to think.

On the very first page Chapter 13: "The Approach of World War II", there are a list of "Guess what?" factoids listed. Two of them are as follows:

Many prominent Americans were against the war: Sinclair Lewis, Charles Lindenbergh, H.L. Mencken, Henry Miller, JFK, Herbert Hoover, and Gerald Ford.

Weird how he didn't mention the other Ford, but whatever.

FDR's refusal to negotiate with the moderate Prime Minister weakened the moderates in Japan and helped bring the military to power.

Of course! The Mukden Incident was FDR's fault, and so was the Second Sino-Japanese War! We should have known it all along!

Nah, just kidding. Instead he's saying that the Japanese government pre-October 1941 was "moderate", and that it was the appointment of Tojo as prime minister that signaled the military taking over from the moderates, which he blames on FDR. I am dead serious.

The text goes on to give a neutral description of the opening events of WW2 involving Poland and Germany. He spends a couple pages talking about how FDR aided the British and tried to provoke Germany into starting shit with the USA, which is true, if a little slanted in the Germans' favor (e.g. he spends a lot of time talking about how much Hitler wanted to avoid war with the USA, even micromanaging ships to tell them not to shoot American vessels, but doesn't mention that Hitler is the one that declared war until one half a sentence with no context several pages later). Then he gets to the section titled "Did FDR make war with Japan inevitable?".

As Japanese brutalities continued and Japan began to extend her influence throughout the Pacific, particularly in Korea and Indochina, FDR decided to take active measures against Japanese expansion. By 1941 he had coordinated a boycott of key goods, especially oil, that Japan needed to acquire from abroad. By cutting off oil shipments to Japan, FDR had dramatically increased the likelihood that the United States would one day find itself at war with Japan. But he never explained the implications of this to the American people.

Because NO ONE but FDR had any understanding of Japan's actions at the time. Note also the language; "FDR had drastically increased the likelihood of war", denying the Japanese any initiative on their own end, even though the embargo was a direct response to the Japanese invasion of Indochina and their atrocities in China. "Resources that Japan needed to acquire from abroad" is also used, without mentioning that they only "needed" that much oil if they were going to run a war involving millions of soldiers. Which wasn't a necessity. It goes on:

The Japanese originally had three ways in which they could have dealt with the crippling embargo. One was to surrender to American demands and lose face. Another was negotiation, but FDR refused to negotiate despite the fact that Joseph C. Grew, the American ambassador to Japan, thought that negotiations would succeed.

First of all, note that simply ceasing the most destructive war in human history is presented as an option and then immediately discarded within the first two sentences, to put all the responsibility and initiative back on FDR. Second, note how the author clearly frames FDR as being the unreasonable one (and a warmonger) for not 'compromising'... even though the Japanese were, again, the ones doing the invading. Three, he goes on to quote said ambassador:

"We in the Embassy had no doubt that the Prime Minister would have agreed, at his meeting [which fell through] with the President, to the eventual withdrawal of all Japanese forces from all of Indochina and from all of China with the face-saving expedient of being permitted to retain a limited number of troops in North China and Inner Mongolia." Washington had closed off that option. The final possibility was war: The Japanese could strike out further into the Pacific by expanding into British and Dutch colonies where they could acquire the resources they needed. But Japan would first have to take out the American naval installation at Pearl Harbor. Japanese Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoye [sic] fell from power and was replaced with General Hideki Tojo (who had been minister of war) on October 16, 1941.

"Northern China" being distinct from "Manchuria". Also, again with the "needed".

This is just amazing. Northern China + Manchuria + Inner Mongolia is just about all they controlled in China at this point, besides most of the coastal cities, which they couldn't hold or even control the countryside around due to guerrilla and bandit activity. In other words, the Japanese conditions were "we get to keep all the land we actually control in China right now, and we'll eventually stop invading the rest". And even this was a "maybe", based on the word of one person. Note that there's no quotes from Japanese figures in this section.

I'm sure that the Chinese themselves would be 100% fine with this deal as well, especially after 10+ million of them had already died in the war, half of whom due to direct Japanese action. If they actually thought anything, that is; but as we all know, only FDR and his government cronies had any initiative, while the American, Japanese, and Chinese people were mere puppets. That bastard FDR had to continue pushing it even more:

War seemed increasingly inevitable to administration officials. Secretary of War Henry Stimson wrote in his diary on November 25 1941 that the question had come down to how "to maneuver the [Japanese] into the position of firing the first shot.

Well of course. You just denied them the resources they need despite the great deal they were offering. Fucking Democrats. Anyway, this is followed by quick 1-paragraph description of the attack on Pearl Harbor. That's the end of the section.

Overall, Woods seems to sensationalize America's 'responsibility' for 'provoking' Japan in this rag. In doing so he essentially dismisses the Japanese as victims reacting to FDR's machinations, the American people as sheep, and the Chinese people as utterly passive and borderline non-existent. It's nowhere NEAR as bad as the Leeabooism in this book, though. But that's a story for another day.