Greg Mitchell's Blog, page 214
September 7, 2013
Switcheroo on Syria
In their Sunday op-ed columns, Nick Kristof continues to come out for the missile attack on Syria--Tom Friedman again says he opposes it. As for Ross Douthat: you tell me. I think he's saying Obama's plan is foolish but it would be worse to vote against a president, even this one, on this matter. And Mo Dowd is in "Barry" mode.
'NYT': Who Used Those Atomic Bombs?
Steven Erlanger in new piece at NYT examines the landscape of chemical and WMD use during the 20th century, listing and excoriating the use of same by numerous nations from World War I on, with the customary downplaying of the by far most killing attack of all--the use of two atomic bombs against Japan in 1945 (and the release of their form of "poison gas" which unlike others kills for years), which took the lives of at least 200,000, the majority of them women and children. He does make a brief mention of the bomb, but unlike in other cases, fails to mention by name the only country to use it--while exploring Japan's use of evil weapons in World War II.He might say that he was focusing on chemicals, but this ignores the context of how much of the rest of the world views U.S. lectures on the use of chems, given what it did in 1945. And the failure to remind readers who used The Bomb is glaring. Polls show that large numbers of Americans, especially younger people, don't even know who used it. (See my most recent post on the use of the atomic bomb in 1945 here.)
Erlanger also near the top, and then again (!) near the close, seems to accept the Obama/Kerry claim of 1,429 killed in the recent attack in Syria--even though all other sources dispute this and no evidence or sourcing has been provided by the administration. A lower total (most place the number at about one-third of that figure) is bad enough, but the attempt to promote the attack on Syria by apparently inflating this number has actually backfired and explains in part why, despite what Erlanger calls the global revulsion over chemical attacks, so few nations will join us in our response--and why a strong majority of Americans also oppose it.
Where Have All the Anti-Warers Gone?
A number of folks have started asking where Hollywood and other notorious anti-war pro-Obama liberals have gone (missing) in the debate over the attack on Syria. We did not Ed Asner and Mike Farrell asking the same question. Here's an offbeat look at it with 13 on the missing list (Asner on there incorrectly), with such as Babs and Sean, George and Tim, Bruce and Sheryl, and so on.
September 6, 2013
Polls Continue to Hit Obama on Syria Strike
Reuters-Ipsos doing a daily tracking poll, which has shown growing opposition to the Syria bombing every single day lately--proving the claim that the more people learn the less they like it, the opposite of what Obama hoped. Today the results show 2 to 1 opposition--about 51% to 26%. And there's a new Gallup poll, taken entirely after the Obama/Kerry offensive began. It's a little more friendly, at 51% to 36% but still clocks in at the most unpopular U.S. military action in years. Unlike the recent Pew and ABC surveys it showed Dems slightly favoring the action.
Inside a Mound in Hiroshima
Speaking of killing innocent women and children with immoral weapons:
In the northwestern corner of the Hiroshima Peace Park, amid a quiet grove of trees, the earth suddenly swells. It is not much of a mound -- only about ten feet high and sixty feet across. Unlike most mounds, however, this one is hollow, and within it rests perhaps the greatest concentration of human residue in the world.
Grey clouds rising from sticks of incense hang in the air, spookily. Tourists do not dawdle here. Visitors searching for the Peace Bell, directly ahead, or the Children's Monument, down the path to the right, hurry past it without so much as a sideways glance. Still, it has a strange beauty: a lump of earth (not quite lush) topped by a small monument that resembles the tip of a pagoda.
On one side of the Memorial Mound the gray wooden fence has a gate, and down five steps from the gate is a door. Visitors are usually not allowed through that door, but occasionally the city of Hiroshima honors a request from a foreign journalist.
Inside the mound the ceiling is low, the light fluorescent. One has to stoop to stand. To the right and left, pine shelving lines the walls. Stacked neatly on the shelves, like cans of soup in a supermarket, are white porcelain canisters with Japanese lettering on the front. On the day I visited, there were more than a thousand cans in all, explained Masami Ohara, a city official. Each canister contained the ashes of one person killed by the atomic bomb.
Behind twin curtains on either side of an altar, several dozen pine boxes, the size of caskets, were stacked, unceremoniously, from floor to ceiling. They hold the ashes of about 70,000 unidentified victims of the bomb. If, in an instant, all of the residents of Wilmington, Delaware, or Santa Fe, New Mexico, were reduced to ashes, and those ashes carried away to one repository, this is all the room the remains would require.
More than 100,000 in Hiroshima were killed by The Bomb, the vast majority of them women and children, plus elderly males. Fewer than one in ten were in the military.
Most of those who died in Hiroshima were cremated quickly, partly to prevent an epidemic of disease. Others were efficiently turned to ash by the atomic bomb itself, death and cremation occurring in the same instant. Those reduced by human hands were cremated on makeshift altars at a temple that once stood at the present site of the mound, one-half mile from the hypocenter of the atomic blast.
In 1946, an Army Air Force squad, ordered by Gen. Douglas MacArthur to film the results of the massive U.S. aerial bombardment of Japanese cities during World War II, shot a solemn ceremony at the temple, capturing a young woman receiving a canister of ashes from a local official. That footage, and all of the rest that they filmed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki revealing the full aftermath of the bombings, would be suppressed by the United States for decades (as I probe in my book Atomic Cover-Up ).
Later that year, survivors of the atomic bombing began contributing funds to build a permanent vault at this site and, in 1955, the Memorial Mound was completed. For several years the collection of ashes grew because remains of victims were still being found. One especially poignant pile was discovered at an elementary school.
The white cans on the shelves have stood here for decades, unclaimed by family members or friends. (In many cases, all of the victims' relatives and friends were killed by the bomb.) Every year local newspapers publish the list of names written on the cans, and every year several canisters are finally claimed and transferred to family burial sites. Most of the unclaimed cans (a total of just over 800 in 2010, for example) will remain in the mound in perpetuity, now that so many years have passed.
They are a chilling sight. The cans are bright white, like the flash in the sky over Hiroshima at 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945. From all corners of the city the ashes were collected: the remains of soldiers, physicians, housewives, infants. Unclaimed, they at least have the dignity of a private urn, an identity, a life (if one were able to look into it) before death.
But what of the seventy thousand behind the curtains? The pine crates are marked with names of sites where the human dust and bits of bone were found -- a factory or a school, perhaps, or a neighborhood crematory. But beyond that, the ashes are anonymous. Thousands may still grieve for these victims but there is no dignity here. "They are all mixed together," said Ohara, "and will never be separated or identified." Under a mound, behind two curtains, inside a few pine boxes: This is what became of one-quarter of the city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.
In the northwestern corner of the Hiroshima Peace Park, amid a quiet grove of trees, the earth suddenly swells. It is not much of a mound -- only about ten feet high and sixty feet across. Unlike most mounds, however, this one is hollow, and within it rests perhaps the greatest concentration of human residue in the world.
Grey clouds rising from sticks of incense hang in the air, spookily. Tourists do not dawdle here. Visitors searching for the Peace Bell, directly ahead, or the Children's Monument, down the path to the right, hurry past it without so much as a sideways glance. Still, it has a strange beauty: a lump of earth (not quite lush) topped by a small monument that resembles the tip of a pagoda.On one side of the Memorial Mound the gray wooden fence has a gate, and down five steps from the gate is a door. Visitors are usually not allowed through that door, but occasionally the city of Hiroshima honors a request from a foreign journalist.
Inside the mound the ceiling is low, the light fluorescent. One has to stoop to stand. To the right and left, pine shelving lines the walls. Stacked neatly on the shelves, like cans of soup in a supermarket, are white porcelain canisters with Japanese lettering on the front. On the day I visited, there were more than a thousand cans in all, explained Masami Ohara, a city official. Each canister contained the ashes of one person killed by the atomic bomb.
Behind twin curtains on either side of an altar, several dozen pine boxes, the size of caskets, were stacked, unceremoniously, from floor to ceiling. They hold the ashes of about 70,000 unidentified victims of the bomb. If, in an instant, all of the residents of Wilmington, Delaware, or Santa Fe, New Mexico, were reduced to ashes, and those ashes carried away to one repository, this is all the room the remains would require.
More than 100,000 in Hiroshima were killed by The Bomb, the vast majority of them women and children, plus elderly males. Fewer than one in ten were in the military.
Most of those who died in Hiroshima were cremated quickly, partly to prevent an epidemic of disease. Others were efficiently turned to ash by the atomic bomb itself, death and cremation occurring in the same instant. Those reduced by human hands were cremated on makeshift altars at a temple that once stood at the present site of the mound, one-half mile from the hypocenter of the atomic blast.
In 1946, an Army Air Force squad, ordered by Gen. Douglas MacArthur to film the results of the massive U.S. aerial bombardment of Japanese cities during World War II, shot a solemn ceremony at the temple, capturing a young woman receiving a canister of ashes from a local official. That footage, and all of the rest that they filmed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki revealing the full aftermath of the bombings, would be suppressed by the United States for decades (as I probe in my book Atomic Cover-Up ).
Later that year, survivors of the atomic bombing began contributing funds to build a permanent vault at this site and, in 1955, the Memorial Mound was completed. For several years the collection of ashes grew because remains of victims were still being found. One especially poignant pile was discovered at an elementary school.
The white cans on the shelves have stood here for decades, unclaimed by family members or friends. (In many cases, all of the victims' relatives and friends were killed by the bomb.) Every year local newspapers publish the list of names written on the cans, and every year several canisters are finally claimed and transferred to family burial sites. Most of the unclaimed cans (a total of just over 800 in 2010, for example) will remain in the mound in perpetuity, now that so many years have passed.They are a chilling sight. The cans are bright white, like the flash in the sky over Hiroshima at 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945. From all corners of the city the ashes were collected: the remains of soldiers, physicians, housewives, infants. Unclaimed, they at least have the dignity of a private urn, an identity, a life (if one were able to look into it) before death.
But what of the seventy thousand behind the curtains? The pine crates are marked with names of sites where the human dust and bits of bone were found -- a factory or a school, perhaps, or a neighborhood crematory. But beyond that, the ashes are anonymous. Thousands may still grieve for these victims but there is no dignity here. "They are all mixed together," said Ohara, "and will never be separated or identified." Under a mound, behind two curtains, inside a few pine boxes: This is what became of one-quarter of the city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.
The Inevitable 'Downfall' Parody
Hitler reacts to Obama's plan to attack Syria. Actually some telling lines.
When 'NYT' Reporter Was Chief A-Bomb Propagandist
At this late date, many are still surprised when they learn that a famous NYT reporter, William L. Laurence, was embedded with the Manhattan Project when it produced the first atomic bombs, and then produced numerous articles, starting on the day Hiroshima was hit, for the Times (widely published elsewhere) that were the main source of background info on the project and the bomb--and promoted both. After the bombings, he would write articles, after a visit to the site of our bomb test at Trinity, that essentially pooh-poohed concerns about radiation danger. It's an amazing story, and if you want more see my books
Atomic Cover-up
and (with Robert Jay Lifton) Hiroshima in America.I'll just note now: a month after the Nagasaki attack, the Times published Laurence's account (68 years ago next Monday) of his experience when he was allowed to go along on the Nagasaki bombing. I'll let you read it all here--it helped him win a Pulitzer--but no the general glorification, references to the "genial" crew members, and so on. Also this concise statement: "Does one feel any pity or compassion for the poor devils about to die? Not when one thinks of Pearl Harbor and of the death march on Bataan." Note: Only a few dozen Japanese troops were killed in the attack. The majority of the 80,000 or more killed were women and children.
Why 'NYT' Published NSA Bombshell
The Times' fine public editor Margaret Sullivan just published an inside view.
Ms. Abramson said The Times is continuing to report, based on the material, and indicated there will be more to come.
My take: I’ve been critical of The Times in the past for agreeing to government requests too readily, including the long delay in publishing what is arguably the most important surveillance story of the past decade — the Pulitzer Prize-winning article by James Risen and Eric Lichtblau about the government’s warrantless wiretapping of citizens in 2005.
And I have also written about The Times’s efforts to play catch-up on this set of N.S.A. stories that it did not break.
The encryption article — an important story, published courageously — is a very welcome development. The American public has the right to know, and debate, what its government is doing. Times editors and reporters, as well as those at The Guardian and ProPublica, deserve plenty of credit for how they have handled this.
'Expert' on Syria Cited by Kerry Paid by Rebels
UPDATED WSJ now acknowledges. "Ms. O'Bagy is affiliated with the Syrian Emergency Task Force, a nonprofit operating as a 501(c)(3) pending IRS approval that subcontracts with the U.S. and British governments to provide aid to the Syrian opposition."
Earlier: I noted earlier that the author of a WSJ article last week claiming--against most evidence--that the rebels in Syria are actually overwhelmingly moderate and growing in numbers was paid by a hawkish neo-con think-tank. Still, her report was cited as gospel by Kerry, McCain and many others. Now we learn that she is also paid by the Syria rebels themselves. "In addition to her work for the Institute for the Study of War, O’Bagy is also the political director for the Syrian Emergency Task Force (SETF), a group that advocates within the United States for Syria’s rebels — a fact that the Journal did not disclose in O’Bagy’s piece."
Earlier: I noted earlier that the author of a WSJ article last week claiming--against most evidence--that the rebels in Syria are actually overwhelmingly moderate and growing in numbers was paid by a hawkish neo-con think-tank. Still, her report was cited as gospel by Kerry, McCain and many others. Now we learn that she is also paid by the Syria rebels themselves. "In addition to her work for the Institute for the Study of War, O’Bagy is also the political director for the Syrian Emergency Task Force (SETF), a group that advocates within the United States for Syria’s rebels — a fact that the Journal did not disclose in O’Bagy’s piece."
'Expert' of Syria Cited by Kerry Paid by Rebels
I noted earlier that the author of a WSJ article last week claiming--against most evidence--that the rebels in Syria are actually overwhelmingly moderate and growing in numbers was paid by a hawkish neo-con think-tank. Still, her report was cited as gospel by Kerry, McCain and many others. Now we learn that she is also paid by the Syria rebels themselves.
