*”YOU ASKED FOR IT”*

*WHY ATTACK IRAQ?*

*GRANNIES Vs TERROR*

Let us pause on this morning of August 6th to remember and resolve. To remember what the people of Japan could not forget, and that many in the world still mourn: the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. No one who visits the peace museum there, or the Peace Park in their Ground Zero, their “epicenter,” as they call it, can forget the images of people who had been turned to dust by the ferocity of what is now considered a primitive weapon. Over 78,000 people died in the wink of an eye — and others left their body prints on stones, so hot was the blast on this August morning back in ‘45.

I visited Hiroshima with a group of journalists, all guests of the Foreign Ministry who asked us to bring flowers in memory of the ordinary people who perished, as a symbol of humanity’s hope that there will be no more Hiroshimas. Half of our delegation refused to do so, suggesting it would compromise their “objectivity” or that they were being “used.” Some feared that if their editors saw photos of them expressing a compassionate gesture, they might somehow lose their jobs. That was in l978. Another indication of the unbrave world of journalism we labor in.

WHY DID WE BOMB HIROSHIMA?

There is a book for comments in the museum that chronicles what happened in a just the facts ma’am manner. There are no judgments, no political attacks on the United States, not even a reference to the debate that has raged in academic circles for twenty years ever since Historian Gar Alperowitz found documents to show that the bombing had more to do with America’s post war plans–to show our then-allies in the Soviet Union who was boss–than for any military reason since Japan was then on the verge of collapse. The bombing was in this view POLITICAL, not military. It was a demonstration effect, a way of advertising that there was a bomb and we had it.

Howard Zinn, the historian, author of a “People’s History of the United States” was a bombadier in World War 2. He is a leading advocate of peace. His view on what happened on this day a long time ago:

“The administration talks about hitting ‘military targets’ but that phrase is so loose that President Truman, after an atomic bomb obliterated the population of Hiroshima, said: ‘The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base.’… The bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not forestall an invasion of Japan, because no invasion was necessary. The Japanese were on the verge of surrender, and American military leaders knew that…”

REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR

Most Americans are unfamiliar with this debate, and in fact when the Smithsonian Institution in Washington had an exhibit of the Enola Gay, the plane used in the bombing, and wanted to indicate that there was such a debate. Members of Congress raised such a fuss, threatening to defund the whole museum, that the exhibit was censored. (See Phillip Nobile’s stunning “Judgment at the Smithsonian,” which reprinted the banned script of the Smithsonian’s 50th anniversary exhibit of the Enola Gay.”)

Back in Japan, when I reviewed visitor comments, I was struck by the gap between what Americans wrote and what others in the world scribbled in its pages. People from other countries expressed shock, horror and a desire for peace. Several Americans wrote defiantly: “You Asked For It” and “Remember Pearl Harbor!” (Will we use THE BOMB again to “remember September 11? Remember, in one of his videos bin Laden referenced Hiroshima.)

FROM RUSSIA, A WARNING

What we need to remember on this 57th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing is that the nuclear threat is still with us, even if you don’t read about it in the press or see it on TV. I was reminded of this in an email from a Russian anti-nuclear campaigner, Vladimir Slivyak, who works with Ecodefense of the anti-nuclear campaign of the Socio-Ecological Union Int’l. He writes from Moscow:

“Despite slowly proceeding US-Russian nuclear disarmament, nuclear threats are growing up. Plutonium stockpiles are increasing. New countries are about to produce own nuclear weapon after obtaining “peaceful” nuclear technologies… Through the second half of 20th century, both USA and Soviet Union made their way from the nuclear arms’ raise to the awareness of disarmament needed to save the world from nuclear war. But the globe meets 57th Hiroshima anniversary without good news from the nuclear disarmament field. Russia and the US still keep their warheads on high-trigger alert that enables both countries to kill the planet in a few minutes. Additionallynearly 30,000 of warheads stored across the world.”

Have a nice day.

WAR: WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?

War is all around us. And war talk chokes off discussion of many serious issues. There is talk of wars past, as on Sunday when a Texas newspaper disclosed what many Americans already suspected — that the “incident in the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of Vietnam that led to an escalation and massive US involvement in that war never happened. Yes, folks, a big LIE (widely believed at the time by all but two Senators– who after hearing that US naval vessels were shot at by Vietnamese PT boats, voted to go to war. Writing in the San Antonio Express-News, Bob Richter reveals nearly 40 years later:

AUSTIN - Thirty-eight years ago Sunday, network television was interrupted at 11:36 p.m. EDT so President Lyndon B. Johnson could tell the nation that U.S. warships in a place called the Gulf of Tonkin had been attacked by North Vietnamese PT boats.

” In response to what he described as “open aggression on the open seas,” Johnson ordered U.S. airstrikes on North Vietnam.

“The airstrikes opened the door to a war that would kill 1 million Vietnamese and 58,000 Americans and divide the nation along class and generational lines.

“Over the years, debate has swirled around whether U.S. ships actually were attacked that night, or whether, as some skeptics suggest, the Johnson administration staged or provoked an event to get congressional authority to act against North Vietnam.

“Recently released tapes of White House phone conversations indicate the attack probably never happened.”

MEDIA BOOSTS WAR

And now we are being prepared for another war, a war on Iraq. The New York Post cover carries a two word screaming headline: WAR PLAN showing off some aerial photos of an air base in Quatar that is being readied by used for the attack. It is not if but when, is the refrain we keep hearing. The word Why is rarely invoked. Yesterday the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan spoke out against any unilateral US attack while Washington officials brushed aside an invite from Iraq’s parliament to visit and inspect what they wanted.

Scott Ritter, the former UN weapons inspector told the Institute of National Accuracy: “The offer by Iraq for members of Congress to go to Iraq is a positive one. Certainly, Congress doesn’t do inspections, but there should be a dialogue between members of Congress and the Iraqis. The U.S. government response highlights the fact that it isn’t interested in disarmament; it openly states that ousting Saddam Hussein is more important than ensuring that Iraq does not have weapons of mass destruction. The Iraqis are making it clear they want to play ball. The U.S. is currently president of the UN Security Council; but rather than pursuing the proposals from Iraq, it has sabotaged them….” (On CNN on Sunday, former UNSCOM head Richard Butler claimed: “When they [the Iraqis] threw UNSCOM out, we furnished a final report…” But Ritter said today: “UNSCOM was not thrown out in the end, rather Butler withdrew it to make way for the bombing campaign Desert Fox.”) Ritter is the author of “Endgame: Solving the Iraqi Problem Once and For All.”

WHY?

Why is the US being so insistent on a “regime change” in Iraq? Most of the discussion in the media puts it in the context of the War On Terror. Other analysts don’t share that view. Writing on Alternet.org, Rahul Mahajan says it all boils down to oil:

‘Iraq has it and we want it.’ “In this impending war,” he writes, “perhaps the earliest and most consistently telegraphed since Cato the Elder’s repeated calls for the destruction of Carthage, a similar confusion reigns. The same reflexively secretive administration that didn’t want to disclose which companies it met with and for how long when formulating its energy policy has released at least four different plans for achieving ‘regime change’ — widely-announced ‘covert’ operations; the ‘Afghan strategy’; ‘Gulf War lite’ and the ‘Baghdad/inside out option.’ It has also released numerous reports of generals, military strategists and other insiders who oppose the war, to the point that the American public seriously wonders what’s going on.

“This confusion has reached such heights that many are beginning to call this a ‘Wag the Dog’ war, an attempt to avoid a Republican disaster in the November elections. While the exact timing may be affected by domestic considerations, the claim that they are the reason for the war itself is implausible when you consider that there has been talk about war on Iraq ever since 9/11, at a time when the world was Bush’s oyster. In fact, the war is simply a continuation of the “regime change” policy of over 10 years’ standing — except that in the post-9/11 world the government believes that it can get away with anything by invoking terrorism as a threat.”

WHY “T*H*E*Y” HATE US

In Europe the analysis goes deeper, Writing in the Guardian , George Monbiot says…” the US government’s declaration of impending war has, in truth, nothing to do with weapons inspections. On Saturday, John Bolton, the US official charged, hilariously, with “arms control”, told the Today program that “our policy … insists on regime change in Baghdad and that policy will not be altered, whether inspectors go in or not.

“The US government’s justification for whupping Saddam has now changed twice. At first, Iraq was named as a potential target because it was “assisting Al-Qaeda”. This turned out to be untrue. Then the US government claimed that Iraq had to be attacked because it could be developing weapons of mass destruction, and was refusing to allow the weapons inspectors to find out if this were so. Now, as the promised evidence has failed to materialize, the weapons issue has been dropped. The new reason for war is Saddam Hussein’s very existence. This, at least, has the advantage of being verifiable. It should surely be obvious by now that the decision to wage war on Iraq came first, and the justification later.

“Other than the age-old issue of oil supply, this is a war without strategic purpose. The US government is not afraid of Saddam Hussein, however hard it tries to scare its own people…. But the US government has several pressing domestic reasons for going to war. The first is that attacking Iraq gives the impression that the flagging “war on terror” is going somewhere. The second is that the people of all super-dominant nations love war. As Bush found in Afghanistan, whacking foreigners wins votes. Allied to this concern is the need to distract attention from the financial scandals in which both the president and vice-president are enmeshed. Already, in this respect, the impending war seems to be working rather well.

LOOKING FOR A RATIONALE

These views are beginning to be echoed in US mainstream media. Writing this week in the New Yorker, Hendrik Hertzberg argues:

“The Bush Administration has produced plenty of plans for war in Iraq — a different one is leaked to a different newspaper nearly every week — but it has not yet produced a rationale. The savagery of Saddam Hussein’s regime is not in dispute. But is the danger it presents to its neighbors and to the United States so immediate, and of such a magnitude and nature, that war is the only responsible choice? How much suffering and death would have to be inflicted, and accepted, in order to achieve the goal of removing the dictator? What would be the effect upon the national and global economy? Does it make sense to make war on an Arab country at a moment when anti-American hatred in the Arab states is stirred by the Israeli-Palestinian nightmare?

What I found most interesting in his piece was his description of the phony debate we are hearing, often on television, between what he calls the voices for war and others for “maybe war.” It’s a debate in which the sides are weirdly asymmetrical. The pro-war side has the heroic profile, the moral certainty, the geopolitical washboard abs buffed by years in the ideological weight rooms of conservative think tanks. It has the jut-jawed glamour imparted by the advocacy of bold action whose costs are all in the future.

“And it has the bully pulpits — not just the Presidential podium, which for this President is more shield than sword, more muffler than megaphone, but also the Pentagon briefing room, where Donald Rumsfeld, the Administration’s foxy grandpa and its most self-confident voice, struts his stuff. The other side — which, at least in official Washington, is not so much anti-war as maybe-war — has the disadvantages that accrue to the genuinely undecided, the sincerely perplexed. Its diffidence is not, or not simply, a product of the fear of being painted as pusillanimous or unpatriotic. The maybe-warriors don’t dispute the desirability of “regime change” in Baghdad; but they wonder about the costs, the aftermath, and the question of priorities.”

TIME: BUSH ADMIN WAS WARNED OF TERROR THREAT

And as for ongoing wars, we are just learning how the Bush Administration has blown the War on Terror. First, there were the warnings passed on to the new Administration by the outgoing Clintonians, who argued that action against Al Qaeda was urgent. Nothing was done. That whole sordid story is told in detail in the current issue of TIME magazine, which features descriptions of a briefing of the incoming Bush team by the outgoing Clintonians.

(I always hate using terms like this because as a graduate of mighty DeWitt Clinton High School, I resent the defaming of the proud Clinton name.) Check it out: A sample:”I believe that the Bush Administration will spend more time on terrorism generally, and on al-Qaeda specifically, than any other subject.” — Clinton National Security Adviser SANDY BERGER, to Condi Rice, January 2001″

“Berger had left the room by the time Clarke, (one of his aides) using a Powerpoint presentation, outlined his thinking to Rice. A senior Bush Administration official denies being handed a formal plan to take the offensive against al-Qaeda, and says Clarke’s materials merely dealt with whether the new Administration should take ‘a more active approach’ to the terrorist group. (Rice declined to comment, but through a spokeswoman said she recalled no briefing at which Berger was present.) Other senior officials from both the Clinton and Bush administrations, however, say that Clarke had a set of proposals to ‘roll back’ al-Qaeda. In fact, the heading on Slide 14 of the Powerpoint presentation reads, “Response to al Qaeda: Roll back.”

Clarke’s proposals called for the “breakup” of al-Qaeda cells and the arrest of their personnel. The financial support for its terrorist activities would be systematically attacked, its assets frozen, its funding from fake charities stopped. Nations where al-Qaeda was causing trouble — Uzbekistan, the Philippines, Yemen — would be given aid to fight the terrorists. Most important, Clarke wanted to see a dramatic increase in covert action in Afghanistan to “eliminate the sanctuary” where al-Qaeda had its terrorist training camps and bin Laden was being protected by the radical Islamic Taliban regime…”

WARS TO WATCH FOR: ARE THE SAUDIS NEXT?

War against another Arab nation is now being talked about according to the Washington Post’s Thomas E. Ricks: “A briefing given last month to a top Pentagon advisory board described Saudi Arabia as an enemy of the United States, and recommended that U.S. officials give it an ultimatum to stop backing terrorism or face seizure of its oil fields and its financial assets invested in the United States.

“The Saudis are active at every level of the terror chain, from planners to financiers, from cadre to foot-soldier, from ideologist to cheerleader,” stated the explosive briefing. It was presented on July 10 to the Defense Policy Board, a group of prominent intellectuals and former senior officials that advises the Pentagon on defense policy.”

OR WILL IT BE THE AFGHANS?

In Afghanistan today, a new war is looming — not with the Taliban or Al Qaeda but between Hamid Karzai’s government in Kabul and the warlord Padsha Khan Zadaran in the south. There is bad blood between the two, with Karzai threatening military action against Zadran, who the he says is “making trouble.” Says Mr. Zadran, as the New York Times calls this butcher among butchers:

“I don’t know who would win if we fought, but he would be betraying Afghanistan. He has no power outside Kabul. He is a man guarded by Americans. He has no one with him except some soldiers from the North. And now he wants to come and fight us.”

In these words we can see the seeds of the internal conflicts in that country that led to the rise of the Taliban in the first place.

AND DON’T FORGET ISRAEL

CNN reports that “Israeli helicopters struck a suspected weapons factory in Gaza City Monday night …The Israel Defense Forces said its forces attacked a steel works used to manufacture Weapons.” The NY Times reports three teenagers were wounded…

Israel has tightened its occupation on the West Bank blocking all internal travel. “Nobody enters and nobody leaves,” says the super hawkish Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer. A prominent Palestinian Doctor who was profiled on NPR’s excellent This American Life program on Sunday, (hardline supporters of Israel call NPR “National Palestinian Radio’) confirms US government reports of growing malnutrition in the communities that have been sealed off by Israel.

Notes the Palestinian Monitor: Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi appealed to all humanitarian organisations: “Sharon has created a situation of slow death for the Palestinian population. The Israeli tactics of isolating communities in the West Bank and denying basic food to people, create a situation that is particularly threatening to children, the elderly and pregnant women. In Nablus, the Palestinian Medical Relief has broken the curfew in the Old City in order to provide medical care and distribute basic food supplies and milk to the besieged population. However, the movement of ambulances is hindered by Israeli troops and we are running out of supplies. There is a pressing need for help and support.”

AMERICA IS AFFECTED TOO!

There are 80,000 Americans in Israel and many in the Palestinian region. One report I heard described “a Palestinian from New Jersey appealing to an Israeli from Brooklyn” at a checkpoint. My editor Jeanette tells me 24 Americans have been killed since the Oslo War began and 43 wounded…The Israeli Palestinian conflict is also working its way into all aspects of US politics, especially in the Black Community, according to columnist Salim Muwakkil in yesterday’s Chicago Tribune:

“The political spillover of Middle East issues into U.S. politics is threatening the political livelihoods of some members of the Congressional Black Caucus and straining relations between black and Jewish Democrats.

“This is a significant political development because blacks and Jews have been traditional political allies and both have been strong pillars of support for the Democratic Party. What’s more, Jews were among the strongest supporters of the civil rights movement and remain prominent in the struggle for racial justice.

“The Congressional Black Caucus has been among the strongest supporters of Israel and the fiercest foes of anti-Semitism.

‘But increasing cycles of Middle East violence and growing black support for some Palestinian issues have raised tensions between the two constituencies…

“The Aug. 20 primary race of Georgia Democrat Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) also is ratcheting up tensions. McKinney’s opponent is Denise Majette, a retired state judge with centrist domestic positions and pro-Israel views. Like Davis in Alabama (who even visited this year’s American Israel Public Affairs Committee convention in Washington), Majette is ardently courting Jewish support.

“McKinney, who came to office in 1992 with considerable Jewish support, since has alienated some members of the Jewish community with her increasing expressions of support for the Palestinians.

“In an April interview on a Berkeley, Calif., radio station, McKinney called for an investigation into whether President Bush might have had prior knowledge of the Sept. 11 terror attacks and if some members in his administration had profited from them.

“While McKinney’s behavior has angered some right-wing supporters of Israel, it has energized others with hopes that some legislators can defy the stifling conventional wisdom that has made U.S. foreign policy an embarrassment to the civilized world…..

HOMELAND SECURITY

Finally I am happy to report that Grannies in Florida are now mobilizing against Osama bin Laden. No reaction yet from Mr. Evil on this news from Lakeland Florida:

“With the help of $81,772 in federal money, 150 senior volunteers will patrol three lower-income areas in Polk County. They’ll be on the lookout for terrorists, who local officials say may find it easy to blend into neighborhoods where people frequently move in and out.

THUMBS UP!

Grannies: Go get ‘em. You may have better luck than our national leaders. Once again, I am out of time but not material cranking another one of these overlong weblogs. I hope I am not inundating you with too much to read and think about. But as the weather cools somewhat, especially in these parts, maybe we call all focus a bit more.

Until manana, this is your news dissector sounding off and signing off. Write to me with your comments and items at dissector@mediachannel.org.