End of Empires: who and what was responsible? (post WW2)

[Dayuhan]

I was stunned to read that the Dutch massively mobilised to enable a large expeditionary force being sent to what is now Indonesia; something like 250k and again I expect US shipping was used.

Any reference to suggest reliance on US shipping? I can't find one, though I have read that in 1949 the US threatened to shut off Marshall Plan aid to the Netherlands in protest over the conduct of the Dutch reoccupation. If the US had indeed provided logistic support to that reoccupation, that would have marked a quite abrupt reversal of position.

I am quite an admirer of MacArthur, albeit based on reading one biography. That aside the quote is a classic, no, not as I am an apologist for British decisions in 1945. Rather that in Manchuria the US intervention, with a US Marine Corps, used Japanese troops to secure the railways notably and IIRC fought off Chinese raids.

One might see some hypocrisy there, yes. I confess that I am not a huge admirer of MacArthur, though that may be to some extent be biased by my primarily Philippine orientation. He's not altogether well thought of here, largely because of his role in the postwar restoration of the prewar feudal elite... admittedly a small part of the whole story, but a small part that seems big in these parts.

The issue of collaboration with the Japanese by the Philippine elite, and the anger it evoked among many Americans, always seemed ironic to me. On the surface of it there seems little surprise in collaboration with the Japanese invading conquerors by the same elite that had collaborated so willingly with American invading conquerors, and whose ancestors had collaborated so willingly with Spanish invading conquerors. Bit of evidence of how easy it is to convince ourselves that we are different...