Japan was an imperialist power that wanted large territories of colonies, just like many European countries like France and the U.K.
While the European powers that held Asian territories (ie. French owning Vietnam, Dutch owning Indonesia, British owning Malaysia and Hong Kong) were too distracted by their fight with Germany, Japan chose the wrong country to mess with when they attacked Pearl Harbor!
America had a strong industrial sector, and large amounts of people to draft into the military! Even worse for Japan, the Americans were developing a nuclear bomb!
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One of my close friend had an interest in Pearl Harbor, and posted some interesting blog posts related to the attacks on Pearl Harbor. Here are the links!
http://wiileecoolstuff.blogspot.com/2011/01/trapped-at-pearl-harbor-escape-from.html
http://wiileecoolstuff.blogspot.com/2010/12/dec-7-1941.html
http://wiileecoolstuff.blogspot.com/2010/07/why-is-uss-utah-forgotten.html
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Back in 1991, which was the 50 year anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, then US President George Bush Sr came to Hawaii for the commemoration ceremony.
After the 9/11 attacks of 2001, I was really expecting the younger Bush to come to Hawaii for the 60th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor. It would've been the perfect time for him to do so, since the US had just experience a similar attack. Too bad he didn't come.
Now this is the 70th anniversary, Barack Obama should have come here again! I know he was just here for APEC last month, but even so, why not come here to commemorate a major historical event for his country and his home state?
People might complain about the traffic jams associated with the President and the Secret Service. Look, Washington DC face this all the time. We just deal with this for a few days! We have to make sacrifices sometimes.
People in Hawaii need to see the big picture! We are in the middle of the Pacific. We may be small in land and population, but that's no excuse for small-time thinking.
Hawaii was the PERFECT place for APEC, being that APEC is Asia-PACIFIC Economic Cooperation! Notice the Pacific part of APEC? It was about time we had an APEC conference in the middle of the PACIFIC!
APEC showed the world that Hawaii is not just a place of fun & sun, but also a place for serious business!
The APEC forum went well. Unlike other places, we didn't have violent protests here!
The Iolani Palace was locked for the duration of the conference. That was disappointing, since APEC visitors had booked trips there! This was their Once In A Lifetime Opportunity for them.
Though I do think the real reason Iolani Palace was locked because some Native Hawaiian sovereignty activists have previously barged in there as an attempted takeover. The state government didn't want such publicity stunts happening during APEC when all the world's cameras were watching! It would've been humiliating for Hawaii if the Iolani Palace was barged in and taken over by activists when the whole world was watching!
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I really wanted to see their group photo with all the participating nation's leaders in Aloha shirts!
In previous APEC photos, all the leaders were the native attire of the country the conference took place. For example, I still remember seeing ex-US president Bush and ex-Russian president wearing traditional Chinese attire for the group photo when APEC conference was in China.
Popular Aloha shirt company Tori Richards even made a special Aloha shirt for the APEC group photo!
However, Obama preferred that the leaders all wear business suits. He didn't want political opponents from the continental US to make a big fuss of "look at Obama wearing Aloha print as if everything's all fun & games during hard economic times". I would've just told them "Screw off! This is Hawaii, Aloha shirts are part of our culture! Get over it!"
Here is the APEC group photo taken by Ko Olina resort
courtesy of http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-14/apec-leaders-pose-for-a-group-photo-in-honolulu---palm-trees-an/3665040
Very nice scenery, good advertisement for Hawaii!
Too bad they just didn't have their Aloha shirts on!
