American Hiroshima
Jul. 18th, 2005 11:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusGoogle News is a newspaper assembled by robots and spiders. They scuttle all over the web collecting articles. The results are diverse and uncurated, like the fascinatingly awful amateur art fair I saw with Nathan Michel out at Red Hook on Saturday. There's a sense of being liberated from familiar world views, liberated from taste, from curation, from policing. Anything goes, and everything is on an equal footing. But the randomness also liberates us from reliability.
This morning I happened to glance at French Google News, and read an article in today's Figaro marking the anniversary of the explosion of the first nuclear bomb, sixty years ago. "On the 15th of July 1945," says Le Figaro, "just after 5am, in the sky of Alamogordo in the New Mexico desert, the Manhattan Project, begun less than four years before, attained its goal: beating Nazi Germany to the construction of a nuclear bomb... This first experimental bomb would be followed by the murderous attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki."
"Confronted with this demonstration of power, certain scientists worried about the consequences of their act. Szilard and others opposed any military use of the bomb. "Let's not open the atomic era with a cruel explosion, let's just make a demonstration, that will be enough to persuade the Japanese to surrender," the scientists declared in a communal petition. But the results had already been decided. Truman and the American high command, supported by Oppenheimer, wanted to end the war and avoid further heavy American losses; either to invade Japan militarily, or use the atomic bomb. It was this second tragic option which was chosen. The two Japanese sites were selected in order to cause the maximum number of casualties. 250,000 people died in Hiroshima and 150,000 in Nagasaki."
Wondering whether the English-language media were marking the upcoming anniversary of these appalling events in the same tone, I searched US Google News on the term "Hiroshima" and came up with an alarming article in Joseph Farah's World Net Daily.
"Osama bin Laden is planning what he calls an "American Hiroshima," Farah himself warned his readers, "using nuclear weapons already smuggled into the country across the Mexican border along with thousands of sleeper agents. The series of attacks is designed to kill 4 million, destroy the economy and fundamentally alter the course of history. At least two fully assembled and operational nuclear weapons are believed to be hidden in the United States already."
The tone was somewhat sensational, and I had no idea whether World Net Daily was a "reputable news source" or the omegan trump of some loopy millenarian death cult. But I read on.
"Al-Qaida's prime targets for launching nuclear terrorist attacks are the nine U.S. cities with the highest Jewish populations, according to captured leaders and documents. The cities chosen as optimal targets are New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Boston and Washington, D.C. New York and Washington top the preferred target list for al-Qaida leadership. Bin Laden's goal, according to G2 Bulletin sources, is to launch one initial attack, followed by a second on another city to simulate the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The optimal dates for the attacks are Aug. 6, the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, Sept. 11 and May 14, the anniversary of the re-creation of the state of Israel in 1948. No specific year has been suggested, however, this Aug. 6 represents the 60th anniversary of the Hiroshima attack."
Now, Farah may well be an "unreliable narrator". But the thing is, so is Bin Laden. Actual events in the real world are planned according to somebody's loopy idea of a "happy ending" or "just desserts" or "the moral of the story". History is shaped as a narrative, and its shapers are worryingly irrational and hideously hubristic.
Truman was undoubtedly an appalling criminal for using nuclear weapons on civilian populations. I hope the commemorations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki which will fill our screens and papers in the coming weeks note that fact. But the idea of a tit-for-tat "American Hiroshima" is no less appalling. It's also completely bizarre that a Saudi renegade would take it upon himself to embody historical karma. One could just about imagine a fanatical cell of Japanese terrorists, the Aum Sect, perhaps, taking revenge for Hiroshima sixty years later. But for Saudi millionaires to take it upon themselves is bizarre, like a clique of Venezuelan Freemasons recreating Auschwitz and filling it with modern Germans. I very much hope this whole story is "unreliable narration", a sort of nightmarish exaggeration. Then again, it may well be human history itself which exaggerates.
This morning I happened to glance at French Google News, and read an article in today's Figaro marking the anniversary of the explosion of the first nuclear bomb, sixty years ago. "On the 15th of July 1945," says Le Figaro, "just after 5am, in the sky of Alamogordo in the New Mexico desert, the Manhattan Project, begun less than four years before, attained its goal: beating Nazi Germany to the construction of a nuclear bomb... This first experimental bomb would be followed by the murderous attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki."
"Confronted with this demonstration of power, certain scientists worried about the consequences of their act. Szilard and others opposed any military use of the bomb. "Let's not open the atomic era with a cruel explosion, let's just make a demonstration, that will be enough to persuade the Japanese to surrender," the scientists declared in a communal petition. But the results had already been decided. Truman and the American high command, supported by Oppenheimer, wanted to end the war and avoid further heavy American losses; either to invade Japan militarily, or use the atomic bomb. It was this second tragic option which was chosen. The two Japanese sites were selected in order to cause the maximum number of casualties. 250,000 people died in Hiroshima and 150,000 in Nagasaki."Wondering whether the English-language media were marking the upcoming anniversary of these appalling events in the same tone, I searched US Google News on the term "Hiroshima" and came up with an alarming article in Joseph Farah's World Net Daily.
"Osama bin Laden is planning what he calls an "American Hiroshima," Farah himself warned his readers, "using nuclear weapons already smuggled into the country across the Mexican border along with thousands of sleeper agents. The series of attacks is designed to kill 4 million, destroy the economy and fundamentally alter the course of history. At least two fully assembled and operational nuclear weapons are believed to be hidden in the United States already."The tone was somewhat sensational, and I had no idea whether World Net Daily was a "reputable news source" or the omegan trump of some loopy millenarian death cult. But I read on.
"Al-Qaida's prime targets for launching nuclear terrorist attacks are the nine U.S. cities with the highest Jewish populations, according to captured leaders and documents. The cities chosen as optimal targets are New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Boston and Washington, D.C. New York and Washington top the preferred target list for al-Qaida leadership. Bin Laden's goal, according to G2 Bulletin sources, is to launch one initial attack, followed by a second on another city to simulate the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The optimal dates for the attacks are Aug. 6, the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, Sept. 11 and May 14, the anniversary of the re-creation of the state of Israel in 1948. No specific year has been suggested, however, this Aug. 6 represents the 60th anniversary of the Hiroshima attack."Now, Farah may well be an "unreliable narrator". But the thing is, so is Bin Laden. Actual events in the real world are planned according to somebody's loopy idea of a "happy ending" or "just desserts" or "the moral of the story". History is shaped as a narrative, and its shapers are worryingly irrational and hideously hubristic.
Truman was undoubtedly an appalling criminal for using nuclear weapons on civilian populations. I hope the commemorations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki which will fill our screens and papers in the coming weeks note that fact. But the idea of a tit-for-tat "American Hiroshima" is no less appalling. It's also completely bizarre that a Saudi renegade would take it upon himself to embody historical karma. One could just about imagine a fanatical cell of Japanese terrorists, the Aum Sect, perhaps, taking revenge for Hiroshima sixty years later. But for Saudi millionaires to take it upon themselves is bizarre, like a clique of Venezuelan Freemasons recreating Auschwitz and filling it with modern Germans. I very much hope this whole story is "unreliable narration", a sort of nightmarish exaggeration. Then again, it may well be human history itself which exaggerates.
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-18 03:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-18 03:56 pm (UTC)But it's a statement in of itself that such sensationalistic stories are made plausible by the volatile times we live in, made greater by the ineptitude of the US.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-18 04:03 pm (UTC)Oh honey- that's nothing
Date: 2005-07-18 04:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-18 04:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-18 04:32 pm (UTC)(Btw, it's interesting that they talk about the anniversary of the "re-creation of the state of Israel"; the assumption there is that the modern Israel is a straightforward continuation of the Biblical kingdom, rather than a new entity. Could this be an indication of the author's beliefs in the Biblical manifest destiny of supporting Israel, and thus their alignment with red-state Biblical geopolitics?)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-18 04:56 pm (UTC)I couldn't agree with you more about the right-wing bile's disgusting nature. But couldn't you have made this entry without such an intellectually dishonest portrayal of Google and this morning's media mix?
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-18 05:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-18 05:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-18 05:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-18 05:08 pm (UTC)I call it that because Google themselves do. There's an English-language Google News UK (http://news.google.com/news?ned=uk). If you just go to news.google.com Google sends you to a page identical to their US Google News page (http://news.google.com/news?ned=us).
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-18 05:11 pm (UTC)Is your show still going in New York? Maybe I'll stop by tomorrow.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-18 05:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-18 05:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-18 05:19 pm (UTC)You'll be getting your news from RenewAmerica (http://www.renewamerica.us/) next....
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-18 05:22 pm (UTC)Re: Oh honey- that's nothing
Date: 2005-07-18 07:04 pm (UTC)And let's not forget the firebombing of Dresden and Tokyo, which killed as many or more civilians than the A-bombs did in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-18 07:18 pm (UTC)The New York Times
August 11, 2004
HEADLINE: An American Hiroshima
BYLINE: By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF.
If a 10-kiloton nuclear weapon, a midget even smaller than the one that destroyed Hiroshima, exploded in Times Square, the fireball would reach tens of millions of degrees Fahrenheit.
[...]
Could this happen?
Unfortunately, it could -- and many experts believe that such an attack, somewhere, is likely. The Aspen Strategy Group, a bipartisan assortment of policy mavens, focused on nuclear risks at its annual meeting here last week, and the consensus was twofold: the danger of nuclear terrorism is much greater than the public believes, and our government hasn't done nearly enough to reduce it.
Graham Allison, a Harvard professor whose terrifying new book, ''Nuclear Terrorism,'' offers the example cited above, notes that he did not pluck it from thin air. He writes that on Oct. 11, 2001, exactly a month after 9/11, aides told President Bush that a C.I.A. source code-named Dragonfire had reported that Al Qaeda had obtained a 10-kiloton nuclear weapon and smuggled it into New York City.
The C.I.A. found the report plausible. The weapon had supposedly been stolen from Russia, which indeed has many 10-kiloton weapons. Russia is reported to have lost some of its nuclear materials, and Al Qaeda has mounted a determined effort to get or make such a weapon. And the C.I.A. had picked up Al Qaeda chatter about an ''American Hiroshima.''
President Bush dispatched nuclear experts to New York to search for the weapon and sent Dick Cheney and other officials out of town to ensure the continuity of government in case a weapon exploded in Washington instead. But to avoid panic, the White House told no one in New York City, not even Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Dragonfire's report was wrong, but similar reports -- that Al Qaeda has its hands on a nuclear weapon from the former Soviet Union -- have regularly surfaced in the intelligence community, even though such a report has never been confirmed. We do know several troubling things: Al Qaeda negotiated for the $1.5 million purchase of uranium (apparently of South African origin) from a retired Sudanese cabinet minister; its envoys traveled repeatedly to Central Asia to buy weapons-grade nuclear materials; and Osama bin Laden's top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, boasted, ''We sent our people to Moscow, to Tashkent, to other Central Asian states, and they negotiated, and we purchased some suitcase [nuclear] bombs.''
Professor Allison offers a standing bet, at 51-to-49 odds, that, barring radical new antiproliferation steps, a terrorist nuclear strike will occur somewhere in the world in the next 10 years.
[...]
William Perry, the former secretary of defense, says there is an even chance of a nuclear terror strike within this decade -- that is, in the next six years.
''We're racing toward unprecedented catastrophe,'' Mr. Perry warns. ''This is preventable, but we're not doing the things that could prevent it.''
That is what I find baffling: an utter failure of the political process. The Bush administration responded aggressively on military fronts after 9/11, and in November 2003, Mr. Bush observed, ''The greatest threat of our age is nuclear, chemical or biological weapons in the hands of terrorists, and the dictators who aid them.'' But the White House has insisted on tackling the most peripheral elements of the W.M.D. threat, like Iraq, while largely ignoring the central threat, nuclear proliferation. The upshot is that the risk that a nuclear explosion will devastate an American city is greater now than it was during the cold war, and it's growing.
Re: Oh honey- that's nothing
Date: 2005-07-18 07:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-18 07:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-18 10:31 pm (UTC)And we would be right to do so. Our safety and security trumps everyone else's* and our leaders should primarily be concerned with saving American lives, not about "torture" at a holiday camp in Cuba...
*If you are a Briton, the safety and security of England should be your utmost concern. If you're a Jap, then Japan's safety is paramount. There's nothing wrong with a little nationalism.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-18 11:15 pm (UTC)Shouldn't the full stop fall outside the speech marks?
Gram.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-18 11:19 pm (UTC)Gram.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-18 11:21 pm (UTC)And I have just had to confirm I am a human.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-18 11:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-19 03:30 am (UTC)Re: Oh honey- that's nothing
Date: 2005-07-19 05:17 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-19 05:50 am (UTC)And we would be right to do so.
Exterminating a large group of innocent people to *attempt* to eliminate a miniscule minority, a futile effort as most of the terorist operatives would survive because few of them (compared to the group as a whole) actually live in their home countries, is one of the most absurdly horrifying and completely unintelligent things a human being could say or believe.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-19 06:08 am (UTC)If peace and rainbows prevented terrorism, then we'd not need nukes, right?
Re: Oh honey- that's nothing
Date: 2005-07-19 06:13 am (UTC)In some situations, the cost is great, but the price of inaction is MUCH greater. Terrorism and the current threat of modern militant Islam are such creatures. I don't think Anon was personally trying to harsh your mellow.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-19 06:14 am (UTC)Deal?
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-19 10:55 am (UTC)Ooops!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-19 12:01 pm (UTC)Anon.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-19 12:21 pm (UTC)Re: Oh honey- that's nothing
Date: 2005-07-19 04:21 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-19 05:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-19 06:50 pm (UTC)Re: Oh honey- that's nothing
Date: 2005-07-19 08:21 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-19 08:40 pm (UTC)The U.S. smacked the hornets nest by putting some of these people in power, arming and organizing their entire system of terrorist cells (!), etc and then proceeding to stab them in the back - repeatedly. They have a very rational reason for being upset. Peace and rainbows, as you put it, can't completely fix the problem now, but it would have been a terrific (and extraordinarily obvious) preventative measure. There's more to be a superpower than bullying small countries and looting/enslaving them. The U.S. will figure this out at some point. This path will only lead to the eventual sacking of Rome. And the empire will fall.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-19 08:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-19 09:21 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-20 03:43 am (UTC)The big bully (the U.S.) beats up a close friend who happens to be a cripple (the middle east) to steal his lunch money. The bully justifies it to himself by saying that the cripple is "mean and stuff". The cripple sneaks up behind the bully and hits him in the head with a brick (the hypothetical situation where islamic terorists nuke U.S. cities). The bully survives, get's his dad's gun and ruthlessly kills the cripple's neighbors (despite most of them being closer relatives to the bully than the cripple) at random (the U.S. nuking the terrorists' home countries, which most of the terrorists, in fact, don't reside in).
I hope I made it simple enough.
Re: Oh honey- that's nothing
Date: 2005-07-20 12:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-02 10:22 am (UTC)Uh... doubtedly. The invasion of the Japanese mainland would have cost millions of American lives. War is all about bending the other country to your political will. We sacrificed Japanese civilians so that we wouldn't have to sacrifice a great number more of our own troops. Criminal? Get real.