Author: R J Adams

HIROSHIMA – AUGUST 6TH 1945
NAGASAKI AUGUST 9TH 1945

The crimes against humanity committed by the American government on the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War Two, and with full support of its allies, are perhaps the two most appalling war crimes in the history of the world. Greater than any atrocity in Africa, Bosnia; greater than the Nazi extermination of Jews that is now known as the Holocaust.

Some would argue the veracity of that statement. After all, six million died in the Holocaust, while probably only a quarter to half a million died as a result of the atom bombs, though many over a much longer period of time.

The difference was that the allies considered themselves the “good” guys, fighting evil. Yet, even when ‘evil’ was defeated, the “good” guys went ahead and used evil methods to achieve solely political objectives.

There are those who still refuse to accept the enormity of these crimes committed in our names. They stubbornly insist the bombings shortened the war by weeks, and thus saved American lives. The vast majority of those slaughtered horribly in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were innocent civilians. To argue such justification is to argue that the lives of a few American soldiers were worth the loss of countless Japanese.

I would ask the questions: was then, one innocent American life more important than one innocent Japanese life? Are Americans a superior species of Homo sapiens (Homo sapiens americanus, as opposed to Homo sapien restoftheworldus?). If the answer to both is “no”, then any justification for the bombings falls apart. Answer “yes”, and your arrogance proves the falsehood of the response.

Those who ordered the horrors at Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the 6th and 9th of August 1945 were never forced to answer for their crimes. After the war, many top Japanese officials paid for their temerity with their lives, but the perpetrators of the bombings went unpunished, some lauded as “heroes” by their people.

They committed their crimes in my name, and in your name. Those who, to this day, still deny the evil committed on the Japanese people need to be reminded, persuaded of the truth.

Until America, and those other nations still insisting the atrocities were a ‘positive’ action, accept responsibility and admit their country perpetrated a war crime of immense proportions, we must never let them forget.

It’s the least we can do to honor the memory of those innocents who suffered and died so horribly, and so needlessly.

Filed under: Crimes against humanity

It’s truly fascinating the differences encountered between the various news media reporting on Iraq these days. Mainstream media videos show Iraqis wandering happily around the various markets; normal life, as though no war had ever been encountered.

BBC World America recently made much of a Baghdad park full of picnickers, small children happily playing on swings and slides and, just tonight in Basra, a shopping mall packed with happy-faced customers.

Leila Fadel of McClatchy reports on her blog today:

“In Basra the city is rivers of sewage, destroyed buildings and bridges from war after war after war…………Every day I pass by the same buildings destroyed during the U.S. led invasion in my neighborhood in Baghdad. Every day they look exactly the same, a pile of rubble. The electricity problem seems to be getting worse; Iraqis have an average of about four hours of electricity a day. While there is talk of reconstruction, a bridge here, flowers planted there the people don’t feel a change.”^[1]

Sometimes it’s hard to grant any credibility whatever to the mainstream media. The problem is, they’re fooling a lot of people.

Thank God for McClatchy.

^{[1] “Bridges and Water and Power, Oh No!” Baghdad Observer, Aug 5th 2008}

Filed under: Rose colored spectacles

George W Bush is in favor of drilling for oil on the continental shelf. John McCain has flip-flopped in favor of a similar policy. Barack Obama is in process of flip-flopping towards the same goal.

Why?

Because, we are told, the vast majority of Americans are also in favor, thus making it an election issue.

Exactly five years ago, thirty-five thousand people died in Europe, all within a few weeks, from the effects of the worst heatwave ever recorded.^[1] Today, according to the US media, Texas and surrounding regions are “…. dealing with history-making heat; dangerous and unhealthy and unrelenting. Eleven straight days of 100+ degree temperatures….” according to NBC News.

California is rapidly becoming one huge bonfire, years of drought parch much of Nebraska, Tennessee, and Georgia,^[2] while just a few months ago most of Iowa and parts of Wisconsin were under water following the wettest spring in the region on record.^[3]

Why do George W Bush, John McCain, Barack Obama, and most Americans want to allow drilling for oil on the continental shelf? Because they believe it will cut America’s dependence on foreign oil, and ensure gas prices drop sufficiently so America can once again tank around in its big SUV’s for decades to come.

Personally, I believe the candidates have far more serious matters to consider. I understand that a majority of Americans suffer from acute blindness, serious deafness, and a shortage of commmonsense. I would like the mandatory issue of optical lenses and hearing aids to become an election issue. Sadly, as yet there’s no quick fix for stupidity.

Unfortunately, my suggestion won’t be taken on board, because the candidates themselves suffer the same afflictions. So, for them, and every American who believes this world exists solely to provide them with dirt cheap gasoline, let me spell it out as simply as possible:

EITHER THE FOSSIL-FUELED INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE IS DEAD, OR WE ARE.

I’m sorry I can’t make it any clearer than that. If you still fail to grasp it, please, just do the rest of us a favor. Take your trusty side-iron out to some solitary spot and blow your last few remaining braincells to the wind, where they’ll be of limited use, but have a more worthwhile existence than when adhered inertly to the inside of your thick skull.

America may want its gasoline prices to fall, but it’s the last thing America needs. Frankly, I’ll be elated if prices keep going up to the point no-one can ever afford to use a fossil-fueled engine again. Then, perhaps, we’ll all get off our backsides and start demanding vehicles that don’t pollute the planet. Vehicles, incidentally, that could be available today, if only the oil companies weren’t desperate to prevent us having them.

Not that they can stop us buying one, you understand. They just happen to own virtually every refueling station on the planet and are not keen to allow hydrogen-storage on their forecourts. Without that infrastructure, no vehicle manufacturer is going to invest too much in a hydrogen-cell vehicle, though to date Honda has the biggest balls in the marketplace.^[4]

During the Iowa floods, ‘MarketWatch’ (link below) published an article focusing on the effect of the disaster on the ethanol industry, reliant as it is on the corn-producing lands so abundant in Iowa:

“….. looking at the flooded plains of the Midwest, we are confronted with the awful realization that domestic energy production is vulnerable not only to the whims of Washington, but to Acts of God in a way that oil fields, tucked deep in the earth, are not.”

MarketWatch got it horribly wrong on just one point. The Iowa floods, the European heatwave of 2003, the droughts in Georgia and Tennessee – none of these are Acts of God. They are all, irrefutably, acts of man.

If America, along with the rest of the planet, doesn’t shake off its complacency and condemn the fossil-fueled internal combustion engine to the scrapheap of history, within a few short years the planet on which we live will effectively do the job for us, not by eliminating the vehicles but through the destruction of those who drive them.

^{[1] “2003 European heat wave” Wikipedia}

^{[2] “Georgians fighting over Tennessee border” TNJN, Feb 12th 2008}

^{[3] “Corn-belt floods sweep aside ethanol hubris” MarketWatch, June 12th 2008}

^{[4] “Honda FCX Clarity 2008}

Filed under: Sanity for sale