Opinion Historical Thread. "Questioning the WW2."

[The Gunrunner]

It does matter if the lens of the writing is through revisionist point of view. It's just fortunate that his section on the economic challenges of the situation were mostly correct.

My main point would be that's disregarding the fact that they were importing from the US. The US denied them the ability to continue their war effort at full steam and posed a threat to their entire operation. Even if that were true about the east indies, it does ignore the embargo. Unlike modern day embargoes on iran which literally do nothing, their societal efforts won't collapse without US trade. Japan's position was at this point in time was literally jeopardized when their supplies were cut off.

Real reason Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor

According to these guys there were european colonies up for grabs. Not sure how credible this source is either,but I had never thought of that angle before.

Oh, it certainly does. However, one can use the truth to support a position as well. Judging it on the basis of an argument, I think it flops; Japan was an imperialist government as horrible in its war-crimes as the USSR or Nazi Germany. Hell, it even had the fucked up science experiments. However, I don't think the truth of the historical claims are false. It's based around the trade requirements of Japan, so I can't really condemn it for leaving out details as far as I'm aware. Again, I can condemn the ending position but that would be on his argument rather than the historical truths.

Dutch East Indies - Wikipedia

The Dutch East Indies produced most of the world's supply of quinine and pepper, over a third of its rubber, a quarter of its coconut products, and a fifth of its tea, sugar, coffee, and oil. The profit from the Dutch East Indies made the Netherlands one of the world's most significant colonial powers.

Yes, I know, it's wikipedia. The citation for this bit of info is supposedly Witton, Patrick (2003). Indonesia. Melbourne: Lonely Planet. pp. 23–25. It's sold by universities and held in the National Library of Australia though, so if the citation is true then I'd consider the book credible. It's hard to find specifics on how profitable the Dutch East indies were, but Indonesia (a big chunk of it) is currently 21st in the world's oil production (Oil - production - Country Comparison) Beaten by India, countries across the pacific, or countries unreachable (middle-east or Scandinavia.) India has a larger population and thus more manpower. Japan could war with India for the extra 14,000 barrels (with modern capabilities,) or the smaller country with fewer men for only 14,000 less. It wouldn't have been 14,000 less at the time of invasion, but I think the production potential would have gotten better in more than 60 years of development rather than worse.

Even if someone else was responsible for Japan's situation rather than the USA, war was still likely between them; the USA did what they did because they disagreed with Japanese expansion, so they still would have docked in Pearl Harbor - Japan still would have attacked the Dutch East Indies based on how much was available there in comparison to elsewhere. Deductively, if it's true (and I think the only controversial claim is that Japan would have attacked the Dutch East Indies, but I believe I've adequately argued they still would have) then they would still enter a war. The link you mention also argues the Japanese underestimated the USA (something where the specifics may vary in other sources, but the overall idea is the same. The Japanese thought they could win) so I don't think they would have worked around it.
Revenge may have been a sweet afterthought, but I don't think it drove the attack. I was arguing against the middle finger thing by saying the attack was based around strategic importance, but I didn't say the embargo was irrelevant. If the embargo hadn't happened from the US, I argue the same thing would have happened though.