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Both my grandfathers fought in WWII, one as a driver in North Africa, one was a navigator in the RAF. And one of my grandmother's worked in the anti-aircraft guns in London in the blitz.
There is a real sense of creeping anti-Americanism all over Europe, but people should take time to remember that there was a time not so long ago when America stood shoulder to shoulder with England - and genuinely so - and the rest of Western Europe - in a fight against a tyranny of the worst things, and a fight that really was not their's. America faced no immediate threat from the Nazi's (who would have normalised after 10 years of horror I suppose), but they fought hammer and nail on the side of what the people believed was right.
And the Canadian troops as well, in defence of an empire that was even then only symbolically meaningful. On both sides, the Canadians were rightly feared or respected as the toughest and bravest men there was.
Pearl Habor represented a massive miscalculation by the Japanese, almost worse than Hitler's attack on Russia (which at least had a chance to win, or a very favourable peace against an under industrialised foe: if the German's had attacked as liberators and opponents of communism and had not mistreated the people and allowed ordinary Russians to be gathered under the banner of Mother Russia and the Great Patriotic War). Japan needed a fast aggressive war to force America to negoiate a favourable peace for them that gave them more of the Pacific (and capitalise on England's empire being killed off in south Asia)... and they utterly underestimated the fighting spirit and heart of the American people... it was idiotic to believe that a nation so prosperous and so independant and so proud would ever allow such an attack to be not avenged. The Japanese people paid a heavy price for this miscalculation of their leaders. They thought that Americans would not fight and die for far off places... and were very much wrong.
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"Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate,
for all things are plain in the sight of Heaven. For nothing
hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain
without being uncovered."
The Gospel of Thomas
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