home / subscribe / donate / about us / books / archives / search / links / feedback / events
|
|
|
Bolivia's Third Revolution Confused by Bolivia's upheavals? CounterPunch's Newton Garver gives you the history, the politics and a roadmap through the present great upsurge of Indians who say NO to centuries of theft and oppression. On the track of Guatemala's killers: a searing report from John Ross on the US-backed monsters who turned Guatemala into a charnel house and on the heroes who hunt them down. The rise and rise of a corporation called Halliburton: Jeffrey St Clair scours some of Texas' history's dirtiest pages and tells how Halliburton's cash helped put two presidents to the White House. Get the answers you're looking for in the latest subscriber-only edition of CounterPunch ... CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558 |
|
Other Lands Have Dreams: From Baghdad to Pekin Prison by KATHY KELLY  Today's Stories June 20, 2005 Alan Maass June 18 / 19, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Greg Moses Benjamin Shepard Stan Goff Lee Sustar Jude Wanniski Diana Barahona Brian Concannon, Jr. Fred Gardner Mike Whitney Ahmad Faruqui Manuel García, Jr. Roger Howard Ron Jacobs Ben Tripp Poets' Basement Website of
the Weekend
June 17, 2005 Ricardo Alarcón Clay Conrad Marc Estrin Colin Brown Christopher
Brauchli Joshua Frank Norman Solomon Mary Rizzo Bond / Brutus
/ Setshedi
June 16, 2005 John Walsh Dave Lindorff Adrian Lomax Tom Crumpacker Jeffrey Kolakowski Julene Bair Michael Dickinson Francois Houtart / Isabel Parra,
et al. Tom Barry
June 15, 2005 Stan Goff Daniel Wolff Tim Wise Ricardo Alarcón Joshua Frank John Hilary Norman Solomon Alexander Cockburn
/ Jeffrey St. Clair Website of the Day
June 14, 2005 Paul Craig
Roberts Forrest Hylton Richard Gott Fred Gardner Steve Breyman Dave Zirin Robert Kent Paul Craig
Roberts
June 13, 2005 Gary Leupp Dave Lindorff John Stauber Fred Gardner Evelyn J. Pringle Norman Solomon Winslow T.
Wheeler
June 10 / 12, 2005 Alexander
Cockburn Sharon
Smith Brian
Cloughley Chris
Kromm Heather
Gray Kevin
Zeese Mickey
Z. Gary
Leupp Eli
Stephens Nick
Dearden Oscar
Olivera Robert
Fisk Michael
Dickinson Poets'
Basement Website
of the Weekend
Len
Colodny Christopher
Brauchli Ron
Jacobs Dave
Lindorff Katrina
Yeaw / Alex Schmaus Alan
Farago Saul
Landau
June 8, 2005 Jim
Hougan Alan
Maass Jason
Leopold Niranjan
Ramakrishnan Dave
Zirin Derrick
O'Keefe Diana
Johnstone Website
of the Day
June 7, 2005 Forrest
Hylton Greg
Moses / Susan van Haitsma Lenni
Brenner Col.
Dan Smith Joshua
Frank Dave
Lindorff Margot
Veranes / Adrian Navarro Michael
Neumann
June 6, 2005 Stew
Albert Paul
Craig Roberts Nicole
Colson Ali
Khan Jason
Leopold Charles
Walker Poff Ramzy
Baroud Rep.
John Conyers Evelyn
Pringle Gary
Corseri Website
of the Day
June 4 / 5, 2005 Alexander
Cockburn James
Petras Robert
Fisk Patrick
Cockburn Rev.
William Alberts Saul
Landau Mario
Lamo Jimenez Dave
Lindorff Lance
Selfa Tom
Crumpacker Joshua
Frank Fred
Gardner Michael
Dickinson Roger
Martin Reza
Fiyouzat Ben
Tripp Graeme
Greenback Poets'
Basement
June 3, 2005 Paul
Craig Roberts Joseph
Massad Jeff
Halper Tom
Barry Bruce
K. Gagnon Joshua
Frank Mickey
Z. Gary
Leupp Website
of the Day
June 2, 2005 Paul
Craig Roberts Forrest
Hylton Mike
Whitney Brian
Cloughley Mazin
Qumsiyeh Russell
D. Hoffman Norman
Madarasz Norman
Solomon David
Price Website
of the Day
June 1, 2005 James
Petras Justin
Delacour Edward
Jay Epstein Omar
Barghouti / Lisa Taraki Dave
Lindorff Kevin
Zeese Jason
Leopold William
S. Lind
May 31, 2005 Sen.
Mike Gravel David
Krieger Tad
Daley Joshua
Frank Richard
Gott Norman
Solomon Tom
Segev Walter
Brasch Diana
Johnstone
May 28 / 30, 2005 Alexander
Cockburn Richard
Lichtman Sharon
Smith Paul
Craig Roberts Dave
Lindorff Ramzy
Baroud Brian
Cloughley Fred
Gardner Lee
Sustar Joshua
Frank Justin
E.H. Smith Jackie
Corr Michael
Kimaid Toufic
Haddad Justin
Taylor Amir
Butler Ben
Tripp Poets'
Basement
May 27, 2005 Gary
Leupp Daniel
Estulin Kevin
Zeese Robert
Fisk Dave
Zirin Website
of the Day
Hot Stories Alexander Cockburn Subcomandante
Marcos Norman Finkelstein Steve Niva Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams Steve
J.B. Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber Wendell
Berry CounterPunch
Wire Cindy
Corrie Gore Vidal Francis Boyle
Subscribe Online
|
June 20, 2005 WMD American-StyleIt's 60 Years Since AlamogordoBy MICKEY Z. It was in 1942, at the University of Chicago, that physicists working under Arthur Compton, Enrico Fermi, and others produced fission of the uranium isotope U-235. In other words: a nuclear chain reaction. With an ultra-secret $2.2 billion investment (the equivalent of $26 billion today), the Manhattan Project began that same year. Nearly 200,000 workers toiled in 37 installations in 19 states and Canada. On July 16, 1945, an atomic bomb was successfully detonated at Alamogordo, New Mexico after which Senator Brien McMahon of Connecticut called it "the most important thing in history since the birth of Jesus Christ."
While the long-term effects of Alamogordo are still being calculated, the initial consequence of this Second Coming, of course, was felt in the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. According to the August 15, 1945 edition of the New York Daily News, 60 percent of Hiroshima, a city with a population of roughly 343,000, was destroyed on August 6, 1945. A Tokyo radio broadcast on August 8 described how "the impact of the bomb was so terrific that practically all living things, human and animal, were seared to death by the tremendous heat and pressure engendered by the blast." Tokyo radio went on to call Hiroshima a city with corpses "too numerous to be counted...literally seared to death." It was impossible to "distinguish between men and women." The Associated Press carried the first eyewitness account: a Japanese solider who described the victims as "bloated and scorched-such an awesome sight-their legs and bodies stripped of clothes and burned with a huge blister." "Two days after the first bomb, Moscow declared war on Japan," explains journalist Stephen Shalom. "[Army Chief of Staff George C.] Marshall ordered a crash propaganda campaign to inform the Japanese public about the bomb in order to get them to press for surrender. Propaganda leaflets were dropped on many cities, but Nagasaki did not get its full quota of leaflets until August 10, the day after it was obliterated." The dropping of the second bomb on Nagasaki has never been explained. "Was it because this was a plutonium bomb whereas the Hiroshima bomb was a uranium bomb?" Howard Zinn asks. "Were the dead and irradiated of Nagasaki victim of a scientific experiment?" These shocking images and postulations have become a footnote to the atomic bomb myths-a sideshow, at best. Still, the primary question remains: Why was the bomb really used? The most common answer is that President Harry S. Truman ordered the attack to avoid an American invasion of the Japanese homeland. Such an invasion, we have been told for nearly six decades, would have resulted in millions of American deaths. But is this justification accurate?
Before confronting Truman's reasoning for unleashing the bomb, there is another, lesser-known myth surrounding the Manhattan Project that must be dealt with: the life-and-death race with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi scientists he had working on an atomic program of their own. "Working at Los Alamos, New Mexico, under the direction of J. Robert Oppenheimer," writes historian Kenneth C. Davis, "atomic scientists, many of them refugees from Hitler's Europe, thought they were racing against Germans developing a 'Nazi bomb.'" Surely, if it were possible for the epitome of evil to produce such a weapon, it would be the responsibility of the good guys to beat der Führer to the plutonium punch. While such a desperate race makes for excellent melodrama, it bears more resemblance to the never-ending supply of arms "gaps" produced by Cold War propagandists than to reality. Simply, the German bomb effort fell far short of success. Thanks to the declassification of key documents, we now have access to "unassailable proof that the race with the Nazis was a fiction," says Stewart Udall, who cites the work of McGeorge Bundy and Thomas Powers before adding: "According to the official history of the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), those agents maintained 'contacts with scientists in neutral countries...'" These contacts, by mid-1943, provided enough evidence to convince the SIS that the German bomb program simply did not exist. Despite such findings, U.S. General Leslie Groves, military commander of the Manhattan Project, got permission in the fall of 1943 to begin a secret espionage mission known as Alsos (a name chosen by Groves, Greek for "grove"). The mission saw Groves' men following the Allies' armies throughout Europe with the goal of capturing German scientists involved in the manufacture of atomic weapons. While the data uncovered by Alsos only served to reinforce prior reports that the Third Reich was not pursuing a nuclear program, Groves (with the help of Secretary of War Henry Stimson) was able to maintain enough of a cover-up to keep his costly pet project alive. The criminal concealment of the truth about the Nazis and their lack of atomic research kept the momentum going in the New Mexico desert and, according to Udall, "swept it, following Germany's defeat, onto a path that led to Hiroshima and to the creation of misinformation that has obscured essential truths concerning the Manhattan Project and the epoch it initiated." THE INVASION THAT NEVER WAS The most commonly evoked rationale for the dropping of atomic bombs on hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians was to save lives, but was it true that an Allied invasion of the Japanese homeland would have cost many American lives? In an August 9, 1945 statement to "the men and women of the Manhattan Project," President Truman declared the hope that "this new weapon will result in saving thousands of American lives." "The president's initial formulation of 'thousands,' however, was clearly not his final statement on the matter to say the least," remarks historian Gar Alperovitz. In fact, in his book, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb and the Architecture of an American Myth, Alperovitz documents but a few of Truman's public estimates throughout the years:
Fortunately, we're not operating without the benefit of official estimates. In June of 1945, President Truman ordered the U.S. military to calculate the cost in American lives for a planned assault on Japan. Consequently, the Joint War Plans Committee prepared a report for the Chiefs of Staff, dated June 15, 1945, thus providing the closest thing anyone has to accurate: 40,000 U.S. soldiers killed, 150,000 wounded, and 3,500 missing. While an actual casualty count remains unknowable, it was widely known at the time that Japan had been trying to surrender for months prior to the atomic bombing. A May 5, 1945 cable, intercepted and decoded by the U.S., "dispelled any possible doubt that the Japanese were eager to sue for peace." In fact, the United States Strategic Bombing Survey reported, shortly after the war, that Japan "in all probability" would have surrendered before the much-discussed November 1, 1945 Allied invasion of the homeland, thereby saving all kinds of lives. Truman himself eloquently noted in his diary that Stalin would "be in the Jap War on August 15th. Fini (sic) Japs when that comes about." Clearly, Truman saw the bombs as way to end the war before the Soviet Union could claim a major role in Japan's terms of surrender. However, one year after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a top-secret U.S. study concluded that the Japanese surrender was based more upon Stalin's declaration of war than either of the atomic bombs.
Many post-Hiroshima/Nagasaki sentiments questioned the use of the bombs. "I thought our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives," said General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Not long after the Japanese surrender, New York Times military analyst Hanson Baldwin wrote, "The enemy, in a military sense, was in a hopeless strategic position... Such then, was the situation when we wiped out Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Need we have done it? No one can, of course, be positive, but the answer is almost certainly negative." Was it Cold War hysteria that motivated the nuking of civilians? U.S. Secretary of State James F. Byrnes seemed to think so when he turned the anxiety up a notch by explaining how "our possessing and demonstrating the bomb would make Russia more manageable in the East... The demonstration of the bomb might impress Russia with America's military might." General Leslie Groves was less cryptic: "There was never, from about two weeks from the time I took charge of [the Manhattan] Project, any illusion on my part but that Russia was our enemy, and the Project was conducted on that basis." During the same time period, President Truman noted that Secretary of War Henry Stimson was "at least as much concerned with the role of the atomic bomb in the shaping of history as in its capacity to shorten the war." What sort of shaping Stimson had in mind might be discerned from his Sept. 11, 1945 comment to the president: "I consider the problem of our satisfactory relations with Russia as not merely connected but as virtually dominated by the problem of the atomic bomb." Stimson called the bomb a "diplomatic weapon," adding,"American statesmen were eager for their country to browbeat the Russians with the bomb held rather ostentatiously on our hip." The message was heard...loud and clear. "The psychological effect on Stalin was twofold," suggests historian Charles L. Mee, Jr. "The Americans had not only used a doomsday machine; they had used it when, as Stalin knew, it was not militarily necessary. It was this last chilling fact that doubtless made the greatest impression on the Russians." Imagine the impression it made on the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. "Why did we drop [the bomb]?" pondered Studs Terkel at the time of the fiftieth anniversary of the bombings. "So little Harry could show Molotov and Stalin we've got the cards. That was the phrase Truman used. We showed the goddamned Russians we've got something and they'd better behave themselves in Europe. That's why it was dropped. The evidence is overwhelming. And yet you tell that to 99 percent of Americans and they'll spit in your eye."
Many of the men who helped give Little Harry the cards toiled at Los Alamos, New Mexico. The scientific director at Los Alamos was J. Robert Oppenheimer, a man who, in 1943, pioneered the idea of "poisoning the German food supply with radioactive strontium." "We should not attempt a plan," Oppenheimer explained to his boss, General Leslie Groves, "unless we can poison food sufficient to kill half a million men." Within a few years, however, Oppenheimer began to see things a little differently. After learning of the horrors his bomb had wrought on Japan, the scientist began to harbor second thoughts, and he resigned in October 1945. In March of the following year, Oppenheimer told Truman: "Mr. President, I have blood on my hands." Truman replied: "It'll come out in the wash." Later, the president told an aide, "Don't bring that fellow around again." For others at Los Alamos, life (and death) went on. In the case of Louis Slotin, a thirty-four-year-old Canadian physicist, his work would bring home the experience of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Here's how historian Mark C. Carnes described Slotin's fate: While other scientists watched in tense silence, Slotin delicately manipulated a screwdriver barely separating two silvery-gray globes of fissionable plutonium. One time, he slipped, the globes touched, and radiation flooded the laboratory. Slotin lunged forward and pushed the plutonium apart, saving the others. His own dosage of radiation, he knew, was lethal; with chalk, he marked the positions of others in the room and calculated on a nearby blackboard that they would live. Then he became nauseated. His arms, legs, and face swelled hideously. Within a week, he became incoherent and died. LIFE DOWNWIND The legacy of Alamogordo has infiltrated almost every aspect of our daily lives. Americans now use forks and knives made from recycled nuclear waste to eat irradiated food. There's nuclear medicine, nuclear payloads on space missiles, and the use of depleted uranium weapons in Iraq, Yugoslavia, and training bases like Vieques. Many Americans were unwitting laboratory subjects in tests to discover the effects of radiation on the human body and innumerable more have become "downwinders." These folks lived in the vicinity of nuclear testing grounds and experienced the deadly fallout from the many atomic and hydrogen bombs exploded nearby. On a personal level, while writing an article about the 60th anniversary of the first successful detonation of an atomic bpmb, I am reminded that the Indian Point nuclear reactor is only about 40 miles from where I sit in New York City. As noted physician and activist Helen Caldicott explains, "A meltdown [at Indian Point] would [trap] millions of people in a radioactive hell, unable to escape, dying within forty-eight hours of acute radiation illness. Such an event is not unlikely according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, because this reactor is plagued with safety problems." Sixty years into the WMD age, we're all downwinders. Mickey Z. is the author of "50
American Revolutions You're Not Supposed to Know: Reclaiming
American Patriotism (Disinformation). He can be found on
the Web at: http://www.mickeyz.net.
|
