[sammyg2]

Pat, what color is the sky on your planet?

Japan invaded china and was committing genocide on the civilians. No one really knows how many, but from what I read the number was close to 6 million by the end of the war. That's a lot of people.

The US said, hay that's not cool. Knock it off. Japan said go stick yer head in it. we said, OK, that's it. we won't sell any more oil or steel to you unless you behave.
Japan got pissed and bombed our port and kills a few thousand of the US' finest. They figured we had an entire country of liberal pacifists who would just roll over and give up, but they underestimated us.

That's how it really happened. i suppose you think we should have just ignored the fact that Japan was in the process of completely taking over china and exterminating an entire country? that's hard to stomach.

BTW, If japan could invade china (which they did), they could invade the US.
They already had some of the Alleutian islands, IIRC that would qualify as a sliver of the US.