[Ratso]

""yeah, you could say something absurd like: the US cut off the petrolium supply to Japan, and isolated them from trade with other western nations, forcing their industry into the ground and provoking an attack against our conveniently placed obsoleet ships so that we would have an excuse to go to war.""

Or you could be even more absurd and ignore the fact that Japan had invaded China 10 years earlier and the US (in concert with the League of Nations) took economic measures to restrict Imperial Japan's warfighting capability.

But the point is made that its sometimes difficult to determine which Power may actually be at fault. After all, you could be the victim of a lack of education or outright misinformation.