Albo and Assange

by George Galloway / July 31st, 2022

The clock is ticking for the greatest Australian in history. If PM Albo doesn’t do something soon, Assange will be sent away never to be seen again. We can only hope the PM is working behind the scenes to do what he knows in his heart is right.

George Galloway is a six-term parliamentarian, freedom fighter, and man of the world. Read other articles by George, or visit George's website.

Penal Assassination: The Gradual Effort to Kill Assange

by Binoy Kampmark / July 30th, 2022

They really do want to kill him.  Perhaps it is high time that his detractors and sceptics, proven wrong essentially from the outset, admit that the US imperium, along with its client states, is willing to see Julian Assange perish in prison.  The locality and venue, for the purposes of this exercise, are not relevant.  Like the Inquisition, the Catholic Church was never keen on soiling its hands, preferring the employ of non-church figures to torture their victims.

In the context of Assange, Britain has been a willing jailor from the start, guided by the good offices of Washington and none too keen in seeing this spiller of secrets released into the world.  Bail has been repeatedly, and inexcusably, refused, despite the threats posed by COVID-19, the publisher’s own deteriorating health, and restrictions upon access, at regular intervals, to legal advice from his team.  Just as some banks are deemed too large to fail, Assange is considered too large a target to escape.  Let loose again, he might do what he does best: reveal government venalities in war and peace and prove the social contract a gross deception and mockery of our sensibilities.

The UK legal system has been the ideal forum to execute the wishes of Washington.  Each legal branch that has examined the extradition case has assiduously avoided the bigger picture: the attack on press freedom, exposing war crimes, illegal surveillance of a political asylee in an embassy compound, the breaches of privacy and legal confidentiality, the encroachments upon family life, the evidence on proposed abduction and assassination, the questionable conflicts of interest by some judicial members, the collusion of State authorities.

Instead, the courts, from the outside, have taken a blade to cut away the meatiest, most solid of arguments, focusing on a sliver that would be, in due course, defeated.  The sole decision that favoured Assange only did so by essentially regarding him as an individual whose mental fragility would compromise him in a US prison facility.  In such a case, suicide would be virtually impossible to prevent.  District Judge Vanessa Baraitser, who made the ruling, thought little of the publisher’s credentials, heartily agreeing with the prosecution that no journalist would have ever exposed the names of informants.  (This farcical interpretation was rebutted convincingly in the Old Bailey trial proceedings.)

The rest has been a grotesque show of gargantuan proportions, with the High Court and the Supreme Court showing themselves to be political dunces or, which is not much better, dupes.  Believing a number of diplomatic assurances by US prosecutors on Assange’s post-extradition fate, made after the original trial, seemed awfully close to a form of legal match-fixing.  We all know that court cases and the law can be analogised as betting and having a punt, the outcome never clear till it arrives, but this was positively ludicrous.

To anyone following the trial and knowing the feeble nature of reassurances made by a State power, especially one with the heft of the United States, promises about more commodious accommodation, not being subject to brutal special administrative measures, and also being allowed to apply for a return to Australia to serve the balance of the term, was pure, stenchy balderdash.

Amnesty International is unequivocal on this point: diplomatic assurances are used by governments to “circumvent” various human rights conventions, and the very fact that they are sought to begin with creates its own dangers.  “The mere fact that States need to seek diplomatic assurances against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (other ill-treatment) is indicative of a risk of torture.”

The US prosecuting authorities have even gone so far as to weaken their own position, making their undertakings conditional.  Typically, they shift the focus back on Assange, suggesting that he might influence matters by his own mischievous conduct.  All in all, nothing said was binding, and the glue holding the promises together might, at any given moment, dissolve.

Admirably, Assange continues to have some fiercely dedicated followers who wish him well and wish him out.  Independent Australian MP Andrew Wilkie has the sort of certitude that can pulverise the attitudes of bleak sceptics, though even he must nurse a few doubts.  In his address to supporters of Assange in Canberra, delivered on the lawns of the Australian Parliament, he was confident that keeping “the pressure up” would eventually lead to justice for the publisher.

In a crisp summation, Wilkie distilled the case.  “The US wants to get even and for so long the UK and Australia have been happy to go along for the ride because they’ve put bilateral relationships with Washington ahead of the rights of a decent man.”  Keep maintaining the rage, he urged his audience.

The matter is considered so urgent that Australian Doctors For Assange have warned that death may be peeking around the corner.  “Medical examinations of Julian Assange in Belmarsh prison in the UK,” stated spokesman Robert Marr, “have revealed that he is suffering from severe life-threatening cardiovascular and stress-related medical conditions, including having a mini-stroke as a result of his imprisonment and psychological torture.”

The organisation has written to US Ambassador Carolyn Kenney “requesting she urgently ask President Biden to stop the US persecution of Australian citizen Julian Assange for merely publishing information provided to him and stop the US attempt to extradite him from the UK.”

From the Australian perspective, we can already see that there is a go-slow, cautious approach to Assange’s fate, which also serves the lethal agenda being pursued by the US prosecutors.  Despite a change of the guard in Canberra, the status quo on power relations between the two countries remains unaltered.  Everyone, bar Assange, seems to have time to wait.  But in terms of life and health, the time in question is almost done.

Read also “The Slow-motion Assassination of Julian Assange.”

Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne and can be reached at: bkampmark@gmail.com. Read other articles by Binoy.

Justice in the Land of the Free^TM

The cases of Griner and Assange

by Kim Petersen / August 5th, 2022

I feel for American basketball player Brittney Griner. Did she break the law? Yes, she did, and she pled guilty at trial. But a sentence of nine years — to be spent in what the New York Times calls a “penal colony” — for bringing hashish into Russia for self-treatment (assuming this is true) seems overly harsh. But the law can be an ass. If humans have sovereignty over their own bodies, then it is just plain wrong to be hassled for what one chooses to consume.

On the other hand, Griner should be accorded the same treatment from the Russian justice system as any Russian would be accorded. If this has been the case, then it can be argued that justice was meted out without favoritism in the Russian system.

Still, if it was a packing error, then Griner is paying a high price for a mistake that on its face would cause no harm to any other person.

US president Joe Biden called the sentence “unacceptable” and said he will do all he can to bring Griner back to the United States. When a country considers that one of its citizens is a victim of injustice abroad, then a country should agitate on behalf of its citizen.

A prisoner swap with Russia has already been broached by the US, so Griner may be back stateside before long.

Julian Assange: A Victim of Injustice

There is a current case, however, that speaks to notions of justice in western countries. Biden apparently considers the American legal pursuit of Assange — an Australian citizen whose acts (i.e., journalism) were committed outside the US — as acceptable. The US claim to extraterritoriality is well known to China and Meng Wanzhou.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been languishing in some form of incarceration for over 20 years, and he now faces potential imprisonment for the rest of his life if extradited and found guilty of espionage in the US. People who are clued in realize these charges are as phony as the sexual crimes alleged and dropped against him by Sweden. Assange’s actual “crime” is exposing the crimes of the US; especially revelatory was the Collateral Murder video where US troops in an Apache helicopter gleefully gunned down Iraqi citizens on a street in Baghdad. The murderers remain scot-free. For exposing war crimes, Assange and Bradley Manning have been punished.

Is Australia concerned about justice for its citizens? Assange has hardly received an iota of Australian government concern or assistance compared to that Griner has received from the US. Assange has also received scant support from the Australian monopoly media. In fact, Australian government leaders and media have usually criticized Assange or distanced themselves from him.

What if China were switched with the US and found itself faced with what Assange is accused of by the US? What would be the situation then?

Assange who has not been overly kind to China, has, nonetheless, received support from China. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said, “All eyes are on Assange’s human rights conditions and what may become of him. Let us hope and believe that at the end of the day, fairness and justice will prevail. Hegemony and abuse of might will certainly not last forever.”FacebookTwitterReddit

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Kim Petersen is an independent writer and former co-editor of the Dissident Voice newsletter. He can be emailed at: kimohp at gmail.com. Twitter: @kimpetersen. Read other articles by Kim.

Warnings over nuclear dangers as Hiroshima marks anniversary of atomic bombing

6 August 2022

Japan Hiroshima Anniversary. Picture: PA

The United States dropped the world’s first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6 1945, destroying the city and killing 140,000 people.

Hiroshima has remembered the atomic bombing 77 years ago as officials, including the head of the United Nations, warned against nuclear weapons build-up and as fears grow of another such attack amid Russia’s war on Ukraine.

“Nuclear weapons are nonsense. They guarantee no safety – only death and destruction,” said UN secretary general Antonio Guterres, who joined the prayer at the Hiroshima Peace Park.

“Three quarters of a century later, we must ask what we’ve learned from the mushroom cloud that swelled above this city in 1945,” he said.

The United States dropped the world’s first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6 1945, destroying the city and killing 140,000 people.

Visitors observe a minute of silence for the victims of the atomic bombing, at 8.15am, the time the atomic bomb exploded over the city, at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park (Kyodo News via AP)

It dropped a second bomb three days later on Nagasaki, killing another 70,000.

Japan surrendered on August 15, ending the Second World War and Japan’s nearly half a century of aggression in Asia.

Fears of a third atomic bombing have grown amid Russia’s threats of nuclear attack since its war on Ukraine began in February.

“Crises with grave nuclear undertones are spreading fast” in the Middle East and the Korean Peninsula, Mr Guterres said.

“We are one mistake, one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from Armageddon.”

Hiroshima mayor Kazumi Matsui, in his peace declaration, accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of “using his own people as instruments of war and stealing the lives and livelihoods of innocent civilians in another country”.

Russia’s war on Ukraine is helping build support for nuclear deterrence, Mr Matsui said, urging the world not to repeat the mistakes that destroyed his city nearly eight decades ago.

On Saturday, attendees including government leaders and diplomats observed a moment of silence with the sound of a peace bell at 8.15am, the time when the US B-29 dropped the bomb on the city.

UN secretary general Antonio Guterres lays a wreath at the cenotaph for the atomic bombing victims at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park (Kenzaburo Fukuhara/Kyodo News via AP)

About 400 doves, considered symbols of peace, were released.

Mr Guterres met with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida after the ceremony and raised alarm over the global retreat in nuclear disarmament, stressing the importance for Japan, the world’s only nation to have suffered nuclear attacks, to take leadership in the effort, Japan’s Foreign Ministry said.

Mr Kishida escorted Mr Guterres in the peace museum, where they each folded an origami crane – a symbol of peace and nuclear weapons abolition.

Russia and its ally Belarus were not invited to this year’s peace memorial.

Russian ambassador to Japan Mikhail Galuzin on Thursday offered flowers at a memorial epitaph in the park and told reporters his country would never use nuclear weapons.

The world continues to face threats from nuclear weapons, Mr Kishida said at the memorial.

“I must raise my voice to appeal to the people around the world that the tragedy of nuclear weapons use should never be repeated,” he said.

“Japan will walk its path toward a world without nuclear weapons, no matter how narrow, steep or difficult that may be.”

Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida delivers a speech at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park (Kenzaburo Fukuhara/Kyodo News via AP)

Mr Kishida, who will host a Group of Seven summit meeting next May in Hiroshima, said he hoped to share his pledge with other G7 leaders “before the peace monument” to unite them to protect peace and international order based on the universal values of freedom and democracy.

Mr Matsui criticised nuclear weapon states, including Russia, for not taking steps despite their pledge to abide by obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

“Rather than treating a world without nuclear weapons like a distant dream, they should be taking concrete steps toward its realisation,” he said.

Critics say Mr Kishida’s call for a nuclear-free world is hollow because Japan remains under the US nuclear umbrella and continues to boycott the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Mr Kishida said the treaty, which lacks the US and other nuclear powers, is not realistic at the moment and that Japan needs to bridge the divide between non-nuclear and nuclear powers.

Many survivors of the bombings have lasting injuries and illnesses resulting from the explosions and radiation exposure and face discrimination in Japan.

The government began to provide medical support to certified survivors in 1968 after more than 20 years of effort by them.

Visitors pray in front of the cenotaph dedicated to the victims of the atomic bombing at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park (Kenzaburo Fukuhara/Kyodo News via AP)

As of March, 118,935 survivors, whose average age now exceeds 84, are certified as eligible for government medical support, according to the Health and Welfare Ministry.

But many others, including those who say they were victims of the “black rain” that fell outside of the initially designated areas, are still without support.

Ageing survivors, known in Japan as hibakusha, continue to push for a nuclear ban and hope to convince younger generations to join the movement.

Mr Guterres had a message for younger people: “Finish the work that the hibakusha have begun. Carry their message forward. In their names, in their honour, in their memory – we must act.”

By Press Association

77th anniversary of Hiroshima atomic bombing: UN Chief to attend ceremony at Peace Memorial Park

Khabarhub
August 6, 2022

TOKYO: On the 77th anniversary of the Hiroshima atomic bombing by the United States, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will become the first UN chief to attend the annual ceremony at the Peace Memorial Park on Saturday after his predecessor Ban Ki Moon’s visit in 2010.

The USA bombed the Japanese cities of Hiroshima (August 6, 1945) and Nagasaki (August 9, 1945) during World War II in what was the first use of atomic weapons in war.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who represents a constituency in Hiroshima, will also give remarks at the ceremony for the first time since being elected premier last October.

At the memorial ceremony, Japanese Mayor Kazumi Matsui is expected to caution dependence on nuclear deterrence is gaining momentum in the world, reported Kyodo News.

Tens of thousands were killed in the initial explosions and many more would later succumb to radiation poisoning. Three days after the bomb nicknamed “Little Boy” decimated Hiroshima, a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. It was then followed by Japan’s surrender to the Allied forces six days later, marking the end of World War II.

A moment of silence will be observed at 8:15 a.m., the exact moment a uranium bomb dropped from a U.S. bomber detonated over the city on August 6, 1945, killing an estimated 140,000 people by the end of the year.

Hiroshima will host a summit meeting of the Group of Seven industrialized nations next May, and Japan aims to send out a message of peace.

World War II conflict during the years 1939-45 included — the Axis powers–Germany, Italy, and Japan–and the Allies–France, Great Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, and, to a lesser extent, China.

The ceremony is expected to be attended by representatives from a record 101 nations and the European Union. The mayor will call on the Japanese government to act as a bridge between nuclear weapon states and non-nuclear weapon states, ratify a U.N. treaty banning nuclear weapons and participate in the next conference of parties to the treaty after Japan skipped the first one held in June, even as an observer.

As COVID-19 restrictions have been eased nationwide, this year’s ceremony will be on a larger scale than last year’s, although still reduced in terms of the number of attendees, as per the media portal.

The combined number of officially recognized survivors of the two nuclear attacks, known as hibakusha, stood at 118,935 as of March, down 8,820 from a year earlier, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said. Their average age was 84.53. (ANI)

Hiroshima vows nuke ban at 77th memorial amid Russia threat

Via AP news wire
Fri, 5 August 2022 

Japan Hiroshima Anniversary (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Hiroshima on Saturday remembered the atomic bombing 77 years ago as officials, including the head of the United Nations, warned against nuclear weapons buildup and fears grow of another such attack amid Russia's war on Ukraine.

“Nuclear weapons are nonsense. They guarantee no safety — only death and destruction," said U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who joined the prayer at the Hiroshima Peace Park.

“Three quarters of a century later, we must ask what we’ve learned from the mushroom cloud that swelled above this city in 1945," he said.

The United States dropped the world’s first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, destroying the city and killing 140,000 people. It dropped a second bomb three days later on Nagasaki, killing another 70,000. Japan surrendered on Aug. 15, ending World War II and Japan’s nearly half-century of aggression in Asia.

Fears of a third atomic bombing have grown amid Russia’s threats of nuclear attack since its war on Ukraine began in February.

Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui, in his peace declaration, accused Putin of “using his own people as instruments of war and stealing the lives and livelihoods of innocent civilians in another country."

Russia’s war on Ukraine is helping build support for nuclear deterrence, Matsui said, urging the world not to repeat the mistakes that destroyed his city 77 years ago.

On Saturday, attendees including government leaders and diplomats observed a moment of silence with the sound of a peace bell at 8:15 a.m., the time when the U.S. B-29 dropped the bomb on the city. About 400 doves, considered symbols of peace, were released.

Russia and its ally Belarus were not invited to this year's peace memorial. Russian Ambassador to Japan Mikhail Galuzin on Thursday offered flowers at a memorial epitaph in the park and told reporters his country would never use nuclear weapons.

The world continues to face threats from nuclear weapons, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said at the memorial.

"I must raise my voice to appeal to the people around the world that the tragedy of nuclear weapons use should never be repeated," he said. “Japan will walk its path toward a world without nuclear weapons, no matter how narrow, steep or difficult that may be.”

Kishida, who will host a Group of Seven summit meeting next May in Hiroshima, said he hoped to share his pledge with other G7 leaders “before the peace monument” to unite them to protect peace and international order based on the universal values of freedom and democracy.

Matsui criticized nuclear weapon states, including Russia, for not taking steps despite their pledge to abide by obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

“Rather than treating a world without nuclear weapons like a distant dream, they should be taking concrete steps toward its realization,” he said.

Critics say Kishida's call for a nuclear-free world is hollow because Japan remains under the U.S. nuclear umbrella and continues to boycott the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Kishida said the treaty, which lacks the U.S. and other nuclear powers, is not realistic at the moment and that Japan needs to bridge the divide between non-nuclear and nuclear powers.

Many survivors of the bombings have lasting injuries and illnesses resulting from the explosions and radiation exposure and face discrimination in Japan.

The government began to provide medical support to certified survivors in 1968 after more than 20 years of effort by them.

As of March, 118,935 survivors, whose average age now exceeds 84, are certified as eligible for government medical support, according to the Health and Welfare Ministry. But many others, including those who say they were victims of the “black rain” that fell outside of the initially designated areas, are still without support.

Hiroshima marks 77th anniversary of world's first atomic bombing

Around 140,000 people were killed when Hiroshima was bombed by the US on August 6, 1945 –– a toll that includes those who perished after the blast from radiation exposure.

Hiroshima catastrophe was followed by US' atomic bombing of Nagasaki city on August 9, instantly killing more than 75,000 people. (Reuters)

Bells have tolled in Hiroshima as the Japanese city marked the 77th anniversary of the world's first atomic bombing, with officials including the United Nations chief warning of a new arms race following Russia's conflict with Ukraine.

UN head Antonio Guterres on Saturday joined the thousands packed into the Peace Park in the centre of the city to mark the anniversary of the bombing that killed 140,000 people, only the second time a UN head has taken part in the annual ceremony.

"Nuclear weapons are nonsense. They guarantee no safety –– only death and destruction," Guterres said.

"Three-quarters of a century later, we must ask what we've learned from the mushroom cloud that swelled above this city in 1945."

Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui, whose city this year did not invite the Russian ambassador to the ceremony, was more pointed and critical of Moscow's military actions in Ukraine.

"In invading Ukraine, the Russian leader, elected to protect the lives and property of his people, is using them as instruments of war, stealing the lives and livelihoods of civilians in a different country," Matsui said.

"These errors betray humanity's determination, born of our experiences of war, to achieve a peaceful world free from nuclear weapons. To accept the status quo and abandon the ideal of peace maintained without military force is to threaten the very survival of the human race."

'Nuclear war cannot be won'

At 8:15 am on August 6, 1945, the US B-29 warplane Enola Gay dropped a bomb nicknamed "Little Boy" and obliterated the city with an estimated population of 350,000.

Thousands more died later from wounds and radiation-related illnesses.

On Saturday, as cicadas shrilled in the heavy summer air, the Peace Bell sounded and the crowd, including Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who is from Hiroshima, observed a moment of silence at the exact time the bomb exploded.

"At the start of this year, the five nuclear-weapon states issued a joint statement: 'Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,'" Matsui added.

"Why do they not attempt to fulfill their promises? Why do some even hint at using nuclear weapons?"

Kishida, who has chosen Hiroshima as the site of next year's Group of Seven summit, called on the world to abandon nuclear weapons.

The Hiroshima catastrophe was followed by the US military's atomic bombing of Nagasaki on August 9, instantly killing more than 75,000 people.

Japan surrendered on August 15, ending World War II and Japan's nearly half-century of aggression in Asia.

Hiroshima Day: 10 haunting images from world's first atomic bombing | Photo Diary

Over 80,000 people were instantly killed and thousands lost their lives to the effects of radiation when the United States bombed Japan's Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. On the 77th anniversary of the tragic incident, here is a look at ten haunting images from the world's first-ever atomic bombing.

Priya Pareek Nishwan Rasool 

New Delhi

August 6, 2022


The effects of the nuclear bombings lasted for decades and spanned across generations.

HIGHLIGHTS

United States dropped atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945

80,000 people were killed instantly and thousands died later

Every year on August 6, Hiroshima Day is observed

Seven decades back, the world witnessed its first ever atomic bombing when the United States detonated a nuclear bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima, a major hub of industrial and military activities in the country. The bombing that happened around 8:15 am on August 6, 1945, killed 1.4 lakh people by the end of that year, including those who perished from radiation exposure after the blast.

The impact of the blast was such that 80,000 people died instantly while tens of thousands more lost their lives to the effects of radiation within the months and years that followed, wiping 39 per cent of the city's total population.

Three days later, a slightly larger plutonium bomb exploded over Nagasaki, killing 74,000 people by the end of the year. Radioactive rain poured down as ground temperatures reached 4,000°C.

The effects of the nuclear bombings lasted for decades and spanned across generations. Five to six years after the bombings, the incidence of leukaemia increased noticeably, and after about a decade, survivors began suffering from different types of cancers at higher than normal rates.

Pregnant women exposed to the bombings experienced higher rates of miscarriage and children born after the bombings were more likely to have intellectual disabilities and impaired growth. And even after seven decades, the risk of cancers related to radiation exposure still remains for all the survivors.

Though in the last 77 years Japan recovered from the attack and has flourished, the horror of nuclear weapons lives on.

During World War II, the United States secretly developed Atomic Bomb technology under the Manhattan Project.

“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds," Robert Oppenheimer, one of the lead scientists behind the bomb’s creation, recalled a piece of Hindu scripture as he witnessed the first test detonation of a nuclear weapon on July 16.

Less than one month later, an American B-29 bomber dropped the world's first deployed atomic bomb nicknamed 'Little Boy' on Japan’s Hiroshima on August 6. As Japan refused to surrender, another nuclear bomb named 'Fat Man' was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9.

ALSO READ | Hiroshima Day 2022: How the atomic bombs ended World War II

About 140,000 people were killed in Hiroshima and 80,000 people in Nagasaki died by the end of 1945. Many children were later born with birth defects, while radiation-induced cancers killed more people. The blast also caused massive structural damage, destroying 69 per cent of the buildings in Hiroshima.

When the nuclear weapons were detonated over the two Japanese cities, even the first responders - hospitals, firemen, aid organisations - couldn't help. In Hiroshima, 90 per cent of physicians and nurses were killed or injured, and 42 of 45 hospitals were rendered non-functional.

WHY WAS HIROSHIMA BOMBED?

During the war, Japan had refused to surrender before the Allied Forces and was still holding out. It carried out several attacks against the US and British forces to seize control of European and American colonies and their resources in Southeast Asia. On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked Hawaii's Pearl Harbor and a day later, it attacked British-occupied Hong Kong, causing numerous casualties and extensive damage to the US and the UK fleets.

After witnessing the devastation, Japan's Emperor Hirohito announced his country's unconditional surrender via radio on August 15, ending World War II.

HIROSHIMA DAY

Every year on August 6, the world observes Hiroshima Day to highlight the effects of nuclear war, pay respect to the victims, discourage nuclear proliferation and promote world peace. On the 77th anniversary of the tragic Hiroshima bombing, here is a look at ten haunting images from the world's first-ever atomic bombing.

The pyrocumulus, or firestorm cloud, that engulfed the city of Hiroshima after the US atomic bomb attack on 6th August 1945. The fire reached its peak intensity around three hours after the detonation.

The wrecked framework of the Museum of Science and Industry as it appeared shortly after the blast. City officials recently decided to preserve this building as a memorial though they had at first planned to rebuild it.

This file photo taken in September 1945, in Hiroshima, Japan, shows discharged Japanese soldiers in crowded trains, as they take advantage of free transportation to their homes after the end of World War II.

Photo taken in 1948, which shows an aspect of the devastated city of Hiroshima in Japan, three years after the first atomic bomb was dropped on a population. On August 6, 1945, at 08:15, in an hour of intense movement in the city, the B29 bomber of the United States Air Force dropped a bomb on the city. Currently, the world capital of pacifism, the city of Hiroshima in southern Japan, remembers next week the day the planet entered the nuclear era.

Years Later. "I'm Just Waiting For Death." Those are the words of Mrs. Yoskio Nishikawa, 43, a bedridden "A-Bomb widow" who lives on $22 a month in charity. Yukiko, 15, one of her four children, cools her forehead with a wet towel as the 70-pound widow rests in their nine-foot square room, part of a frame charity home housing families of 20 widows. A small wooden Shinto shrine, in memory of her blacksmith husband who was killed while riding to work, occupies a place of honor. Mrs. Nishikawa suffers from radiation effects because she combed the city searching for her husband after the bomb fell. She has a bad heart and liver trouble.

Picture dated August 1945 showing the American crew of the B-29 "Enola Gay" plane which dropped on Hiroshima during WWII the first atomic bomb in history, killing more than 100,000 people. Paul W. TIbbets, the pilot is in the center. Enola Gay was his mother's name.

The total area devastated in Hiroshima is shown in a darkened area (within the circle) of photograph. Numbered items are military and industrial installations with percentages of total destruction. This chart is made from Air Intelligence reports and charted on an earlier reconnaissance photograph.


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Aerial view of Hiroshima, Japan, after the atomic bombing during World War II.

Crewmembers of the 'Enola Gay,' the American B-29 bomber which dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, including (left to right) co-pilot Captain Robert A. Lewis, commander and pilot Paul W. Tibbets Jr., tailgunner Staff Sergeant George Caron, and flight engineer Staff Sergeant Wyatt Duzenbury, proudly parade through New York on a jeep in the first Army Day Parade since the end of the War, April 12, 1946.

Hiroshima, Japan: Injured atomic bomb victims were treated in a bank building.

ALSO READ | Hiroshima Day 2022: History, significance, and all you need to know

Why Did the U.S. Nuke Civilians?

Hiroshima and Nagasaki: 77 Years Later

by Mickey Z. / August 5th, 2022

A bombed-out temple in Nagasaki

It is an atomic bomb. It is the greatest thing in history.
— President Harry S. Truman (August 6, 1945)

One of the seemingly endless Good [sic] War myths goes a little something like this:

The U.S. had no choice but to drop atomic bombs on civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Had they not done so, the fanatical Japanese would have never surrendered. Countless millions of brave American soldiers would have perished in the ensuing invasion of the Japanese islands.

As we mark the 77th anniversary of the deliberate use of nuclear weapons on civilians, I’ll yet again answer the question: Why was the bomb used?

The enemy was never fascism

Before confronting the unleashing of the bomb, there is a lesser-known myth that must be dealt with: the life-and-death race with German scientists.

“Working at Los Alamos, New Mexico,” 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, the German bomb effort appears to have fallen 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 author Stewart Udall, who adds: “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 (Greek for “grove,” get it?). 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 the prior reports that the Third Reich was not pursuing a nuclear program, Groves was able to maintain enough of a cover-up to keep his pet project alive. In the no-holds-barred religion of anti-communism, the “Good War” enemy was never fascism.

Truman’s daughter, Margaret, remarked about his early presidential efforts after the death of FDR in April 1945, “My father’s overriding concern in these first weeks was our policy towards Russia.”

“Saved millions of lives”

The most commonly evoked justification for the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan was to “save lives.” Let’s first acknowledge that hundreds of thousands of Japanese lives were lost in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (The lives worth saving, of course, were American but we do know of a few U.S. soldiers who fell between the cracks. About a dozen or more American POWs were killed in Hiroshima, a truth that remained hidden for some 30 years.)

The hypothetical U.S. body count ranges from “thousands” to “millions.” 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 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:

•December 15, 1945: “It occurred to me that a quarter of a million of the flower of our young manhood was worth a couple of Japanese cities.”

•Late 1946: “A year less of war will mean life for three hundred thousand — maybe half a million — of America’s finest youth.”

•October 1948: “In the long run we could save a quarter of a million young Americans from being killed, and would save an equal number of Japanese young men from being killed.”

•April 6, 1949: “I thought 200,000 of our young men would be saved.”

•November 1949: Truman quotes Army Chief of Staff George S. Marshall as estimating the cost of an Allied invasion of Japan to be “half a million casualties.”

•January 12, 1953: Still quoting Marshall, Truman raises the estimate to “a minimum one-quarter of a million” and maybe “as much as a million, on the American side alone, with an equal number of the enemy.”

•Finally, on April 28, 1959, Truman concluded: “the dropping of the bombs saved millions of lives.”

Fortunately, we are not operating without the benefit of official estimates.

In June 1945, Truman ordered the U.S. military to calculate the cost of 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 the 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.”

The U.S. 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.

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.”

Translation:

• The U.S. knew the Japanese wanted to surrender rather than risk Soviet occupation.
• In the unlikely event of an American invasion of Japan in late 1945, the projected body count appears to be more political than scientific.

Even so, 60 percent of Hiroshima, a city with a population of roughly 343,000, was annihilated by the “greatest thing in history” on August 6, 1945. The resulting carnage was heinous.

“Alligator people”

A Tokyo radio broadcast two days after the bomb struck Hiroshima 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 soldier who described the victims as “bloated and scorched — their legs and bodies stripped of clothes and burned with a huge blister.”

Then there were the “ant-walking alligators.” This is what eyewitnesses called those who had the misfortune to survive the initial blast. One eye-witness report detailed:

The skin had been seared from their skulls; leaving only a black, leathery substance without eyes or features. All that remained was a red hole where their mouths had once been. They staggered about the outskirts of Hiroshima, avoided by other survivors — but the real horror was the sound they made.

In his book, Last Train to Hiroshima, Charles Pellegrino wrote:

The alligator people did not scream. Their mouths could not form the sounds. The noise they made was worse than screaming. They uttered a continuous murmur — like locusts on a midsummer night. One man, staggering on charred stumps of legs, was carrying a dead baby upside down.

“Humanity had been forced to witness enormous destruction all through World War II,” declared Michael C.C. Adams, in The Best War Ever: America and World War II. “By 1945, the killing had reached such enormous proportions that the bombing of one more city did not have the aspect of moral horror that it might have now. In such a time of death, the unimaginable had become acceptable.”

Three days later, more of the now-acceptable unimaginable would be unleashed upon another city teeming with civilians.

“The Butcher of Asia”

From the very concept of strategic bombing, all the developments — night, pattern, saturation, area, indiscriminate — have led straight to Hiroshima, and Hiroshima was, and was intended to be, almost pure Schrecklichkeit [terror bombing].

— Life magazine, summing up Allied bombing tactics (August 1945)

At 11 o’clock on the morning of August 9, 1945, Prime Minister Kintaro Suzuki told the Japanese Cabinet that Japan’s “only alternative” was to accept the Allied peace terms and “terminate the war.”

Minutes later, the Home of the Brave™ dropped a second atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Nagasaki.

Afterward, novelist Zora Neale Hurston, called Truman a “monster,” adding, “I can think of him as nothing else but the Butcher of Asia,” and even U.S. Admiral William D. Leahy characterized the atom bombs as “an inhuman weapon to use on a people that were already defeated and ready to surrender.”

If the Hiroshima bombing was pure Schrecklichkeit, who then could explain the purpose of bombing Nagasaki three days later?

“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.

“Was it because this was a plutonium bomb whereas the Hiroshima bomb was a uranium bomb?” asked historian Howard Zinn. “Were the dead and irradiated Nagasaki victims of a scientific experiment?”

Perhaps it was the cold logic of the Cold War that motivated the nuking of civilians.

As far back as May 1945, a Venezuelan diplomat was reporting how Assistant Secretary of State Nelson Rockefeller “communicated to us the anxiety of the United States government about the Russian attitude.”

U.S. Secretary of State James F. Byrnes seemed to agree 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 this 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 September 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,” and duly explained that “American statesmen were eager for their country to browbeat the Russians with the bomb held rather ostentatiously on our hip.”

“The psychological effect [of Hiroshima and Nagasaki] on Stalin was twofold,” proposes 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 [emphasis added]. It was this last chilling fact that doubtless made the greatest impression on the Russians.”

It also made an impression on J. Robert Oppenheimer, the scientific director at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. After learning of the annihilation wrought upon Japan, he 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’s reply: “It’ll come out in the wash.”

Later, the president told an aide, “Don’t bring that fellow around again.”

The leaders and heroes [sic] who devised and carried out America’s nuclear “experiment” on Japanese civilians are generally considered to be part of this country’s “greatest generation” (of men). By any reasonable definition, what I just detailed is nuclear terrorism.

Keep this in mind when pondering who and what we’re up against today.FacebooTwitter

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Mickey Z. is the creator of a podcast called Post-Woke. You can subscribe here. He is also the founder of Helping Homeless Women - NYC, offering direct relief to women on New York City streets. Spread the word. Read other articles by Mickey.

Pelosi’s Taiwan visit

News on China No. 110

by Dongsheng News / August 6th, 2022

This week’s News on China in 2 minutes.

• Pelosi’s Taiwan visit
• Sanctions on US and Taiwan
• Pelosi on Chinese social media
• Chinese people and the English language

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Dongsheng (Eastern Voices) is an international collective of researchers interested in Chinese politics and society. The interest in China is growing everywhere. Yet most of the available news and analysis outside China is produced by corporate media from the Global North. Dongsheng provides access to Chinese perspectives. Read other articles by Dongsheng News, or visit Dongsheng News's website.