Friday, March 28, 2003
-On NHK TV
deleted message from old system
IRAQ WAR NEWS YOU --DON’T-- SEE ON TV
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Protests
LATEST ACTIONS FIRST
May 21
No Peace Prize to Busn and Blair
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/302184339
Suport Nuke and War Resisters
http://tokyoprogressive.org/news/tpnews_comments.php?id=P449_0_2_0_C
Take action to save schools
http://tokyoprogressive.org/news/tpnews_comments.php?id=P439_0_2_0_C
May 1
Refugees
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-“ú–{‚É‚¢‚é“ï–¯‚ð?•‚¯‚éˆ×‚É?AŽ^“¯?l‚É‚È‚?‚ĉº‚³‚¢?IPlease sign to support
refugees
http://tokyoprogressive.org/news/tpnews_comments.php?id=P409_0_2_0_C
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Movements
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-Corvin Russell: Artists Against Empire
http://tokyoprogressive.org/news/tpnews_comments.php?id=P418_0_2_0_C
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Hiroshima Mayor
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-?R‹c•¶: ƒAƒ?ƒŠƒJ?‡?O?‘‘å“?—Ì ƒWƒ‡?[ƒW ‚v ƒuƒbƒVƒ…Št‰º
http://tokyoprogressive.org/news/tpnews_comments.php?id=P417_0_2_0_C
Letter to President Bush from the Mayor of Hiroshima
http://tokyoprogressive.org/news/tpnews_comments.php?id=P416_0_2_0_C
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Jewish peace activists
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FEDERMAN ARREST REVEALS DIVIDED JEWISH COMMUNITY
http://tokyoprogressive.org/news/tpnews_comments.php?id=P403_0_2_0_C
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April 24
Maine Protesters Blockade General Dynamics in Tax Day Protest
http://tokyoprogressive.org/news/tpnews_comments.php?id=P384_0_2_0_C
No Coke, No Pepsi: Pakistanis Boycott Western Products
http://tokyoprogressive.org/news/tpnews_comments.php?id=P351_0_2_0_C
Protest: Resisting Defeatism and Sectarianism (by Paul)
http://tokyoprogressive.org/news/tpnews_comments.php?id=P387_0_2_0_C
Sony to drop ‘Shock and Awe’ game (BOYCOTT U.S. and U.K. TOY COMPANIES)
http://tokyoprogressive.org/news/tpnews_comments.php?id=P360_0_2_0_C
Hasbro to Make “Family” War Game
http://tokyoprogressive.org/news/tpnews_comments.php?id=P361_0_2_0_C
See earlier story:
Sony to cash in on Iraq with ‘shock and awe’ game (BOYCOTT SONY)
http://tokyoprogressive.org/news/tpnews_comments.php?id=P354_0_2_0_C
(same item as in Japan/Japanese/Asia)
April 15
-Canadians: Call to Action: If Bush Visits Ottawa, Shut Down the City!
http://tokyoprogressive.org/news/tpnews_comments.php?id=P356_0_2_0_C
-Events in Iraq Do Not Change Campaign of Nonviolent Resistance to War and Occupation
http://tokyoprogressive.org/news/tpnews_comments.php?id=P338_0_2_0_C
-Thousands Engage in Nonviolent Civil Disobedience
http://tokyoprogressive.org/news/tpnews_comments.php?id=P334_0_2_0_C
History scholars fight present war
http://tokyoprogressive.org/news/tpnews_comments.php?id=P326_0_2_0_C
Voices in the Wilderness April 10 report from Bagdhad
http://tokyoprogressive.org/news/tpnews_comments.php?id=P323_0_2_0_C
April 12 Actions
?œ4/12(“y)13:00 STOP THE WAR ! ‚S.12?¢ŠE’†‚ªƒs?[ƒXƒAƒNƒVƒ‡ƒ“
http://www.worldpeacenow.jp/
-International Criminal Court petition: Indict Bush as War Criminal
http://tokyoprogressive.org/news/tpnews_comments.php?id=P309_0_2_0_C
Wednesday, March 26, 2003
-Japanese and Other Human Shields to Remain in Bagdhad
Fron A Jewish Voice for Peace
[Glaringly absent in these days of so-called “embedded” war correspondents are independent voices reporting on goings on in Iraq. Australian peace activist and researcher Max Watts sends out daily accounts of the information he painstakingly collects from various sources, and among them chiefly from several activists, human shields, Australians and others who have gone to Baghdad to witness the US/British/Australian attack while working with Iraqi civilians to try to maintain decent living conditions. Max’s reports are an anti-theses to usual media reports, not only providing “the facts” but also clearly describing the frustrating process and yet the surprising feasibility of collecting such facts—the bad phone lines, the irregular accessibility of email, the persistence of a committed, determined, “regular guy”. These aren’t reports of “straight” impersonalized information; they include Max’s personal comments, views, background knowledge, feelings, and clearly place the information within an openly stated political stand, in a uniquely personal style. Rosemarie Gillespie, an Australian working at the “7th April Water Treatment Plant” in Baghdad is one of the sources quoted almost daily in Max Watt’s items. Rosmarie has repeatedly conveyed her impression that Iraqis would put up much more resistance than expected and do not seem to be waiting for western “liberation.” Quite a while before military officials issued the information, she reported fairly reliable rumors that some kind of US/British plane had been shot down. In the update below she reports briefly on a meeting of the roughly 100 human shields currently active in Baghdad and, among other items and comments, Max recounts a short conversation with Tom Carhill, of California, who is also active as a human shield. If you wish to receive Max’s daily communications, write him at: ]
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BAGHDAD: BOMBS AND MOSKITOS
25.3.03: 07:20: get thru on tel. 964 1 443 6039
Speak to the 7th April Water Treatment Plant:
M: … what nationality are you ?
R Japanese..
M can I speak to Rosemarie or other Australian… asleep, but wakes up
M You had a meeting yesterday, about…
Rosemarie Gillespie: Rumour spread: Americans will be here in 2-3 days.
M: And..? Are you leaving ?
R Ridiculous. Staying !
M The Bombing ? (Boom heard)
R You get used to it.
M: Are you getting the emails we send you ?
R We have to go there, they are sometimes difficult to access. But it’s a great delight to get the supporting messages. There’s a new Human Shield site…
Line becomes very bad ; hang up, call again.
Thru at 7:34
R: There is a new, second, website:
www:humanshields.org and [url=http://www.humanshieldaction.org]http://www.humanshieldaction.org[/url] (check spellings ? wait for emails ?
R I saw Wayne (Coles-Janess) today. He has (video) footage for Oz. I think he is in contact (or trying to get into contact? Bad line) with Channel 9 see below
R: I heard hospital bombed in Tikrit…. (targeted..). (Bomb (missile) flying by). Noise, people.. speaking…
R Laughs… They are worried about.. the moskitos ! (used to the bombs !)
It’s been pretty quiet tonite, so far.
M You were right about your Stock market predictions …. It has gone down, as you expected !
R: Yes. Also: they are deliberately bombing civilian targets. Like the Hospital in Tikrit. Don’t believe that bullshit (General Frankfurt and Co about only hitting military targets). R: They are targeting Civilians, Houses. The bullshit of Bush… LIBERATING IRAQIS !
M: How are you, Patricia… Donna…
R Patricia is OK now, the gastroenteritis has gone, Donna is ok…
(Donna was on a Radio Broadcast with Sydney Commercial Private Station 2GB after 15:00 hrs AEST (7 am Baghdad)
I am unfamiliar with such radios, and listening soon assumed the Sydney “moderator” was a total nutter. Apparently this “Presenter” - seems to be called Philip Clark - is not nuts, just vicious and off the planet. But Donna was able to make points despite his idiocy and “evilness” (can’t think of better word). Some approx notes of bdcst.
Donna: (re bombing): This is the 6th night, the 7th morning.. of being bombed..
Nutter: You must get out ! You have made your point, … for an evil regime…
Donna: After the bombing stops, can leave.
Nutter: Can you leave ?
Donna: It’s expensive, a car to the border costs $ 2000..
Nutter: You are in a police state, serving its propaganda..
Donna: I was surprised at the sophistication, the normality (before the bombing) of the people in Iraq.. They were happy, well educated..
Nutter: You are serving an evil regime !
Donna We are protecting very important civilian sites. The Water Treatment Plants were bombed in the last war, 1991, and this resulted in widespread sickness, death, particularly of children..
Nutter: Evil Regime !
Donna We are doing what we can to stop the war…
Nutter: (livid) Well, you can’t, you have failed… you must leave… leave now, leave now !
Donna: I’ll leave when my job is done, this is the most valuable thing I have ever done…
MW I called the station (02 8570 0000) and asked who that nutter was, apparently a “presenter” called Philip Clark. Told to call in on 131 873, listened to commercials about contact lenses ? Hung up.
Guess I’ve led a limited life, have never listened to this kind of crap before. An experience in masochism ! General Frankfurter suffices !
===========
Illawarra Mercury Journo JD calls, wants info, give. Sends a good piece about Rosemarie: “Port Kembla woman tells How I survived Baghdad bombs”.
Illawarra Mercury of 22.3.03
======
JB ems: The Oz Pilot who refused to bomb civilians was flying an F 18 Hornet, not (as we wrote) a Harrier.
And me an Airplane Spotter from 1940-44 ! Guess I’m slipping. Just too much to do!
===========
Radio: USA: Bush asks Congress for US $ 75 Billion for Iraq War. (Printing press money or further cuts in Health Education Welfare ? I think it is time to sell US$ and buy something else, like Euros. If only I had more !)
=============
Baghdad Rosemarie Gillespie: 07:02 hrs, 25.3.03
R: Bombing last night again, not as bad as the night before. Saw Wayne. He asks what the news are saying in Australia, America… General Frankfurter… What we hear is pretty funny..
M how are you all ?
R We are fine. In very good humor. Those allegations that the Human Shields are the pawns of the Iraqi government … such bullshit. Bush is like a dog kicking up dirt to cover his own shit.
M (who is more of a “dog man” than Rosemarie, feels unhappy about that comparison), demurs slightly…
R: Bush - does he really believe that dropping Bombs on people is a way to win friends and influence them ?
M You all had a meeting yesterday ?
R; Yes, there were these rumours that the Americans would be here in 2 or 3 days, so that prompted the meeting. M: So ? are you all … what ?
R: Ridiculous. I am staying. These fears are due to misinformation.
M How many are you ?
R: Human Shields… over one hundred. But altogether, including the Iraq Peace Teams, media, others, there must be more than 300 foreign nationals here.
M (looks like that strong campaign by Adolf, Musso, Coward et co to make all foreigners leave the Iraqis to it, so the bombing, etc., could proceed without witnesses, has been a total flop.): I’ve heard that there are more foreigners coming in, foreign volunteers who want to join the fight …against the Americans..
R Yes. I’ve seen some. Volunteers, very committed. Come to join the Iraqis, join up, to defend Iraq from invasion.. make a stand…
M: At the Water Refinery, how many foreign human shields ?
R: 13
M: Which countries ?
R: 3 Oz, 3 Japanese, 2 Brits, 1 US American, 1 Dane, 1 Italian, 1 Belgian, 1 Norwegian.. The Japanese is (president ? (noise) of HINO.
M HINO ?
R A big Company… (Trucks ??)
M The American ?, can I talk to him ?
R Wait. Here..
====
M: What’s your name ?
“Tom Carhill, I’m 66, from Fort Bragg, California..
M: That’s in N Carolina.. I thought..
Tom Carhill: There’s one in California, as well. Near Euhaya (phon, spell ?) -
Three and a half hours drive north of San Francisco.
M: Why did you come ?
TC: I wanted to make the strongest possible statement to (against?) Bush and his administration. Not just because of Iraq, because of all his policies.
M: Have you explained that to the American media ?
TC: I don’t think the American media would print what I think, it’s too radical for them !
M: well…
M contacts Associated Press in Sydney, gives them Tom Carhill’s phone in Baghdad. We shall see if they use it..
===========
Email from Wayne (Coles-Janess)! delayed in transmission:
From: “palestine”
To:
Subject: Wayne
Morning!
Got the email… Finally. !
Happy to write something if the agencies are committed in -to publishing!
Otherwise I will continue to film as that is what I’m here for… Not sure if any networks are interested??
There is still no aust tv here…
Maybe an email - or a few phonecalls? But again don’t worry too much.
I don’t think that they are too interested in the truth from the reports that I read....??
- maybe we can generate interest for when I return or stay a bit longer if they are interested in writing cheques!
Filmed a family being dugged out of a bombed house this morning. Very dramatic stuff. Went to a hospital to film civilian casualties… A big day!
Don’t worry about funds at the moment… I’ll work something out!
There are so many lies being put forward by the media....
I’ve seen via tv… US POW’s, pilots, helicopters shot down, etc…
Give me a call if you like at the hotel or try Mohamed 717 7050 -
not sure if you got my last email....?? which was a longer one…
All the best
Wayne
Next: EC
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
____________________________________________________________________
Jewish Peace News (JPN) is an edited news-clipping and commentary service provided by A Jewish Voice for Peace. JPN’s editors are Adam Gutride, Amichai Kronfeld, Rela Mazali, Sarah Anne Minkin, Judith Norman, Mitchell Plitnick, Lincoln Shlensky, and Alistair Welchman. The opinions expressed by the editors and presented in the articles sent to this list are solely those of their authors, and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoints of A Jewish Voice for Peace.
-Japanese Police Arrest Peace Protestors: Please Sign Statement
We, the members of 3.20 Anti-War Youth Solidarity Center would like you to
show your solidarity by signing this statement.
*
Statement of Impeachment to the Repression in front of the U.S. Embassy on
March 20, 2003.
March 21, 2003
At the night of March 20, the day the attack on Iraq launched, many people
gathered around the U.S. Embassy to show their protest against the war or
give their written statements to the ambassador.
But the great shock awaited protesters around the U.S. Embassy. In a few
hundred meters in front of the Embassy, Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department
arranged a massive amount of police officers and special kind of police cars
which laid in the way and blocked people.
With no explanation, police officers were entirely abusive to protesters,
locked their arms in a full nelson, or pushed shield onto them. Four of the
protesters were took away, confined in a special police car, and taken into
custody. It was reported on the following day that those four protesters
were arrested on suspicion of *interfering with policemen in the execution
of their duties.*
Doesn’t a person who is against the war be allowed to express the statement
of his/her own view? Can a person who is against war be taken away without a
single question asked?
We strongly protest against police violence, malicious arrest, and custody
of people who tried to give their written statements to the U.S. Embassy.
3.20 Anti-War Youth Solidarity Center
Contact: c/o Kyuen Renraku Center, #14 Ishida Bldg.4F 2-8-16 Shinbashi
Minato-ku, Tokyo 105-0004 Japan
URL: http://mypage.naver.co.jp/antiwar/
E-mail:
-Institute for Public Accuracy
These important news releases are located here:
http://www.accuracy.org/press.htm
March 24, 2003 * Geneva Conventions * Water Supply * Following Orders * ‘Fragging’
March 21, 2003 Crossing the Border
March 20, 2003 Bombing Baghdad
March 19, 2003 Americans Intervening for Peace in the Middle East
March 18, 2003 White House Claims: A Pattern of Deceit
March 17, 2003 Moment of Truth, or Lies?
March 13, 2003 Showdown at the U.N.—Interviews Available
-Lack of Skepticism Leads to Poor Reporting on Iraq Weapons Claims
FAIR-L
Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting
Media analysis, critiques and activism
ACTION ALERT:
March 25, 2003
A lack of skepticism toward official U.S. sources has already led
prominent American journalists into embarrassing errors in their coverage
of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, particularly in relation to claims that
proof had been found that Iraq possesses banned weapons.
On March 20, the second day of the invasion, U.S. military sources
initially described missiles launched by Iraq as “Scuds"-- the U.S. name
for a Soviet-made missile used by Iraq during the Gulf War. They exceed
the range limits imposed on Iraqi weapons by the 1991 ceasefire agreement.
While some reporters appropriately sourced the Scud reports to military
officials, and cautioned their audience about the uncertainty of the
identification, others rushed to report claims as facts. NBC’s Matt
Lauer’s report was definitive: “We understand they have fired three
missiles. One of those was a Scud missile. It was destroyed by a Patriot
missile battery as it headed toward Kuwait.”
His colleague Tim Russert was similarly certain, saying, “Because of last
night’s activity, clearly the Iraqis are now trying to respond with at
least one Scud fired at the troops mapped on the border of Kuwait and
Iraq.” Fellow NBC anchor Brian Williams added, “We learned one Scud had
been intercepted, but two missiles had made it to Kuwaiti soil.”
On NPR that day, anchor Bob Edwards was equally sure about what happened:
“Iraq this morning launched Scud missiles at Kuwait in retaliation for the
American strike on Baghdad a few hours earlier.” Correspondent Mike
Shuster helpfully pointed out that “these Scuds are banned under U.N.
Security Council resolutions and have a range of up to 400 miles.”
ABC’s Ted Koppel, “embedded” with an infantry division, reported
matter-of-factly that “there were two Scud missiles that came in. One was
intercepted by a patriot missile.” ABC anchor Derek McGinty had earlier
explained that “there was a Scud attack, one Scud fired from Basra into
Kuwait. It was intercepted by an American patriot battery, and apparently
knocked out of the sky. There is still no word exactly what was on that
Scud, whether or not there might have been any sort of unconventional
weaponry onboard.”
Fox News Channel’s William La Jeunesse was not only asserting that a Scud
had been launched, but was drawing conclusions about its significance:
“Now, Iraq is not supposed to have Scuds because they have a range of 175
up to 400 miles. The limit by the U.N., of course, is like 95 miles. So,
we already know they have something they’re not supposed to have.”
As the day went on, however, the Pentagon was less definitive about what
kind of missile Iraq was using, prompting some journalists to back off the
story. Associated Press reported on March 22 that “Maj. Gen. Stanley
McChrystal, the vice director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
told a Pentagon news conference that the Iraqis have not fired any Scuds
and that U.S. forces searching airfields in the far western desert of Iraq
have uncovered no missiles or launchers.”
Even so, the next day, columnist Peter Bronson (Cincinnati Enquirer,
3/23/03) was still writing, “The Scuds he swore he did not have were fired
at Kuwait, and Iraq was launching lame denials while the craters still
smoked.” Apparently the corrections of the earlier, incorrect reports had
not reached even all of those whose job it is to follow the news.
Reporters were also embarrassed on March 23 by an evaporating story about
a “chemical facility” near the town of Najaf, Iraq, that was touted by
U.S. military officials as a possible smoking gun to prove disputed claims
about Saddam Hussein possessing banned chemical weapons. While journalists
were not typically as credulous of this claim as they were with the Scud
story, and generally remembered to attribute it to military sources,
accounts still tended to be breathless and to extrapolate wildly from an
unconfirmed report.
ABC’s John McWethy promoted the story with this report: “Amidst all the
fighting, one important new discovery: U.S. officials say, up the road
from Nasarijah, in a town called Najaf, they believe that they have
captured a chemical weapons plant and perhaps more important, the
commanding general of that facility. One U.S. official said he is a
potential ‘gold mine’ about the weapons Saddam Hussein says he doesn’t
have.”
NBC’s Tom Brokaw described the story thusly: “Word tonight that U.S.
forces may have found what U.N. inspectors spent months searching for, a
facility suspected to be a chemical weapons plant, uncovered by ground
troops on the way north to Baghdad.” NBC Pentagon correspondent Jim
Miklaszewski added what seemed to be corroborating details: “This huge
chemical complex… was constructed of sand-casted walls, in other words,
meant to camouflage its appearance to blend in with the desert. Once
inside, the soldiers found huge amounts of chemicals, stored chemicals.
They apparently found no chemical weapons themselves, and now military
officials here at the Pentagon say they have yet to determine exactly what
these chemicals are or how they could have been used in weapons.”
Fox News Channel, less cautious than some of its competitors, treated the
report of a chemical weapons factory as fact in a series of onscreen
banners like “Huge Chemical Weapons Factory Found in So. Iraq.”
Some print outlets also hyped the story the next day, as when the
Philadelphia Daily News (10/24/03) reported it as the “biggest find of the
Iraq war” and “a reversal of fortune for American and British forces at
the end of the war’s most discouraging day.”
As it turned out, however, the “discovery” seemed to be neither a big find
nor a reversal of fortune, but simply a false alarm, and TV reporters
began changing their stories. The Dow Jones news service reported
(3/24/03), “U.S. officials said Monday that no chemical weapons were found
at a suspected site at Najaf in central Iraq, U.S. television networks
reported. NBC News reported from the Pentagon that no chemicals at all
were found at the site. CNN, also reporting from the Pentagon, said
officials now believe the plant there was abandoned long ago by the
Iraqis.” On March 25, the New York Times reported that “suggestions on
Sunday that a chemical plant in Najaf might be a weapons site have turned
out to be false.”
U.S.-based journalists are generally quick to caution readers, when
describing an allegation made by Iraq, that the information “could not be
independently confirmed.” The fact is that information provided by any
government should be treated with skepticism; reporters might try
extending their critical approach to the U.S. military’s statements.
ACTION: Write to the leading broadcast and cable TV news outlets and urge
them to be skeptical when relaying information from either side in this
war.
NBC Nightly News
mailto:nightly@nbc.com
Phone: 212-664-4971
Fox News Channel
mailto:comments@foxnews.com
Phone: 1-888-369-4762
As always, please remember that your comments are taken more seriously if
you maintain a polite tone. Please cc with your
correspondence.
Go here for a look at how the media distorts the news on Iraq and other stories:
(Other good news sources: http://www.fair.org/resources.html )
Media Beat: Casualties of War—First Truth, Then Conscience (3/20/03)
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Media Advisory: Will the War Begin With a Big Lie? (3/19/03)
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Action Alert: In Iraq Crisis, Networks Are Megaphones for Official Views (3/18/03)
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Action Alert: Do Media Know That War Kills? (3/14/03)
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Action Alert: New York Times, Networks Shun U.N. Spying Story (3/11/03)
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Action Alert: MSNBC’s Double Standard on Free Speech: “Turd World” is OK-- “anti-war, anti-Bush” is not (3/7/03)
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Media Advisory: Star Witness on Iraq Said Weapons Were Destroyed (2/27/03)
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Media Advisory: Muted Response to Ashcroft’s Sneak Attack on Liberties (2/12/03)
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Media Advisory: A Failure of Skepticism in Powell Coverage: Disproof of previous claims underlines need for scrutiny (2/10/03)
-Japanese ZNet
Go here for ZNet articles translated into Japanese
-Warning from history (And Japan Occupation)
By John Dower
You have written about the occupation of Japan by the United States after World War Two. Does this have any relevance to what might take place in a post-hostilities Iraq, should the United States carry out its threat to go to war against that country?
Starting last fall, we began to hear that U.S. policymakers were looking into Japan and Germany after World War II as examples or even models of successful military occupations. In the case of Japan, the imagined analogy with Iraq is probably irresistible. Although Japan was nominally occupied by the victorious “Allied powers” from August 1945 until early 1952, the Americans ran the show and tolerated no disagreement. This was Unilateralism with a capital “U”—much as we are seeing in U.S. global policy in general today. And the occupation was a pronounced success. A repressive society became democratic, and Japan—like Germany—has posed no military threat for over half a century.
The problem is that few if any of the ingredients that made this success possible are present—or would be present—in the case of Iraq. The lessons we can draw from the occupation of Japan all become warnings where Iraq is concerned.
It is difficult for most people today to imagine what the situation was like in 1945, in the wake of the Second World War. One must remember that Japan had been engaged in aggression in Asia since 1931, when Imperial Army militarists launched a successful takeover of Manchuria. Open war against China began in 1937, and the great and foolhardy “preemptive” strike against Pearl Harbor took place in December 1941—in the context of a Japanese declaration of war against the United States and European powers with colonies in Southeast Asia. Japan’s aggression was as open and audacious as that of its Axis allies Germany and Italy.
Just as is the case with Europe and the Soviet Union, we will never have an exact reckoning of the death toll of the war in Asia. China bore the brunt of Japanese aggression. Estimates vary and have tended to become inflated in recent years, but the number of Chinese who died directly or indirectly as a consequence of the war is probably in the neighborhood of fifteen million. In countries like the Dutch East Indies—known today as Indonesia—estimates of fatalities range from one million to several million. In their final frenzy in the Philippines the emperor’s men massacred around one hundred thousand civilians in Manila alone. U.S. battle deaths in the Pacific War also were approximately one hundred thousand. Japan’s own war dead numbered around two million servicemen and another one million civilians—roughly four percent of the total population at the time.
This was a charnel house in which the Japanese not only savaged others but were themselves savaged by war and militarism and their own repressive leaders. So, the dream that everyone embraced once Japan had been defeated was of a nation that would never again bring such havoc on its neighbors or, indeed, on its own people. “Demilitarization” became the watchword of the time, and it was argued that this could only be enduring if the country was “democratized” as well, so that irresponsible leaders could not repeat these horrors.
When I say that “everyone” embraced this vision of a demilitarized, democratized Japan, I have in mind not merely the victorious Allied nations but also the Asian peoples who had been so grievously victimized by the Japanese war machine—many of whom remained at war’s end colonial subjects of the British, French, Dutch, and Americans. I also have in mind the great majority of the Japanese, who found themselves not only bereaved but also living in a country utterly devastated by a miserable, losing war. Even people who are familiar with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that preceded Japan’s surrender in August 1945 often are unaware that the U.S. terror-bombing raids that came before them—aimed primarily at destroying civilian morale—had pulverized large portions of 64 other major cities. Tokyo, for example, had been mostly reduced to rubble.
It is important to keep all this in mind when we begin to talk about drawing lessons from Japan that might be applicable to Iraq after any projected U.S. hostilities. The postwar occupation of Japan possessed a great intangible quality that simply will not be present in the event of a U.S. war against Iraq. It enjoyed virtually unquestioned legitimacy—moral as well as legal—in the eyes of not merely the victors but all of Japan’s Asian neighbors and most Japanese themselves. Japan had been at war for almost fifteen years. It had declared war on the Allied powers in 1941. It had accepted the somewhat vague terms of surrender “unconditionally” less than four years later. Quite the opposite can be anticipated if the United States attacks and then occupies Iraq. The United States will find the legitimacy of its actions widely challenged—within Iraq, throughout the Middle East and much of the rest of the world, and even among many of its erstwhile supporters and allies.
What other factors contributed to the success of postwar policies in Japan, and how might these be relevant to an occupation of Iraq?
What made the occupation of Japan a success was two years or so of genuine reformist idealism before U.S. policy became consumed by the Cold War, coupled with a real Japanese embrace of the opportunity to start over. There are moments in history—fleeting occasions of opportunity—when people actually sit down and ask, “What is a good society? How can we bring this about?” Winners in war do not ask this of themselves. Winners tend to say we won, we’re good, we’re righteous, what we did was just, now it’s time to get back to business and build on our strengths. But losers—certainly in the case of Japan—are under more compulsion to ask what went wrong and what they might do to make sure they don’t fall into the same disasters again.
American policy toward defeated Japan meshed with this Japanese sense of failure and the necessity of starting over. The Americans may not have been self-critical, but they had definite ideas about what needed to be done to make Japan democratic. Much of this thinking came from liberals and leftists who had been associated with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s progressive New Deal policies—policies that were already falling out of favor in Washington before the war ended. One might say that the last great exercise of New Deal idealism was carried out by Americans in defeated Japan. It was this combination of the Americans using their “unconditional” authority to crack open the old authoritarian system and Japanese at all levels seizing this opportunity to make the reforms work that accounts for the success of the occupation.
The reforms that were introduced in the opening year and a half or so of the occupation were quite stunning. They amounted to a sweeping commitment to what we now call “nation-building”—the sort of hands-on commitment that George W. Bush explicitly repudiated in his presidential campaign. The Americans introduced in Japan a major land reform, for example, that essentially took land from rich landlords, eliminated widespread tenancy, and created a class of small rural landowners. The argument for this was that rural oppression had kept the countryside poor, thwarted democracy, constricted the domestic market, and fueled the drive to control overseas markets. We introduced labor laws that guaranteed the right to organize, bargain collectively, and strike, on the grounds that a viable labor movement is essential to any viable democracy. We encouraged the passage of a strong labor standards law to prevent exploitation of workers including women and children. We revamped both the content and structure of the educational system. In all this the input of Japanese bureaucrats and technocrats was essential to implement such reforms, and serious grass-roots support was basic to their survival.
One of our major initiatives was to create an entirely new constitution. There were no citizens in Japan in 1945. There was no popular sovereignty. Under the existing constitution, sovereignty was vested in the emperor and all Japanese were his “subjects.” So, the Americans drafted—but the Japanese translated, debated, tinkered with, and adopted—a new national charter that remains one of the most progressive constitutions in the world. The emperor became a “symbol” of the state. An extensive range of human and civil rights was guaranteed—including an explicit guarantee of gender equality. Belligerency of the state was repudiated. Changing the constitution meant, moreover, that much of the civil code had to be rewritten to conform to these new strictures concerning equality and guaranteed rights. Although the occupation ended in 1952 and there are no restrictions on amending the constitution, not a word of it has been changed.
There will be revisions in the near future, I would predict, primarily to clarify the legal status of Japan’s present-day military forces. But it is inconceivable that they will undo the principles of popular sovereignty and extensive guarantee of democracy rights. And, in one way or another, whatever revision takes place, we should expect to see reaffirmation of the fundamental ideals of antimilitarism.
I have no doubt that huge numbers of Iraqis would welcome the end of repression and establishment of a democratic society, but any number of considerations make the situation there very different than it was in Japan. Apart from lacking the moral legitimacy and internal and global support that buttressed its occupation of Japan, the United States is not in the business of nation-building any more—just look at Afghanistan. And we certainly are not in the business of promoting radical democratic reform. Even liberal ideals are anathema in the conservative circles that shape U.S. policy today. And beyond this, many of the conditions that contributed to the success of the occupation of Japan are simply absent in Iraq.
What, more precisely, were the unique conditions that contributed to success in Japan—particularly those that would be absent in Iraq?
John Stuart Mill has a wonderful line somewhere to the effect that a country can be laid waste by fire and sword, but in and of itself this really doesn’t matter where recovery is concerned. What matters is not so much what is destroyed but rather what human resources survive. Even though Japan had been laid to ruin by the terror-bombing of its cities, what survived was an exceptionally literate populace whose long war effort had, in fact, contributed to great and widespread advances in technological and technocratic skills. At the same time this was an essentially homogeneous populace that had been mobilized behind a common national cause.
The failure and discredit of the cause did not destroy this general sense of collective national purpose. It meant, however, that these great human resources were available to be mobilized to new ends that were more peaceful and progressive. Put simply, one of the reasons the reformist agenda succeeded is that Japan was spared the type of fierce tribal, religious, and political factionalism that exists in countries like Iraq today.
Particularly in the early stages of effecting a smooth surrender Japan also possessed an unusually flexible—some would say chameleonlike—leader in the person of Emperor Hirohito. The emperor had certainly been the symbol of presurrender militarism, and no innocent bystander to wartime policymaking. He was not, however, a hands-on dictator akin to Hitler or Mussolini—or to Saddam Hussein. Once surrender became unavoidable the emperor adroitly metamorphosed into a symbol of cooperation with the conquerors. He came quietly, and for reasons of pure expediency the Americans happily whitewashed and welcomed him. He became, as it were, a beacon of continuity in the midst of drastic change. We cannot, of course, imagine anything of the sort taking place in a post-hostilities Iraq.
Much the same sort of continuity took place at the levels of both national and local government. Certain important reforms were introduced at the national level—most notably the abolition of the War (army) and Navy ministries and the breakup and gutting of the once-powerful Home Ministry, which had controlled the police and dictated policies at the level of the prefectures or states. But for all practical purposes the bureaucracy remained intact, top to bottom. And to a far greater extent than anyone really anticipated, bureaucrats and civil servants cooperated in implementing the early reformist agendas. “Democratization” of the structure and content of the educational system, to take but one example, required and received enormous input from bureaucrats and teachers at every level. The skills and education levels of the Iraqi people are substantial, but it is nonetheless difficult to imagine a comparably swift, smooth, and substantial redirection of existing administrative and institutional structures in a post-hostilities Iraq.
We should also keep in mind what defeated Japan did not possess. Japan is notoriously poor in natural resources. A desperate quest for control of raw materials as well as markets was one of the major considerations that drove Japanese imperialism and aggression in the first place. That, after all, is why the emperor’s men deemed it necessary to invade Southeast Asia and—once that decision had been made—attempted to forestall American retaliation by launching a preemptive strike at the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor. In the wake of Japan’s shattering defeat, no one ever imagined that it would ever again become a major power; and there were no resources within Japan itself to covet. And so the reformers—Americans and Japanese alike—had a brief breathing space in which to push their ambitious agendas without being hammered by special economic interests. Iraq, of course, with its great oil resources, will not be spared such interference.
What lessons can we draw from that earlier war and occupation and the world we fact today?
The occupation of Japan offers no model whatsoever for any projected occupation of Iraq. On the contrary, it should stand as a warning that we are lurching toward war with no idea of what we are really getting into. What is presented as hard-nosed realism by the advocates of a preemptive strike against Iraq is really—what? I have concluded after much thought that our so-called realism is simply a terrible hubris.
But to an historian of the United States and Japan and World War II there are also terrible ironies in these recent developments. Part of the irony is that Americans—certainly Americans in the current administration—have no sense of irony. “September 11” has become our terrible new “Pearl Harbor,” and at the very same time we are touting “preemptive strikes” as a moral and practical modus operandi. In the name of curbing weapons of mass destruction we have embarked on a massive program of producing new arsenals of mass destruction and have announced that we may resort to first-use of nuclear weapons. We express moral repulsion and horror at the terror-bombing of civilians, and rightly so; and then an endless stream of politicians and pundits explains how this is peculiar to Islamic fundamentalists who do not value human life as we do. But “terror-bombing” has been everyone’s game since World War II. This is the term historians routinely use to describe the U.S. bombing campaign against Japan that began with the destruction, in a single air raid, of fourteen square miles of downtown Tokyo in March 1945 and continued through Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There is nothing cultural or religious or unique about this.
There is one “lesson” from my own field of Japanese history that I find increasingly difficult to put out of mind these days, and that concerns the road to war that began in the early 1930s for Japan and only ended in 1945. Until recently, historians used to explain this disaster in terms of Japan’s “backwardness” and “semifeudal” nature. The country had all these old warrior traditions. It wasn’t a democracy—and, of course, democracies don’t wage aggressive war. More recent studies, however, cast Japan’s road to war in a different and more terrifying light.
Why “terrifying”? First, much recent scholarship suggests that it was the modern rather than “backward” aspects of Japanese society and culture that enabled a hawkish leadership to mobilize the country for all-out war. Modern mass communications enabled politicians and ideologues to whip up war sentiment and castigate those who criticized the move to war as traitors. Modern concerns about external markets and resources drove Japan into Manchuria, China, and Southeast Asia. Modern weaponry carried its own technological imperatives. Top-level planners advanced up-to-date theories about mobilizing the entire resources of the country (and surrounding areas) for “total war.” Sophisticated phrasemakers pumped out propaganda about defending the homeland and promoting “coexistence and co-prosperity” throughout Asia. Cultures of violence, cultures of militarism, cultures of unquestioning obedience to supreme authority in the face of national crisis—all of this was nurtured by sophisticated organs of propaganda and control. And, in retrospect, none of this seems peculiarly dated or peculiarly “Japanese” today.
The other aspect that is so terrifying to contemplate is that virtually every step of the way, the Japanese leaders who concluded that military solutions had become unavoidable were very smart and very proud of their technical expertise, their special knowledge, their unsentimental “realism” in a threatening world. Many of these planners were, in our own phrase, “the best and the brightest.” We have detailed records of their deliberations and planning papers, and most are couched in highly rational terms. Each new escalation, each new extension of the empire, was deemed essential to the national interest. And even in retrospect, it is difficult to say at what point this so-called realism crossed the border into madness. But it was, in the end, madness.
This interview was originally published in the February/March 2003 issue of Boston Review but with the questions omitted.
John W. Dower is Elting E. Morison Professor of History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His recent book, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II, won numerous awards including the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the Bancroft Prize.
-Our Streets, Their Telescreens
Paul Street (ZNet)
For two straight nights, we filled the streets of downtown Chicago, tens of thousands for peace, justice and democracy - for life. “What do we want? Peace! When do want it? Now!” “Tell me what democracy looks like. This is what democracy looks like.” “One, two, three, four, we don’t want this racist war.” “Whose streets? Our streets!”
We marched and chanted, drums beating and whistles blowing, angry but determined and completely nonviolent. The second night we were closely monitored every step of the way by a giant sullen army of jackbooted gendarmes, metropolitan soldiers in the proposed new century of Permanent Imperial War. Behind and above, office workers peered out of their corporate skyscrapers, curious about this outbreak of passionate mass dissatisfaction in the streets of a leading world city. “Look, that one there, five floors up in the fifth column, she just gave us the peace sign.”
We passed on numerous occasions Friday night beneath the “L,” the city’s famous Elevated Train system. More than once the conductor of a moving train stuck his or her hand out of his window, flashing two fingers in the air. We had seen the same symbol of solidarity from bus drivers marooned the night before by marchers on the city’s Lake Shore Drive.
Writing four days later, I still feel the waves, the rhythm, and the roar of the crowd, which included people from every race, ethnicity, religious and age group in Chicago - far more than the usual white college-educated suspects.
It was a good decision to turn off my computer, leave my office, and attend these marches. I made a critical mistake, however, on Friday night. I turned on my television to watch the local ten o’clock news. I wanted to see what kind of impact we had made in the holy, all-knowing corporate-state media that so powerfully shapes the hearts and minds of my fellow citizens/spectators.
The beginning of the newscast was dedicated to the shocking and appalling pyrotechnics above Baghdad, focusing discussion on the official state targets and deleting the likely consequences for civilians below. We learned that President Bush’s approval ratings were rising in response to the beginning of the barbarism.
The Chicago march was covered ten or so minutes into the broadcast by a smiling anchorwoman whose opening line was “what a difference a day makes!” The hook of her story was the supposed contrast between a terrible Thursday, when 20,000 protestors overwhelmed overmatched police, and a thankfully tamer Friday, when the cops came out in full riot gear to protect the city - from itself. Order restored.
I flipped to the non-news programming that runs on most of my fifty-seven stations. How many people, I wondered, are enjoying basketball, sit-coms, and fitness infomercials as their tax dollars and soldiers are being used to enshrine the imperial rule of sheer force and crumble the governing edifices of a sovereign nation in a cradle of ancient civilization?
Do Mourn, Do Organize
My mind flashed to the woman in an elevator I rode on Thursday. “We lost,” she told me, showing me her “No War” button on the lapel of her coat. Her companion grimaced and stared at the floor. “Time to go home and lick our wounds,” he weakly joked.
I felt their despair. I breathed it in and then...it was gone. We must mourn the lives that have been lost and the many more than will disappear because we have been unable to stop the invasion of Iraq. The grief demands to be felt; otherwise it will fester beneath our rugged public exteriors, poisoning our activism in ways that can only serve the masters of war.
The old Industrial Workers of the World slogan “Don’t Mourn, Organize” is more than just half-wrong. You don’t have to choose. And you’ll organize more effectively if you acknowledge and process the reality of the defeats that you and others have suffered.
Reasons to Resist Despair and Keep Fighting
At the same time, there are a number of sound empirical reasons to think that antiwar activists have already won significant victories and can expect more triumphs. There are other reasons to keep resisting that have nothing to do with past victories or the objective balance of forces. In what follows, I give arguments for Americans who hate the war to resist defeatism and stay energized against Bush foreign policy and for the causes of peace, justice and democracy at home and abroad.
Unprecedented Early Resistance.
The depth, breadth and scale of the domestic, overseas and popular resistance to Bush’s war are remarkable - unprecedented at this stage of an American military campaign. The numbers antiwar activists put in the streets even before the conflict even formally opened were phenomenal. Despite the best jingoistic efforts of the White House and corporate-state media, popular antiwar activism is already at a level peace organizers were unable to attain until many years into the Vietnam War.
Lives Saved.
Peace demonstrators at home and around the world have already saved Iraqi lives by contributing significantly to the creation of a political climate in which “mass civilian casualties” are feared as “a public relations disaster for Washington” (Reuters).
No Quick and Easy Victory.
A key part of the sales job for this war has been the promise of rapid, total victory. Bush never leveled with the American people regarding projected deaths of Iraq civilians or US soldiers and the length and danger of the war and the occupation. So where are all the grateful, welcoming, self-consciously “liberated” Iraqi civilians predicted by the Bush administration? This Sunday’s CNN coverage acknowledged “unexpectedly strong resistance” from Iraqi forces. Invading Iraq to install a new regime without any real support from other Arab states and other leading world nations may prove to be a long and bloody struggle. The fierce determination of Iraqi leaders is combining with resurgent Iraqi nationalism and Kurdish distrust of US intentions to prevent easy and rapid imperial triumph. This works against the quick disappearance of the peace movement on the model of 1991, when Daddy Bush achieved the basic objective (Iraq our of Kuwait) in short order with a “Nintendo War” and when there was no question of a long and difficult occupation following “regime change.”
Where Are All Those Terrible Weapons of Mass Destruction?
Another key part of the White House’s sales job is the notion that Saddam possesses huge and threatening stockpiles of major, state-of-the-art chemical and biological weapons and the potential to develop nuclear weapons. The Pentagon will pressure the media to play along with the doctrinal requirement that Saddam be shown to have possessed truly fearsome caches of WMD. There is potential for welcome White House embarrassment here, thanks to the monumental deception involved in the claim, well understood by serious investigators.
Soft, Passive and Qualified Support for Bush’s Unnecessary War.
Many Americans express outward support for the president because they think they should “support our troops” in a moment of crisis and have been led to believe that the war will be quickly won and concluded. Privately, however, many Bush supporters don’t get the president’s obsession with Saddam Hussein and his determination to put our soldiers in harm’s way for incredibly murky reasons. Their assent is full of misgivings, reflecting a sneaking and accurate suspicion that they have been fed bad information to convince them that Saddam represents a serious threat to people outside Iraq.
As the struggle extends and costs more American as well as Iraq lives, with the justifications unclear and questionable, some of this outward support will erode. It won’t help the White House that America’s incredibly unequal political economy continues to wallow in pseudo-recovery, its top-heavy torpor furthered by the regressive domestic policies Bush hopes to advance with his imperial agenda.
It is an indication of the soft and passive nature of the president’s support that pro-war rallies only put hundreds in public squares while antiwar activists marshal tens and even hundreds of thousands of passionate marchers.
The “Vietnam Syndrome” is not Dead.
Bush’s father spoke too soon when he claimed that the Persian Gulf War (when the US and its allies dropped 84,200 tons of munitions on Iraq and Kuwait) put the “Vietnam syndrome” to rest. The “Vietnam syndrome” refers to the American population’s reluctance to sustain mass American casualties in overseas conflicts of dubious defensive necessity. The high-altitude bombing of Iraq and the horrific slaughter of Saddam’s defeated troops in 1991 hardly qualified as a serious test of the “syndrome’s” strength.
The father of one of the first US soldiers killed in “Operation Liberate Iraq” accused the president of essentially taking his son’s life for no good reason. This mourning father is rightly unconvinced that Saddam Hussein represents the sort of danger that might justify such a sacrifice. The Bush administration will elicit more such bitterness among grieving families and communities as it wages its unnecessary imperial war of occupation on sullen, un-welcoming, and armed Iraqis.
Domestic Failures and a Peace Movement that is Making the Connections.
Yesterday the White House went to Congress requesting and certain to quickly receive a “supplemental” (on top of a $360 billion “defense” budget) appropriation of $74 billion to pay for the Iraqi war and homeland security. Sixty-three billion will go to the Pentagon and $8 billion to “coalition partners,” leaving just $4 billion for protecting the domestic population from terrorist attack. The extravagantly expensive war of occupation is making the radically regressive essence of the Bush regime more evident than ever. How can American government afford to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on empire while slashing taxes for the super-rich and deepening the crisis of America’s growing number of poor at home? It lacks the money to adequately fund education for all of the country’s children or for universal health coverage, but it can spend more on the military than on all possible enemy states combined many times over. It can spend hundred of billions on the occupation of distant nation that poses minimal risk to the US.
This is an opportune moment to criticize and connect two great paralyzing myths foisted on the American public by “conservative” ideologues, neo-liberal policymakers the corporate-state media and even some segments of the left. The first myth claims that the essential political choices we face are between the supposedly liberating, democratic and “free” market and the supposed dead hand of an inherently authoritarian and hyper-bureaucratic public sector. The second myth claims that the state is too weak and cash-strapped to carry out relevant functions in support of the common good: adequate school funding, drug treatment, national health insurance and much more.
In reality, the really relevant choices are between regressive, authoritarian public policies that serve heavily concentrated and highly bureaucratic corporate power and social-democratic public policies that serve the common good, reduce disparity and advance democracy. In really existing American society, moreover, the public sector is weak and cash-strapped only when it comes to social democracy for the people. Its cup runs over in powerful ways when it comes to serving wealth, and empire and racial disparity at home and abroad.
This great double standard is becoming increasingly evident to the American peace and justice movement. Relating Bush’s dangerous overseas agenda to the White House’s class war against America’s poor and working people ("the War at Home,” as it was called in a recent massive Chicago demonstration), this movement is making the connections between empire abroad and repression (including racially disparate mass incarceration) and inequality at home.
It is worth recalling that Daddy Bush’s high wartime (Dessert Storm) approval ratings fell quickly because of his failure to address deepening domestic economic insecurity. Also meriting remembrance is the fact that American policymakers were forced to scale back and ultimately call off their military crucifixion of Southeast Asia by their realization that the War on Vietnam was significantly feeding a homeland rebellion against hierarchy and injustice at home.
Ruling Class Fractures.
A significant portion of the US business, intellectual and political establishment does not support Bush’s foreign policy. Their opposition is based less on morality than on practical and conservative calculations. For some parts of the ruling-class, including possibly Bush 41, Bush 43 and his neo-fascist “posse” - as the Fundamentalist Cowboy from Crawford likes to call his “team” - are following a reckless and radical path which threatens to destabilize a system that was serving the privileged quite well. This can only be positive for peace and justice activists. Such activists have always exploited divisions among the Masters to win important victories like the legalization of labor unions, the creation and expansion of public family cash assistance, the passage of Civil Rights legislation and the end of the Vietnam War.
The Growing Revolt against Corporate-State Media.
Posters denouncing the warmongering role and related concentrated nature of the corporate-state media are widely visible at recent peace demonstrations. With good reason: Bush would not have been able to whip up enough public American support to go over the head of global allies and a significant component of his own nation’s establishment in attacking Iraq without the complicity of the corporate-state media. Permitting the White House to disseminate frankly preposterous lies about the dangers posed by Iraq and the real nature of US objectives abroad, the owners and managers of that media have emerged as full-fledged Masters of War in the post-9-11 era. The jingoistic performance of the Corporate-State Communications and Information Empire during Operation Dominate Iraq/Global Regime Change should put to rest once and for all the idiotic right-wing myth of the “liberal” and even “left” media. This can only encourage peace and justice activists’ growing propensity to identify and challenge America’s vast corporate-media manufactories of mass consent, diversion, and de-sensitization.
Post-Invasion Concerns.
Antiwar activists were naturally insulted by the disturbing propensity of government officials and the media to discuss the invasion of Iraq as a fait accompli before it happened. Now that the invasion is underway, we need to mourn our defeat and realize that the nature of occupied Iraq is also contested terrain. We should demand a decent flow of humanitarian aid for Iraqis; adequate care for the victims; Iraqi oil wealth for Iraqis; elimination of the genocidal US-imposed economic sanctions that have killed more than a half million Iraq children; self-determination and basic human rights and dignity, including a decent welfare state and reconstruction of civilian infrastructure for the Iraqi people and much more.
Beyond Iraq: Against War on the World.
Iraq is the first target for a proposed new global campaign of empire. The Bush administration’s ultimate aim is more grandiose than diverting the America population from domestic inequities or deepening US control over strategic Middle Eastern oil resources. As John Pilger noted weeks before the invasion, “the Bush cabal… believes itself to be embarked on an epochal, world-altering mission, and they are determined this moment not be squandered.” Iraqi oil, Pilger observed, “is important,” but the “real prize” is “nothing less than world domination: all the riches above and below the earth and seas.” If all “goes well” in Iraq, the Bush team and successor imperial regimes will most certainly be targeting other states for “preventive war,” that is, unwarranted imperial invasion.
World Opinion on Our Side.
If “my fellow Americans” is your only reference group, things can get rather depressing in the United States. Switch or broaden your reference group to the human race and you will find some inspiration. The White House’s claim to be backed by “a broad” overseas “coalition” is transparently false. Its leading global partner is the pathetic Tony Blair, whose early enlistment in the war on Iraq is opposed by the preponderant majority of England’s citizens. Blair has been compelled to justify his position with the insistence that he would move Bush towards moderation and multilateralism - a claim that Washington has undermined with impunity. Beyond Blair, Bush’s international support is unenthusiastic and obviously purchased with US taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars. The great majority of the world’s people, including those in “coalition” states, oppose Bush’s war. That opposition is hardly irrelevant.
Beyond the Crystal Ball.
The most compelling case for staying positively energized and organized against the global gang-bangers in the White House does not rest on our sense of the alignment of forces and chances for success. It does not rest on speculation - on what the crystal ball predicts for our causes. It is a matter of moral commitment and faith-based determination rather than objective assessment and practical calculation. It rests on the heartfelt knowledge that the Bush administration and its allies and enablers are doing something terribly, tragically wrong and dangerous to humanity. It is based on concerns that should remain intact even if 95 percent of the US population were solidly behind the self-infatuated Masters of War.
The Larger War
Those Masters and their subordinates worship the ancient authoritarian doctrine that political power grows out the barrel of a gun. They see the people of the Middle East as irritating sub-human sideshows on the petroleum-soaked road to a doctrinally mandated New World Order of permanent unilateral US military supremacy. At home their perverse moral calculus elevates bombs above books and makes them more willing to cut taxes for the unimaginably rich than to provide basic social protections for millions of very disproportionately non-white poor and working-class children. There is more than a tinge of fascism in the currently reigning masters’ way of looking at themselves, their own society and indeed the world.
We can be certain, however, that many more innocent people would have been slaughtered by the likes of Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle and other modern-day Mussolinis but for the activism of people turning out en masse even here in the eye of the imperial hurricane. We American resisters of empire owe it to the people of the world and to ourselves not to go home now, tragically despondent because the bullies in the White House have won an early battle in their projected endless war on the world. As Bush is telling us just today, the war is only beginning. It will not be fought in our name.
-The Courage of Their Convictions
by Steven Shults
It’s been at least ten years since I’ve watched The Oscars, probably more like fifteen. The whole spectacle makes about as much sense to me as taking an apple, an orange, a banana, a pear and a peach and voting one “best fruit.”
This year, however, I decided to watch again. I wanted to see who made the choice to display an emblem of peace on their multi-hundred dollar attire, and who had the courage to donate some of their time at the podium to the peace movement.
Overall what I saw was very encouraging. I saw a total of thirty people with silver dove pins or peace symbols on their lapels and gowns shown on camera either while in their seats or at the ‘podium.’ Eight people used their time at the podium to speak for peace, against war or at least to acknowledge that people are suffering because of war. No statements were made in specific support of the invasion of Iraq, though caring and respect was shown for the welfare of the men and women ordered into the hell of combat.
It may seem a small thing to wear a pin or speak your mind, but in a town where “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know” taking such a simple action can also be putting your livelihood the line. Perhaps more treacherous is the possibility that one may no longer be ‘allowed’ to practice one’s art. Any artist can tell you that risking the loss of the ability to practice your craft is risking utter heartbreak. For many artists, losing the ability to make art takes with it the will to live. Any artist with even a cursory knowledge of American history knows about the Hollywood ‘blacklist’ of McCarthyism and knows that a recurrence of such a witch hunt is more likely now than at any time since.
Neoconservative McCarthyism has already raised it’s head a few times in Hollywood recently. Sean Penn is suing a producer who Penn says dropped him from a project after Penn visited Iraq and wrote an open letter to Bush criticizing the rush to war. Martin Sheen was asked to tone down his activism and responded with an essay about the democratic right of artists to express their opinions publicly, just as any citizen has that right, without being accused of being ‘un-American’ or ‘unpatriotic.’ Newscasters, pundits, talk show hosts, radio ‘personalities’ and members of the Bush administration have criticized artists and celebrities who have spoken out against this war. In some cases it’s been mild teasing, in other cases it’s been vindictive and cruel, sometimes even threatening.
Those artists who made a statement for peace at the Academy Awards tonight have both conviction and the courage to back it up. Their belief that the war against Iraq is an unjust and unnecessary war is strong enough that they are willing to risk their ability to practice their art, their ability to work at their chosen craft, to make a statement against the war. This is not to attempt to equate such risks with laying your life on the line for what you believe in as the peace activists and soldiers who are in Iraq tonight are doing. However the courage to take such risks is no less deserved of respect and praise.
Here are the words of those spoke out for peace, against war and it’s effects, or against the current political climate, while on stage:
Chris Cooper:
“And in light of all the troubles in this world, I wish us all peace.” (loud applause)
Gael Garcia Bernal:
“The necessity for peace in the world is not a dream. It is a reality, and we are not alone. If Frida was alive, she would be on our side, against war.” (whoops, cheers and loud applause)
Michael Moore:
“I’ve invited my fellow documentary nominees on the stage. They’re here in solidarity with me because we like nonfiction. We like nonfiction and we live in fictitious times. We live in a time where we have fictitious election results that elect a fictitious president. We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons. Whether it’s the fictition of duct tape or fictition of Orange Alerts, we are against this war, Mr. Bush. Shame on you, Mr. Bush, shame on you. Any time you’ve got the Pope and the Dixie Chicks against you, your time is up.” (raucous mixture of booing, cheers and applause starting at midpoint and continuing until exit music)
Adrian Brody:
“It fills me with great joy, but I am also filled with a lot of sadness tonight because I’m accepting an award at such a strange time. My experiences of making this film made me very aware of the sadness and dehumanization of people in times of war and the repercussions of war. Whether you believe in God or Allah, may he watch over you and let’s pray for a peaceful and swift resolution.” (loud applause) “I have a friend from Queens who’s a soldier in Kuwait right now, Tommy Szarabinski, and I hope you and your boys make it back real soon and God bless you guys, I love you.” (more applause and standing ovation)
Barbra Streisand:
“I’m very proud to live in a country that guarantees every citizen, including artists, the right to sing and to say what we believe.” (loud applause)
Nicole Kidman:
“Why do you come to the Academy Awards when the world is in such turmoil? Because art is important” (cheers and applause) “Because art is important and because you believe in what you do and you want to honor that. At the same time you say there’s a lot of problems in the world and since 9/11 there’s been a lot of pain in terms of families losing people, and now there’s a war with families losing people, and God bless them.” (loud applause and cheers)
Frank Pierson (academy president):
“To our men and women overseas, godspeed and let’s get you home soon. And to the Iraqi people, I say, let’s have peace soon and let you live without war.” (loud applause)
Pedro Almodovar:
“I would like to dedicate this award to all the people that are raising their voices in favor of peace, respect of human rights, democracy and international legality” (cheers and loud applause)
Of these statements, Adrian Brody’s was by far the most eloquent, the most moving and the most powerful. It was made even more so by the fact that the orchestra had begun to play to signal that his time was up, but he admonished them to stop playing so he could speak his peace (literally and figuratively.) The enthusiastic appreciation of the standing ovation which followed made his words yet more powerful as the vast majority of his peers in attendance added their support of his sentiments by their ovation.
Michael Moore’s acceptance speech will get far more media attention than Brody’s however. In perfect Michael Moore style, he expressed raw indignation and ire in with no holds barred. Those who booed seemed to do so with premeditation, as if they had already decided to boo him before he opened his mouth. This caused Moore to have to yell to be heard above them, adding a harshness to the moment. Though I’m quite fond of Michael Moore’s movies, books and politics, my first reaction was that he had gone too far and that others who followed him later in the evening would be less inclined to speak out because of it. The tension in the air was quite palpable for several minutes after Moore left the stage. Then again there are times and situations which perhaps require that we go a bit ‘too far’ and this is surely one of those times.
Showing their awareness of these times, the following artists (and a few producers) were seen on camera at the 75th Academy Awards wearing either a silver dove or a peace symbol and/or flashed a peace sign while on camera: (in relative order of appearance) Amy Madigan, Josh Brolin, Harvey Weinstein, Chris Cooper, Rob Marshall, Don Carmody, Sir Ben Kingsley, Adrian Brody, Sylvia Plachy, Richard Gere, Brendan Fraser, Salma Hayek, Beatrice De Alba, Michael Douglas, Daniel Day Lewis, Julie Taymor, Martin Scorsese, David Lee, Michael Moore, Michael Donovan, Colin Farrell, Bono, Gina Davis, Susan Sarandon, Pedro Aldomovar, Scott Rudin, Stephen Daldry, Joel Grey, Angelica Huston and Meryl Streep.
Two lapels had small pins the shape or form of which I could not identify, those of Peter O’Toole and Kirk Douglas. Douglas had a strip of blue ribbon visible under his lapel pin as well. Frank Pierson was wearing either a button with the Oscar statue on it, or a yellow ribbon on a black background, it was difficult to see which.
The evening saw only three lapel items which could be construed as pro-war. The wearers may not have intended those symbols to be a statement of support for the war, but the neoconservatives have done a thorough enough job of co-opting those symbols that most of us tend to read them as pro-war. Specifically I’m referring to Texan Matthew McConaughey’s red, white and blue boutonniere, Jon Voight’s American flag lapel pin, and Chad Lowe’s yellow ribbon. Of these, Jon Voight’s is likely the only one which could be interpreted as something other than a pro-war sentiment, unless Chad Lowe is a big Tony Orlando & Dawn fan or too young to remember ‘Desert Storm.’ Any doubt about the meaning of McConaughey’s red, white and blue boutonniere was forcefully removed after Adrian Brody’s eloquent and moving words about the dehumanization of people in times of war and the resultant standing ovation. As Brody was leaving the stage and Dustin Hoffman was doing the intro to his presentation, we were shown a close-up of McConaughey as he sat fuming and clenching his jaws with the tension of trying to restrain a very visible anger.
Begrudgingly I must admit to having more respect for those who chose to express their pro-war views with their lapel-wear than I have for those who are against this war but chose to make no statement at all. Earlier this week Artists United to Win Without War circulated a press release which announced Dustin Hoffman, Julianne Moore and Ben Affleck, among others, had agreed to wear pins showing a blue peace sign on a green background specially designed for the event. Kathy Bates was named with others reported to have agreed to wear the Dove of Peace pins provided by Global Vision for Peace. But these artists chose not to follow through. Apparently these four lacked the courage of their convictions. Perhaps the fear of Neoconservative yellow-ribbon McCarthyism backlash was too much for them. Or perhaps they simply forgot that silence equals complicity.
-On NPR, Please Follow the Script
by Robert Jensen
Last week I found out that National Public Radio wants the opinions of antiwar activists—as long as we follow the right script.
After a day of antiwar protests on the University of Texas campus and in Austin, I found myself booked as a late-night guest on NPR’s all-day coverage of the war to be interviewed by Scott Simon, the popular host of Weekend Edition on Saturdays.
I knew something about Simon’s politics from an essay he published in the Wall Street Journal a month after 9/11. In that piece he explained that he had become a Quaker and pacifist during the antiwar movement of the 1960s but now supported Bush’s “war on terrorism.? His prose at the time was undistinguishable from the president’s rhetoric:
“But those of us who have been pacifists must admit that it has been our blessing to live in a nation in which other citizens have been willing to risk their lives to defend our dissent. The war against terrorism does not shove American power into places where it has no place. It calls on America’s military strength in a global crisis in which peaceful solutions are not apparent.?
So, when I found out Simon would be interviewing me, I had an idea of what to expect: The liberal defense of the American empire that one hears from people who have accepted the idea that we now intervene only for “humanitarian? or defensive reasons, and besides everything is different since 9/11. These people would never be so crude as to try to silence antiwar activists or question their patriotism; instead, they prefer to indulge our naiveté with that “someday you will understand? look. Even though I was not in the studio with him, I could feel that look on Simon’s face through the phone line.
After the first question, it was clear Simon expected me to follow a script that would go something like this: Yes, I’m against this war, but I know that Saddam Hussein is such a monster that nothing short of war can deal with him. Yes, I’m against this war, but now that the president has made this decision we should unify as a nation. Yes, I’m against this war, but—in the end—I realize that I should acknowledge that I am a naïve and foolish person who can’t deal the harsh realities of a harsh world.
Well, I didn’t follow the script, and it wasn’t long before it was clear in Simon’s voice that he wasn’t pleased.
Instead of accepting the assumptions built into his pro-war framework, I challenged them. I agreed that Hussein was a totalitarian thug, but argued that had little to do with why the Bush administration had pressed for a war. I talked of U.S. plans for empire and the longstanding U.S. project of controlling the Middle East as a source of strategic power in the world. I referred to the Bush administration’s own National Security Strategy document, which lays out a plan for U.S. dominance, and the U.S. military Space Command’s plans for controlling space.
With each point I made, Simon returned to some version of, “Yes, but certainly you must acknowledge …?
But I never did acknowledge what he wanted me to—not out of obstinacy but because I thought he was wrong. When it came time to take callers, Simon didn’t invite me to stay on the line, even though it was clear that he and I could have engaged in a lively exchange with listeners. After going off the air, I listened to the callers and was amused by the way Simon tried to spin my comments and put back in place the proper pro-war framework.
Since 9/11, I have been interviewed about antiwar politics hundreds of times on radio and television, including on a number of right-wing shows. I have been invited back on several of those conservative shows, where the hosts generally don’t mind a guest who strongly disagrees (although they keep tight control over their shows and generally like to get the last word).
But I don’t expect ever to be invited back on a show hosted by Scott Simon. He might argue that is because my ideas are so crazy that they don’t deserve a hearing. But what Simon either doesn’t know—or doesn’t want to know—is that the analysis I offered that night is hardly unique to me.
Simon should acknowledge that millions of people around the country and the world share a radical analysis of this war for oil and empire. And they are growing increasingly weary of the condescension of liberals.
Robert Jensen is a founding member of the Nowar Collective (http://www.nowarcollective.com), a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin, and author of “Writing Dissent: Taking Radical Ideas from the Margins to the Mainstream.? He can be reached at
