MB DRO ROSHI

[Doug Millison]

"[[...]] Most of the news-broadcasters compared the shocking event to the
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Some others called it the biggest
terrorist attack of all time, an attack that was directed not only against
the United States but also against all humanity. They continue to say so.
It is, indeed, very unfortunate that not one of them from the major
broadcasting media - BBC, CNN, Fox News, etc. - compared the 11th September
attack to a very similar event but of far greater magnitude, a horrendous
one that was a turning point in the history of the twentieth century. How
is that even a passing reference to that unforgettable and earth-shaking
event has not been made by any one in the media or by any of the
spokespersons of the major governments? [[...]]

The entire gruesome event in Hiroshima was carefully filmed and the
physical effects of the attack accurately measured from airplanes
accompanying the bomber that had dropped the atom bomb. The blinding flash,
the reverberating blast, the mushroom cloud, the flattening of almost all
standing structures (according to later estimates over 92 per cent of the
76,000 buildings that lay within four kilometers of ground zero had been
destroyed), and the entire city being engulfed in a devastating fire in a
short time must have all been a terrific sight to watch from the airplanes.
However, it is not clear whether the audio system with the film crew on the
accompanying aircraft was powerful enough to pick up the agonizing cries of
those trapped in the falling debris and about to be devoured by the
advancing fire. Also the rising smoke from the raging fire must have hid
from view the thousands of screaming men, women and children - many with
deep burns sustained from direct exposure to the scorching flash - jumping
into the various rivers running through the city in order to escape from
the searing heat. Few of them may have managed to get back on to the banks
for most of them surely met a watery death. But for the smoke the
happenings on the riverside would have been yet another spectacle to watch!
Of course, effects of ionizing radiation were not yet apparent but the
smell of burning human flesh was certainly in the air. Unfortunately,
television and cable networks were not in vogue at that time; otherwise the
entire world could have watched the "spectacular" event live! Terrorism had
never tasted such success before or after! With the U.S. President in the
lead, the destruction of Hiroshima and its people was a great occasion to
celebrate with gay abandon! The "civilized" conduct of the U.S. President
must have put even the worst barbarians to shame!

[[...]]Despite strong opposition from Lt. Gen. Leslie Groves, Chief of the
Manhattan (atomic bomb) Project, Stimson was able to strike Kyoto off from
the list of atomic targets and, thus, succeeded in miraculously saving no
less than 800,000 Japanese lives. However, Gen. Groves, who was clearly
disappointed, later wrote in his memoirs thus: "I particularly wanted Kyoto
as a target because, as I have said, it was large enough an area for us to
gain complete knowledge of the effects of an atom bomb. Hiroshima was not
nearly so satisfactory in this respect." [Leslie Groves: Now It Can Be Told
(Story of the Manhattan Project), Andre Deutsch, London, 1963, p.275]

[[...]] The objective of the above argument is only to drive home the point
that one terrorist attack on the people of the United States should not
erase the memory of the countless acts of state terrorism perpetrated by
successive U.S. Administrations over the years. The victims of U.S. state
terrorism have also undergone or are still undergoing the same pain, trauma
and agony that the victims of the 11th September terrorist attack are now
experiencing. In a very unfortunate way, the people of the United States
for the first time have had a bitter taste of what their own Government has
been doing to people across the world for years in different forms. The
atomic bombing on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the massive and indiscriminate
bombing of Vietnam (including use of thousands of tons of incendiary napalm
bombs), the innumerable My Lai* type massacres, the use of chemical weapons
such as the highly toxic defoliant Agent Orange** over Vietnam, the massive
and indiscriminate bombing of Iraq and Yugoslavia, etc., are just a few
examples of acts of U.S. state terrorism that people of other nations have
had to endure.

[[...]]

What rational explanation can the U.S. terrorists offer for targeting Iraqi
civilian population with precision-guided and earth-penetrating cruise
missiles while they were taking refuge in air-raid shelters to escape U.S.
aerial bombings? Is not the U.S. Administration squarely responsible for
the death of over 500,000 children in Iraq due to the untold suffering that
the Iraqi people are forced to undergo as a result of the strict economic
sanctions imposed on that country? Is not the U.S. Administration aiding
and abetting the Zionists in systematically carrying out terrorist attacks
on the people of Palestine in order to deprive them of their homeland? Is
it not the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency of the United States) along
with the ISI (Inter Services Intelligence of Pakistan) that encouraged,
armed and funded "Islamic" terrorists in the 1980s to overthrow the then
government in Afghanistan? Are they not the same terrorists who have been
wreaking havoc in Kashmir with the same arms and funds? (Interestingly,
while the Government of India repeatedly blames the ISI for aiding and
abetting terrorism in Kashmir, it maintains total silence about the
treacherous role of the CIA. Similarly, the Government of Pakistan blames
RAW [Research and Analysis Wing of India] for the numerous acts of
terrorism in Pakistan, while the CIA's devious role there is kept under
wraps.) It should not be forgotten that the pain and suffering inflicted on
the people of the other affected countries by acts of terrorism are also as
real as that which is being experienced by people in the United States now.
Therefore, retribution cannot be a one-way process. All acts of terrorism
should be condemned and all those responsible for terrorist acts should be
brought to book and punished irrespective of creed or nationality. [[...]]

--from
Hiroshima to New York
By N.D. Jayaprakash

N.D. Jayaprakash is a member of the Delhi Science Forum, an anti-nuclear
weapons group. He lives in New Delhi, India. This is the first part of a
two-part essay.

http://www.counterpunch.org/jayaprakash1.html



Doug Millison - Writer/Editor/Web Editorial Consultant
millison at online-journalist.com
www.Online-Journalist.com