|
October 25, 2001
The
Sunshine Project
Assault
on the BioWeapons
Convention
Sarah
Turner
Cashing
In on Patriotism
Latin American Colloquium
on Systemology
The Meridia Manifesto
Noam
Chomsky
The
New War on Terror
October 24, 2001
Michael Colby
Radioactive
Mail?
Lori
Allen
Life
in an Occupied Land
During Wartime
Peter
Swire
New
Anti-Terrorism Bill
Poses Old Risks
Irina
Malenko
A
Non-Western Voice
David
Vest
Welcome
to Web Hell
Patrick Cockburn
Battle
of Mazar Gets Nasty
October 23, 2001
Steve
Perry
Anthrax,
Cipro and the Bailout of Bayer
Carl
Estabrook
Just War
or
The Rule of Lawlessness?
Patrick
Cockburn
Errant
Bombs at Bagram
George
Monbiot
War
and Oil
Robert
Jensen
Crushing
Academic Dissent
October 22, 2001
Hamit
Dardagan
The
New Newspeak
Tom
Turnipseed
War
on the Poor
Patrick Cockburn
Killing
Mullah Omar's Child
David
Vest
The
War on Women
Shepherd
Bliss
Advice
from a Vietnam Vet
Hani
Shukrallah
Capital
Strikes Back
October 21, 2001
Donald
Rumsfeld
The
al-Jazeera Interview
Mark
Scaramella
Nuclear
Anxiety
October 19, 2001
Mohammed
Sid-Ahmed
Bush's
Palestinian State
Michael
Colby
A
Mailroom Manifesto
October 18, 2001
Mahajan
and Jensen
Avoiding
a New Cold War
Patrick
Cockburn
US
Planes Pound Taliban
Jamey Hecht
Gerald Ford
and the CIA
Mokhiber
and Weisman
3
Arguments
Against This War
October 17, 2001
Ballinger
and Marsh
Music
and War Resistance
Steve
Perry
The
Anthrax Chronicles
Chris
Kromm
Operation
Infinite Disaster
Susan
Block
Sex
Not Bombs
David Vest
Osama Speaks
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By
Alexander Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
(Click Here to Order from CounterPunch
Online at 20% Off Amazon.com's price!)
INSIDE
EXCLUSIVE
TO
COUNTERPUNCH
SUBSCRIBERS
Published Oct. 3, 2001
8-Page Special
Issue
Aftermath
Diary
Ashcroft's Onslaught
on
Civil Liberties
Ridge Long Groomed
for
Cheney's Job
Those CIA Killing
Bids
Never Stopped
The Not-So-Great
Mayor Giuliani
Crop Duster
Ban
Will Save Lives
Madeleine Albright's
Deadly Legacy
How the Bin
Laden Women
Fled Bel Air
Tom Ridge's
Vietnam
Same as Kerrey's?
A CounterPunch
Journey
to Ramallah
A Word About
God
Nostrodamus
Jam-maker
Search
CounterPunch
Read Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
Responses to 9/11:
Chomsky, Russell Banks,
Zinn, and Alice Walker
A Free ebook from
Seven Stories Press
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James
Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas
Valentine
Al
Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
Buy
This Explosive
New Book at an
Amazing Discount!
Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual
|
October 25, 2001
Gory Tales of Terrorism
Hiroshima to New York
By N.D. Jayaprakash
The terrorist assault on various targets in the
United States of America on 11th September 2001 is an extremely
cowardly act that deserves to be condemned in no uncertain terms.
The tragic loss of life resulting from the dastardly act is
a reminder of the fact that it is invariably innocent people
who get slaughtered in the vicious games which contending political
interests in the world keep playing. The premeditated attack
was apparently in retaliation for the repressive and wayward
policies pursued by the U.S. Administration across the globe,
which have had adverse impact on a sizeable section of humanity.
In the recent past it is mostly people in West Asia who have
had to bear the brunt of such policies. However, under no circumstances
can there be any justification for the wreaking the wrath generated
against the U.S. Administration on ordinary citizens of the
United States, who do not play any direct role in the formulation
of the policies in question.
The death toll in the gruesome tragedy
is estimated to be over 6500. Thousands of people, not only
in the United States but also from a number of other countries
including India, have suddenly lost their near and dear ones.
The pain and agony left by the tragedy was very palpable everywhere.
The harrowing trauma that the passengers and crew of the hijacked
airplanes underwent before they crashed can be well imagined.
The sight of scores of people helplessly looking out from windows
on the upper floors of the World Trade Center's burning 110-storey
twin towers in New York was an extremely poignant sight to watch.
What followed was even more chilling. While some jumped into
the air in a desperate bid to escape from the advancing fire,
others just got engulfed in it. The fate of those who jumped
from that height to the ground several hundred feet below was
predictable. The nightmarish experience could not have been
any better for those who were trapped in the crumbling twin
towers till they were crushed to death by the falling debris.
The ghastly images and heart-rending scenes that were flashed
on all television channels is a grim reminder of what terrorism
has done and what terrorism can do.
Selective
Amnesia
Most of the news-broadcasters compared
the shocking event to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Some
others called it the biggest terrorist attack of all time, an
attack that was directed not only against the United States
but also against all humanity. They continue to say so. It is,
indeed, very unfortunate that not one of them from the major
broadcasting media - BBC, CNN, Fox News, etc. - compared the
11th September attack to a very similar event but of far greater
magnitude, a horrendous one that was a turning point in the
history of the twentieth century. How is that even a passing
reference to that unforgettable and earth-shaking event has
not been made by any one in the media or by any of the spokespersons
of the major governments?
Even in this hour of grief there can
be no justification for resorting to selective amnesia. How
could those manning responsible posts today not remember the
dawning of the age of nuclear madness! Perhaps nobody wants to
draw attention to the fact that it was the U.S. Administration,
which was guilty of committing the biggest and most gruesome
terrorist attack ever. By their decision to use atomic bombs,
the U.S. leadership had wiped out more than two-thirds of the
population of two Japanese cities. In that cold-blooded and
unprovoked terrorist attack on the Japanese civilian population,
the death toll was seventy times more than the lives lost in
the U.S. on 11th September and the area of destruction was far
greater. One terrorist attack certainly cannot justify another.
However, the concerted attempt to conceal the U.S. Administration's
unsavoury legacy is very glaring.
Cause
for Celebration?
All reports show that, after the terrorist
attack of 11th September, a pall of gloom has descended over
the United States and across much of the world. But the major
media networks also flashed the shocking news that in certain
Palestinian camps in Lebanon and elsewhere the terrible event
was a cause for much celebration. (The same news channels later
clarified that the celebration was confined to a few isolated
pockets only.) If these news reports are true, it is a matter
of great shame that some people did celebrate the misfortune
that had befallen others. How could people be so heartless and
insensitive in this age?
As a matter of fact, there was much celebration
too on the streets of New York - yes, in Manhattan - and elsewhere
in the United States and especially on a ship sailing back from
Europe to the United States bringing back the U.S. President
from Potsdam, Germany. The date was 6th August 1945. The cause
for celebration was the utterly senseless atomic bombing of Hiroshima
by the United States. The then U.S. President, Harry S. Truman,
who was leading the celebrations without an iota of guilt, had
just announced to the world the successful strike on Hiroshima
by the U.S. airforce. The U.S. President had been informed over
the wireless that the atomic bomb had achieved the desired results.
The Japanese' city of Hiroshima, which had been deliberately
left untouched by "conventional" bombing, had been
obliterated by a single atomic bomb. (When the truth began to
sink in, those concerned U.S. citizens who were better informed
quickly distanced themselves from the celebrations and started
expressing their outrage at the senseless act. Later reports
showed that over 200,000 of Hiroshima's population of 350,000
had been wiped out.)
Soon after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki, information that trickled in from official briefings
and from accounts sent by war correspondents about the death
and destruction that was unleashed there were horrifying enough
to prick the conscience of concerned people across the globe.
Strong reactions of revulsion against the atomic bombings were
evident even in the United States and Britain. One of the publications
dealing with these developments and one that was brought out
later shows that:
"All over the country [the United
States], people wrote letters to the editors of their newspapers,
protesting the killing of non-combatant civilians in Japan,
calling it inhuman, and protesting our disregard for moral values.
In Britain, too, where the news of the atom bomb topped all
other news, the letter columns were full of such expressions
such as 'In the name of humanity, let us stop and ask ourselves
where we are marching'." [The Atomic Age Opens, ed.
by Donald Potter Geddes, The World Publishing Company, New York,
1945, p.41]
Cold
Blooded Act
The entire gruesome event in Hiroshima
was carefully filmed and the physical effects of the attack
accurately measured from airplanes accompanying the bomber that
had dropped the atom bomb. The blinding flash, the reverberating
blast, the mushroom cloud, the flattening of almost all standing
structures (according to later estimates over 92 per cent of
the 76,000 buildings that lay within four kilometers of ground
zero had been destroyed), and the entire city being engulfed
in a devastating fire in a short time must have all been a terrific
sight to watch from the airplanes. However, it is not clear
whether the audio system with the film crew on the accompanying
aircraft was powerful enough to pick up the agonizing cries
of those trapped in the falling debris and about to be devoured
by the advancing fire. Also the rising smoke from the raging
fire must have hid from view the thousands of screaming men,
women and children - many with deep burns sustained from direct
exposure to the scorching flash - jumping into the various rivers
running through the city in order to escape from the searing
heat. Few of them may have managed to get back on to the banks
for most of them surely met a watery death. But for the smoke
the happenings on the riverside would have been yet another
spectacle to watch! Of course, effects of ionizing radiation
were not yet apparent but the smell of burning human flesh was
certainly in the air. Unfortunately, television and cable networks
were not in vogue at that time; otherwise the entire world could
have watched the "spectacular" event live! Terrorism
had never tasted such success before or after! With the U.S.
President in the lead, the destruction of Hiroshima and its
people was a great occasion to celebrate with gay abandon! The
"civilized" conduct of the U.S. President must have
put even the worst barbarians to shame!
No, that was not the end. Three days
later on 9th August 1945, an identical exercise - film crew
et al included - was re-enacted over the city of Nagasaki. This
time a more powerful atomic bomb was used. But, thanks to the
hilly terrain, the fate of only 140,000 of the city's total
population of 270,000 was sealed. Meanwhile the city of Kyoto
with a population of over 1,000,000 had a providential escape.
Kyoto had been replaced with the ill-fated Nagasaki at the last
minute after the intervention of the then U.S. Secretary of
War, Henry Stimson. (It is not clear why Stimson did not prevent
the attack altogether.) Despite strong opposition from Lt. Gen.
Leslie Groves, Chief of the Manhattan (atomic bomb) Project,
Stimson was able to strike Kyoto off from the list of atomic
targets and, thus, succeeded in miraculously saving no less
than 800,000 Japanese lives. However, Gen. Groves, who was clearly
disappointed, later wrote in his memoirs thus: "I particularly
wanted Kyoto as a target because, as I have said, it was large
enough an area for us to gain complete knowledge of the effects
of an atom bomb. Hiroshima was not nearly so satisfactory in
this respect." [Leslie Groves: Now It Can Be Told (Story
of the Manhattan Project), Andre Deutsch, London, 1963,
p.275]
Mark his words: "large enough an
area for us to gain complete knowledge of the effects of an
atom bomb". In other words, the United States had used
atomic bombs on Japan to gain complete knowledge of the effects
of an atom bomb! Slaughtering 200,000 human beings at one go
in Hiroshima was not satisfactory enough! Kyoto with its population
of over 1,000,000 could have provided far better results! This
is the assessment of none other than the very person who was
heading the U.S. atomic bomb project then. Such crass views
are definitely indicative of the "civilized" nature
of the U.S. establishment.
Height
of Inhumanity
What most people do not know is that
the after effects of the atomic bombings are taking its toll
to this day. In general, in the early stages most A-bomb casualties
were due to the combined effects of burn, blast and radiation
injuries. In later stages, deaths and diseases arose solely due
to the delayed effects of nuclear radiation - a property which
is unique to nuclear weapons. A large number of the 300,000
A-bomb survivors were exposed to ionizing radiation. So separate
A-bomb hospitals were built in Hiroshima and Nagasaki to treat
them. These hospitals, which have been providing treatment and
monitoring the effects of radiation, have never been short of
patients. The truth is, since the atomic bombings, debilitating
diseases resulting from exposure to nuclear radiation have continued
to kill hundreds of A-bomb victims each year. The perpetrators
of the crime were well aware of the effects of radiation on
living beings. Therefore, they wanted to target not only inanimate
objects in the targeted areas but animate objects as well. But
there was one problem.
The normal practice as far as 'conventional'
bombing was concerned was to take certain precautions to minimize
loss of life. This was done by dropping leaflets in advance
announcing which cities and towns were to be bombed on certain
nights urging the inhabitants to evacuate the target areas so
as to give every chance to the civilian population to save themselves.
Records show that the U.S. airforce followed this normal practice
even during the period between 17th June to 5th August 1945
while carrying out its last major bombing raids over 58 Japanese
cities with 'conventional' bombs. Strangely enough, the people
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not given any such warnings before
they were attacked with atom bombs. In fact, Dr. Arthur Compton,
the then Director of the Metallurgical Project (a unit of the
Manhattan Project) later confessed that: "Hiroshima had
not been given any specific warning. The people were caught
unprepared. Men and women were accordingly in the streets, going
about their normal business." [Arthur Compton: Atomic Quest,
Oxford University Press, London, 1956, pp254-255]
While the population of towns subjected
to 'conventional' bombing were given advance warning to evacuate,
why was it that no such warning was given to the population
of the two cities subjected to atomic bombings? Does it not
prove that it was not only to maximize the loss of life but also
to expose the maximum number of people to ionizing radiation
that the inhabitants of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were denied a
chance to evacuate the cities prior to the atomic bombings?
Is it not the height of inhumanity to have had such utter contempt
for human lives? Another morbid factor is that in order to measure
the destructive power of the atomic bombs with accuracy, the
five cities selected as potential A-bomb targets were left completely
untouched by 'conventional' bombing for eight long months. During
that period they were spared the disastrous fate that befell
66 other Japanese cities, which were blasted and burned with
'conventional' bombs including incendiary ones. However, the
fate of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ultimately turned out to be far
worse! Therefore, would it not be fair enough to conclude that
the magnitude of the latest horrendous crime, for which the
"barbarian" Bin Laden is the prime suspect, seemingly
pales into insignificance as compared to the campaign of calculated
terror that the "civilized" U.S. leadership indulged
in 56 years ago? Despite protests the "civilized"
terror campaigns of the U.S. have continued unabated to this
day on a different scale.
Bitter
Taste
The objective of the above argument is
only to drive home the point that one terrorist attack on the
people of the United States should not erase the memory of the
countless acts of state terrorism perpetrated by successive
U.S. Administrations over the years. The victims of U.S. state
terrorism have also undergone or are still undergoing the same
pain, trauma and agony that the victims of the 11th September
terrorist attack are now experiencing. In a very unfortunate
way, the people of the United States for the first time have
had a bitter taste of what their own Government has been doing
to people across the world for years in different forms. The
atomic bombing on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the massive and indiscriminate
bombing of Vietnam (including use of thousands of tons of incendiary
napalm bombs), the innumerable My Lai* type massacres, the use
of chemical weapons such as the highly toxic defoliant Agent
Orange** over Vietnam, the massive and indiscriminate bombing
of Iraq and Yugoslavia, etc., are just a few examples of acts
of U.S. state terrorism that people of other nations have had
to endure.
[* On 16 March 1968, 80 soldiers of Charlie
Company, First Battalion, 11th Light Infantry Brigade of the
U.S. Army, under the command of Lt. William Calley, went on
a 'search and destroy' mission to the village of My Lai in the
South Vietnamese district of Son My. In the process over 300
unarmed civilians, mostly women, children and the elderly, were
massacred. Ronald Heaberle who had accompanied the soldiers
photographed the entire killings, which were published much
later in the U.S. magazine Life on 5th December 1969. This was
one instance where there was irrefutable proof and when several
Vietnam War veterans in the U.S. came forward to testify about
the perpetration of that mindless terrorist act.
** 11 million gallons of Agent Orange
were sprayed over South Vietnam between 1961 and 1970 covering
10 % of the country' land area and exposing millions of Vietnamese
to its toxic effects. It has reportedly killed or seriously
injured over 400,000 people and has already contributed to birth
defects in over 500,000 children. The international reaction
to the human tragedy resulting from this U.S. chemical warfare
has been appalling. For details see the article by Robert Dreyfuss
titled 'Apocalypse Still' in the U.S. magazine Mother
Jones, January 2000.]
What rational explanation can the U.S.
terrorists offer for targeting Iraqi civilian population with
precision-guided and earth-penetrating cruise missiles while
they were taking refuge in air-raid shelters to escape U.S.
aerial bombings? Is not the U.S. Administration squarely responsible
for the death of over 500,000 children in Iraq due to the untold
suffering that the Iraqi people are forced to undergo as a result
of the strict economic sanctions imposed on that country? Is
not the U.S. Administration aiding and abetting the Zionists
in systematically carrying out terrorist attacks on the people
of Palestine in order to deprive them of their homeland? Is it
not the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency of the United States)
along with the ISI (Inter Services Intelligence of Pakistan)
that encouraged, armed and funded "Islamic" terrorists
in the 1980s to overthrow the then government in Afghanistan?
Are they not the same terrorists who have been wreaking havoc
in Kashmir with the same arms and funds? (Interestingly, while
the Government of India repeatedly blames the ISI for aiding
and abetting terrorism in Kashmir, it maintains total silence
about the treacherous role of the CIA. Similarly, the Government
of Pakistan blames RAW [Research and Analysis Wing of India]
for the numerous acts of terrorism in Pakistan, while the CIA's
devious role there is kept under wraps.) It should not be forgotten
that the pain and suffering inflicted on the people of the other
affected countries by acts of terrorism are also as real as
that which is being experienced by people in the United States
now. Therefore, retribution cannot be a one-way process. All
acts of terrorism should be condemned and all those responsible
for terrorist acts should be brought to book and punished irrespective
of creed or nationality.
Untenable
Justification
As to who planned the attack on 11th
September it is still not very clearly evident, but the "barbarian"
Osama Bin Laden continues to be the prime suspect. However,
there is no doubt that it was the "civilized" U.S.
President and his ilk that had ordered the wanton destruction
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Strange as it may seem, while there
is world-wide hunt for the perpetrators of the heinous crime
in New York, Washington-DC and Pittsburgh, neither President
Truman nor anyone else in the U.S. Administration ever had to
face any such threat for their dastardly act. They managed to
get away scot-free on the spacious plea that the use of atomic
bombs were necessary in order to end World War II and, as President
Truman put it, "save American lives". The fact is
there was not a grain of truth in the justification that the
U.S. President had offered. (For details see N.D. Jayaprakash,
The Meaning of Hiroshima Nagasaki, Delhi Science Forum and Kerala
Shastra Sahitya Parishad, New Delhi, 1990.) But how many people
across the world know the real facts even today? Do they know
that several contemporary U.S. and British statesmen totally
disagreed with President Truman's lame justification?
Fleet Admiral W.D. Leahy, Chief of Staff
to Presidents Roosevelt and Truman successively and the top
ranking officer in the entire military hierarchy then, was quite
blunt in his criticism. According to him:
"The use of this barbaric weapon
at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our
war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready
to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful
bombing with conventional weapons."
He went on to add:
"My own feeling is that in being
the first to use it we had adopted an ethical standard common
to the barbarians of the Dark Ages."
[W.D. Leahy: I Was There: The Personal
History of the Chief of Staff to Presidents Roosevelt and Truman,
Victor Gollencz Ltd., London, 1950, p.429 and p.514]
Interestingly, Winston Churchill, Prime
Minister of Britain during the major part of World War II and
a willing accomplice to the crime, has nevertheless made a frank
admission. In his voluminous work on the history of the War,
he has stated:
"It would be a mistake to suppose
that the fate of Japan was settled by the atomic bombs. Her defeat
was certain before the first bomb fell and was brought about
by overwhelming maritime power." [Winston S. Churchill:
The Second World War, Vol. VI: Triumph and Tragedy, Houghton
Mifflin Company, Boston, 1953, p.646]
What is intriguing is the fact that Gen.
Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in
South West Pacific Area during World War II, was not even consulted
about the decision to use atom bombs although the selected targets
fell within the area of his command! Gen. MacArthur was no pacifist.
He was an arch right-winger. Yet he admitted during a press
conference years later that: "We did not need the atomic
Bombagainst Japan." [New York Times, 21 August 1963, p.30]
Gen. MacArthur subsequently went on to
add that by June 1945: "My staff was unanimous in believing
Japan was on the point of collapse and surrender. I even directed
that plans be drawn 'for a peaceful occupation of Japan' without
further military operations." [Douglas MacArthur: Reminiscences,
McGraw Hill Book Company, New York, 1964, p.260]
Another critical voice was that of Gen.
Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the U.S. forces in Europe
during World War II and later President of the United States
from 1953 to 1960. Recounting his reactions, Gen. Eisenhower
wrote in his memoirs that at the Potsdam Conference of Heads
of Governments of USA, UK and USSR in July 1945:
"I voiced to him [Stimson] my grave
misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already
defeated and that dropping the [atom] bomb was completely unnecessary,
and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid
shocking world opinion by the use of such a weapon whose employment
was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American
lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that movement, seeking
some way to surrender with a minimum loss of 'face'." [Dwight
D. Eisenhower: Mandate for Change: 1953-1956, Doubleday
& Company Inc., New York, 1963, pp. 312-313]
Disinformation
Campaign
In order to quell the rising criticism
against the atomic bombing and to hide the real facts from becoming
public, the U.S. Administration carried out a massive disinformation
campaign widely and repeatedly disseminating the untenable justification
that President Truman had offered. (The brazen defense of the
atomic bombing has continued without any let up.) At the same
time the U.S. Administration kept doing everything in its power
to suppress the real facts relating to the effects of the atomic
bombing. The misinformation campaign is conducted in a very
systematic way. After the surrender of Japan, U.S. armed forces
occupied Japan on 2nd September 1945. Once the U.S. occupation
got underway, they began to propagate that 'the atom bomb was
dropped in order to end the Pacific War'. Accordingly, the idea
that the atom bomb damages were 'a sacrifice that Japan simply
had to accept' was spread and began to gain currency even among
the Japanese. Simultaneously, the U.S. authorities stuck to
the policy of strict secrecy on all aspects concerning the atom
bomb. They went to the extent of issuing a press code in Japan
on 19th September 1945 in order to suppress and play down the
full story of the atom bomb damages.
The press code imposed prior censorship
on all radio broadcast and on newspapers and other print media.
Therefore, except for a brief period before the press code was
imposed, all accounts of atom bomb damages disappeared from
newspapers, magazines and academic journals. In the process
the Japanese people themselves remained largely ignorant of the
extent of the atom bomb damages and about the condition of the
300,000 atomic bomb survivors--the hibakusha. This lack of awareness
also prevented adequate voluntary help being extended to the
hibukusha even within Japan. It appears that it was only in
1952, after Japan regained its independence, that a few photographs
of the atomic bombings were published for the first time in
Japan! If people within Japan were so ill-informed about the
happenings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki because of strict censorship
imposed by the U.S. occupation forces, how could people elsewhere,
especially in the vast areas then under U.S. and British influence,
be better informed? (Moreover, the untold atrocities [such as
the blood-curdling Nanking massacre of 1937] committed by the
Japanese Imperial Army on people in China, Korea, and the Philippines
and elsewhere in South East Asia would have initially made people
indifferent to the happenings on the Japanese mainland.)
Earlier in November 1945, the U.S. occupation
authorities went to the extent of confiscating a documentary
entitled "The Effects of Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki" that was produced by the Japanese Film Corporation
during September-October 1945. They also prohibited further
documentary filming by the Japanese. It was only after strong
public pressure that in 1968 the U.S. Administration returned
a 16-mm print of this documentary to Japan. However, because
of restrictions imposed by the Japanese Government, no one in
Japan, save a few medical personnel, has ever viewed the film
in its entirety. The Japanese Government's attitude in this
regard, to say the least, is rather perplexing. Is it not absolutely
intriguing that the government of a country, which has been
a victim of atomic bombing, should try to hide the bitter truth
about the deadly effects of the atomic bombing from its own
citizens and from people elsewhere? In fact since 1952, successive
Japanese governments have been colluding with successive U.S.
administrations to do precisely that.
It has been the practice of the Japanese
Government, which is intent on downplaying the effects of the
atomic bombings, to send its representatives regularly to the
Yasukuni Shrine, which venerates all of Japan's war dead including
convicted war criminals. The shrine has attracted a lot of attention
because it houses the remains of wartime Prime Minister General
Hedeki Tojo and six others who were executed after being convicted
as World War II criminals. The present Prime Minister, Junichiro
Koizumi, visited the Shrine on 13th August 2001 to pay obeisance
to their memory. The irony is that the same war criminals were
tried and executed by the War Crimes Tribunal set up by the
United States for crimes committed before and during World War
II, including crimes committed against the U.S. prisoners of
war. But successive U.S. administrations have not raised a murmur
of protest against the Japanese governments' gesture of paying
obeisance to the very Japanese war criminals prosecuted by the
U.S.! The truth of the matter is that the same right-wing forces,
which led Japan into its imperialistic adventure, are still
very much in control of the Japanese government. On their part,
the U.S. authorities had actually prosecuted very few of the
war criminals; most of them - especially the big industrialists
who had backed the bloody Japanese Imperialist adventure to
the hilt - were clandestinely rehabilitated. The most shocking
incident is the case concerning Unit 731, a Japanese army unit,
which was engaged in research on germ warfare during 1930-45
using human beings, including U.S. prisoners of war, as guinea
pigs. According to a report in a prominent U.S. magazine, during
the occupation:
"U.S. officials granted the Japanese
unit members immunity from prosecution as war criminals in exchange
for their laboratory records on germ warfare." [Newsweek,
19 April 1982, p.21]
So much for the concern and eagerness
being shown by the U.S. Administration to render retributive
justice for violation of human rights!
The Japanese Government while reacting
to the macabre events of 11th September has completely desisted
from making even a passing reference to the hideous way in which
the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were subjected to a terrorist
attack by the U.S. Administration. In fact the Japanese Prime
Minister, Junichiro Koizumi, has maintained a studied silence
on the matter. Reports show that even during his visit to the
United States on 24th September 2001 no mention of the atomic
bombings were ever made. Under the circumstances, Prime Minister
Koizumi's silence on this vital issue itself speaks volumes.
Drawing
the Correct Lessons
Had the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
received better global coverage--even if it was only on a fraction
of the scale that the coverage of the horrors in New York, Washington-DC
and Pittsburgh are receiving today--perhaps the resulting revulsion
against nuclear weapons may have made the world a far safer
place to live! Although there may have been some relaxation
in the news censorship after the U.S. granted independence to
Japan in 1952, the entire truth about the effects of the atomic
bombings have never been made public to date. On the other hand,
the misleading official justification for the atomic attack
has been repeatedly spread far and wide.
The imposition of censorship by the U.S.
Administration, particularly during the period of occupation,
on all news relating to the effects of the atomic bombings was
undoubtedly a calculated ploy on its part to give as little
exposure as possible to the gruesome acts of terror in Hiroshima
and Nagasaki. It was also a devious attempt on its part to conceal
from the world's public the consequences of unleashing nuclear
war in future. It is primarily due to the unrelenting struggle
of the survivors of the atomic bombing and the groups and organisations
supporting them that the facts about the horrors of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki started slowly getting disseminated. It is that
sustained effort that is influencing concerned people across
the world to join the global movement for elimination of nuclear
weapons.
The wanton destruction of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki was also the first salvo of the U.S. Administration
in the unfolding Cold War with the Soviet Union. Aiding and
abetting all kinds of rogue elements across the globe to serve
its ends was an integral part of that anti-Communist agenda.
The self-appointed defenders of 'democracy, freedom and liberty'
had no compunctions in funding and arming self-seeking disparate
groups--which defended anything but democracy, freedom and liberty--to
act as its bulwarks to suppress anti-fascist and anti-colonial
national liberation movements that became widespread at the
end of the Second World War. The U.S. Administration gave no
thought to the recoiling (or what is now termed as "blow-back")
effect of that questionable strategy which served its short-term
goal. At worst, in the long run, such carefully nurtured Frankenstein
forces was expected to serve as permanent "enemies"
or "whipping boys" for the burgeoning military-industrial
complex. Although the probability of such forces striking at
the U.S. mainland was not altogether discounted, the chances
of such a strike ever taking place was thought to be beyond
the realm of possibility. The people in the United States and
elsewhere who have supported such a bizarre strategy are now
forced to learn the hard way. It is hoped that they draw the
correct lessons.
The several trillions of dollars misspent
in the last fifty years on the vast global "defense"
network to fight its "enemies" could not protect the
U.S. from a simple strategy devised by a thoughtless suicide
squad. If, instead of creating and fighting "enemies",
the U.S. Administration had gone about making friends, the history
of the world would have been very different. Successive U.S.
Administrations have had ample opportunity to spend the vast
human and material resources at its disposal in far more useful
ways than on militarism. But it never chose to do so.
In this context it would be worthwhile
to recall the fervent hope expressed by the former U.S. President
General Eisenhower during a speech before the American Society
of Newspaper Editors on 16th April 1953 soon after he had assumed
the presidency. He said:
"Every gun that is made, every warship
launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a
theft from those who hunger and not fed, those who are cold
and not clothed.
"This world in arms is not spending
money alone. It is spending the sweat of its labourers, the
genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children."
He further added:
"This Government is ready to ask
its people to join with all nations in devoting a substantial
percentage of the savings achieved by disarmament to a fund
for world aid and reconstruction
"The monuments to this new kind
of war would be these: roads and schools, hospitals and homes,
food and health
"We are ready, in short, to dedicate
our strength to serving the needs, rather than the fears of
the world" [Dwight Eisenhower: Mandate for Change,
Signet, New York, 1965, pp.189-192]
As to who prevented the hopes expressed
by President Eisenhower from being fulfilled is something that
the people of the United States will have to deeply ponder over.
Democracy, liberty and freedom have to
be defended in deed not with words or swords. Integral to lasting
democracy, liberty and freedom is banishment of poverty, ill-health,
illiteracy, superstitious beliefs and backwardness on the one
hand, and facilitating the creation of institutions that defend
those laudable values on the other. Criminals and terrorists
in today's world cannot prosper or become a major threat to
democracy, liberty and freedom unless one or more States or
influential sections within those States directly or indirectly
sponsors them. Those who have sowed the poisonous seeds cannot
disown responsibility for the bitter fruits. Why the U.S. Administration
has always chosen to encourage and support the most retrograde
forces in countries where it has chosen to intervene is something
that needs to be examined more thoroughly. CP
N.D. Jayaprakash
is a member of the Delhi Science Forum, an anti-nuclear weapons
group. He lives in New Delhi, India. This is the first part of
a two-part essay.
|