Ron Ridenour
Author, Activist, Journalist

Credit: The Conversation

US President Barack Obama took to three former enemy targets in Asia this year.

His mission in Vietnam was to sell “lethal weapons”. This comes after a 50 year embargo of selling it weapons, and after the US weapons industry had scored billions selling death tools to its government so that it could conduct the un-provoked war (1960-75). The cost in human lives: between 1.5 and 3.9 three million Vietnamese and 58,000 US aggressors.

Weapon sales are conditioned, naturally, on Vietnam respecting US-defined human rights.

In return for this generous offer, the Vietnamese government commits itself to drop its Russian-built MIG-21 jet fighters and buy US-made F-16s. And The Man didn’t even have to apologize for previous White House custodians’ mass murder.

Japan was next Obama’s marketing list. He even dared stop at Hiroshima where he didn’t apologize either. He simply said that “artefacts tell us that violent conflict appeared with the very first man.”

The Man began his speech thusly:

“Seventy-one years ago, on a bright cloudless morning, death fell from the sky and the world was changed. A flash of light and a wall of fire destroyed a city and demonstrated that mankind possessed the means to destroy itself.”

“We come to mourn the dead, including over 100,000 Japanese men, women and children, thousands of Koreans, a dozen Americans held prisoner.”

“We remember all the innocents killed across the arc of that terrible war and the wars that came before and the wars that would follow.”

“Mere words cannot give voice to such suffering. But we have a shared responsibility to look directly into the eye of history and ask what we must do differently to curb such suffering again.”

“We must change our mind-set about war itself. To prevent conflict through diplomacy and strive to end conflicts after they’ve begun.”

Go Tell It On The Mountain! On the mountains of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Russia….

Then The Man took the historic step of becoming the first sitting US president to visit Laos. Hallelujah! He didn’t apologize here either but he made concessive remarks, something like there were “sufferings and sacrifices on all sides of the conflict.”

Laotian Hmong with US “adviser”. These mountain tribes were recruited by the CIA to fight the communist menace. An enormous proportion of their population died in this misguided effort, and a few lucky ones escaped to America.

“Conflict”! That is to say, the giant invaded the little land of Laos, 2.6 million people at the time, because the US had already invaded its larger neighbour, Vietnam, 35 million at the time. Americans had to do this, because Vietnam’s politics and social welfare-based economy was subversive and “regime change” was necessary.

The US dropped more bombs on this small country than it did on the Axis countries during WW11—270 million tons (many of them “mother”/ cluster bombs). The slim man in the white house came offering funds to help remove some of the unexploded bombs in Laos’ earth that 40 years later still kill thousands of people, especially playful children.

While on his mission, the elegant spokesperson for peace spoke of US containment concerning Asian “regional issues”, and had the felicitous gall to challenge China with this egalitarian message:

“Every nation matters. Bigger nations should not dictate to smaller ones, and all nations should play by the same rules.”

No lie. The graceful hypocrite said THAT while announcing that the United States of America will increase its military presence in the geographical area where lay China.

Remember!

• Grenada—1983, population 100,000—Invaded.
• Dominican Republic—1954, 2.6 million—Coup for Regime Change.
• Cuba—1961, 7.2 million—Invaded.
• Cambodia—1972, 7.3 million—Bombed incessantly.
• Chile—1973, 7.7 million—Coup for Regime Change.
• Nicaragua—1980, 3.2 million—Invasion by proxy.
• More recently and on-going: Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya…

In 1823, the congress legalized, the “Monroe Doctrine” as part of Manifest Destiny: hands off the US’s backyard, Latin America.

Of the thousands of times that US military force has been used against scores of countries, many have been subjected several times. Cuba has been attacked 12 times since 1814; Nicaragua 12 times since 1853; Panama on 13 occasions since 1856. Although Latin America has been the most targeted, China has been attacked 30 times, from 1843 “gunboat diplomacy” to 1999 when the US bombed its embassy in Yugoslavia.

Major-General Smedley Butler [Credit: Gunnyg – Photobucket]

Ron Ridenour

is the author of six books on Cuba including: “Backfire: The CIA’s Biggest Burn”, Cuba Beyond the Crossroads with Theodore MacDonald, and Cuba at Sea, plus other books such as "Yankee Sandinistas", “Sounds of Venezuela”, and “Tamil Nation in Sri Lanka”. He has lived and worked in Latin America including in Cuba 1988-96 (Cuba's Editorial José Martí and Prensa Latina), Denmark, Iceland, Japan, India. www.ronridenour.com; email: ronrorama@gmail.com. 

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Dispatch from Beijing

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With Jeff J. Brown 

The 71st anniversary of Hiroshima’s atomic bombing, and a week later, Nagasaki, at the of World War II, are celebrated in Eurangloland, but elsewhere, are branded as war crimes by most of the world’s citizens.

On Press TV, Jeff J. Brown, political analyst and lecturer, speaks truth to the power of America’s myths surrounding these tragic events.

You can listen to and download this TV interview, as an audio podccast here, or at the very bottom of this webpage:

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READ MORE ABOUT JEFF HERE
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Felicity Arbuthnot
Warrior for Peace and Justice

Lessons From The Shadows of Hiroshima ft. Christianus.

“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” (J. Robert Oppenheimer, “father of the atomic bomb”, quoting from the Bhagavad Gita, after the explosion of the first atomic bomb, New Mexico, 16th July 1945.)

When Paul Tibbets was thirteen years old he flew a bi-plane over Florida’s Miami Beach dropping a promotional cargo of Babe Ruth Candy Bars directly on to the promotional target area, in an advertising stunt. It was his first solo flight and: “From that moment he became hooked on flying.”

He became a test pilot and: “one of the first Americans to fly in world War Two.” Seventeen years later he had graduated from dropping Candy Bars to dropping the world’s first atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

Thirty years later, the now retired Brigadier-General Paul Warfield Tibbets told authors Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan-Witts, for their minutely detailed and definitive book (1) on one of the world’s greatest crimes, of the background to the venture. Most would surely conclude it was a criminal project from the start, on every level.

Tibbets told the authors:

“I got called on this bomb job … I was told I was going to destroy one city with one bomb. That was quite a thought … We had, working in my organization, a murderer, three men guilty of manslaughter and several felons; all of them had escaped from prison.

“The murderer was serving life; the manslaughter guys were doing ten to fifteen years; the felons three to five. After escaping they had enlisted under false names. They were all skilled technicians … They were all good, real good at their jobs and we needed ‘em. We told them that if they gave us no trouble, they would have no trouble from us.

“After it was over, we called each of them in and handed them their dossiers and a box of matches and said ‘Go burn ‘em.’ You see, I was not running a police department, I was running an outfit that was unique.”

The crime which the “oufit” committed was also unique, making the odd murder, manslaughter or felony on home soil pale in to insignificance in comparison.

In Hiroshima, a millisecond after 8.16 a.m., on 6th August 1945, the temperature at the core of the hundreds of feet wide fireball reached 50,000,000 degrees. Flesh burned two miles distant from it’s outer parameters.

80,000 people were killed or mortally injured instantly. The main area targeted was “the city’s principal residential, commercial and military quarters.”

The entrance to the Shima Clinic was flanked by great stone columns – “They were rammed straight down in to the ground.” The building was destroyed: “The occupants were vapourised.”

Just three of the city’s fifty five hospitals remained usable, one hundred and eighty of Hiroshima’s two hundred doctors were dead or injured and 1,654 of 1,780 nurses.

Sixty two thousand buildings were destroyed as all utilities and transportation systems. Just sixteen fire fighting vehicles remained workable.

People standing, walking, the schoolgirls manning the communications centre in Hiroshima Castle and ninety percent of the castle’s occupants, including American prisoners of war, were also vapourised. Gives a whole new meaning to the US military’s much vaunted “No soldier left behind.”

“The radiant heat set alight Radio Hiroshima, burnt out the tramcars, trucks, railway rolling stock.

“Stone walls, steel doors and asphalt pavement glowed red hot.” Clothing fused to skin. “More than a mile from the epicenter” mens’ caps fused to their scalps, womens’ kimonos to their bodies and childrens’ socks to their legs. All the above decimations happened in the time a crew member of the US bomber, “Enola Gay”, took to blink from the flash behind his goggles. What he saw when he opened them and looked down was, he said : “a peep in to hell.”

At home base, as Hiroshima was incinerated, a party was being prepared to welcome the arsonists. ”The biggest blow out” with free beer, all star soft ball game, a jitter bug contest, prizes, star attractions, a movie and the cooks working overtime to prepare a sumptuous fare.

Hiroshima’s destruction had a uranium-based detonation. Three days later on 9th August, Nagasaki was destroyed by a plutonium-based detonation to ascertain which would be the most “effective” in the new nuclear age warfare.

Not even a nod or thought had been given to the Hague Convention which had very specific legal guidelines to protection of civilians in war. One might speculate that Hiroshima also vapourised any pretention of such considerations for all time, in spite the subsequent Geneva Convention and it’s additional protocols.

In May this year, President Obama visited Hiroshima, he said (2): “Seventy-one years ago, on a bright cloudless morning, death fell from the sky and the world was changed. A flash of light and a wall of fire destroyed a city and demonstrated that mankind possessed the means to destroy itself.

“Why do we come to this place, to Hiroshima? We come to ponder a terrible force unleashed in a not-so-distant past. We come to mourn the dead, including over 100,000 Japanese men, women and children, thousands of Koreans, a dozen Americans held prisoner.

“Their souls speak to us. They ask us to look inward, to take stock of who we are and what we might become.”

Obama ended his Hiroshima address with: “Those who died, they are like us. Ordinary people understand this, I think. They do not want more war. They would rather that the wonders of science be focused on improving life and not eliminating it. When the choices made by nations, when the choices made by leaders, reflect this simple wisdom, then the lesson of Hiroshima is done.”

For a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and a constitutional law expert, his words are especially cheap. The man who began his Presidency with a public commitment to build a nuclear weapons free world (speech in Czech Republic, 5th April 2009) has, mind bendingly, committed to a thirty year, one Trillion $ nuclear arsenal upgrade. (3)

The epitaph at Hiroshima was written by Tadayoshi Saika, Professor of English Literature at Hiroshima University. He also provided the English translation: “Let all the souls here rest in peace for we shall not repeat the evil.”

On November 3, 1983, an explanation plaque in English was added in order to convey Professor Saika’s intent that “we” refers to “all humanity”, not specifically the Japanese or Americans, and that the “error” is the “evil of war”:

“The inscription on the front panel offers a prayer for the peaceful repose of the victims and a pledge on behalf of all humanity never to repeat the evil of war. It expresses the spirit of Hiroshima – enduring grief, transcending hatred, pursuing harmony … and yearning for genuine, lasting world peace.” (Wikipedia.)

Did President Obama have a twinge of conscience as he read it? Or did he even bother? He is surely amongst the most unworthy of Nobel Peace Prize Laureates. And will the rest of the world heed the words, the pledge and the spirit, before it is too late?

1. Ruin From The Air, The Atomic Mission to Hiroshima: ISBN 0-586-06705-1
2. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/28/world/asia/text-of-president-obamas-speech-in-hiroshima-japan.html?_r=0
3. http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/162279

About the author

Paying the Price — Killing the Children of Iraq, which investigated the devastating effect of United Nations sanctions on people of Iraq.^[1]   Ms. Arbuthnot is a dedicated pacificist, and her work proves the adage that "the pen is mightier than the sword."

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Andre Vltchek

Japan is Part of the Neo-Colonialist Clique.

Write that ‘Japan is part of the neo-colonialist clique’, and you will never again be invited to participate in any public debate conducted by Japanese mass media outlets. And that is exactly what I wrote several months ago, after being approached by an important publication based in Okinawa.

When my documentary film about the US bases on Okinawan territory was broadcasted by the South American television network TeleSUR in both Spanish and English, there seemed to be at least some appetite to bring my opinions on the subject to the Japanese public. At one point I was asked to write a 1,200 word essay, placing Japan in the world context, whilst also addressing the grievances of Okinawa.

I did exactly that. And even as I was writing, I knew that the piece would never get used here, because Japanese publications and television stations (in the past I worked for several major media outlets here) are thoroughly servile to Western interests, they are cowardly and toothless. But I wrote anyway, for the Okinawan people, and to see exactly how my essay would be “killed”.

A reply arrived several months later. There were three major ‘issues’ that the editor was concerned about. Firstly, the people of Okinawa would surely not like to be considered “victims, on par with North Koreans”. Second, “was I really sure that the Japanese car manufacturers have been corrupting the Indonesian government, paying it not to build public transportation networks, so that cities could be literally flooded with cars and scooters”? Lastly, my piece was a few words over the acceptable length.

Being well versed in Japanese culture, I knew exactly what I was expected to do. I did exactly the opposite. I insulted the editor, withdrew the piece, and submitted it to NEO. And here it is, below:

Japan is Part of the Neo-Colonialist Clique.

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]f someone would bother watching the 9-hours long masterpiece of Masaki Kobayashi “The Human Condition”, he or she would have no illusions left about the Japanese position in the world.

China, Korea and other Asian nations were occupied and plundered, people massacred, tortured, experimented on, and raped.

The only thing “in defense” of Japan that could be said is that, unlike its Western allies, it experienced colonialist amok for a relatively short time, compared to the centuries and millennia long barbarism and horror with which Europe has been brutalizing the entire Planet.

Japan was always impressed by Germany. It was inspired by Western medicine, arts and technology. Japan’s “elites” have also been deeply influenced by German perceptions of superiority and exceptionalism.

While Germany was committing its first holocausts, those in its colonies of Southwest Africa, Japan was closely watching. In what is now Namibia, the German army exterminated close to 90% percent of the Herero tribes’ people, as well as other minorities. German doctors openly experimented on the local people. Many were decapitated and their heads shipped to the University of Freiburg and to several Berlin hospitals, to prove that African people were inferior. The same doctors later taught Dr. Mengele and other butchers who were conducting experiments on Jews, Roma and other “inferior races” during World War II.

Japan, increasingly impressed by Germans, was making its own plans for Asia. Some time later it began performing medical experiments on the Chinese people.

It goes without saying, although it is hardly ever pronounced in the West or in Japan itself, that Japanese imperialist slaughters in Asia were directly influenced and inspired by Western colonialism and racism.

Japan is a good student. It loves everything that comes from abroad; or more precisely, from the West. In many ways, it became almost identical to its master. So much so that during the Apartheid era in South Africa and its colonies, the Japanese people were “elevated” to the status of “honorary whites”. They were the only non-white people who were allowed to attend functions exclusively reserved for the white minority. They were welcomed to live in housing reserved for the rulers. They were finally “accepted”.

Japan fought the war, alongside its fascist allies, it committed crimes against humanity and after it lost, it immediately succumbed to the victors who were, like Germans, mainly white and of European descent. Instead of Germans and Italians, it now looked up to the Brits, French, Australians, but above all North Americans.

Japan’s fascist industrial complex and governance system were almost fully preserved by the victorious powers. The worst war criminals were allowed to once again manage the system. The Tokyo Trials were just a farce.

Whatever Japan does, it does well and with legendary precision. Its collaboration with the West during the Korean War was complete, and the grateful colonizers rewarded it. Unlike most of the other colonies which were plundered and humiliated, Japan was elevated, allowed to become rich.

Ecstatic, the country began building its capitalist industrial might. There was absolutely no doubt where it had been standing. It joined Western imperialism, first as a junior partner, and later as an equal member of the club. It has been doing all it can to be more Western and more capitalist than its handlers, and ideologically, more dogmatic and fundamentalist.

Japan used to frustrate the progressive Indonesian, President Ahmed Sukarno, and the most influential Prime Minister of Malaysia, Mahathir bin Mohamad (who held the post between 1981 and 2003) who often begged Japan to “return to Asia”.

Japan did not want to return anywhere. It has been cozy with what it perceived as its membership in the “elite club”. Just as it learned from the Europeans, it put its self-interests well above morality, solidarity and humanism.

Political pirouettes, and Machiavellian manipulation of information related to its past and present, became almost identical to the information control and propaganda practiced in the West.

Economic terrorism suddenly had no boundaries. Just to illustrate, the Japanese car industry is directly corrupting the governments of Indonesia, demanding that no public transportation is built in the fourth most populous nation on Earth. As a result, hundreds of millions of people are being paralyzed by traffic jams, and dying from pollution-related illnesses. The infrastructure on Java Island has almost totally collapsed. But as long as people there are forced to buy Japanese cars and scooters, Japan does not even blink.

Japan has also turned itself into an “indoctrination post” for the young and ambitious students from all corners of Asia. Countless Japanese universities have been offering “scholarships”, effectively brainwashing and “neutralizing” talented men and women from poor and potentially rebellious nations. Most of them are taught “communications”, “education” and “development”; or basically, how to say nothing and how not to rebel about anything. They are being patiently instructed on how not to stand up against the Empire and savage capitalism, or more precisely, how to behave exactly how Japan does. “Join the elites, enjoy a good life and keep philosophy and morals out of this!”

Japan is hosting some of the deadliest military bases on earth – those on Okinawa Island.

During my filming there for the South American television network TeleSUR, I saw, first hand, Japanese imperialism at work: the great Okinawan culture had been restrained, social benefits provided in exchange for obedience, and all ethical and internationalist messages related to the bases were muted.

However, Okinawans know, and many are horrified by what is going on, but are unable to change anything.

This is where World War III may start! This is where the West is provoking both China (actually an old historical ally of Okinawa) and North Korea (now Okinawa’s fellow victim) from.

Years ago, I was told by a Chinese diplomat: “If the West attacks us, we will not, most likely, retaliate against Washington or London. We will retaliate against Japan, because its territory is where the attack would come from”. Most likely but paradoxically, the retaliation would be against the islands of Okinawa that is actually “hosting” the bases.

Many Okinawans understand the danger and of course they are totally against the war. But Tokyo ignores their demands to close down the bases. The current administration is becoming increasingly bellicose, anti-Chinese, anti-DPRK and embarrassingly pro-Western.

The Prime Minister likes to pose as a Japanese patriot. But Shinzō Abe is actually a collaborator, not a patriot. And it is not because he is a “right-winger” (Mishima, no matter how controversial his legacy is, was also a right-winger, but without any doubt a true Japanese patriot). He does not serve the interests of Japan, but those of the West, of the Empire that defeated, bombed to the ground, and occupied Japan some 70 years ago; the Empire responsible for tens of millions of lost lives all over Asia.

The recent changes in the law allowing the deployment of Japanese troops from the “Self Defense Force” abroad, is nothing new. Japan has already been paying for several wars, producing military technology for the Empire, provoking its neighbors; it has been doing it for decades.

Just as during WWII, Japan is now, once again, a greatly trusted and respected member of the Fascist alliance. It is arming itself to the teeth, and it is even considering changing its peaceful constitution. The players have changed, but the essence remains the same. It just feels like Japan is harboring strong and spontaneous dispositions to always be part of Western imperialist pacts.
Of course, all is done in the name of self-defense, and with some lofty slogans like “freedom”, “democracy” and “peace” being tossed around. Impulses behind the deeds are much more sinister: racism towards all fellow Asian nations, aggressive ‘exceptionalism’ (learned and adopted from Europe and North America), as well as submissive servitude towards the West. That is the world in which we are living. To Paraphrase the great Indian thinker Arundhati Roy – “now black is called white and war is called peace”- or at least in the West and in Japan they are!

Originally published by : New Eastern Outlook.

Andre Vltchek

Philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. His latest books are: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire” and “Fighting Against Western Imperialism”. Discussion with Noam Chomsky: On Western Terrorism. Point of No Return is his critically acclaimed political novel. Oceania – a book on Western imperialism in the South Pacific. His provocative book about Indonesia: “Indonesia – The Archipelago of Fear”. Andre is making films for teleSUR and Press TV. After living for many years in Latin America and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides and works in East Asia and the Middle East. He can be reached through his website or his Twitter.

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