Greg Mitchell's Blog, page 63

Countdown to Hiroshima: X-Minus 13 Days

Every year at this time, I trace the final days leading up to the first (and so far only) use of the atomic bomb against cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in August 1945.   In this way the fateful, and in my view, very tragic, decisions made by President Truman and his advisers can be judged more clearly in "real time."  As many know, this is a subject that I have studied and written about in hundreds of articles and two books (including the recent Atomic Cover-Up on the U.S. suppression of film for decades)  since the early 1980s with a special emphasis on the aftermath of the bombings, and the government and media reactions in the decades after.

Yesterday's entry.  Today:

July 24:   Truman at Potsdam discloses the existence of the atomic bomb to Stalin (who had possibly already been informed about it by his spies).  In his memoirs, a decade later, Truman would describe it briefly this way:  "On July 24 I casually mentioned to Stalin that we had a new weapon of unusual destructive force. The Russian Premier showed no special interest. All he said was he was glad to hear it and hoped we would make 'good use of it against the Japanese.'" American officials present would assert that Stalin failed to grasp the import of the new weapon in future world affairs.  But a Soviet official with the Stalin party later claimed that Stalin immediately ordered his scientists to speed up work on their own weapon.  See views of Churchill and others who witnessed the telling.

Gen. Groves drafts the directive authorizing the use of the atomic bombs as soon as bomb availability and weather permit. It lists the following targets in order of priority: Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata, and Nagasaki.  They are all large cities and orders are to drop bombs over center of them, thereby dooming tens of thousands of civilians for death. This directive constitutes final authorization for atomic attack--no further orders are issued.  Indeed, there would never be a separate order, even by Truman, to use the second bomb against Japan--it just rolled off, as if from atomic assembly line. 

State of Affairs

Great editorial cartoon by Pulitzer-winner Mike Luckovich.

Another Botched Execution

This time it's Arizona and it's Joseph Wood on the gurney.  UPDATEs:  His attorney IDs two drugs used in this "experiment."  Reporter who witnessed says witnessed 660 gasps.  Another witness called it "very disturbing to watch ... like a fish on shore gulping for air." The Guardian:

A convicted killer gasped on the gurney as the state of Arizona attempted to execute him on Wednesday, before being declared dead almost two hours after the process began.
Lawyers for Joseph Wood attempted to halt the execution in an emergency court motion, saying he had been "gasping and snorting for more than an hour". The state attorney general announced Wood had died before the court could rule on the motion.

The developments echoed the botched execution of Clayton Lockett, who writhed and groaned on a gurney for nearly 45 minutes before eventually dying of a heart attack. The two-hour process in Wood's case appeared certain to revive the arguments surrounding the death penalty in the US, as a shortage of execution drugs has forced states to use untried methods and unregulated drugs.

All week there were legal rights over the secrecy surrounding the drugs used.  For background on all this see my ebook Dead Reckoning . 

Wednesday Updates on Gaza-Israel Tragedy

Good to see Robert Mackey joining in with blog coverage at NYT.  His post tonight covers Israeli attacks on journalists (while they've been welcomed in Gaza), including the now-famous on-air assault; and the state media there refusing to run add listing the names of Palestinian kids killed.   One of the banned ads here.

Jeremy Scahill calls coverage of this war worst ever, with no TV push back on Israeli leaders and failure to hit constant "war crimes" and massacres.

Powerful little post and photo by NBC's @AymanM from Gaza--survivor of bomb that took 8 members of his famly. 

I suppose this offers some hope for a lasting ceasefire:  war is gutting Israel's much-needed tourist industry.   Hamas may shift aim of rockets to more airfields.   

Writer in Gaza I've often RTed lately, known as "Mo Gaza," with important op-ed in NYT today.

NYT's hits a new low with headline on new story by calling casualty counts just a competing "game of numbers."   Some game.  Some competition:  650 to 30.  Or 500 civilians to 2.    

Max Blumenthal interviews that MSNBC contributor who has now apparently been axed for criticizing the network's one-sided coverage of the war.   She also did interview with Chris Hayes who told her, hey, what do ya expect for criticizing your bosses on air? Blumenthal also talks to unnamed NBC producer who backs her on claims of bias and bosses wanting that. Hayes denies there was "no conspiracy."

I'm sure we are shocked that chief NYT stenographer Jodi Rudoren in her amused--rather than appalled--piece tonight on Israelis who take to a hill to enjoy deadly air strikes on Gaza civilians makes this slanderous error:  She claims that the CNN reporter got "pulled from her post last week after she used the word 'scum' in a Twitter post to describe Israelis on the hill who she said cheered airstrikes on Gaza and threatened to destroy her car."   In fact, her tweet clearly referred to just those threatening her vehicle.   A CNN spokesman explained, "She deeply regrets the language used, which was aimed directly at those who had been targeting our crew."  I'm sure a correction will be coming?

Kayakers Go for a Whale of a Ride

In Argentina they got a big more than they bargained for.  What an adventure.  Wash Post with a little background.   h/t @Bbedway

Gaza from Space

From Sophie Weiner at AnimalNY: 

Alexander Gerst, a German astronaut living aboard the International Space Station took this photo of the Gaza Strip from space and posted it to Twitter today. The tweet reads, “My saddest photo yet. From #ISS we can actually see explosions and rockets flying over #Gaza & #Israel.”  Of course, some of this is normal nighttime lighting, although much of power is out in Gaza.

A Beer With Jesus

A guess the song goes back a couple years but too amazing to overlook now!  Jesus, he says, likely only good for a couple of rounds.

Countdown to Hiroshima: X-Minus 14 Days

Every year at this time, I trace the final days leading up to the first (and so far only) use of the atomic bomb against cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in August 1945.   In this way the fateful, and in my view, very tragic, decisions made by President Truman and his advisers can be judged more clearly in "real time."  As many know, this is a subject that I have studied and written about in hundreds of articles and two books (including the recent Atomic Cover-Up on the U.S. suppression of film for decades)  since the early 1980s with a special emphasis on the aftermath of the bombings, and the government and media reactions in the decades after.  

Yesterday's entry.  For today: 

 July 23, 1945:  More decoded cables and reports suggest Japanese might very well surrender soon if "unconditional surrender" amended to allow them to retain their Emperor as symbolic leader.  U.S. will rule that out in its upcoming Potsdam Declaration, but then allow it, after using the bomb.

Truman had come to Potsdam mainly to get the Russians to keep their promise of entering war against Japan in early August--and Truman believed that would mean "fini Japs."  But, after Trinity, Stimson writes in diary today, that he and Gen. George Marshall believe "now with our new weapon we would not need the assistance of the Russians to conquer Japan."  So he again presses for info on earliest possible date for use of bomb.  So the bomb would be useful--even if not, perhaps, necessary.

Out in the Pacific, the first bomb unit, without explosives, dropped in a test at Tinian.  Meanwhile, 600 bombers get ready to bomb the hell out of Osaka and Nagoya without conventional weapons.

The Real 'Times' Reporter on Gaza-Israel

As you may have noted....I've been very critical of the reporting on the current war by veteran NYT Jerusalem bureau hands Jodi Rudoren and Isabel Kirshner, who have paraded their pro-Israel bias (carrying on a long Times tradition from that site) for years now.  No surprise.  But at least some form of balance has appeared in the past week with the arrival in Gaza of Anne Barnard from the paper's Beirut or Cairo bureau (forget which).  She has supplied much-needed up-close reporting on the massive civilian casualties there, even tweeting from the scene at great risk. Perhaps as the mother of two young children she can relate.

Her name seemed familiar to me, away from the Times, and sure enough we covered her often at Editor & Publisher when I was the editor from about 2002 to 2009.  We won many national awards for our coverage of Iraq and the media and she appeared in several of the articles as a reporter and then Baghdad bureau chief for the Boston Globe.  I even found one of mine where I quoted her at the end (it also appears in my book on that war, So Wrong for So Long ), and it's quite relevant to the current tragedy--as it focuses on the U.S. assault on Fallujah and the massive civilian casualties there.  Oddly, U.S. reporters were more prone to criticize their own country in such occasions than they are today, re: Israel.

Here's the link to the full story, with Barnard segment here:

Anne Barnard of The Boston Globe noted that the military says it took every possible step to minimize civilian casualties, but "the methods used -- air strikes and artillery and tank fire from a distance -- make it difficult to know whether civilians are caught under fire." U.S. forces had urged Fallujans trapped in the city to stay in their homes, but "troops using thermal sights often assumed that if there was a 'hot spot' inside a house — indicating body heat — the people inside were insurgents." 

Stinging American Muslims

I've tweeted out my praise for the new HBO doc "The Newburgh Sting," which aired last night but will be in rotation for awhile now.   Now Human Rights Watch with a new report on the overall scope of the many FBI sting/entrapment aimed at encouraging Muslims here to take part in FBI-designed "terrorism."

The U.S.  Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have targeted American Muslims in abusive counterterrorism “sting operations” based on religious and ethnic identity, Human Rights Watch and Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Institute said in a report released today. Many of the more than 500 terrorism-related cases prosecuted in US federal courts since September 11, 2001, have alienated the very communities that can help prevent terrorist crimes.

The 214-page report, “Illusion of Justice: Human Rights Abuses in US Terrorism Prosecutions,” examines 27 federal terrorism cases from initiation of the investigations to sentencing and post-conviction conditions of confinement. It documents the significant human cost of certain counterterrorism practices, such as overly aggressive sting operations and unnecessarily restrictive conditions of confinement.