John Pilger :Hiroshima a warning for today

by D.C. Arrests Thu Aug 07, 2008 06:35 Washington D.C. U.S.A.

Clare Grady, Peter De Mott (Plowshares activists who attended Pitstop first trial in Dublin March 03) Liz McAlister (Griffis B-52 Plowshares), Eve Tetaz, Bill Streit (ANZUS B-52 Plowshares) arrested at the Pentagon August 6, 2008 while others sat in sackcloth and ashes in repentance for the bombing of Hiroshima and 63 years of continued nuclear threats.

by tomeile Thu Aug 07, 2008 18:40

Fair play to the Plowshares group again. At the moment ,the US regime seems to be saying to the rest of the world that , if they don’t allow the sort of punitive sanctions against Iran that were used to soften up Iraq prior to the invasion of that country , then they will be unable to stop Israel from launching an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Which is of course standing the truth on its head because the threats to Iran are actually coming from America itself . Any war on Iran involving nuclear weaponry or aimed at Iran’s nuclear plants would have devastating consequences for the citizens of Israel . Two months ago after a visit from Dick Cheney , Israel carried out a six day full scale nuclear drill in anticipitation of an attack . Similar drills were carried out in Saudi Arabia .
Medialine reports today that two US aircraft carriers are now on their way to the Gulf region and that as a consequence Kuwait had began to finalize its emergency war plan .
http://www.themedialine.org/news/news_detail.asp?NewsID...22347
http://www.zawya.com/Story.cfm/sidZAWYA20080807050115

Commentators in the various Gulf monarchies are understandably jittery :Iran’s nuclear plant at Bushehr is after all closer to Kuwait than it is toTehran . At a conference in Al Wasat last month about the possibility and likely consequences of any US or Israeli attack on Iran , Dr Mohammad Al-Sayed Salim, a political science professor, said that a military attack on Iran within the next few months is a certainty, even if it suspends its nuclear program. Retired Colonel and military analyst Abdulkarim Al-Gharabally said that he expects the US to use tactical nuclear warheads in its attack, which would penetrate Iran's nuclear sites to a depth of 23 meters.

Others say that the nuclear threats are only part of a game of bluff and brinkmanship and that the consequences would be too dire even for the likes of Bush to contemplate. The Irish Anti War Movement , AWI , PANA ,Plowshares and all other groups and individuals interested in living in a world which doesn't have the threat of nuclear war hanging over its head should convene a conference to discuss the situation .

by Jim Thu Aug 07, 2008 19:35

The Americans made a decision based on cold logic.
They had two horrific options
(a) Launch a full scale invasion with the full knowledge that the same tactics used at Okinawa and Iwo Jima were likely to be recreated by the Japanese on a vast scale ending in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of American soldiers and millions of Japanese soldiers and civilians.
(b) Bomb Japanese cities with the new atomic weapons until out of sheer terror the Japanese government would be forced to surrender to avoid further loss of life.

Of course the Battle of the Pacific was really a sideshow compared to the real fighting in Asia - between the Axis Japanese and the pro-Allies Chinese Nationalists and Communists and the Russia Red Army that cost untold millions of lives of both soldiers and civilians.

It was the collapse of the Japanese Army in Manchuria and the imminent threat of Russia invasion that convinced the Japanese to surrender to the Americans (the number of casualties of both atom bombs did not exceed the deaths suffered from conventional bombing of Japanese cities).

The decision to use the bombs was also designed to make Stalin think twice about advancing further than than the future borders of the Iron Curtain (the enormous Russian Red Army could have swept the Western Allied armies into the Bay of Biscay).

The popular myth is that MAD (Mutallly Assured Destruction) prevented the US and Soviet leaders from pushing the button and obliterating eachother.

The missile silos were ready and primed to fire at any moment.

The military doctrines of both the US and Russian military forces never excluded nor does it exclude now the use of nuclear weapons.

The nuclear club has increased with nations like Pakistan and India, both deeply conservative societies within a hairs breath of coups by Muslims and Hindu extremists who would not hesitate to use nuclear weapons in an all-out war.

There is no love lost between China, Russia and India either.

With Israel armed to death with hundreds of these heinous weapons it is not suprise that Iran seeks to wield the same sword.
A Shia Iran with nuclear weapons is the nightmare of Sunni Saudi Arabia with the oil dollars to afford a nuclear industry of its own.

Countries like Brazil and Venezuela do not like to be told what to do either - it is rumoured that Brazil has an advanced nuclear industry and that neo-Bolivero Hugo Chavez also wants to be region power.

It is anyone's guess when and which superpower will fire first not a question of if.

by Ciaron - Catholic Worker/Ploughshares Fri Aug 08, 2008 06:51

The Atlantic Life Community (A.L.C.) is a faithbased network of individuals and communities (Catholic Worker, Jonah House and other) in the northeast of the U.S. It's origins are in the nonviolent direct draft board raid actions against the Vuetnam War. In 1980 the A.L.C. served as a basis of reflection, organisation and spport for the first plowshares action of nonviolent nuclear disarmament on first strike delivery systems being manufatured at a General Electric plant in King of Prussia, Pensylvania. Over the last 27 years members of the A.L.C. have prepared for, undertakenand supported many of the 100+ plowshares actions (prison sentences for such actions have ranged from 1-18 years). Dozens of these activists came to Dublin for the first trial of the Pitstop Ploughshares wwwpeaceontrial.comin March 05 providing much neededexperience inpractical trial solidarity.

The A.L.C. network gathers twice a year for reflection and three times a year ("Feast of Holy Innocents", Holy Week and Hiroshima/Nagasaki anniversaries together as a network) for action. Meanwhile the autonous comunities are involved in their own ant-ar prjects and actions in teir local areas.

The U.S.S. Sterret is a guided missile destroyer carrying nuclear capabale
tomohawk cruise missiles. Gulf War '91 began when 8 B52's, flying the longest combat missioin in history took off from Louissiana (refueld in the air four times by KC 135 refuelers), unleashed 35 air launched cruise missiles on high priority targets in Iraq. This was the first time the cruise missile had ever been used in combat. Over the next two weeks, the U.S. Navy unleashed 200 of the Raytheon produced Tomohawk Cruiseon Iraq (1/3 of it then stock). The U.S. dropped the equivalent of 8 Hiroshima bombs on Iraq in Jan/Feb of '91.

This is the likely scenario for a possible attack on Iran in the coming months (unless of course the Israelis get in first!). The likly timing is the period between when Obama is elected in November and Bush stands down in January

On August 7th. members of the Atlantic Life Community occupied the U.S.S. Sterrett while it was docked in Baltimore, unfolding anti-war banners on deck.

Photos
http://www.jonahhouse.org/Sterett.htm

by tomeile Fri Aug 08, 2008 18:19

America Britain and France last week completed naval manoeuvres in the Atlantic in what they chillingly termed Operation Brimstone. Its purpose was to prepare for a naval blockade of Iran . Such a blockade would be deemed an act of war under international law. The war games coincided with the US set two week deadline /ultimatum demanding that Iran freeze its nuclear program .At the weekend the deadline /ultimatum expired without Iranian compliance . Three days later ,on the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima , the two nuclear armed aircraft carriers set sail for the Gulf. Commentators fear that both Russia and China would regard attempts to interfere with any of their tankers entering Iranian waters as an act of hostility .

The American-backed republic of Georgia said last week that any involvement of Russian forces in its conflict with the breakaway region of South Ossetia would result in a state of war. Today Russian tanks entered South Ossetia . An emergency meeting of all Irish anti war groups and activists needs to be convened .

by tomeile Thu Aug 14, 2008 13:35

The US Department of Defense denied reports that a naval force was en route to the Gulf to blockade Iran according to today’s Jerusalem Post
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=121844619698...wFull
The denial by Lt.-Col. Patrick Ryder, a spokesman for the assistant secretary of defense for public affairs came after a report in Monday’s Middle East Times said Kuwait had activated its Emergency War Plan after learning that a "massive US and European armada is reported heading for the region."

Iran’s IRNA news agency quoted the country’s Defence Minister ,Mostafa Mohammad Najjar , saying on Tuesday that Iranian forces were monitoring all military movements in the region round the clock and were prepared to counter any surprise attack with a crushing response,

by tomeile Sun Aug 17, 2008 12:38

Michel Chossudovsky from Global Research writes today on the coincidental timing of the Caucus war with the dispatch of the NATO armada :

"We are not dealing with separate and unrelated military events. The war in Georgia is an integral part of US-NATO-Israeli war preparations in relation to Iran."

"In Washington's mindset, the events in Georgia coupled with media propaganda, can be usefully applied to discredit and weaken Russia prior to the enforcement of a naval blockade on Iran in the Persian Gulf, which could lead into an all out war on Iran."

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0808/S00204.htm