Australia Tried to Broker Japan Peace Deal

[Mulboyne]

[floatl][/floatl]NineMSN: Former PM Curtin wanted Japan peace deal
Australia's wartime Prime Minister John Curtin sought a deal giving Japan access to Australia's iron ore in exchange for guarantees of freedom from attack just months before war in the Pacific broke out, new evidence has revealed. According to this week's Bulletin magazine, the wartime leader sought the secret peace deal with Japan's first ambassador to Australia, Tatsuo Kawai, as late as mid-1941. The details of the agreement are detailed in a new book, Saving Australia, Curtin's Secret Peace with Japan, by Bob Wurth. Curtin and Kawai, who first met in Canberra in March 1941, held a series of confidential meetings aimed at preventing war but Curtin, opposition leader at the time, called the deal off...more...

[Charles]

Holy shit, another appeaser. Like this asshole:



We should never have saved those chickenshit ozzies.

[kurohinge1]

... We should never have saved those chickenshit ozzies (sic).

Ozzie: "You didn't, Charlie. Your only battles have been with reality. You've just forgotten to take your medication ... again."

[Charles]

"You didn't, Charlie.

We Americans bailed out you cowardly ozzies when the Japanese were kicking your asses across the Pacific. You'd all be slaves in Japanese iron mines if it weren't for the Americans who fought and died to save you, at the very same time your diplomats were trying to sell out the Allies.

[kurohinge1]

We Americans ... fought and died to save you, at the very same time your diplomats were trying to sell out the Allies.

Nope - wrong again Charlie. The fighting and dying by the Aussies' American brothers-in-arms happened after negotiations by both the USA and Oz with Japan failed.

Either you have enormous difficulty with reading and comprehension or you just proved my point about being out of touch with reality. I suspect both.

I also suspect that 99.9% of the brave Americans who died as part of the allied effort would have been ashamed to call you a countryman. I'm ashamed to call you a human!

Take the pills, Charlie, and have a lie down.

[Ketou]

Nope - wrong again Charlie. The fighting and dying by the Aussies' American brothers-in-arms happened after negotiations by both the USA and Oz with Japan failed.

Either you have enormous difficulty with reading and comprehension or you just proved my point about being out of touch with reality. I suspect both.

I also suspect that 99.9% of the brave Americans who died as part of the allied effort would have been ashamed to call you a countryman. I'm ashamed to call you a human!

Take the pills, Charlie, and have a lie down.

:clap::clap::clap:

Australia could never have been held even if invaded.

[Yorik]

Australia actually had a defined retreat zone, for the amount of the country that they were prepared to give up, everything north of Brisbane.. Aussies are hard fighters adn have done some good work in battle, but we are few and we protect a lot..

[Hanakuso]

We Americans bailed out you cowardly ozzies when the Japanese were kicking your asses across the Pacific. You'd all be slaves in Japanese iron mines if it weren't for the Americans who fought and died to save you, at the very same time your diplomats were trying to sell out the Allies.

Are you just trying to stir ppl up or are you really a nutcase?

[Greji]

Are you just trying to stir ppl up or are you really a nutcase?

Yup!

[kurohinge1]

... Australia could never have been held even if invaded.

Which reminds me of a scene from Peter Weir's 1981 film "Gallipoli" where Mel Gibson's character and "Archy Hamilton" take a short cut across a desert or salt flat and run into a camel driver. There's nothing as far as the eye can see in every direction. As they sit down to a billy tea or something similar, Archy is trying to answer the camel driver's question about the war (WW1) and why he's so keen to join up to fight for another country against a third country, by invading a fourth country.

Archy says: "[If] We don't stop them there, they could end up here."

The Camel Driver looks around the empty desert and says: "And they're welcome to it."

]Enemy Lines[/B]

... Warren Cowan was an Australian pilot flying Hudson bombers against the Japanese during the Second World War, and he would have remained in obscurity but for the efforts of the Japanese air ace who fought against him. Saburo Sakai never forgot the heroism of his unknown Australian opponent. He was determined to win recognition for Warren Cowan and the events of 1942 in the skies over New Guinea . . .

HENRY SAKAIDA, Sakai's biographer: The Zero pilots, they just did not expect Cowan to fight back. I mean, they thought he was a sure kill. They were going to gang up on this one lone bomber and they were going to shoot it down. And so when Cowan became the attacker, that's when they just went to pieces. It was totally unexpected. It was a very audacious thing for this guy to do.

All they could talk about for the next few weeks was the tenacious Australian Hudson pilot. Everyone talked about it. "Watch out for these Aussies, these Hudson pilots - they'll turn on you. Very dangerous, and they've got plenty of guts." Nine to one, the guy wouldn't quit . . . more

[Ketou]

Yes, when it comes to Australia his logic and academic aura is shattered.
Charles the major decider for the protection of Australia was the battle of the Coral Sea. It was not any land based battles fought by the American soldiers(God bless them). And if you know about the Coral Sea battle then you also know it was tactical victory for the Japanese.

[Mulboyne]

From the SMH:

...Bob Wurth has written an extraordinary book about a remarkable period of history, focusing on the relations between Kawai and John Curtin, the then prime minister, and other prominent Australians, such as High Court judge Owen Dixon. The book has reopened debate about Curtin's standing. Admirers rate him among the very best prime ministers, largely for the way in which he prosecuted the war. Opponents believe he was an appeaser for much of his life. Alexander Downer, the Foreign Minister, leapt on the book to accuse Curtin of not being prepared to confront tyrannical regimes. Downer's attack makes one wonder whether he had read the book - he has, after all, plenty to do these days.

There is no question that Curtin was an appeaser of Japan before the war. In April 1941, eight months before Japan entered the war, Curtin as Opposition Leader met Kawai and agreed that trade was vital if relations between their two countries were to heal. Curtin said Australia could lift its ban on iron ore exports from Yampi Sound, "but Japan must guarantee Australia's safety". Wurth has written: "Prime Minister Robert Menzies was, of course, the worst appeaser of all." And: "The warnings about Australia's danger issued by [Arthur] Fadden and Curtin were undermined by Menzies in London." This was not long after Menzies, as Attorney-General, forced waterside workers to load pig iron for Japan, thus becoming "Pig Iron Bob". Menzies and Curtin were men of their time, trying to lead a country with a historical fear of invasion. There was little sign that the US would join the war and growing signs that Britain could not help.

On November 29, 1941, nine days before Pearl Harbour, Curtin asked Kawai: "Is it to be war?" Kawai replied: "I'm afraid it has gone too far; the momentum is too great." Kawai said the war broke his spirit. Curtin, however, "exploded into a frenzy of activity" to fight the war. He had girded the government to prepare for the possibility of war with Japan when Australia's attention was firmly fixed on helping Britain. "If anything, Curtin's reputation as war leader is enhanced by the revelations of his dealings with Kawai," Wurth writes...

[dimwit]

There are a number of pre-war figures who had much to be ashamed of, in all allied countries. If one wants to talk about appeasers the names Kennedy, Lindberg and Ford have to be pretty high up on the list. Diaries of MacKenzie King, Canada's wartime Prime Minister reveal the same attitudes were common in pre-war Europe.

[Charles]

If one wants to talk about appeasers the names Kennedy, Lindberg and Ford have to be pretty high up on the list.

The obvious difference being that none of them were Prime Ministers. They were in no position to appease anyone.

[dimwit]

The obvious difference being that none of them were Prime Ministers. They were in no position to appease anyone.

Bull. They were powerful enough to keep the US out of the war for two years.

[Charles]

Bull. They were powerful enough to keep the US out of the war for two years.

You have a highly exaggerated estimate of the power of some relatively minor figures in US history.

[Greji]

You have a highly exaggerated estimate of the power of some relatively minor figures in US history.

Joe Kennedy, Charles Lindberg and Henry Ford did not have political clout at that time in history? They might be considered relatively minor throughout history, with the exception of Ford and his horseless carriage, but I would seriously question that they were without any political power at that point in time and they were certainly not minor to the US scene in the late thirties and forties!

The Kennedy machine still had enough power in the sixities to Jack Kennedy elected to the Presidency (and maybe get him shot).

They may have been minor in the long run but they certainly had clout during and after the Roosevelt years!

[Charles]

They may have been minor in the long run but they certainly had clout during and after the Roosevelt years!

None of them had the power to keep the US out of WWII, as you claim.

[Greji]

None of them had the power to keep the US out of WWII, as you claim.

I didn't claim shit! But, they, especially Ford as a major industrialist, had the power to help delay entry, which I believe was the point in question here.

[Buraku]

You'd all be slaves in Japanese iron mines if it weren't for the Americans who fought and died to save you, at the very same time your diplomats were trying to sell out the Allies.

It was actually the stars and stripes that were selling out to the fascists and japanese-nazis
There was on that the USA hated a lot more that nazis and that was marxists/commies
( the US could sell fascists guns, bombs and equipment and all those machines that were built to track down Jews were made in the USA )

At the time America wasn't exactly a beacon of freedom and was filled with Klan boys in positions of power, and good ol' Uncle Sam was flirting with facism. One of the reasons they never came to help the Canadians, Belgians, Aussies, British and other allies to fight against Hitler/Hirohito was that America hoped Hitler would become more powerful destroy the commies and Ruskies
http://www.jewishbookcenter.com/ProductImages/holocaust/ibm%20and%20the%20holocaust.jpg
Go Hitler ! screamed IBM and the rich Klan corporations of the US
Others in America sold bombs loans and bullets to the Allied forces ( British, Chinese, Aussies ) and Hitler laughed that cowardly America hired others to do its fighting

Of course once the Japanese kamikazed pearl harbor the Yanks were dragged kicking and screaming into the war,
and the yankie realized they were backing the wrong team.

[Greji]

Go Hitler ! screamed IBM and the rich Klan corporations of the US.

Oh, I get it. IBM and their some 10,000 employees were in league with Hitler and that led to WWII. Sorry, I was confused. I didn't realize IBM backed Hitler! Did the Klan have Kamikazes at Diamond Head?

Wow, a new look at History

[Buraku]

IBM is just one of many with the word 'holocaust' hanging over its head. Communism was seen as a bigger threat by the fat-cats in America, even though all the fat corporate cats weren't nazi Klan members
so many of them were friendly with Hitler by default, they didn't give a fuck about dying jews and hoped the Nazis would turn east and destroy the pinko commies ( the USA's more feared/despised enemy ).

America was brave when they fought Hitler/Hirohito, they showed great courage and helped liberate much of the globe
but they maybe went for the wrong reasons and joined war a bit late.....
They were also unwilling to fight as US families didn't want to loose any more kids fighting ze-germans in Europe ( WW1 killed lots ) and many of America's companies wanted to sit on the fence while selling loans, guns, bonds et cetera to both sides,
Of course Pearl Harbor changed all that, forced them to pick a side and dragged them kicking and screaming into the war

[homesweethome]

so many of them were friendly with Hitler by default, they didn't give a fuck about dying jews and hoped the Nazis would turn east and destroy the pinko commies ( the USA's more feared/despised enemy ).

This is right, Coorporate America's biggest fear was (and still is) Communism, the great social equalizer that threatened the all important profit IBM and everybody else saw in capitalizing on the war in Europe. The unfortunate thing was that WW I ended so quickly, or metamorphed so spasmically nobody was able to keep up with the future fast enough to capitalize on the past carnage.

America was brave when they fought Hitler/Hirohito, they showed great courage and helped liberate much of the globe

I don't know about the courage, but Woodrow Wilson and his spawn, FDR already had the machine in the works to create and cast in it's own image the role of the government in creating and managing the American Economy to it's own ends. The draft provided lunches and sleeping bags for the underpriviledged/uneducated necessary to man the machines of war for the profit of the factory owners.

They were also unwilling to fight as US families didn't want to loose any more kids fighting ze-germans in Europe ( WW1 killed lots ) and many of America's companies wanted to sit on the fence while selling loans, guns, bonds et cetera to both sides,
Of course Pearl Harbor changed all that, forced them to pick a side and dragged them kicking and screaming into the war

Sitting on the fence and selling to both sides was of course the best of both worlds which usually doesn't work out in the long run. The will to fight was never an issue, everybody wanted to fight, they just needed an enemy. Coorporate America was afraid of becoming the enemy (along with Henry Ford and his buddies) so IBM provided them with one 'finally' by 'allowing' the Japanese to attack an unprepared naval base. The amazing thing was that it took them so long.