Elsewhere Today 474
Aljazeera:
Kenyan police 'shoot protesters'
THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2008
16:42 MECCA TIME, 13:42 GMT
Kenya's opposition leader has accused the police of killing seven protesters, as unrest over the disputed re-election of Mwai Kibaki, the president, moved into its second day.
Raila Odinga, who says the government stole the election, told reporters on Thursday that police shot dead seven protesters in Nairobi, the capital.
"Police are shooting innocent civilians at will ... the government has turned this country into a killing field of innocents," he said, but provided no further details.
Kenyan police said only two people had been shot dead in Mathare, a Nairobi slum and an opposition stronghold.
"The two young men who were killed were part of the demonstrators and they started hurling stones at the officers. That is when officers fired at them," the AFP news agency reported an anonymous senior officer as saying.
Odinga said the dead included a driver for a Kenyan opposition member of parliament, who was shot by police as he attempted to leave his house in the Kasarani district.
Police action
Thursday saw the start of the second of three days of banned rallies called by Odinga to protest against Kibaki's re-election in December 27 polls.
Andrew Simmons, reporting for Al Jazeera from Nairobi, said the demonstrations were causing growing disruption despite their small size.
"Demonstrations are going on across the country. The numbers are not particularly massive, but its causing more and more destabilisation," he said.
Police fired tear gas and bullets into the air to disperse protesters in Mathare and in the western cities of Kisumu and Eldoret, witnesses said.
Paramilitary police were seen clashing with hundreds of opposition protesters, who were armed with rocks and machetes, in Mathare.
In the opposition stronghold of Kisumu, riot police fired teargas on youths who had erected roadblocks on major roads, an AFP correspondent said.
Al Jazeera's Mohammed Adow, reporting from Kisumu, said: "People have been gathering again for the second day ... they've not been gathering in large numbers but some are gathering at intersections in the town and in some of the estates they've been burning tyres and blockading some of the major roads."
The protesters had vowed to avenge the killings of several demonstrators in clashes with police in Kisumu the previous day.
Alfred Mutua, a government spokesman, blamed the violence on "gangs of organised rioters keen to loot and harass the public".
Killings condemned
In Kisumu on Wednesday, security forces shot dead three men.
"The killings by the police is completely unjustified," Ben Rawlence of the Human Rights Watch told the Reuters news agency.
"They have not learnt their lesson since killing at least 44 people last week. They must be held accountable."
In footage shown by local broadcaster KTN, one Kisumu policeman was seen firing his assault rifle at a young man in a black T-shirt who was pulling faces at other officers.
The man in the black T-shirt fell down, then the policeman ran over and kicked him.
KTN, which said four people were feared killed in Wednesday's trouble, said the youth later died.
Across Kenya, more than 600 have been killed in riots and a wave of tribal violence since the outcome of the ballot, which international observers said fell short of democratic standards.
A quarter of a million, many of them members of Kibaki's Kikuyu ethnic group, have been forced from their homes.
International pressure
The US and former colonial power Britain have called on Kibaki's government to let peaceful protests go ahead.
They and 11 other nations have threatened to cut aid if the government's commitment to "good governance, democracy, the rule of law and human rights weakens".
Since being sworn in on December 30, Kibaki, 76, has entrenched his position by naming most of a new cabinet and calling parliament to meet.
Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) has 99 seats in the newly elected parliament, making it the largest single party but short of an overall majority.
Kibaki's Party of National Unity won 43 seats and an ally secured 16.
Source: Al Jazeera and agencies
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/
018FA849-9548-43F9-8BC1-5E5BC6D1EC58.htm
AllAfrica:
NNPC - Offshore Big Fields Now Saviour
By Patrick Ugeh, Abuja
This Day (Lagos) NEWS
17 January 2008
In spite of the activities of the Niger Delta militants and the disruption of oil exploitation and exploration activities, Nigeria's export has remained largely unaffected because of the offshore big fields.
Disclosing this at a news briefing in Abuja yesterday to formally announce the forthcoming Offshore West Africa Conference, the Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division of NNPC, Dr. Levi Ajuonuma, said: "Offshore big fields are our saviour. With offshore oil, the Niger Delta crisis can't affect our OPEC contribution. Deep offshore is the future. A high percentage of our oil exports will come from the deep offshore."
He said new technologies were already being deployed to take drilling "deeper and deeper" into the seas that would be beyond the reach of those disrupting oil production, which had traditionally been on land and shallow water in the Gulf of Guinea.
The 2008 OWA Conference and Exhibition scheduled for January 29-31, according to him, would provide an opportunity to further improve the amount of oil gathered offshore with the recourse to the new technologies to explore deepwater and ultra deepwater areas; shallow water offshore development areas; gas development and marginal field development.
This, he stated, was a fall-out of the drive to increase the Nigerian national reserve base and production capacity to 40 billion barrels and four million barrels per day respectively by the year 2010 has led to an upbeat exploration activities and opening of other frontier areas to the search for oil and gas.
The theme of the conference is "The Gulf of Guinea: Sustaining the Momentum of World Class Resource Development" which Ajuonuma said was quite appropriate at this time because the West African subregion was currently facing the challenges of increasing its offshore activities with a view to further harnessing the potentials of the oil and gas.
Ajuonuma used the opportunity of the pre-conference news briefing to dispel rumours that there were any plans to increase fuel prices, saying the queues experienced recently at filling stations in parts of the country, including Abuja, were simply the outcome of panic buying.
He disclosed that the completion of the repairs of the Shanomi Creek pipeline that was destroyed by militant attacks would make the Warri Refining and Petrochemical Company functional soon as everything was being done to achieve this aim, adding that the Port Harcourt Refinery was "working very well, extremely well despite the last attack at our jetty."
The NNPC spokesman confirmed that the explosion on the ship bringing petroleum products in Port Harcourt was "an attack" by Ateke Tom's guerillas contrary to the denial by an official who emphatically alleged that the explosion of the petroleum tanker was "an accident" which could happen anywhere.
"Our jetty was viciously attacked," Ajuonuma said.
Still on the OWA 2OO8, he said it would showcase some of the new and improved technologies that have the capabilities to facilitate the sustenance of the current tempo of oil and gas activities in the Gulf of Guinea.
"The mission of OWA, among others, is to provide an annual forum that addresses the technical, environmental and business challenges associated with oil and gas exploration and production offshore," he explained. "The conference provides a unique multi-country networking opportunity for attendees to share technology and address issues with experts in their respective fields and to gain an understanding of the changes that are taking place within those technologies."
He said the conference encourages the growth of local content within the industry and the development of young professionals while new comers to the industry have found OWA to be a platform to quickly gain an understanding of key deepwater technologies and issues.
"The annual Offshore West Africa and Exhibition remains the leading source of information on new technology and operating expertise for deepwater and subsea market. It is also the most significant offshore Africa deepwater technology event in the world," Ajuonuma said.
Copyright © 2008 This Day. All rights reserved.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200801170266.html
AlterNet: Punishing Thought Crime:
Would New Bill Make YOU a Terrorist?
By Scott Thill, AlterNet
Posted on January 17, 2008
According to Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., House Resolution 1955, otherwise known as the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007, is a much-needed piece of national security legislation subject to unnecessary paranoia and fear. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, the resolution, which Harman sponsored, is one step too close to an Orwellian nightmare, especially for the Democrats who concocted it.
The truth, as always, lies somewhere in between. But first, let's back up and check the facts.
House Resolution 1955 was introduced without fanfare in April 2007 by Harman and passed with little disagreement in October 2007. In fact, more House politicians missed the vote than voted against it, and if that isn't unanimity as far as American politics go, I don't know what is. Considering the resolution engages three charged terms in succession - "violent," "radical," "terrorism" - it's hard to believe that it wasn't designed to scare the living daylights out of every representative who showed up to vote that day. It also might explain why it garnered 404 yeas and barely enough nays - six, to be exact - to count on one hand. And while 22 representatives declined to show up for the vote, those who felt that H.R. 1955 was a terrible waste of time and tax funds had no chance at voting it down anyway.
In any case, it's the Senate's headache now.
"Legislation such as this demands heavy-handed governmental action against American citizens where no crime has been committed," Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul complained to the House in December, after missing the vote while campaigning. "It is yet another attack on our constitutionally protected civil liberties. It is my sincere hope that we will reject such approaches to security, which will fail at their stated goal at a great cost to our way of life."
The initial text of H.R. 1955 states its aim clearly enough before falling into obfuscation - "to prevent homegrown terrorism, and for other purposes" - a characteristic that could be argued to be its defining template. Speaking of definitions (or the lack thereof), H.R. 1955 defines "homegrown terrorism" and "violent radicalization" nebulously; the former is merely "the use, planned use or threatened use of force or violence by a group or individual born, raised, or based and operating primarily within the United States or any possession of the United States to intimidate or coerce the United States government, the civilian population of the United States, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives," while the latter means "the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious or social change." Ideologically based violence, in turn, is defined as "the use, planned use or threatened use of force or violence by a group or individual to promote the group or individual's political, religious or social beliefs."
Sounds fair enough, until you start crunching the language and come to the realization that practically anyone, on any given day, could fit the description. Which is vague on purpose, as one realizes the farther one digs.
H.R. 1955 also aims to establish not just a National Commission on the Prevention of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism, but also a university-related Center of Excellence for the Study of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism in the United States, two new bureaucracies sure to attract the type of conceptualists that brought you everything from the lame-duck Meese Commission on the alleged link between pornographers and organized crime to the Project for the New American century's invasion and occupation of Iraq in the first place. In the case of the national commission, its supposedly nonpartisan membership is to be hand-picked by not just majority and minority leaders in the Senate and House, among others, but also the president - which means George W. Bush until further notice. And if you think there is comfort to be found in the fact that both the House and the Senate are controlled by Democrats, think again.
"The problem lies not so much in who selects them," explained Mike German, ACLU National Security Policy Counsel, "but in the expertise the bill requires commission members to have and in the requirement that they be eligible for, and receive, security clearances. This requirement will make it far more likely government insiders are selected for the commission, which will of course effect the recommendations they later make."
Which is to say that the commission will likely be staffed by those already on board with H.R. 1955's suspicious xenophobia. Given the fact that its definitions of homegrown terrorism and violent radicalization are so wide-ranging to be practically indefinite, it is striking that Islam and Islam alone is the only major religion or belief system specifically mentioned in the bill. Which is no accident: In Jane Harman's prepared statement for H.R. 1955's related House Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing, and Terrorism Risk Assessment hearing in November, ominously entitled "Using the Web as a Weapon: the Internet as a Tool for Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism," she had nothing to say about terrorists of any other kind. Instead, she mentions three Muslims, one a Jewish convert, who sympathize with al Qaeda or post YouTube videos showing how build bombs out of toy boats, before concluding that "These people no longer need to travel to foreign countries or isolated backwoods compounds to become indoctrinated by extremists and to learn how to kill their neighbors."
And while the text of H.R. 1955 takes some pains to back-door its way out of any anti-Islam imperatives - with what could only be regarded as a footnote buried in Section 899F, subsection 7, that reads "individuals should not be targeted based solely on race, ethnicity or religion" - almost all of the examples cited in the resolution itself as well as prepared statements by its sponsor and co-sponsors take pains to only mention Muslims.
But it's not just race and religion: The perception of H.R. 1955 is so bad that Chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security Bennie Thompson actually had to post a fact sheet in December arguing, among other hilarious things, that the resolution "does not legislate thought or protected political expression and free speech. There are no provisions seeking to change the criminal code or set up a 'Big Brother' regime to put Americans under surveillance."
Methinks the pol doth protest too much.
But the behavioral aims of the National Commission and its Center of Excellence are irrelevant to the matter at hand, which is the generation of revenue and jobs for its friends in the national security sector. Harman's district alone encompasses defense industry giants, which is reflected in her list of top contributors like Boeing (extraordinary rendition!), Raytheon (the pain ray!) and more. And while Harman told In These Times in November that "We're not looking for political cronies," it would be a crime against credulity to claim that members of both the Commission and the Center will feature anyone she hasn't already known yet, directly or otherwise.
"It will no doubt prove to be another bureaucracy that artificially inflates problems so as to guarantee its future existence and funding," Paul predicted in his House speech. "But it may do so at great further expense to our civil liberties." It is, he concluded, an "unwise and dangerous solution in search of a real problem."
The most pressing liberty Ron Paul, the ACLU, Dennis Kucinich and pretty much most left- and right-leaning organizations fear outright is a restriction on the right of internet access, since the House Subcommittee hearings and text of the resolution seized upon it with almost draconian intent. "The Web as a Weapon?" The question begs another: How do you disarm that weapon?
"I agree that focusing a commission to study how Americans 'adopt' belief systems is problematic," said German, "but focusing the Commission on the Internet as an aid to, or facilitator of violent radicalization, will likely result in a recommendation to censor the internet in some manner, which would obviously be a violation of the First Amendment."
Kucinich, who was one of the scant few to vote against the resolution, was equally suspicious. But as usual, he's a bit more dystopian about such measures in his outlook, calling it the "thought crime bill" during a speech to supporters in December.
"If you understand what his bill does, it really sets the stage for further criminalization of protest," Kucinich said. "This is the way our democracy, little by little, is being stripped away from us."
"It only creates a commission," reminded German. "It does not create any new criminal laws or impose any penalties." But that's the bright side. The dark side is as Orwellian as Paul and Kucinich believe.
"The concern," German added, "is that what the commission might recommend to Congress will have great weight. And as we saw with the Patriot Act and the 9/11 Commission recommendations, in a crisis, Congress might just take something off the shelf to create new legislation rather than make its own determination of what truly needs to be done."
If you need a refresher on what that means, rewind your clocks about a decade. Travel back to a time when terrorism was defined as other people, those with a specific or nebulous grievance, including a great many reasonable ones, against the interests of what H.R. 1955 calls the "political and social objectives" of the United States. Long before America inflated its carbon emissions during a global warming crisis, or invaded a sovereign but nevertheless oil-rich nation without cause and killed upwards of hundreds of thousands of its people. Long before the age of Hummers, hedge funds and horror-porn flying in the face of resource wars started over tsunamis, famines and floods. Now fast-forward to the present, look into the mirror, and identify yourself as the terrorist you already may be.
If you had a good reason, that is. But that's not for you to decide. It's up to the National Commission and the Center for Excellence. And their top contributors.
Scott Thill runs the online mag Morphizm.com. His writing has appeared on Salon, XLR8R, All Music Guide, Wired and others.
© 2008 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at:
http://www.alternet.org/story/73991/
Arab News:
10 Die Due to Cold Weather
P.K. Abdul Ghafour, Abdul Aziz Abdul Wahed & Yousuf Muhammad, Arab News
Thursday 17 January 2008 (09 Muharram 1429)
JEDDAH/AL-JOUF/MADINAH, 17 January 2008 — At least 10 people and hundreds of animals have died as a result of unprecedented cold weather in different parts of the Kingdom.
The coastal city of Jeddah is preparing for the coldest weather in recent years. According to weather forecast for tomorrow, temperature in the city will drop to 11 degrees Celsius. In Riyadh, it will be minus two, said the Presidency of Meteorology and Environment. It forecast that the weather in Madinah would be two and in the northern city of Tabuk, it will be minus four.
“We expect rain in many parts of the Eastern Province and the Riyadh region,” the presidency added.
Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah on Tuesday ordered emergency relief supplies, including foodstuffs and blankets, to be distributed to needy citizens affected by the weather.
Three people, including an 18-year-old Saudi student and an Indian worker, died in Al-Ola, 400 km north of Madinah. The student died while she was going to school early in the morning. Doctors said she had died after her heart stopped beating as a result of severe cold.
Another expatriate was found dead on the road in Mahd, 300 km northeast of Madinah. Adel Abdul Raheem Sharaf, spokesman for health affairs in Madinah, confirmed that both expatriates died of cold.
Two more expatriate workers were found dead in their company accommodation in Madinah after inhaling smoke from firewood which they were burning to protect themselves against cold.
Mansour Al-Johani, spokesman for civil defense, cautioned the public against adopting unsafe methods of heating.
Maj. Gen. Hamid Al-Jeaid, director general of civil defense in the Eastern Province, said 90 percent of accidents in winter were caused by the incorrect use of firewood.
He also pointed out that expatriate workers were the main victims of such accidents. He urged the public to avoid using firewood because of the dangers involved.
Press reports said two expatriates working in the eastern city of Al-Ahsa died on Monday when the tent where they were sleeping in caught fire because of burning wood.
Snow has fallen on some northern Saudi cities where at least two people died from the cold. One was an Asian worker and the other an Egyptian who froze to death in his room on the farm where he worked, newspapers said. Another Egyptian worker died from inhaling the fumes of a coal fire he lit in his room.
Meanwhile, some Western journalists who came to the Kingdom to cover the visits of US President George W. Bush and French President Nicolas Sarkozy had a wonderful time as a result of the unexpected weather.
“I had never expected such beautiful weather in Saudi Arabia. I had come here with the expectation of extremely hot weather,” said one journalist.
But for cattle owners across the Kingdom the weather was disastrous as they lost hundreds of their animals.
Ayed Al-Ruwaili, a cattle owner in the northern Al-Jouf region, said he had lost more than 200 animals.
Copyright: Arab News © 2003 All rights reserved.
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=
1§ion=0&article=105752&d=17&m=1&y=2008
Clarín: En una historieta, una mujer iraní
cuenta la lucha contra el velo
Persépolis, de Marjane Satrapi es un best-seller en Europa. La obra autobiográfica habla de una chica que crece en plena Revolución Islámica. Ahora llega la versión cinematográfica.
15.01.2008 | Ideas
Cómics y películas animadas se perfilan como eficientes soportes para desgranar historias con inevitable denuncia feminista. Si en Japón triunfan las viñetas de Hataraki Man,cuya heroína lucha por lograr el reconocimiento laboral en una cultura empresarial dominada por hombres, en Europa lo hace Persépolis,el célebre cómic autobiográfico de la francoiraní Marjane Satrapi (Rasht, Irán, 1969), cuya versión cinematográfica introduce al gran público en un nuevo enfoque del debate sobre el velo, sacando a la luz la cotidianidad de las mujeres que se rebelan contra la obligación de llevarlo.
"Persépolis nos permite cambiar nuestra perspectiva respecto a ciertos radicalismos, como la visión que tenemos de los musulmanes, que parece que todos tengan que ser integristas, y también respecto al velo: nos recuerda que no todas lo llevan y que no en todos esos países se ha llevado siempre". Quien así habla es Anna Guerrero, presidenta en Barcelona de la organización francesa Ni Putes ni Submises. Se refiere a esa visión de una familia liberal y culta iraní que resiste frente al sha para verle luego sustituido por Jomeini. "Tengo la sensación - prosigue Guerrero- de que en nuestro país la gente no sabe que en el mundo árabe hay lucha feminista. Una estudiante me consultó para un trabajo de investigación y se sorprendió cuando le dije que allí existen movimientos contrarios al velo. Eso es lo positivo de Persépolis:nos recuerda que en Irán las mujeres no lo llevaban durante muchos años y que fue la revolución la que les obligó a ponérselo".
La historieta narra cómo Marjane trata desde su niñez de conquistar espacios de libertad en un Irán convertido en República Islámica. Su mirada feminista es tranquila y honesta: sencillamente, algo no encaja en aquella sociedad. "El velo nos hace libres - les dice en una viñeta a sus alumnas la maestra de Marjane-, nos preserva de la mirada de los hombres".
Treinta mil ejemplares vendidos en Francia en sólo un año y todo un best seller entre la juventud de Catalunya, el cómic transmite desde la primera viñeta la idea de que hay lugar para la resistencia. La adaptación en dibujos al cine - encumbrada en Cannes y designada por Francia como aspirante al Oscar- esparce esa misma idea sobre un público más amplio. Persépolis ha sido uno de los productos inusuales de la cartelera navideña; pronto saldrá en DVD y los pósters arrasan en las tiendas. ¿La clave? La lucidez de Marjane, que se mueve en un mundo dual, entre guardianes de la revolución que la increpan durante su inquieta pubertad - "no puedes correr, se te mueve el culo de manera impropia"- y un mercado negro de alcohol, fiestas privadas y pop que se vende a susurros por discretas esquinas: Estivi Vonder,Bee Jees,Julio Iglesias, Pink Floyd, Jickael Mackson.
A la discusión en Occidente sobre el velo le convenía cierta dosis de realidad procedente de los países islámicos para poder observar que no todo pivota entre una debida tolerancia hacia las musulmanas que quieren llevarlo y la necesidad de garantizar espacios libres de signos religiosos: se trata también de proporcionar a las mujeres la posibilidad de romper con sus supuestas obligaciones de decencia. La Vanguardia ha contrastado el mensaje de Persépolis con la profesora de estudios árabes e islámicos Dolors Bramon, quien alaba de la historieta que "refleja cómo algo como el velo puede imponerse de forma estúpida".
En Ser dona i musulmana (Cruïlla, 2007) Bramon analiza la situación de las mujeres en las tradiciones islámicas y concluye que la palabra de Dios según el Alto Corán era en el siglo VII revolucionaria: ¡reconocía por primera vez que la mujer también tenía alma! Sin embargo, el texto estuvo sujeto a interpretaciones patriarcales, de ahí la supuesta obligación del velo.
"El velo - asegura Bramon- no es religión, es básicamente cultura, y últimamente reacción contra una avasalladora cultura occidental respecto a la inmigración. Estoy preocupada porque aumenta su uso y es difícil hacer cambiar de opinión a quien quiere ponérselo". Contraria a prohibirlo, Bramon recuerda que en países árabes, muchas abuelas y madres que no lo habían llevado en su vida empiezan a verlo en sus nietas e hijas. "Lo he visto en Jordania, donde pasé el verano del 80", asegura.
Si en los años 50 las jóvenes marroquíes, argelinas y tunecinas lo habían abandonado casi por completo, la caída del muro acentuó las diferencias con la religión y la cultura islámicas, lo que originó, señala Bramon, una doble reacción: la reivindicación de sus tradiciones y de su condición religiosa por medio del velo y un rechazo a la imposición de los modelos de la cultura occidental. "En Barcelona y Madrid se ven unos tapamientos... - advierte-; y también lo fomentan las comunidades islámicas. Hay rumores fundados de que existen premios en metálico para las familias de las que van tapadas. ¡Eso no es libertad!".
Al final de sus clases, esta doctora en Filología Semítica felicita a las musulmanas por no llevar el velo. No las puede distinguir del resto de las universitarias, pero le constan en su lista. En su opinión, las inmigrantes se lo quitarán a medida que se culturicen. "Leerán el Corán con un criterio propio y verán que no están obligadas.
Copyright 1996-2008 Clarín.com - All rights reserved
http://www.clarin.com/notas/2008/01/15/01585889.html
Guardian:
Kenyan police 'kill 10 protesters'
Haroon Siddique and agencies
Thursday January 17, 2008
Police in Kenya shot 10 people dead today as protests against the disputed re-election of President Mwai Kibaki continued, reports said.
Raila Odinga, the leader of the opposition Orange Democratic movement (ODM), said seven of his supporters had been killed in the capital, Nairobi. An eyewitness said a further three people were shot in Kisumu.
The reported deaths came on the second of three days of planned demonstrations by the ODM.
"Today, seven people have been killed in Kasarani constituency," Odinga told Reuters. "Police are shooting innocent civilians at will ... the government has turned this country into a killing field of innocents."
In Nairobi's Mathare slum, where police fired teargas at hundreds of ODM supporters as they blocked a road, another four people were shot and wounded, Ruth Kagunda, a medical worker said.
In the Kibera slum, people hijacked a train that was passing through and were stealing its cargo, according to a Reuters cameraman.
There were also clashes between the city's different ethnic groups with members of the same tribe as Kibaki - Kikuyus - targeted by machete-wielding slum dwellers.
Erich Ochieng said he had seen a woman's body and helped carry two men's bodies in the ODM's western stronghold of Kisumu.
"The woman was shot in her house near the airport, and the two men were shot in Otonglo," the 18-year-old added.
A resident of the town's Kondele slum accused officers of shooting "indiscriminately".
"My father was shot as he stood in front of our house," Alphonse Otieno told Reuters. "The police were shooting indiscriminately, targeting anyone on sight. My father was shot in the stomach."
Witnesses on the town's Nyalenda road said police shot at people to disperse them. Blood could be seen on the pavement.
Police chasing protesters in the western town of Eldoret fired teargas into the emergency wing of the Moi Teaching and Referral hospital, a hospital official said.
"The police wanted to force their way in and, when the security officers restrained them, they fired teargas and hit a security officer on the nose and he fell down," the official added.
Odinga has called for three days of protests in defiance of the government's ban on demonstrations. The move is an attempt to step up the pressure on Kibaki, who has been accused of stealing last month's election.
Most estimates put the death toll since Kibaki was declared the winner of the December 30 poll at more than 600.
However, Odinga - who has accused the police of shooting his supporters under government orders - today claimed more than 1,000 people had been killed in the unrest.
Local and international observers said the presidential election results were not credible because of large irregularities in the tallying of votes at the election headquarters.
Attempts to get Odinga and Kibaki to hold talks in an effort to find a way to end the violence have failed, with the two men blaming each other for the crisis.
Alfred Mutua, a government spokesman, today said the government was "very open to dialogue".
However, he warned that the Kenyan administration would "not be blackmailed" by threats by 13 nations, including the US and Britain, to cut aid.
The latest violence began yesterday when police used teargas and live rounds in an attempt to crush demonstrations.
As the clashes continued today, the death toll from yesterday's violence mounted, with reports of four bodies - including that of a 10-year-old boy - in the morgue in Kisumu, which suffered the worst violence.
In footage shown by local channel KTN, a policeman in Kisumu was yesterday seen firing his assault rifle at a young man, who fell down and was then kicked.
Salim Lone, an ODM spokesman, called it a "cold-blooded execution".
In Nairobi, at least three men were taken to hospital yesterday after being shot and wounded in the Kibera slum, one of two in the city in which police fired teargas and bullets to disperse hundreds of protesters.
The former UN secretary general Kofi Annan had been due in Kenya this week to try to mediate between Odinga and Kibaki, but fell ill. His office gave no date for his arrival.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/kenya/story/0,,2242178,00.html
Jeune Afrique: La crise au Kenya,
l'exemple qui inquiète les Ivoiriens
CÔTE D'IVOIRE - 16 janvier 2008 - AFP
A six mois d'une élection présidentielle, les Ivoiriens veulent tirer les leçons des violences post-électorales au Kenya qui ont fait ressurgir le spectre d'un conflit interethnique en Côte d'Ivoire, un pays confronté depuis plus d'une décennie à une crise identitaire.
"Regardez ce qui arrive au Kenya", a déclaré le président Laurent Gbagbo lors d'un récent déplacement à l'intérieur de la Côte d'Ivoire.
"Il faut que les hommes politiques de Côte d'Ivoire ne s'amusent pas avec le tribalisme, (...) aucune tribu en Côte d'Ivoire ne peut gagner une élection", a martelé M. Gbagbo, chef d'un Etat qui compte une soixantaine de groupes ethniques.
Certaines personnes "croient que si elles ne sont élues (...) c'est leur mort", a affirmé le chef de l'Etat ivoirien, au pouvoir depuis 2000 et dont le mandat a été prolongé en 2005 en raison de la tentative de coup d'Etat d'une rébellion en 2002, suivie d'un conflit armé.
"Les élections ne sont pas faites pour préparer la guerre, mais pour qu'il n'y ait jamais de guerre", a ajouté M. Gbagbo.
Sa victoire, dès le premier tour de la présidentielle de 2000, avait été très contestée en l'absence des deux autres ténors de la scène politique, l'ex-président Henri Konan Bédié et l'ancien Premier ministre Alassane Ouattara, et des violences avaient dans la foulée entraîné la mort de dizaines de personnes.
A l'approche d'une nouvelle présidentielle, prévue d'ici à la fin juin selon les accords de paix signés avec la rébellion, les déclarations de M. Gbagbo sonnent comme une mise en garde.
Elles interviennent aussi en pleine polémique après des propos de Kouadio Konan Bertin, le président de la Jeunesse du Parti démocratique de Côte d'Ivoire (PDCI, ex-parti unique), la formation de M. Bédié.
Surnommé "KKB", ce jeune politicien a provoqué un tollé en dénonçant lors d'un meeting en décembre le meurtre de "milliers de Baoulé", l'ethnie de M. Bédié, à Gagnoa (ouest), région d'origine des Bété, l'ethnie du président Gbagbo.
Ses propos, qui ont provoqué un déchaînement de critiques dans la presse pro-Gbagbo et l'ouverture d'une procédure judiciaire, font référence aux affrontements meurtriers du milieu des années 1990 dans les régions cacaoyères de l'Ouest.
Sur fond de crise économique, des conflits fonciers étaient survenus entre les "autochtones" (Bété et Guéré) et les "allogènes" venus d'autres régions de Côte d'Ivoire ou de pays voisins.
A cette époque, la Côte d'Ivoire était aussi rongée par l'"ivoirité", un concept utilisé par le parti au pouvoir (PDCI) qui visait à distinguer les Ivoiriens de souches multiséculaires, provoquant l'ostracisme de certains groupes ethniques, notamment ceux du Nord (Sénoufo, Malinké).
Le ressentiment et la crise identitaire qui en découlent seront d'ailleurs l'un des moteurs de la rébellion.
"La situation est réellement et potentiellement plus explosive qu'au Kenya", affirme aujourd'hui le président de la Ligue ivoirienne des droits de l'Homme (Lidho), Patrick N'Gouan.
Pour ce dernier, "le Kenya et la Côte d'Ivoire font partie des pays africains qui ont mal négocié le passage du parti unique au multipartisme et qui connaissent des problèmes récurrents de gouvernance et de violence électorale".
Pour éviter un scénario à la kényane, le président Gbagbo a promis un "projet de loi contre le tribalisme, le racisme et la xénophobie".
"Une telle loi manque à la Côte d'Ivoire car jouer avec le tribalisme n'est pas digne d'un Etat moderne", a-t-il ajouté.
Mais pour Joseph Bogny, un enseignant-chercheur à l'Université de Cocody (Abidjan), "ce n'est pas avec des lois qu'on va lutter contre le tribalisme".
"C'est un problème d'éducation et de sensibilisation des populations, a ajouté ce spécialiste en linguistique, estimant que "les dirigeants doivent d'abord montrer l'exemple".
http://www.jeuneafrique.com/jeune_afrique/
article_depeche.asp?art_cle=AFP54648lacrisneiri0
Mail & Guardian:
Heavy fighting erupts in Somali capital
Aweys Yusuf and Abdi Sheikh | Mogadishu, Somalia
17 January 2008
At least 13 people were killed and 75 wounded in heavy fighting in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, on Thursday in the latest confrontation between Ethiopian troops and Islamist-led insurgents, witnesses said.
Fighting between insurgents and the interim government backed by Ethiopian forces broke out in the Somali capital more than a year ago, plunging the city into bloodshed in which more than 6 500 have been killed and 600 000 have fled their homes.
Residents said Ethiopian army units based in north Mogadishu had marched to the sprawling Bakara market on Thursday, where insurgents confronted them, prompting fierce gun battles and exchanges of mortar rounds.
"I saw two dead Ethiopian soldiers lying in the middle of the road. There were also two Somalis wounded in the crossfire," witness Abdi Ahmed told Reuters by phone.
The Somali government and Ethiopia believe Bakara - the city's biggest market - is a hotbed of insurgents, and have routinely attacked it while carrying out sweeps for insurgents.
Hassan Abdikafi, a kiosk owner in Bakara, said Ethiopian tanks had fired into the crowded market.
"Four dead people are lying inside the market. I can also see nine wounded people. The Ethiopian forces have occupied Blacksea area and they are firing their tank guns towards the market," Abdikafi said.
Mortar rounds killed six people and wounded four, witnesses said. "Two mortar rounds hit two homes next to each other. The first one killed five people from the same family and the other one killed one person, wounding at least four others," resident Sahra Hashi told Reuters.
Officials at Madina Hospital said one woman died in the operating theatre, and 75 people - including 15 children - had been admitted with serious injuries.
The interim government took over Mogadishu in the last days of 2006 with the help of Ethiopian armour and air power, unseating an Islamist movement that had challenged its authority with a six-month reign over most of southern Somalia.
The government has moved back into Mogadishu but has never fully controlled the city and fighting erupts regularly, often when insurgent attacks prompt Ethiopian and Somali troops to assault neighbourhoods regarded as pro-Islamist.
Reuters
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?
articleid=329926&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__africa/
New Statesman:
Obama can win the race
Helena Kennedy
Published 17 January 2008
In Britain, we fail to understand how deep the fissures around race in America can be. Before the end of this election, all efforts will be used to discredit Obama
I have just returned from the United States, where political insult and invective hit lows that would be considered beyond the pale in Britain. Race and sex stir deep emotions and there are undoubtedly deep hostilities in the presidential contest.
Barack Obama is the first viable black American candidate for the presidency. He has the wit to realise that if he panders to "special interests" and is seen as the candidate of the blacks, he has no chance of succeeding; thus his efforts to reach a wide audience have seen him characterised as "not black enough".
In Britain, we fail to understand how deep the fissures around race in America can be. Before the end of this election, all efforts will be used to discredit Obama. To some, the idea of a black president is still unthinkable.
Many of us are waiting to see whether Obama will add flesh in terms of policies to the brilliance of his oratory. But what cannot be denied is his huge intelligence. Last week in this magazine, Andrew Stephen suggested that "far from being the brilliant student . . . Obama was a consistently B-grade pupil", who ended up at a none-too-great liberal arts college before moving to Columbia University and then Harvard Law School. But this trajectory could not be achieved by a B-grade brain. Columbia is very competitive and places at Harvard Law School are highly prized.
Obama went on to become the first black president of the Harvard Law Review, the most prestigious of legal journals, which had been an exclusionary zone to women and blacks. He was the first black person to break the barrier.
Obama's political team has been criticised for allowing the media to interview his very elderly Kenyan "grandmother". Stephen wrote: "The only problem was that the woman in rural Kenya was not Obama's grandmother but the alleged foster mother of Obama's father." Obama has written about his father's foster mother, who was not his birth mother but was in every other respect his parent. It should not be presented as a manufactured relationship.
There have been suggestions that Obama's opposition to the war may be a recent invention since he was not able to vote in the Senate in 2002. But Obama was in the Illinois state legislature and, unlike Hillary Clinton, was highly vocal in his opposition to the war.
Nor is it true that there is little difference politically between the leading Democrats. There is an important difference. The only Democratic candidate who does not totally oppose "enhanced interrogation techniques" is Clinton. She has said there may be circumstances in which special methods of interrogation might be used on the authorisation of the president. Such a position is an assault on the absolute prohibition on torture. Politicians who betray their ideals to secure power rarely recover those ideals once in office.
Obama is now being patronised as a "kid" and a purveyor of "fairy tales" by Bill Clinton. These insults echo a past in which black people in America were not dignified with adulthood but were referred to as "boys".
http://www.newstatesman.com/200801170019
Página/12:
No acierta ni una
Por Juan Gelman
Jueves, 17 de Enero de 2008
El propósito declarado de la reciente visita de W. Bush a Israel y de su gira por cinco países árabes del Golfo era contribuir a la paz entre palestinos e israelíes. Pero no. El mandatario norteamericano preconizó la necesidad de una alianza EE.UU./Israel/Emiratos Arabes Unidos/ Kuwait/Egipto/Arabia Saudita/Bahrein contra “el peligro iraní”. Hizo algo más que discursos: prometió entregarles armamentos por valor de 20.000 millones de dólares y el mensaje es claro. No es nuevo. Lo notable es cómo W. varía la escala de argucias para atacar a Teherán, que cambia de mayor a menor.
Primero fue el peligro del programa iraní de desarrollo de bombas nucleares, un latiguillo que no se cansó de repetir. Y hete aquí que, en diciembre pasado, la Estimación de Inteligencia Nacional (NIE, por sus siglas en inglés) acordada por los 16 servicios de espionaje norteamericanos estableció que eso no existe. Dice el NIE: “Estimamos con un alto grado de certidumbre que Teherán interrumpió su programa de armamento nuclear en otoño de 2003... Estimamos con un alto grado de certidumbre que la interrupción de los trabajos mencionados dura al menos varios años... Estimamos con un nivel de certidumbre moderado que a mediados de 2007 Teherán no había relanzado su programa de armamento nuclear... Estimamos asimismo, con un grado de certidumbre de mediano a alto, que Irán no posee actualmente armas nucleares” (www.odni.gov, 17-12-07). La razón de esta bofetada que la CIA y Cía. propinaron a Bush es materia debatible. Algunos opinan que sería la manifestación de una puja entre “halcones-gallina” que quieren fugarse hacia adelante y los llamados conservadores realistas –incluyendo a ciertos mandos militares– que están hartos del pantano iraquí. Sea lo que fuere, W. se vio obligado a cambiar de canal.
Esgrimió entonces al incidente naval en el estrecho de Ormuz: cinco lanchas patrulleras iraníes se acercaron a un destructor, un crucero y una fragata de la 5ª Flota estadounidense que patrulla las aguas del golfo. Bush calificó el hecho de “grave” y lo evaluó como otra prueba de las intenciones terroristas de Irán. En el video que preparó el Pentágono se observan las maniobras iraníes y en cierto momento se escucha una voz que amenaza en mal inglés: “Voy por ustedes..., van a explotar... en pocos minutos” (AP, 8-1-08). La voz está sola: ningún ruido de oleaje o de máquinas la acompaña, como es habitual en las transmisiones navales. Un pequeño detalle, no más.
“Funcionarios navales y del Pentágono dijeron que el video y el audio se grabaron por separado y luego se mezclaron”, informó New York Times (10-1-08). “La lista de quienes menos confían en el video/audio del Pentágono sobre maniobras agresivas de lanchas iraníes que se aproximaron a buques norteamericanos en el estrecho de Ormuz incluye al propio Pentágono. Funcionarios del Pentágono que guardaron el anonimato señalaron que la voz amenazadora del video fue grabada separadamente de las imágenes y mezclada con ellas a posteriori...” (www.theledeblogs.nytimes.com, 14-1-08). Se desvanecía la posibilidad de volver a montar el escenario del Golfo de Tonkin, cuando en 1964 tres lanchas torpederas nordvietnamitas supuestamente atacaron al “USS Madox”. Fue el pretexto que la Casa Blanca amañó para intervenir militarmente en Vietnam contra Ho Chi Ming. Se conoce el final.
La cuestión es delicada: Irán y los Emiratos Arabes Unidos reclaman para sí la mitad de las aguas de Ormuz y la franja de aguas internacionales es angosta allí. Por el estrecho pasan los buques-tanque de Irak, Irán y los países árabes del Golfo para abastecer de petróleo a EE.UU. y a buena parte del Occidente desarrollado. Si la Casa Blanca inventa otro Tonkin en Ormuz, el resultado sería catastrófico. Para no hablar de la enorme pérdida de vidas humanas: el precio del oro negro podría llegar a 200 dólares por barril, se desataría una inflación galopante, el sistema financiero internacional conocería su desastre y volverían al siglo XXI los tiempos de la gran depresión del ‘30. Pero la respuesta de W. al informe NIE fue tajante: “Irán fue un peligro, es un peligro y será siempre un peligro”. No hay ciego peor que el que no quiere saber.
Durante su gira, W. cambió nuevamente de canal: acusó a Irán de apoyar a la insurgencia iraquí, a los terroristas de Al Qaida y a Hamas. Lo primero es improbable: son chiítas los gobiernos de Irán y de Irak y han concertado acuerdos de seguridad mutua. Teherán no olvida que el sunnita Saddam Hussein le impuso una larga guerra. En cuanto a Al Qaida, su nido es Pakistán, no Irán. Y Bush “se equivoca” cuando habla del terrorismo de Hamas, un movimiento armado y, por lo visto, popular: ganó las elecciones en los territorios palestinos ocupados. Es más que posible que Teherán lo alimente por su tozuda negación de la existencia del Estado de Israel. Harina de otro costal.
© 2000-2008 www.pagina12.com.ar|Todos los Derechos Reservados
http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/contratapa/13-97573-2008-01-17.html
The Independent:
Police fight Kenyan protesters for second day
Reuters
Published: 17 January 2008
Kenyan police and opposition backers clashed today in a second day of protests against President Mwai Kibaki's disputed re-election in which police have already killed three.
Riot police fired teargas at hundreds of supporters of opposition challenger Raila Odinga and his Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) coalition, blocking a road near Nairobi's Mathare slum, witnesses said.
Reuters photographer Antony Njuguna said about 40 police officers were facing off with hundreds of demonstrators near Mathare, one of the flashpoints during nearly three weeks of violence that has convulsed the east African nation.
"There's a massive crowd trying to block the road. Police are shooting teargas at them," he said from the scene.
In the western opposition stronghold of Kisumu, riot police shot in the air and struck at least one man as they battled youths who set up blazing roadblocks and gathered to protest.
"My father was shot as he stood in front of our house. The police were shooting indiscriminately, targeting anyone on sight. My father was shot in the stomach," witness Alphonse Otieno said by phone from Kisumu's Kondele slum.
Kisumu saw the worst violence on Wednesday, the first of three days of nationwide demonstrations called by the opposition.
Police have banned the rallies called by Odinga, who says Kibaki stole the 27 December election. The government in turn accuses his side of rigging votes and of protesting instead of using legal options to challenge the result.
Kenya's sudden descent into crisis has tarnished its democratic credentials, horrified world powers, scared off tourists and hurt one of Africa's most promising economies.
Police have met the latest unrest with tear gas and live ammunition as they did in earlier protests which ground the east African nation to a halt, delaying school openings and shutting businesses.
On Wednesday, police shot dead three in Kisumu - which erupted in a spree of looting and rioting immediately after Kibaki was sworn in on 30 December.
ODM spokesman Salim Lone condemned one killing, captured on television, as a "cold-blooded execution."
In footage shown by local broadcaster KTN, a Kisumu policeman was seen firing his assault rifle at a young man who fell down, and then was kicked by the officer.
KTN, which said four people were feared killed on Wednesday, said the youth later died. Police spokesman Eric Kiraithe told media those shot in Kisumu had attacked officers first.
Also on Wednesday, TV footage showed police tear-gassing opposition leaders at two hotels, and then chasing them down Nairobi's main Kenyatta Avenue. Odinga was near but stayed in his four-wheel drive truck, the footage showed.
Human Rights Watch said police have been heavy-handed and have killed at least 47 people during the post-election turmoil.
Around 620 have been killed nationwide in attacks on tribes and people suspected of having supported Kibaki, and by police.
A quarter of a million people, many of them members of Kibaki's Kikuyu ethnic group, have been forced from their homes.
International observers have said the vote fell short of democratic standards and both sides accuse the other of rigging.
The United States and former colonial power Britain have called on Kibaki's government to let peaceful protests go ahead.
They and 11 other nations have threatened to cut aid if the government's commitment to "good governance, democracy, the rule of law and human rights weakens".
But those are likely empty threats because Kenya gets less than 5 percent of its budget from donors.
The Nation newspaper urged both sides to "isolate dangerous demagogues" in their midst to forge a compromise to save Kenya.
"When two bulls fight ... it is the grass that suffers. The grass here is the ordinary people of Kenya who have been reduced to expendable cannon fodder as the rich and powerful duel for political supremacy," the paper said in an editorial.
Since being sworn in, Kibaki, 76, has entrenched his position by naming most of a new cabinet, including figures the ODM says are hardliners, and calling parliament to meet.
Former UN boss Kofi Annan had been due in Kenya this week to lead a team of "Eminent Africans" in a push for peace, but he fell ill. His office gave no date for his arrival.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/article3345743.ece
The Nation:
Nationalists Stirring in Iraq
by ROBERT DREYFUSS
[posted online on January 16, 2008]
On January 13 an emerging Sunni-Shiite nationalist bloc in Iraq signed a groundbreaking agreement aimed at ending Iraq's civil war, blocking the privatization of Iraq's oil industry and checkmating the breakaway Kurdish state. It's a big step forward, and it could change the face of Iraqi politics in 2008.
For the past two years, Iraqi nationalists-opposed to the US occupation, opposed to Al Qaeda and opposed to Iran's heavyhanded influence in Iraqi affairs-have struggled to assert themselves. The nascent coalition contains the seeds of true national reconciliation in Iraq, but it has emerged independently of the United States. Unrelated to the constant American pressure on the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to meet various reconciliation "benchmarks," the new coalition is designed either to sweep Maliki out of office or force him to join it.
Enormous obstacles stand in the way of the Sunni-Shiite coalition, and Iraq is just as likely to descend into a new round of intense civil war as it is to stabilize under a new ruling bloc. Still, it could work, but there's a big if-if the United States steps back and gets out of the way.
Since the rigged Iraqi elections of 2005, the United States has supported a shaky and now utterly discredited four-party coalition in Iraq. Two of those parties are the ultra-religious Shiite parties, the Islamic Dawa Party and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), both strongly supported by Iran. The other two are the Kurdish warlord parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). During that time, Iraq's two prime ministers, Ibrahim Jaafari (2005-06) and Maliki (2006-2008)-both from Dawa-have staunchly refused to open the door to increased Sunni Arab participation in the government. But now that coalition is falling apart, and its partners are increasingly at odds with one another.
The potential collapse of the Shiite-Kurdish pact that has ruled Iraq under the American occupation has created a freewheeling search for competing alliances among the myriad political factions that have emerged since Saddam Hussein's overthrow.
Partners in the new, twelve-party alliance include nearly all of the Sunni Arab parties, including the Sunni religious parties and the secular National Dialogue Front; the secular Iraqi National List of former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, a secular Shiite; two big Shiite parties, including Muqtada al-Sadr's bloc and the Fadhila (Virtue) Party; a faction of the Dawa Party; and assorted smaller groups, including independents in Iraq's Parliament. Among its goals, say its leaders, are to ensure that Iraq's "oil, natural gas, and other treasures [remain the] property of all the Iraqi people," opposing both the proposed new oil law that would open the door to privatization of the oil industry and the illegal oil deals signed by the Kurdish regional government. Another goal, they say, is to block the Kurdish takeover of the oil-rich region around Kirkuk in Iraq's north. And, they say, the new coalition will "overcome the narrow circle of sectarianism" by uniting Sunnis and Shiites.
What's more, there are reports of talks involving the remaining Sunni resistance groups-those that have not joined the American-sponsored Awakening movement and the so-called Concerned Local Citizens groups-in a broad-based national reconciliation effort. According to the Arab press, six Sunni resistance factions have been meeting in England in preparation for a proposed conference in Cairo with representatives of the Iraqi government and political parties. A parallel effort is under way at meetings in Beirut. And French President Nicolas Sarkozy, currently touring the Middle East, has renewed his country's offer to bring Iraq's warring political factions together. Sarkozy suggested "hosting in France, far from the heat of passions and on neutral ground, inter-Iraqi roundtable talks that are as large as possible." It's unclear whether Sarkozy's proposed conference would include representatives of the armed resistance, but it's possible. (An earlier offer by France to host similar talks got the cold shoulder from Maliki and no encouragement from the United States.)
The fact that Sadr's bloc opted to join the opposition bloc is critical. Not only does Sadr command thirty-two seats in Iraq's Parliament but on the ground in Baghdad and in the south his Mahdi Army militia is a formidable force. The Fadhila Party, too, has great power in and around Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, which controls the bulk of the oil industry and Iraq's exports.
A wild card in any political realignment in Iraq is the attitude of the powerful new Sahwa (Awakening) movement, the 100,000-strong paramilitary force whose backbone is Iraq's tribal leaders. Currently, the Sahwa movement is strong in Anbar, Diyala, Salahuddin and Nineveh provinces to the west and north of the capital, as well as in Baghdad itself and in the suburban belt south of Baghdad. Though Sahwa is not a party (and thus has no seats in Parliament), it is a power to be reckoned with, and it is being courted assiduously both by the new nationalist coalition and by Dawa and ISCI. If forced to choose, the Sahwa movement would be far more likely to align with nationalists than with Shiite sectarian parties, since the tribal leaders regard ISCI, in particular, as an agent of Iran.
So far, the United States has continued to prop up Maliki's shaky regime, despite its growing unpopularity. US officials fear that if Maliki were to fall, the results would be unpredictable-especially in an election year. Besides, the nationalists would be far less likely than Maliki to sign the proposed long-term extension of the American presence in Iraq that Maliki and President Bush intend to ink by July.
A hint of how entrenched the American presence in Iraq might be came this week, when Iraq's defense minister, Abdul Qader Mohammed Jassim, came to the United States for an extended visit, during which he met with long-range planning staff at the Pentagon. During his visit, Jasim declared that a significant number of troops would have to remain in Iraq for another ten years, until 2018.
The passage, on Saturday, of the so-called Accountability and Justice Act by Parliament was widely hailed by US officials, including President Bush, as a sign that at least one of the benchmarks laid out at the start of the surge a year ago had been met. That act was supposed to have eased the draconian anti-Baath party rules that excluded hundreds of thousands of Iraqis from government service and jobs.
The act was passed by a half-empty Parliament, with only 140 of the 275 elected members of the body in attendance. It was widely condemned by the very people it was designed to help, including several Sunni and secular parties and former Baathists, and it appears that the new law could trigger a purge of Iraq's defense ministry, interior ministry, army and police, forcing many thousands of former Baathists out of the security services-in other words, precisely the opposite of its ostensible purpose. Indeed, because Sadr's bloc is so bitterly anti-Baathist, it is possible that Maliki chose this moment to force passage of the law in an attempt to use the divisive issue as a wedge to split Sadr away from potential partners in the new alliance.
In the end, Iraq is still a shattered nation. Its economy is a shambles. The sectarian civil war has eased, but violence is everywhere. In the past week, two major US military actions-a sweeping offensive just north of Baghdad and one of the heaviest aerial bombardments of an area south of the capital-killed scores. The situation around Kirkuk is explosive. And intra-Shiite violence in Basra and other cities in the south simmers just below civil war levels. Even without US interference, it might still take a miracle for a stable Iraqi coalition to take root.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080128/dreyfuss
ZNet:
Racing Towards The Abyss
The U.S. Atomic Bombing of Japan
By David Cromwell
January, 17 2008
Introduction
One of the major events of the twentieth century, with reverberations that reach today, is the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan in 1945. Before the bomb was used, the top officials who led the Manhattan Project told U.S. president Harry S. Truman:
"The world in its present state of moral advancement compared with its technical development would be eventually at the mercy of such a weapon. In other words, modern civilization might be completely destroyed."[1]
Many people, and I concur, believe that the moral 'justification' of using the atomic bomb in World War II, and the threatened use of nuclear weapons in succeeding decades, has no basis in civilised society. But what about the conventional argument that the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan did, nonetheless, bring about the end of the war? This essay examines critically that view.
The first of the bombs was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 and the second on Nagasaki three days later. Soviet armed forces invaded Japanese-occupied Manchuria on August 8. On August 15, Emperor Hirohito announced the surrender of Japan in a radio address to the nation.
Broadly speaking, there are three different schools of thought as to why the U.S. government used the bomb. We may refer to these as the orthodox, the revisionist, and the neo-orthodox or anti-revisionist schools.
Orthodox historians argue that dropping the atomic bombs was necessary and justified because this led directly to Japan's surrender, thus saving millions of American and Japanese lives that would have been otherwise lost during the U.S. invasion of Japan, planned to begin on November 1, 1945. Revisionists disagree: the bombing was neither necessary nor justified, they say; Japan had already been comprehensively defeated. Some revisionists even argue that the United States used the bombs to intimidate the Soviet Union.
In recent years, anti-revisionists have challenged the revisionist view and argued, as did the original orthodox historians, that the bomb was used to end the Pacific War by directly prompting Japan's surrender. They contend that the Soviet entry into the war against Japan played a minor role in surrender, and certainly less than the decisive 'shock' factor of the bombs.
The above is necessarily a sketchy summary but captures the essence of divergent views on the end of the Pacific War. In what follows I intend to show that while there continues to be vibrant, sometimes heated, debate among historians, the revisionist view most closely accords with the evidence.
Racing The Enemy
Western historians debating the reasons for the end of the war have focused heavily on the U.S. 'decision' to drop the atomic bomb.[2] But there has been relatively little attention devoted to the deliberations among the Japanese wartime ruling elite which led to surrender. Even less has been known about Soviet decision-making and the Soviet entry into the Pacific War against Japan.
A stumbling block until recently has been that no historian has been sufficiently fluent in English, Japanese and Russian to investigate the primary archival material - including internal government documents, military reports and intelligence intercepts - in all three languages. This partly explains why historical debate in the West has been so focused on the Truman administration's motives and policy-making: this, after all, could be pursued on the basis of English-language material. For example, in 1965, 'revisionist' historian Gar Alperovitz published an influential book, 'Atomic Diplomacy', in which he argued that use of the atomic bombs was militarily unnecessary and was intended as a show of U.S. strength against Soviet power. There has been furious debate about this for several decades.[3]
In 2005, Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, professor of history at the University of California at Santa Barbara, published a landmark study, 'Racing The Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan.'[4] Hasegawa, born and raised in Japan but now a U.S. citizen, appraised seriously the trilateral wartime relationships between the United States, the Soviet Union and Japan. His study has been critically acclaimed and has generated considerable scholarly, as well as journalistic, debate. Barton Bernstein, professor of history at Stanford University and one of the world's foremost commentators on A-bomb issues, warmly praised the book as "formidable", "a major volume in international history" and "a truly impressive accomplishment, meriting prizes and accolades."[5] The book has also delivered a huge jolt to anti-revisionists.
So why the title, 'Racing the Enemy'? At Potsdam, the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had given Truman a date for the Soviet attack on Japan - August 15, 1945. If the U.S. was to force Japan to surrender without Soviet help, and thus avoid making any geostrategic concessions to its ostensible ally, it would have to do so before that date. Hasegawa takes up the story:
"The only remaining factor was the atomic bomb. Contrary to historians' claim that Truman had no intention to use the atomic bomb as a diplomatic weapon against the Soviet Union, it is hard to ignore the fact that the Soviets figured into Truman's calculations. The date for the Soviet attack made it all the more imperative for the United States to drop the bomb in the beginning of August, before the Soviets entered the war. The race between Soviet entry into the war and the atomic bomb now reached its climax."[6]
Hasegawa's diligent research has strengthened the revisionist challenge to the orthodox view that the atomic bombs delivered decisive blows to Japan's will to fight, and resulted in surrender. He cautions:
"Americans still cling to the myth that the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki provided the knockout punch to the Japanese government. The decision to use the bomb saved not only American soldiers but also the Japanese, according to this narrative. The myth serves to justify Truman's decision and ease the collective American conscience."
Hasegawa shows that "this myth cannot be supported by historical facts. Evidence makes clear that there were alternatives to the use of the bomb, alternatives that the Truman administration for reasons of its own declined to pursue."[7]
The Potsdam Proclamation
In order to more fully understand the nature of the 'race'[8] between the Soviet Union to enter the Pacific war and the American use of the atomic bomb, we need to go back to the Potsdam Proclamation issued by the leaders of the United States, the United Kingdom and China [9] on July 26, 1945. This set out the terms for "the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces." If the terms were not met, Japan would be faced with "prompt and utter destruction."
Hasegawa, and other historians, argue that Truman was deeply worried that Stalin would shortly enter the war in the Pacific region against Japan and make important strategic gains in Asia, thus posing a threat to U.S. interests. How could the U.S. force Japan's surrender before the Soviets made such gains? The atomic bomb provided a solution to the dilemma that confronted Truman. To trigger Japan's unconditional surrender before the Soviet Union could enter the Pacific war, argues Hasegawa, Truman issued the Potsdam Proclamation. This was intended not as a warning to Japan, but to justify the use of the atomic bomb.
The standard history, believed widely in the West, is that Japan's rejection of the Potsdam Proclamation led to the U.S. decision to drop the bomb. Hasegawa notes bluntly that this myth, too, "cannot be supported by the facts."[10] Truman wrote that he issued the order to drop the bomb after Japan rejected the Proclamation. The truth is quite the opposite, however: the order to drop the atomic bomb was given to General Carl Spaatz, commander of the U.S. Army Strategic Air Forces, on the morning of July 25. The Proclamation was not issued until the evening of July 26. Japan's supposed rejection of the Potsdam Proclamation was required to justify the dropping of the bomb.[11]
Although Japan had not yet agreed to surrender, its rulers had already seen defeat staring it in the face as early as February 1945. In a careful account of events leading up to the atomic bombing, historian Peter Kuznick cites the Pacific Strategic Intelligence Summary for the week of the Potsdam meeting:
"[I]t may be said that Japan now, officially if not publicly, recognizes her defeat. Abandoning as unobtainable the long-cherished goal of victory, she has turned to the twin aims of (a) reconciling national pride with defeat, and (b) finding the best means of salvaging the wreckage of her ambitions." [12]
Colonel Charles Bonesteel, chief of the War Department Operations Division Policy Section, recalled: "the poor damn Japanese were putting feelers out by the ton so to speak, through Russia."[13] Allen Dulles of the Office of Strategic Services (precursor to the CIA) briefed Henry Stimson, the U.S. Secretary of War, at Potsdam. He wrote:
"On July 20, 1945, under instructions from Washington, I went to the Potsdam Conference and reported there to Secretary Stimson on what I had learned from Tokyo-they desired to surrender if they could retain the Emperor and the constitution as a basis for maintaining discipline and order in Japan after the devastating news of surrender became known to the Japanese people."[14]
It is important to recall that the Japanese people revered the Emperor as a living god. He stood at the pinnacle of power: political, legislative, executive, cultural, religious and military. Indeed, the Emperor embodied the very essence of Japan. Hence his fundamental importance, for the Japanese, to the surrender terms.
President Truman and Secretary of State James Byrnes, one of Truman's most trusted advisors, must have known that Japan was putting out feelers to end the war. This can be seen in Truman's July 18, 1945 diary entry referring to "the telegram from the Jap Emperor asking [the Soviets to mediate] for peace." There is also the August 3 diary entry by Walter Brown, Byrnes's assistant, who noted, "Aboard Augusta/ President, Leahy, JFB [Byrnes] agrred [sic] Japas [sic] looking for peace."[15]
Byrnes publicly admitted this when he spoke to the press shortly after the end of the war. The New York Times reported on August 29, 1945 that Byrnes "cited what he called Russian proof that the Japanese knew that they were beaten before the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima."[16] Kuznick notes that similar comments were made by Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal, Assistant Secretary of War John McCloy and Secretary of War Stimson, showing how widespread was this realization. Kuznick adds:
"But, at Potsdam, when Stimson tried to persuade Truman to alter his approach and provide assurances on the emperor in the Potsdam Proclamation, Truman told his elderly Secretary of War that, if he did not like the way things were going, he could pack his bags and return home."[17]
In short, as Hasegawa says:
"Justifying Hiroshima and Nagasaki by making a historically unsustainable argument that the atomic bombs ended the war is no longer tenable."[18]
Crucial Questions Left Unanswered
Here in the UK, Oliver Kamm, a blogger and occasional newspaper columnist, has written about the above issues from an anti-revisionist perspective. In a Guardian comment piece on the 62nd anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, he claimed that "New historical research [.] lends powerful support to the traditionalist interpretation of the decision to drop the bomb." While acknowledging the terrible nature of the bombing, he claimed that there is "a high degree of probability that abjuring the bomb would have caused greater suffering still."[19] This, to say the least, is a highly contentious assertion.[20]
Kamm has written at length about the end of the Pacific war in his blog, citing anti-revisionist historians such as Robert Maddox, Robert Newman, Sadao Asada and D. M. Giangreco.[21] Giangreco is a military historian based at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He is an advocate of the "high-estimate casualties" thesis: the argument that hundreds of thousands, perhaps more than a million, U.S. lives would have been lost in Operation Olympic, the invasion of Japan that was scheduled for November 1, 1945. Kamm adheres to the orthodox/anti-revisionist script that the two atomic bombs were necessary to bring about Japan's surrender, citing a Japanese historian at Doshisho University in Kyoto:
"Sadao Asada has shown from primary sources that the dropping of both bombs was crucial in strengthening the position of those within the Japanese Government who wished to sue for peace."
I contacted Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, author of 'Racing the Enemy', and pointed out the above arguments. Referring to several anti-revisionist historians, and to Kamm, Hasegawa responded:
"I am familiar with the criticisms raised by Giangreco, Asada, Newman, and Kamm. I would also add Michael Kort in the same category. Their line of arguments are very similar."
Not only are they similar, but they have been refuted by serious historians including Bernstein, Alperovitz and Hasegawa himself. Significantly, Hasegawa notes that Giangreco, Newman, Kamm and Kort do not read Japanese, and therefore have to "rely exclusively on Asada to make their judgement on the crucial question: how the atomic bombings and the Soviet entry influence[d] the Japanese decision to surrender."[22]
As we have seen, Hasegawa addressed this question rigorously in 'Racing the Enemy' and demonstrated from archival sources that the Soviet entry had the larger, indeed, decisive shock impact on Japan's leaders. In 'The End of the Pacific War: Reappraisals', published in 2007 and edited by Hasegawa, he marshals further evidence for his argument in an incisive chapter that includes further powerful analysis of Japanese-language documents, and rebuts Sadao Asada comprehensively.
Hasegawa notes, for example, that telegrams between Foreign Minister Togo and the Japanese ambassador Sato in the Soviet Union show that Japan was clinging to the hope that the termination of the war was possible and desirable through Moscow's mediation. The Soviet Union and Japan had signed a Neutrality Pact in 1941 which Japan hoped to utilise to bring about favourable terms to end the war. This was the position that Togo had adhered to since the Allies had issued the Potsdam Proclamation on July 26, 1945. The Hiroshima bomb on August 6 did not change this policy, as is clear from Japanese archival documents. Indeed, from these primary sources, Hasegawa has shown that the Japanese ruling elite pinned their hopes even more desperately on Moscow's mediation after the Hiroshima bomb.
Hasegawa has studied closely the original-language testimony of Japan's military leaders, in particular, and presented numerous examples which reinforce the view that their shock at Soviet entry into the Pacific War was significantly more than when the atomic bombs were dropped. As the Japanese Army Ministry stated categorically shortly after the war:
"The Soviet participation in the war had the most direct impact on Japan's decision to surrender."[23]
Hasegawa notes that:
"Asada ignores all this overwhelming evidence that stresses the importance of the Soviet entry into the war."[24]
Hasegawa concludes reasonably:
"My major criticisms to those who claim that Truman had no choice but to use the A-bomb in order to save lives is: If that is so, why did he consciously avoid two alternatives available to him that might have hastened Japan's surrender: (1) to assure Soviet entry into the war; and (2) to revise the unconditional surrender demand in such a way to assure the retention of the emperor system? My critics do not answer these crucial questions."[25]
"Deeply Flawed" Casualty Claims
The likely number of Allied, and Japanese, lives that would have been lost in the planned invasion of Japan can, of course, never be known with certainty. Moreover, any number would arguably be 'too high' and wholly regrettable. However, it is known that the predicted number of U.S. combat deaths in the planned invasion escalated enormously among pro-bomb commentators from the U.S. War Department's 1945 prediction of 46,000 dead. In 1955, Truman insisted that General George Marshall feared losing a half million American lives. Secretary of War Stimson made a claim of over 1,000,000 casualties (dead, wounded and missing) in 1947. And, in 1991, President George H.W. Bush defended Truman's "tough calculating decision, [which] spared millions of American lives." In 1995, a crew member on Bock's Car, the plane that bombed Nagasaki, asserted that the bombing saved six million lives - one million Americans and five million Japanese.[26]
Michael Kort, like D. M. Giangreco, is an advocate of the "high-estimate casualties" thesis. In 2003, Kort published a piece titled 'Casualty Projections for the Invasion of Japan, Phantom Estimates, and the Math of Barton Bernstein'.[27] This was an attempted rebuttal of the work of Bernstein, mentioned above, whose careful study of the evidence had led him to reject projections of casualties at the high end of the scale favoured by orthodox and anti-revisionist historians. Bernstein responded [28] to Kort in a piece that, to quote Hasegawa, "completely demolishes" [29] the high-estimate claims of a million casualties or more.
Bernstein argued, with numerous examples, that anti-revisionist Kort: "relies upon strained readings, omission of crucial material, severely limited research, unfair and facile resolution of complicated matters, and invidious language and interpretations. He also mixes large issues with trivial ones and neglects relevant archival sources and much of the published work upon the casualty issue. Finally, he has serious problems with quoting accurately, revealing fundamental problems as a craftsman."
Bernstein showed that Kort "often fails to delve deeply enough into issues", displays "remarkable carelessness" and, in summary, has produced a "deeply flawed essay [that] seldom, if ever, meets the standards for serious, responsible academic discourse."
In a separate article, Bernstein turned to Giangreco, the military historian already mentioned:
"For a deeply flawed recent article which strains in interpreting sources, makes dubious connections, uncritically and self-servingly uses post-Hiroshima recollections, briefly makes a factually incorrect claim for newness, and avoids some earlier contrary scholarship, see D. M. Giangreco, ' "A Score of Bloody Okinawas and Iwo Jimas": President Truman and Casualty Estimates for the Invasion of Japan,' Pacific Historical Review 72 (February 2003): 93-132."[30]
This "deeply flawed" analysis by Giangreco is the very article upon which Kamm's repeated assertion of projected high casualties relies so heavily.
Careful historians do not deny that Truman was concerned at the prospect of many U.S. lives being lost in an invasion of Japan, but the predicted numbers were far less than the inflated figures provided postwar to 'justify' the atomic bombings. Such figures, along with Japan's "rejection" of the Potsdam Proclamation, form part of the conventional narrative that the atomic bombs were sadly necessary. But as Hasegawa observes astutely:
"Evidence makes clear that there were alternatives to the use of the bomb, alternatives that the Truman administration for reasons of its own declined to pursue. And it is here, in the evidence of roads not taken, that the question of moral responsibility comes to the fore. Until his death, Truman continually came back to this question and repeatedly justified his decision, inventing a fiction that he himself came to believe. That he spoke so often to justify his actions shows how much his decision to use the bomb haunted him."[31]
What Compelled The Japanese Surrender?
The 'United States Strategic Bombing Survey', based on postwar interviews with hundreds of Japanese military and civilian leaders, concluded that Japan would have surrendered before November 1 - the date set for the U.S. invasion of Japan - without the atomic bombs and without Soviet entry into the war. For years, this conclusion underpinned the arguments of revisionist historians who stated that the atomic bombs were not necessary for Japan's surrender.
However, some historians, notably Bart Bernstein, have argued that the survey's conclusion is not supported by its own evidence. Bernstein has shown that the evidence is, in places, contradictory and cautions that the 'Survey' is "an unreliable guide."[32] For example, Prince Konoe Fumimaro, Hirohito's envoy to Moscow, had stated in his postwar interrogation that the war would probably have gone on throughout 1945 (i.e. beyond the anticipated U.S. invasion date of November 1) if the atomic bomb had not been dropped on Japan.
Although Bernstein concluded that Paul Nitze, author of the 'Survey', had been "far too optimistic about a pre-November surrender," Bernstein sought to address Nitze's counterfactual assertion that Japan would "certainly" have surrendered without the A-bombing, Soviet entrance into the war, or modified surrender terms allowing an emperor-as-figurehead system. The use of "certainly", concluded Bernstein, was an exaggerated judgment. However, as Hasegawa has demonstrated, the Soviet entry into the Pacific war was a massive shock to Japanese leaders - Japan was still strenuously seeking Moscow's help to bring about an end to the war.[33]
Given the huge impact of Soviet entry into the war, Bernstein's view is that under heavy U.S. bombing and the Allied air-naval blockade that was strangling the country, it was "far more likely than not" that Japan would have surrendered before any invasion. Bernstein rues the serious "missed opportunity" to avoid the costly invasion of Japan without dropping the atomic bomb by awaiting Soviet entry into the war. [34]
Gar Alperovitz notes that "the issue of the accuracy of the Strategic Bombing Survey is quite secondary" to the decisive impact of the Soviet entry into the war.[35] Alperovitz, whose 1995 book, 'The Decision to Use the Bomb', extensively updated the revisionist arguments of his classic book thirty years earlier has, like Bernstein, welcomed Hasegawa's groundbreaking research.
Asperovitz, in common with many other historians, is impressed by Hasegawa's ability to draw diligently and exhaustively from primary archival sources in English, Japanese and Russian. For instance, one of the important subjects dealt with by Hasegawa is the Japanese intelligence communications which were intercepted and decoded by the Americans. As mentioned above, these so-called Magic intercepts revealed that leading Japanese figures, including Foreign Minister Togo, were contemplating the Potsdam Proclamation as the basis of surrender terms. Truman, Byrnes, and Stimson were likely "paying close attention to the Magic intercepts to see Japan's reaction to the Proclamation."
As Hasegawa observes of U.S. leaders:
"If they wanted Japan's surrender at a minimal cost in American lives, if they wished to prevent Soviet entry into the war, and if they wanted to avoid the use of the atomic bomb, as they claimed in their postwar memoirs, why did they ignore the information obtained by the Magic intercepts? [.] one cannot escape the conclusion that the United States rushed to drop the bomb without any attempt to explore the readiness of some Japanese policymakers to seek peace through the ultimatum."[36] Truman, argues Hasegawa, "was bent on avenging the humiliation of Pearl Harbor by imposing on the enemy unconditional surrender."[37]
Peter Kuznick notes that: "highlighting the decisive role of atomic bombs in the final victory [.] served American propaganda needs by diminishing the significance of Soviet entry into the Pacific War, discounting the Soviet contribution to defeating Japan, and showcasing the super weapon that the United States alone possessed."[38]
Based on careful analysis of Japanese archives, Hasegawa emphasises that although the Hiroshima bomb "heightened the sense of urgency to seek the termination of the war, [it] did not prompt the Japanese government to take any immediate action that repudiated the previous policy of seeking Moscow's mediation." Moreover, Hasegawa has found no evidence to show that the Hiroshima bomb led either Foreign Minister Togo or Emperor Hirohito to accept the Potsdam terms. In this respect, the effect of the second bomb on Nagasaki was "negligible." Even the scarcely credible suggestion by Japan's Army Minister Anami Korechika that "the United States had more than 100 atomic bombs and planned to bomb Tokyo next did not change the opinions of either the peace party or the war party at all."[39]
The decisive event that changed the views of the Japanese ruling elite was the Soviet entry into the war. This "catapulted the Japanese government into taking immediate action. For the first time, it forced the government squarely to confront the issue of whether it should accept the Potsdam terms."[40]
Hasegawa does not deny completely the effect of the atomic bomb on Japan's policymakers. Koichi Kido, emperor Hirohito's most trusted advisor, stated after the war that the atomic bomb helped to tip the balance in favour of those referred to as "the peace party" within the Japanese ruling elite. However, on the basis of the extensive archival evidence he has gathered and critically appraised, Hasegawa concludes that:
"It would be more accurate to say that the Soviet entry into the war, adding to that tipped scale, then completely toppled the scale itself."[41]
The dropping of the atomic bombs, the Soviet entry into the Pacific War, and the ending of World War II, will doubtless generate endless historical research and debate. But the available evidence - in particular, the thoroughly scrutinised archival collections in English, Russian and Japanese - strongly suggests that the analysis of revisionist historians is the one best supported by the facts.
Finally, what really matters is the moral argument that there can be no justification for the use, or threatened use, of nuclear arms. Despite the topic's near-disappearance from news agendas and contemporary debate, the threat of nuclear annihilation sadly remains. Humanity still stands at the edge of the abyss.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Gar Alperovitz, Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, Peter Koznick and Uday Mohan for their helpful comments.
References and Notes
[1] Memo to President Truman from Secretary of War Henry Stimson and Brigadier General Leslie Groves, April 25, 1945; cited in Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, 'Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan', Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2005, p. 66.
[2] There is significant doubt as to whether a single identifiable formal U.S. 'decision' to use the atomic bomb was taken, rather than the momentum of the Manhattan Project and war itself leading almost inexorably towards the tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Brigadier General Groves, the head of the Manhattan Project, described Truman as "a little boy on a toboggan," the headlong rush carrying the president along until the bomb was dropped. (Cited in Peter J. Kuznick, 'The decision to risk the future: Harry Truman, the Atomic Bomb and the Apocalyptic Narrative', Japan Focus, July 23, 2007; http://japanfocus.org/products/details/2479).
Historian Barton J. Bernstein writes that: "The reason careful historians cannot find records of a top-level A-bomb 'decision' is not because there was a fear by US policymakers and advisers of keeping records or mentioning the bomb (quite a few diaries of the time mention it, usually in now-easy-to decipher code), but, rather, because there was no need for an actual 'decision' meeting. Such a meeting would have been required if there had been a serious question about whether or not to use the bomb on Japan. No one at or near the top in the US government raised such a question; no one at the top objected before Hiroshima and Nagasaki to use of the weapon on the enemy." (Bernstein, H-Diplo Roundtable Reviews, Volume VII, No. 2 (2006), Tsuyoshi Hasegawa. 'Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan,' Review (Barton J. Bernstein, Stanford University), p. 15; http://www.h-net.org/~diplo/roundtables/PDF/Bernstein-HasegawaRoundtable.pdf).
[3] For a careful review of the relevant historical literature, see Barton J. Bernstein, Chapter 1: 'Introducing the Interpretative Problems of Japan's 1945 Surrender', in 'The End of the Pacific War: Reappraisals', edited by Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, Stanford University Press, 2007.
[4] For a summary of the book and further details, see: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/HASRAC.html. The most comprehensive discussion to date on the issues raised by Hasegawa's book, featuring exchanges with several critics, are to be found in the H-Diplo Book Roundtable Reviews session at http://www.h-net.org/~diplo/roundtables/#hasegawa.
[5] Bernstein, H-Diplo Roundtable Reviews, op. cit., pp. 1-2.
[6] Hasegawa, 'Racing the Enemy', p. 140.
[7] Ibid., pp. 298-299.
[8] Not all A-bomb historians, or even revisionist historians, subscribe to the 'race' framework for interpreting the evidence. Bernstein, notably, dissents from this view, at least as expressed in the H-Diplo Roundtable Reviews. See note 2 above for full reference.
[9] China was not invited to Potsdam, which was a meeting between the Big Three of the United States, the Soviet Union and the UK. However, the approval of Chiang Kai-shek, China's Nationalist leader, was sought for the Potsdam Proclamation and his name, unlike Stalin's, appears on the Proclamation. Truman flatly rejected Stalin's request to add the Soviet leader's name to the Proclamation after it had been issued. See Chapter 4 of 'Racing the Enemy' for further details.
[10] Hasegawa, 'Racing the Enemy', p. 152.
[11] I note "supposed" because there is an argument, given at greater length in 'Racing the Enemy', that Japan did not, in fact, reject the Proclamation. See, in particular, p. 211 of 'Racing the Enemy', where Hasegawa writes: "He [Kiichiro Hiranuma, chairman of the Privy Council], asked [Foreign Minister] Togo whether it was true as the Soviet declaration stated, that the Japanese government had formally rejected the Potsdam Proclamation. Togo said that it was not true. Baron Hiranuma asked: 'What, then, is the basis for their claim that we rejected the Potsdam Proclamation?' Togo simply replied: 'They must have imagined that we did.' ", p. 211.
[12] Peter J. Kuznick, 'The decision to risk the future: Harry Truman, the Atomic Bomb and the Apocalyptic Narrative', Japan Focus, July 23, 2007; http://japanfocus.org/products/details/2479.
[13] Ibid., cited.
[14] Ibid., cited.
[15] Ibid., cited.
[16] Ibid., cited.
[17] Ibid., cited.
[18] Hasegawa, 'Racing the Enemy', pp. 299-300.
[19] Oliver Kamm, 'Terrible, but not a crime', Guardian, August 6, 2007; http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2142224,00.html
[20] For a more careful and authoritative discussion, see Barton J. Bernstein, Chapter 1: 'Introducing the Interpretative Problems of Japan's 1945 Surrender', p. 15, who argues that the likelihood goes the other way.
[21] 'Media Lens once more', October 17, 2007; http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2006/10/media_lens_once.html; 'Media Lens vs. historical understanding', December 13, 2006; http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2006/12/media_lens_vs_h.html.
[22] Email from Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, December 5, 2007.
[23] Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, 'The End of the Pacific War: Reappraisals', Stanford University Press, 2007, p. 129. Chapter 4 of this book is a contribution by Hasegawa which is a comprehensive critique of anti-revisionist arguments made by Sadao Asada and Richard Frank, author of 'Downfall' (1999).
[24] Op. cit., p. 131.
[25] Email from Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, December 5, 2007.
[26] Kuznick, op. cit.
[27] Passport, Newsletter of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, December 2003; http://www.shafr.org/newsletter/2003/december/kort.htm.
[28] Barton Bernstein, 'Marshall, Leahy, and Casualty Issues - A Reply to Kort's Flawed Critique,' Passport, SHAFR newsletter, August 2004, http://www.shafr.org/newsletter/2004/august/bernstein.htm.
[29] Email from Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, December 5, 2007.
[30] Barton Bernstein, 'Reconsidering the "Atomic General": Leslie R. Groves', Journal of Military History 67 (July 2003): 883-920; footnote 46 on page 910.
[31] Hasegawa, 'Racing the Enemy', p. 299.
[32] Barton Bernstein, 'Compelling Japan's Surrender without the A-Bomb, Soviet Entry, or Invasion: Reconsidering the U.S. Bombing Survey's Early-Surrender Conclusion,' Journal of Strategic Studies, vol. 18, no. 2 (June 1995), pp. 101-148.
[33] Japan's top military and civil leaders, the so-called 'Big Six', gambled heavily, and disastrously, on maintaining neutrality with the Soviet Union. Their reason for this policy was that Japan was "waging a life-or-death struggle against the United States and Britain." Should the Soviets enter the war, it would "deal a death blow to the Empire." ('Racing the Enemy', Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, pp. 71-72).
[34] Bernstein, cited in Hasegawa, 'Racing the Enemy', p. 295.
[35] Email from Gar Alperovitz, December 5, 2007.
[36] Hasegawa, 'Racing the Enemy', pp. 172- 173.
[37] Ibid., p. 99.
[38] Kuznick, op. cit.
[39] Hasegawa, in 'The End of the Pacific War: Reappraisals', p. 144.
[40] Ibid., p. 144.
[41] Ibid. p. 144.
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