the news we don't hear

[miriam_e]

Here is what is happening in Beirut.
http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/2006/07/23_Frisk_empire-leaves.htm

It makes me weep.

Who is at fault? We are. We push it under the carpet. We don't look. We let it happen. We think it can't happen here. But it is happening here... slowly, creeping... as we allow our politicians to become more hardened and less responsible, more insanely religious. We have to speak to each other and stop it. Only we can. There is nobody else. If we won't, then we are all doomed.

Lies upon lies are laid down as a dark matting, suffocating, and at times feeling almost impenetrable. It seems hopeless. But that is part of the real enemy. It isn't hopeless. Darkness is shed easily by shining a light. We need to know. We need to undercut the calculated lies and pass on the untold news. We can't let this continue, or it will happen again and again and again. And when it happens here, to us and our children we will only have ourselves to blame.

Comments

the news we don't hear

[revbobbob.livejournal.com]

I'm a pretty big fan of peace, as you may know. I'm currently suffering some serious economic deprivation on that account, so I hope I'll still be considered your good friend and not some warmongering American when I suggest this.

Please go to the main site you just mentioned: http://www.wagingpeace.org/

Do a search on the following terms: hiroshima, nagasaki, bataan, nanjing

The news you won't hear evidently includes the news you won't hear from wagingpeace.org

Re: the news we don't hear

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

That's odd. There are articles about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there. It is strange that they don't come up in the search if you include bataan and nanjing in the search terms. I wonder why.

That was what you meant?

Hmmm... I just got a horrible and paranoid thought. Control the major search engine everybody uses and you have a large degree of control over the internet through letting only certain info turn up in searches. [gulp] I'm sure such a point won't have escaped the most evil people in power.

Re: the news we don't hear

[revbobbob.livejournal.com]

Yup, got it in one.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki get dozens of articles. Bad America! Shame! But the Bataan death march, the rape of Nanjing, and the crimes against civilians and prisoners of war committed by the Japanese never get so much as a mention. The Japanese, despite their appetite for rhinoceros horns and whale meat, are the good guys. We must never, ever criticize them.

If you'd like to see a vivid example of the virtuous acts of these poor, innocent Japanese people who never deserved to have the evil Americans drop the atomic bomb on them, you should look up the real story behind the bridge on the River Kwai.

Re: the news we don't hear

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Yes. I know how horrific the Japanese military could be. I have a Philippina friend who told me how they acted in the Philippines. At the time I thought it was just awful stories, so did a little research and found, to my horror that they were true. They would tie up and rape and torture women and cut the children out of pregnant women's bellies. They'd slice people open and pull their guts out before them. They were all kinds of cruel.

They were a little like our side in Iraq. I heard a harrowing report recently about a bunch of "our" boys who were repeatedly beating a guy for fun. This guy would cry out "Allah!" each time he was hit. These sweet boys thought this was so funny everybody wanted to try it while the others stood around laughing. Eventually the beatings killed him. The hurried inquest absolved anyone of blame saying it was a simple accident. It seems likely the guy was just an ordinary taxi driver rather than a terrorist.

There is something about war that dehumanises and brings out the demon in most of us. I'm sure those guys standing around laughing at the torture of that guy were all good, average people... just like the cruel Japanese monstrosities who cut open women and killed babies in the Philippines.

I know you're not saying "our" side is blameless, just wondering why we are not equally decrying the evils of others. I agree with you.

War is the real enemy. The faces just shift and change.

Re: the news we don't hear

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

If you ever feel tempted to think that the undeniable evils of the Japanese military meant the civilian population deserved nuclear bombs then I prescribe a viewing of Grave of the Fireflies. If you can't get ahold of it at your video library email me and I'll post it to you.

Re: the news we don't hear

[revbobbob.livejournal.com]

I got out of the military business because I couldn't personally work on a program that would cause injury to human beings. But I think it's wrong to apply 21st century standards of accuracy and the avoidance of civilian targets to mid-20th century strategic bombing.

Sherman had it right: war is hell.

Yes, I agree some of America's finest young people turned out to be evil. Unfortunately, we don't have a command structure that penalizes anybody but the lowest ranks. What was the highest ranking soldier who's been court-martialed in Iraq? Sergeant? That's shameful and disgusting, and there's no excuse for it.

There is an excuse for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It isn't the sort of excuse we'd accept today, but given the technology of the times, I think the issue of whether it was better to drop those bombs is definitely open for discussion.

And there isn't any excuse for Nanjing or Bataan. Not then, not when our soldiers do it today.

But wagingpeace.org has quite a bit bad to say about Hiroshima and Nagasaki and nothing whatever to say about Nanjing and Bataan. That's not only unfair, it's twisted and rather disgusting logic.

Besides that, it discounts the possibility of moral action. Start off with the notion that everytning America does is wrong, and you lose the leverage to affect the really despicable acts the Bush administration has permitted (and in some cases ordered) our troops to do. Wagingpeace.org, in its assumption that America is evil denies the possibility of saying one administration is worse than another, and it reduces the chances that the situation will be corrected.

There is a moral difference between necessary action and gratuitous action. It's not a great difference, and in a better world the difference would be smaller still. But there's a difference nonetheless, and ignoring gratuitous evil and harping on necessary evil (and minimizing the necessity) are unhelpful and ultimately useless.

Re: the news we don't hear

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... I didn't read the WagingPeace site as "USA is evil". Their articles highlight prominent people in USA who tried to stop the bad things. I read the site as pointing the finger at war, and most specifically nuclear war. As the USA is the only country that has used nuclear weapons against people it is natural that they'd have articles about that.

I don't think there can really be any excuse made for the bomb on Hiroshima. That is my opinion. There is a chance I could be wrong, but I doubt it. What is surely beyond debate is whether a second nuclear bomb on civilians could ever be justified. One was an enriched uranium bomb, the other was plutonium. It is clear that the second (and in my opinion, also the first) was a ghastly experiment to see the effect of the bombs on live people. It obviously wasn't a signal to submit. One bomb would have done that -- in fact a bomb on an unpopulated, or underpopulated area would have made that point. But the clear desire was to maximise death. If I remember correctly those two cities had previously been spared from conventional bombing raids, specifically for this purpose.

I don't for one minute think that people in USA are intrinsically more evil or more arrogant than anybody else in the world, but put most people in a position of power and they become evil and arrogant. The Japanese thought they were invincible, so did the Germans, so do the christians, so do the moslems.

I consider myself passionately peaceful. Do I think I could become evil, given the circumstances? Possibly. I remember the experiments where ordinary people thought they were torturing people with electric shocks. Some were even willing to administer "lethal" doses under orders. Very few refused. I remember the artificial prison experiment where students were arbitrarily divided into "guards" and "prisoners". It took such an unbelievably short time for ordinary, well educated middle class people to become sadistic monsters that the experiment had to be terminated early. Would I maintain my high moral principles in such circumstances? I like to think so. I hope I never get to find out.

I think the best antidote to that ghoul that dwells in us all is knowledge. WagingPeace goes some way towards that. You're right, Bob, that it needs more data so that readers realise that it is war and power that are the enemy, not specifically the USA or moslems or christians. But WagingPeace can only publish stuff that they have. Maybe you would consider writing something about Nanjing or Bataan to help show how dangerous and extensive the problem is. Remember though, that their major purpose appears to be to discourage nuclear war. Coming at it from that angle might maximise it being published there... perhaps pointing out why people use whatever ghastly weapons are at their disposal if they think they can get away with it... if they feel powerful and "right" then they feel they can justify anything... even nuclear weapons.

Re: the news we don't hear

[revbobbob.livejournal.com]

I don't think there can really be any excuse made for the bomb on Hiroshima.

I think there can. When one is faced with a choice between tens of thousands of deaths and millions of deaths, one makes the choice that's before them. It is not a pleasant choice, but it's a choice that people of conscience have to step up to.

Should the allies have simply abandoned their insistence on unconditional surrender? Before we can ask that, recall that Russia had just joined the allies in declaring war on Japan, and would have greatly benefitted by ensnaring the Western allies in a long and bloody invasion and occupation of Japan, and might have sown seeds of discord among the other allies and picked up some territory to boot, so the more realistic question is, could the allies have abandoned their insistence on unconditional surrender?

But even if it could have been offered, recall that after their surrender, both Germany and Japan became forces for peace in the world. Can you say that a temporarily defanged Japan would have followed the same course? Can you even say that placing Japan in a situation that was very similar to the situation that faced Germany at the end of the first World War would have had a different effect on Japan in the 1950s and 1960s than it had on Germany in the 1920s and 1930s?

I believe we'll disagree on that, but I certainly wish you peace of heart, and perhaps you're right.