Quote Originally Posted by JMA View Post
The question that must be asked of those who advocated the accelerated independence of the colonies after WW2 is who must take responsibility for what happened afterwards?
The question is whether that advocacy actually had anything to do with what happened. Neither you nor anyone else has presented anything even remotely resembling evidence to suggest that it did.

Roosevelt had a low opinion of empire, but opinions don't topple empires. Empires didn't fall because a dead President didn't like them, they fell because the colonized people didn't want to be colonized any more, the colonizers lacked the capacity to compel them to be colonized, and the folks on the home front ceased to support the effort to compel them to be colonized. If you want to suggest an American hand in all this you need evidence that American actions accelerated the fall of empire. Words and opinions won't do it.

Certainly the US often stepped in and tried to fill the vacuum left by retreating empires. Certainly they brought their own combination of idealism and avarice to the table, and often made messes nearly as monumental as those made by the original colonizers. That doesn't mean the US caused the fall, though... I can't think of a case where the US supplanted a colonial power that would not have fallen soon of its own accord.

Wouldn't it have been a bit hypocritical of FDR to have fought to roll back the Japanese "Co-prosperity Sphere" and then to have supported the European Empires? Not like there was any real difference...