Feds Often Create Terror Threats, Study Finds

 thenewamerican.com

The U.S. government often manufactures and creates the alleged “terrorism threats” it purports to be fighting, in some cases even prodding mentally challenged dupes into bogus “plots” that authorities concocted in the first place, according to a newly released report highlighting the troubling practices. Perhaps the most outrageous finding: Almost every high-profile domestic terror case across America since the September 11 attacks featured the “direct involvement” of government agents or informants. In some cases, virtually the entire “terrorism” plot — from start to finish — was actually led and financed by government operatives.

Also alarming, the investigation found, are routine violations of constitutionally protected rights such as due process and fair treatment amid the never-ending and increasingly domestic-oriented terror war. From the use of “secret evidence” and anonymous juries to schemes that border on “entrapment,” the report suggests that U.S. terror policies are officially out of control. The authors of the report said the controversial tactics may even be putting national security at risk by diverting law enforcement and other resources from real threats.

The 214-page report, dubbed “Illusion of Justice: Human Rights Abuses in US Terrorism Prosecutions,” focused specifically on more than two dozen federal terror cases. As part of the probe, the non-profit Human Rights Watch and Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Institute examined all elements of the 27 cases, from initiation of the federal investigations to eventual sentencing and even the conditions of confinement after conviction. Their findings, unveiled last week, paint a troubling picture of the U.S. “terror” apparatus, its human-rights implications, and the direction in which it is all going.

The human rights-focused investigators found numerous concerns in all aspects of the process, including what they called “overly aggressive” sting operations and “unnecessarily restrictive” conditions in prison. Many of the examples highlighted in the report are truly shocking — even to the judges presiding over the cases. For example, in the “Newburgh Four” case, the judge slammed the government’s tactics, saying it “came up with the crime, provided the means, and removed all relevant obstacles.” Authorities made a terrorist out of a man “whose buffoonery is positively Shakespearean in scope,” the judge added in his stinging rebuke.

Since the September 11, 2001, attacks on U.S. soil, there have been some 500 terrorism-related cases in federal courts. “This is a number that sounds really big, and it makes it sound like Americans are being kept safe from terrorism attacks,” explained Andrea Prasow, deputy Washington director for Human Rights Watch. “But we found that in a lot of these cases, people were prosecuted who never would have committed a terrorist attack in the first place, if it weren’t for the involvement of the FBI.”

The New American has also documented more than a few similar cases in recent years. Among the myriad examples: Duping mentally ill Muslims into agreeing to help with fake government-orchestrated terror plots, providing fake “bombs” and convincing a group of young anarchists to plant them on a bridge, and countless more. In press releases announcing arrests and prosecutions, authorities regularly boast about the fact that the “terrorists” it arrests were actually prodded and led into the scheme by government agents and informants. Sometimes the dupes are even offered taxpayer money.

The latest report offers more evidence that the problem has become widespread. “Americans have been told that their government is keeping them safe by preventing and prosecuting terrorism inside the U.S.,” continued Prasow, who also served as one of the authors of the new report. “But take a closer look and you realize that many of these people would never have committed a crime if not for law enforcement encouraging, pressuring, and sometimes paying them to commit terrorist acts.”

Of the terror-related cases prosecuted since 9/11, the plurality of convictions came from so-called “material support” charges, the report found. Those normally stem from offering any sort of assistance, which can even include advice, to a proscribed organization or individual. Among the more outrageous examples highlighted in the human-rights investigation and subsequent news reports was a man initially accused of providing “military gear” to al-Qaeda. It turned out to be waterproof socks in his luggage.

Especially vulnerable, according to the human-rights report, are Muslims in the United States. The report suggests that the authorities have been burning bridges with the Islamic community in their zeal to uncover or invent terror plots; even employing troubling tactics such as paying mentally ill dupes to engage in fake terrorism schemes concocted by government officials from the start. Despite prohibitions on outright entrapment, the human-rights investigators also found that the legal burden of proving it means U.S. courts are often going along with the dubious tactics.

“The U.S. government should stop treating American Muslims as terrorists-in-waiting,” Prasow continued in a statement about the findings. “The bar on entrapment in U.S. law is so high that it’s almost impossible for a terrorism suspect to prove. Add that to law enforcement preying on the particularly vulnerable, such as those with mental or intellectual disabilities, and the very poor, and you have a recipe for rampant human rights abuses.”

As The New American magazine has documented, Muslims are not the only ones in the crosshairs. In fact, in recent years, the federal government has become increasingly brazen in labeling everyday Americans — veterans, conservatives, libertarians, pro-life activists, and more — as potential terror threats merely for their political views. Under the Obama administration, those trends have accelerated quickly, with numerous departments already exposed for officially painting a target on the backs of tens of millions of innocent Americans. Today, top U.S. officials openly admit to murdering “suspected militants” who have never been charged with a crime.

“Far from protecting Americans, including American Muslims, from the threat of terrorism, the policies documented in this report have diverted law enforcement from pursuing real threats,” Prasow added. “It is possible to protect people’s rights and also prosecute terrorists, which increases the chances of catching genuine criminals.” Other experts, including constitutional scholars, have documented similar problems with terror-war tactics.

The federal government, on the other hand, defended U.S. policies in response to the accusations in the report. “The Department of Justice has been a steadfast ally of our nation’s civil rights groups for decades,” DOJ spokesman Marc Raimondi was quoted as saying by the Washington Post. “The report itself acknowledges that the legal process used in the cases it highlighted is not only lawful but is also specifically approved by federal judges…. We do not and cannot target individuals solely for engaging in activities protected by the First Amendment, which includes free speech and religion.”

Assistant Director Michael Kortan with the FBI Office of Public Affairs claimed the Bureau’s use of informants and undercover agents was legal, important to keeping America “safe,” and already subject to what he called “rigorous oversight.” He also denied suggestions in the new report that the federal government was deploying infiltrators into communities without any evidence of wrongdoing. “The FBI does not target individuals or groups on the basis of race, ethnicity or religion and engages in outreach with diverse communities to combat all criminal activity, including terrorism,” Kortan said.

Among other recommendations, Human Rights Watch said the use of “informants” by the FBI should be restricted and subject to “robust” oversight. Prosecutors should also stop charging people with “material support to terrorism” based on activities “protected under freedom of expression principles,” it added. Finally, in response to troubling findings surrounding prison conditions, the report recommended ensuring “humane” conditions, including an end to subjecting prisoners to prolonged periods of solitary confinement.

Alex Newman is a correspondent for The New American, covering economics, education, politics, and more. He can be reached at anewman@thenewamerican.com. Follow him on Twitter @ALEXNEWMAN_JOU.

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FBI Dupes May Day Anarchists into Bogus Terror Plot

“We Kill People Based on Metadata,” Admits Former CIA/NSA Boss

The FBI Imagines Crimes and Then Arrests the Criminals

Manufacturing Monsters to Mash

“Drug Lords” Targeted in Fast & Furious Worked for FBI

Obama’s Terrorist Ties and Radical Roots

Justice Department Trained Police to Link Political Activism With Terror

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Al-Qaeda & the West Back Syrian Rebels Against Assad

Bin Laden & Al-Qaeda: U.S. Govt. Creations

University of CA, Davis Professor – Cloward And Pivon Strategy Alive And Well In Border Crisis

 

Political science, comparative culture, and mass media professor Dr. Darrell Y. Hamamoto, discusses the current border collapse, the agenda of La Raza and the destruction of America’s national sovereignty.

Rethinking Hiroshima and Nagasaki

By

August 8, 2005

lewrockwell.com

Ten years ago, in response to the 50th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Smithsonian Institution attempted to put on a display presenting the perspective of Japanese civilians living in the targeted cities. Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, fresh off the ’94 Republican Revolution, denounced the Smithsonian’s efforts as the work of a “cultural elite” bent on making Americans ashamed of their history. Following an outpouring of indignation from veterans groups, Congressional Republicans led by Gingrich, and self-styled “conservative” patriot groups, the exhibit was cancelled.

What a difference 50 years makes. Although it is hard to believe now amidst the deluge of so-called “conservative” commentary emanating from talk radio and points beyond, there was once an American Right opposed to war and militarism in all its forms. It was precisely in this tradition that — while left-wing publications like The Nation and The New Republic rushed apologias for the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to print — conservatives like Felix Morley (co-founder of the influential conservative journal Human Events), David Lawrence, and Richard Weaver castigated the bombings as unjustified and abominable. Echo the views of Felix Morley today though and you are likely to be denounced as “anti-American” by self-styled conservatives eager to defend the honor of Harry Truman. Two years ago, this young conservative would have joined them, but no longer.

The standard account of Harry Truman’s decision — which he reiterated consistently was his and his alone to make — to use the atomic bomb runs thus: faced with the implacable choice between the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and a US invasion of Japan at the cost of a half-million American lives, Truman chose the bomb thereby shortening the war while saving millions of American and Japanese lives at the same time. Indeed, the ambiance of the bomb-or-boys premise to the entire historical question of the justification of Hiroshima and Nagasaki foreshadows the predictable answer — not only were the atomic bombings a military necessity, they were a humanitarian imperative. With this storyline in place, it easy to see why Truman is considered by many one of our country’s greatest presidents, but this is the stuff of enticing novels — not history.

The specter of a bloody US invasion of Japan along with its disturbing bomb-or-boys corollary forms the backbone of the case for those who affirm Truman’s decision. But the half-million American death toll routinely bandied about is, to put it lightly, inflated. To put this ridiculous claim into perspective, consider the fact that for the estimate of a half-million American deaths to be accurate, the invasion of Japan would have had to cost more American lives than the total number of US combat fatalities in all theatres of World War II. The reality, as Stanford historian Barton Bernstein has documented, is that the actual worst-case government estimate for a full-scale US invasion of Japan was around forty-six thousand lives lost — more than ten times less than the figure often set forth in American schoolbooks. This fact aside, the bomb-or-boys myth is completely punctured by the conclusion of the US government-sanctioned 1946 Strategic Bombing Survey, which — after conducting interviews with US and Japanese military personnel — found that Japan would have surrendered by the end of 1945 “even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.”

Beside the grotesquely inflated body count etched into the American psyche, is the myth that President Truman was faced with a stark bomb-or-boys decision in the summer of 1945 — he had other options. But surely, you might say to yourself, Truman would have acted on these alternatives if he really had them; surely he would have exhausted all other options before deciding to wipe over 200,000 innocent civilians off the face of the earth. The historical record, however, shows us just the opposite.

A major alternative discussed in detail by historian Gar Alperovitz in his indispensable book The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb was the possibility of a negotiated peace with Japan involving a relaxation of the American demand for “unconditional surrender.” In his monumental work, Alperovitz documents that from April to August 1945 the Japanese made a number of official attempts to secure a negotiated peace settlement and an end to the war. The major sticking point was the fate of Emperor Hirohito — would the man many Japanese considered to be divine be tried and hanged as a war criminal? In light of this concern, Truman was urged by many of his aides to alter the surrender formula to provide for the preservation of the Emperor as a constitutional monarch. Presented with opportunity after opportunity to craft a compromise, Truman refused to bend. Indeed, the most significant statement of Allied surrender terms prior to the bombings — the Potsdam Declaration issued July 26, 1945 — maintained the rhetoric of “unconditional surrender” while not even mentioning the fate of the Emperor. President Truman then most certainly acted without exhausting all other options — a gross violation of the jus in bello principles enunciated by the Christian Church for centuries.

The list of Truman’s military aides that believed the bombings were not a military necessity reads like a who’s who list of top US brass: Generals MacArthur and Eisenhower along with Under Secretaries of State and the Navy Grew and Bard respectively all dissented from the necessity logic. In 1963, an aging Eisenhower forcefully reiterated his position to Newsweek, saying, “The Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.”

Perhaps the most startling condemnation of Truman’s decision from a US military leader came from Admiral William D. Leahy, the president’s chief of staff. In his memoirs, Leahy denounced the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – an action he described as “not worth of Christian man” — as “of no material assistance in our war against Japan. By using it Leahy said the US had descended to “an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages.”

Beside the condemnation of those who question the justification of the atomic bombings as “anti-American” a popular technique of those who defend Truman’s decision is to bring up the atrocities of the Japanese military. But, under what standards of morality are innocent Japanese men, women, and children legitimate targets because of the deplorable acts of Nanking and the Bataan Death March? Why should we, in a country where a majority claim to be Christian, shun the teachings of Jesus Christ and embrace the concept of total war? Now 60 years removed from the events of August 1945, it is past time for our nation to grapple with that question.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

by Ralph Raico

[originally released in 2001]

lewrockwell.com

This excerpt from Ralph Raico’s “Harry S. Truman: Advancing the Revolution” in John V. Denson, ed., Reassessing the Presidency: The Rise of the Executive State and the Decline of Freedom (Auburn, Alabama: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2001), is reprinted with permission. (The notes are numbered as they are because this is an excerpt. Read the whole article.)

The most spectacular episode of Truman’s presidency will never be forgotten, but will be forever linked to his name: the atomic bombings of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and of Nagasaki three days later. Probably around two hundred thousand persons were killed in the attacks and through radiation poisoning; the vast majority were civilians, including several thousand Korean workers. Twelve U.S. Navy fliers incarcerated in a Hiroshima jail were also among the dead.87

Great controversy has always surrounded the bombings. One thing Truman insisted on from the start: The decision to use the bombs, and the responsibility it entailed, was his. Over the years, he gave different, and contradictory, grounds for his decision. Sometimes he implied that he had acted simply out of revenge. To a clergyman who criticized him, Truman responded, testily:

Nobody is more disturbed over the use of Atomic bombs than I am but I was greatly disturbed over the unwarranted attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor and their murder of our prisoners of war. The only language they seem to understand is the one we have been using to bombard them.88

Such reasoning will not impress anyone who fails to see how the brutality of the Japanese military could justify deadly retaliation against innocent men, women, and children. Truman doubtless was aware of this, so from time to time he advanced other pretexts. On August 9, 1945, he stated: “The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians.”89

This, however, is absurd. Pearl Harbor was a military base. Hiroshima was a city, inhabited by some three hundred thousand people, which contained military elements. In any case, since the harbor was mined and the U.S. Navy and Air Force were in control of the waters around Japan, whatever troops were stationed in Hiroshima had been effectively neutralized.

On other occasions, Truman claimed that Hiroshima was bombed because it was an industrial center. But, as noted in the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, “all major factories in Hiroshima were on the periphery of the city – and escaped serious damage.”90 The target was the center of the city. That Truman realized the kind of victims the bombs consumed is evident from his comment to his cabinet on August 10, explaining his reluctance to drop a third bomb: “The thought of wiping out another 100,000 people was too horrible,” he said; he didn’t like the idea of killing “all those kids.”91 Wiping out another one hundred thousand people . . . all those kids.

Moreover, the notion that Hiroshima was a major military or industrial center is implausible on the face of it. The city had remained untouched through years of devastating air attacks on the Japanese home islands, and never figured in Bomber Command’s list of the 33 primary targets.92

Thus, the rationale for the atomic bombings has come to rest on a single colossal fabrication, which has gained surprising currency: that they were necessary in order to save a half-million or more American lives. These, supposedly, are the lives that would have been lost in the planned invasion of Kyushu in December, then in the all-out invasion of Honshu the next year, if that was needed. But the worst-case scenario for a full-scale invasion of the Japanese home islands was forty-six thousand American lives lost.93 The ridiculously inflated figure of a half-million for the potential death toll – nearly twice the total of U.S. dead in all theaters in the Second World War – is now routinely repeated in high-school and college textbooks and bandied about by ignorant commentators. Unsurprisingly, the prize for sheer fatuousness on this score goes to President George H.W. Bush, who claimed in 1991 that dropping the bomb “spared millions of American lives.”94

Still, Truman’s multiple deceptions and self-deceptions are understandable, considering the horror he unleashed. It is equally understandable that the U.S. occupation authorities censored reports from the shattered cities and did not permit films and photographs of the thousands of corpses and the frightfully mutilated survivors to reach the public.95 Otherwise, Americans – and the rest of the world – might have drawn disturbing comparisons to scenes then coming to light from the Nazi concentration camps.

The bombings were condemned as barbaric and unnecessary by high American military officers, including Eisenhower and MacArthur.96 The view of Admiral William D. Leahy, Truman’s own chief of staff, was typical:

the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. . . . My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make wars in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.97

The political elite implicated in the atomic bombings feared a backlash that would aid and abet the rebirth of horrid prewar “isolationism.” Apologias were rushed into print, lest public disgust at the sickening war crime result in erosion of enthusiasm for the globalist project.98 No need to worry. A sea-change had taken place in the attitudes of the American people. Then and ever after, all surveys have shown that the great majority supported Truman, believing that the bombs were required to end the war and save hundreds of thousands of American lives, or more likely, not really caring one way or the other.

Those who may still be troubled by such a grisly exercise in cost-benefit analysis – innocent Japanese lives balanced against the lives of Allied servicemen – might reflect on the judgment of the Catholic philosopher G.E.M. Anscombe, who insisted on the supremacy of moral rules.99 When, in June 1956, Truman was awarded an honorary degree by her university, Oxford, Anscombe protested.100 Truman was a war criminal, she contended, for what is the difference between the U.S. government massacring civilians from the air, as at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the Nazis wiping out the inhabitants of some Czech or Polish village?

Anscombe’s point is worth following up. Suppose that, when we invaded Germany in early 1945, our leaders had believed that executing all the inhabitants of Aachen, or Trier, or some other Rhineland city would finally break the will of the Germans and lead them to surrender. In this way, the war might have ended quickly, saving the lives of many Allied soldiers. Would that then have justified shooting tens of thousands of German civilians, including women and children? Yet how is that different from the atomic bombings?

By early summer 1945, the Japanese fully realized that they were beaten. Why did they nonetheless fight on? As Anscombe wrote: “It was the insistence on unconditional surrender that was the root of all evil.”101

That mad formula was coined by Roosevelt at the Casablanca conference, and, with Churchill’s enthusiastic concurrence, it became the Allied shibboleth. After prolonging the war in Europe, it did its work in the Pacific. At the Potsdam conference, in July 1945, Truman issued a proclamation to the Japanese, threatening them with the “utter devastation” of their homeland unless they surrendered unconditionally. Among the Allied terms, to which “there are no alternatives,” was that there be “eliminated for all time the authority and influence of those who have deceived and misled the people of Japan into embarking on world conquest [sic].” “Stern justice,” the proclamation warned, “would be meted out to all war criminals.”102

To the Japanese, this meant that the emperor – regarded by them to be divine, the direct descendent of the goddess of the sun – would certainly be dethroned and probably put on trial as a war criminal and hanged, perhaps in front of his palace.103 It was not, in fact, the U.S. intention to dethrone or punish the emperor. But this implicit modification of unconditional surrender was never communicated to the Japanese. In the end, after Nagasaki, Washington acceded to the Japanese desire to keep the dynasty and even to retain Hirohito as emperor.

For months before, Truman had been pressed to clarify the U.S. position by many high officials within the administration, and outside of it, as well. In May 1945, at the president’s request, Herbert Hoover prepared a memorandum stressing the urgent need to end the war as soon as possible. The Japanese should be informed that we would in no way interfere with the emperor or their chosen form of government. He even raised the possibility that, as part of the terms, Japan might be allowed to hold on to Formosa (Taiwan) and Korea. After meeting with Truman, Hoover dined with Taft and other Republican leaders, and outlined his proposals.104

Establishment writers on World War II often like to deal in lurid speculations. For instance: if the United States had not entered the war, then Hitler would have “conquered the world” (a sad undervaluation of the Red Army, it would appear; moreover, wasn’t it Japan that was trying to “conquer the world”?) and killed untold millions. Now, applying conjectural history in this case: assume that the Pacific war had ended in the way wars customarily do – through negotiation of the terms of surrender. And assume the worst – that the Japanese had adamantly insisted on preserving part of their empire, say, Korea and Formosa, even Manchuria. In that event, it is quite possible that Japan would have been in a position to prevent the Communists from coming to power in China. And that could have meant that the thirty or forty million deaths now attributed to the Maoist regime would not have occurred.

But even remaining within the limits of feasible diplomacy in 1945, it is clear that Truman in no way exhausted the possibilities of ending the war without recourse to the atomic bomb. The Japanese were not informed that they would be the victims of by far the most lethal weapon ever invented (one with “more than two thousand times the blast power of the British ‘Grand Slam,’ which is the largest bomb ever yet used in the history of warfare,” as Truman boasted in his announcement of the Hiroshima attack). Nor were they told that the Soviet Union was set to declare war on Japan, an event that shocked some in Tokyo more than the bombings.105 Pleas by some of the scientists involved in the project to demonstrate the power of the bomb in some uninhabited or evacuated area were rebuffed. All that mattered was to formally preserve the unconditional surrender formula and save the servicemen’s lives that might have been lost in the effort to enforce it. Yet, as Major General J.F.C. Fuller, one of the century’s great military historians, wrote in connection with the atomic bombings:

Though to save life is laudable, it in no way justifies the employment of means which run counter to every precept of humanity and the customs of war. Should it do so, then, on the pretext of shortening a war and of saving lives, every imaginable atrocity can be justified.106

Isn’t this obviously true? And isn’t this the reason that rational and humane men, over generations, developed rules of warfare in the first place?

While the mass media parroted the government line in praising the atomic incinerations, prominent conservatives denounced them as unspeakable war crimes. Felix Morley, constitutional scholar and one of the founders of Human Events, drew attention to the horror of Hiroshima, including the “thousands of children trapped in the thirty-three schools that were destroyed.” He called on his compatriots to atone for what had been done in their name, and proposed that groups of Americans be sent to Hiroshima, as Germans were sent to witness what had been done in the Nazi camps. The Paulist priest, Father James Gillis, editor of The Catholic World and another stalwart of the Old Right, castigated the bombings as “the most powerful blow ever delivered against Christian civilization and the moral law.” David Lawrence, conservative owner of U.S. News and World Report, continued to denounce them for years.107 The distinguished conservative philosopher Richard Weaver was revolted by

the spectacle of young boys fresh out of Kansas and Texas turning nonmilitary Dresden into a holocaust . . . pulverizing ancient shrines like Monte Cassino and Nuremberg, and bringing atomic annihilation to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Weaver considered such atrocities as deeply “inimical to the foundations on which civilization is built.”108

Today, self-styled conservatives slander as “anti-American” anyone who is in the least troubled by Truman’s massacre of so many tens of thousands of Japanese innocents from the air. This shows as well as anything the difference between today’s “conservatives” and those who once deserved the name.

Leo Szilard was the world-renowned physicist who drafted the original letter to Roosevelt that Einstein signed, instigating the Manhattan Project. In 1960, shortly before his death, Szilard stated another obvious truth:

If the Germans had dropped atomic bombs on cities instead of us, we would have defined the dropping of atomic bombs on cities as a war crime, and we would have sentenced the Germans who were guilty of this crime to death at Nuremberg and hanged them.109

The destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a war crime worse than any that Japanese generals were executed for in Tokyo and Manila. If Harry Truman was not a war criminal, then no one ever was.

Notes

  1. On the atomic bombings, see Gar Alperovitz, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb and the Architecture of an American Myth (New York: Knopf, 1995); and idem, “Was Harry Truman a Revisionist on Hiroshima?” Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations Newsletter 29, no. 2 (June 1998); also Martin J. Sherwin, A World Destroyed: The Atomic Bomb and the Grand Alliance (New York: Vintage, 1977); and Dennis D. Wainstock, The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1996).
  2. Alperovitz, Decision, p. 563. Truman added: “When you deal with a beast you have to treat him as a beast. It is most regrettable but nevertheless true.” For similar statements by Truman, see ibid., p. 564. Alperovitz’s monumental work is the end-product of four decades of study of the atomic bombings and is indispensable for comprehending the often complex argumentation on the issue.
  3. Ibid., p. 521.
  4. Ibid., p. 523.
  5. Barton J. Bernstein, “Understanding the Atomic Bomb and the Japanese Surrender: Missed Opportunities, Little-Known Near Disasters, and Modern Memory,” Diplomatic History 19, no. 2 (Spring 1995): 257. General Carl Spaatz, commander of U.S. strategic bombing operations in the Pacific, was so shaken by the destruction at Hiroshima that he telephoned his superiors in Washington, proposing that the next bomb be dropped on a less populated area, so that it “would not be as devastating to the city and the people.” His suggestion was rejected. Ronald Schaffer, Wings of Judgment: American Bombing in World War II (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), pp. 147–48.
  6. This is true also of Nagasaki.
  7. See Barton J. Bernstein, “A Post-War Myth: 500,000 U.S. Lives Saved,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 42, no. 6 (June–July 1986): 38–40; and idem, “Wrong Numbers,” The Independent Monthly (July 1995): 41–44.
  8. J. Samuel Walker, “History, Collective Memory, and the Decision to Use the Bomb,” Diplomatic History 19, no. 2 (Spring 1995): 320, 323–25. Walker details the frantic evasions of Truman’s biographer, David McCullough, when confronted with the unambiguous record.
  9. Paul Boyer, “Exotic Resonances: Hiroshima in American Memory,” Diplomatic History 19, no. 2 (Spring 1995): 299. On the fate of the bombings’ victims and the public’s restricted knowledge of them, see John W. Dower, “The Bombed: Hiroshimas and Nagasakis in Japanese Memory,” in ibid., pp. 275–95.
  10. Alperovitz, Decision, pp. 320–65. On MacArthur and Eisenhower, see ibid., pp. 352 and 355–56.
  11. William D. Leahy, I Was There (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1950), p. 441. Leahy compared the use of the atomic bomb to the treatment of civilians by Genghis Khan, and termed it “not worthy of Christian man.” Ibid., p. 442. Curiously, Truman himself supplied the foreword to Leahy’s book. In a private letter written just before he left the White House, Truman referred to the use of the atomic bomb as “murder,” stating that the bomb “is far worse than gas and biological warfare because it affects the civilian population and murders them wholesale.” Barton J. Bernstein, “Origins of the U.S. Biological Warfare Program,” Preventing a Biological Arms Race, Susan Wright, ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1990), p. 9.
  12. Barton J. Bernstein, “Seizing the Contested Terrain of Early Nuclear History: Stimson, Conant, and Their Allies Explain the Decision to Use the Bomb,” Diplomatic History 17, no. 1 (Winter 1993): 35–72.
  13. One writer in no way troubled by the sacrifice of innocent Japanese to save Allied servicemen – indeed, just to save him – is Paul Fussell; see his Thank God for the Atom Bomb and Other Essays (New York: Summit, 1988). The reason for Fussell’s little Te Deum is, as he states, that he was among those scheduled to take part in the invasion of Japan, and might very well have been killed. It is a mystery why Fussell takes out his easily understandable terror, rather unchivalrously, on Japanese women and children instead of on the men in Washington who conscripted him to fight in the Pacific in the first place.
  14. G.E.M. Anscombe, “Mr. Truman’s Degree,” in idem, Collected Philosophical Papers, vol. 3, Ethics, Religion and Politics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1981), pp. 62–71.
  15. Anscombe, “Mr. Truman’s Degree,” p. 62.
  16. Hans Adolf Jacobsen and Arthur S. Smith, Jr., eds., World War II: Policy and Strategy. Selected Documents with Commentary (Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-Clio, 1979), pp. 345–46.
  17. For some Japanese leaders, another reason for keeping the emperor was as a bulwark against a possible postwar communist takeover. See also Sherwin, A World Destroyed, p. 236: “the [Potsdam] proclamation offered the military die-hards in the Japanese government more ammunition to continue the war than it offered their opponents to end it.”
  18. Alperovitz, Decision, pp. 44–45.
  19. Cf. Bernstein, “Understanding the Atomic Bomb,” p. 254: “it does seem very likely, though certainly not definite, that a synergistic combination of guaranteeing the emperor, awaiting Soviet entry, and continuing the siege strategy would have ended the war in time to avoid the November invasion.” Bernstein, an excellent and scrupulously objective scholar, nonetheless disagrees with Alperovitz and the revisionist school on several key points.
  20. J.F.C. Fuller, The Second World War, 1939–45: A Strategical and Tactical History (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1948), p. 392. Fuller, who was similarly scathing on the terror-bombing of the German cities, characterized the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki as “a type of war that would have disgraced Tamerlane.” Cf. Barton J. Bernstein, who concludes, in “Understanding the Atomic Bomb,” p. 235:

In 1945, American leaders were not seeking to avoid the use of the A-bomb. Its use did not create ethical or political problems for them. Thus, they easily rejected or never considered most of the so-called alternatives to the bomb.

  1. Felix Morley, “The Return to Nothingness,” Human Events (August 29, 1945) reprinted in Hiroshima’s Shadow, Kai Bird and Lawrence Lifschultz, eds. (Stony Creek, Conn.: Pamphleteer’s Press, 1998), pp. 272–74; James Martin Gillis, “Nothing But Nihilism,” The Catholic World, September 1945, reprinted in ibid., pp. 278–80; Alperovitz, Decision, pp. 438–40.
  2. Richard M. Weaver, “A Dialectic on Total War,” in idem, Visions of Order: The Cultural Crisis of Our Time (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1964), pp. 98–99.
  3. Wainstock, Decision, p. 122.
Reprinted from Mises.org.

Ralph Raico [send him mail] is Professor Emeritus in European history at Buffalo State College is a senior fellow of the Mises Institute. He is a specialist on the history of liberty, the liberal tradition in Europe, and the relationship between war and the rise of the state. He is the author of The Place of Religion in the Liberal Philosophy of Constant, Tocqueville, and Lord Acton. His latest book is Great Wars and Great Leaders: A Libertarian Rebuttal. You can study the history of civilization under his guidance here: MP3-CD and Audio Tape.

Christian Holocaust Underway in Iraq, USA and World Look On

breitbart.com

by 19 Jul 2014

When U.S. troops invaded Iraq in 2003, there were at least 1.5 million Christians in Iraq. Over the last ten years, significantly in the last few months with the emergence of ISIS, that figure has dropped to about 400,000.

In a region where Christians predate Muslims by centuries, over one million Christians have been killed or have had to flee because of jihadi persecution, while America is basically standing by and watching. This is the sad news that Breitbart’s National Security Editor and one of the world’s leading experts on asymmetric warfare, Dr. Sebastian Gorka, brought to Breitbart News Saturday, hosted by Editor in Chief Alex Marlow on Sirius XM Patriot Radio.

Dr. Gorka explained that “in the last 48 hours, ISIS, which is now called the Islamic State in Mosul, has painted the letter “N” for Nazarene on the houses of all the surviving Christians in the city. ISIS has basically given an ultimatum to all the Christians left: You can either flee or convert to Islam, or we will kill you.”

Gorka points out that, over the last 20 years, America has stood up around the world to save Muslims. “Whether it was to save the Muslims in Bosnia or the Albanians, Kosovars, and Muslims in Serbia, it is now time for a humanitarian operation to save the remaining Christians in Iraq,” he said. “It is time for the American people and our representatives to do something for our co-religionists remaining in the Middle East.”

Marlow observed that the blatant religious cleansing is horrifying and asked Gorka: “Why is it that the mainstream press is not interested in the story?” Gorka first responded by saying “Let’s face it, this is a Christian version of the Holocaust and nothing less.”

The Middle East expert went on to explain that the mainstream media is in full support of the White House narrative “that the President single-handedly killed Osama Bin Laden, and that Al Qaeda is now on the ropes; therefore, jihad must be shriveling up around the world.” This myopic strategy of only targeting Al Qaeda has provided great opportunities for other jihadists and has given rise to ISIS.

“On top of that,” Gorka asserts that, “the mainstream media are warped in terms of their world view.” According to Breitbart’s national security expert, the media is “post-modernist, sophisticated, and secularist. So when it comes to the idea of religious persecution, they say, ‘Well who really cares because I don’t believe in God. If you are not sophisticated enough to be a post-modernist secularist… tough on you!’”

Gorka didn’t finish there with his scathing indictment of the mainstream media. He added that it is their racism that will let this genocide of Christians continue. “To the mainstream media,” Gorka charged, “the dark skin person always has to be the victim. Either the Hamas terrorist in Gaza, the Nicaraguan gang bangers coming across the border likened to juvenile political refugees… the idea that the white skin Christian or the Israelis as victims, that goes against every narrative this media wishes to pedal. They are necessarily so locked into their own ideological vision of the world.”

Marlow summed it up by saying, “Christians are politically targeted in America frequently; they are being physically targeted in Africa, Syria, and Iraq.” Gorka emphasized that, from his first hand experiences in Africa, Christians will always be blamed for starting any upheaval.

Adelson, Buffett, Gates: Wealthy Trio Pushes Citizenship for Illegals

Originally posted Friday, 11 July 2014

Written by 

thenewamerican.com

In a July 10 op-ed piece in the New York Times, three of America’s wealthiest and most powerful business magnates — Sheldon Adelson, Warren Buffett, and Bill Gates — lamented that “immigration reform” legislation is having such difficulty in getting though Congress.

After praising two aspects (the “talented graduate” provision and the “pathway to citizenship,” or amnesty provision) of the bipartisan “Gang of Eight” bill that the Senate approved last June 27 by a 68-to-32 vote, the three men called for the House to follow suit:

Whatever the precise provisions of a law, it’s time for the House to draft and pass a bill that reflects both our country’s humanity and its self-interest. Differences with the Senate should be hammered out by members of a conference committee, committed to a deal.

Continuing their plea, Adelson, Buffett, and Gates wrote:

Signs of a more productive attitude in Washington — which passage of a well-designed immigration bill would provide — might well lift spirits and thereby stimulate the economy. It’s time for 535 of America’s citizens to remember what they owe to the 318 million who employ them.

Both the Senate bill (S. 744) passed in 2013, and the House version (H.R. 15) that has stalled (precisely because it echoes the same flaws as the Senate bill), are titled the “Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act.” Among the 32 senators voting against the bill were such outspoken opponents of granting amnesty to illegal immigrants as Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Rand Paul (R-Ken.), Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), and Richard Shelby (R-Ala.).

Adelson, Buffett, and Gates noted that although they differed in their political views, they could still, if it were up to them, manage to come together “to draft a bill acceptable to each of us.” They asserted, correctly, that individuals “don’t have to agree on everything in order to cooperate on matters about which you are reasonably close to agreement.” Yet, they are all, apparently, in agreement on one of the most contentious points in the “Gang of Eight’s” bill, a point largely responsible for its lack of success in the House. That point is amnesty for illegal immigrants.

The three magnates noted: “The [Senate] bill also included a sensible plan that would have allowed illegal residents to obtain citizenship, though only after they had earned the right to do so.”

Looking at some of the businesses in which these three men earned their vast wealth ($174 billion combined), one might wonder what their corporate policies would be toward those who broke the law and violated their companies’ security. For example, if an individual cheated at the gaming tables of one of the Sands casinos owned by Adelson, what would be the consequences? Would that person be able to “earn the right” to gain access again? It is, in fact, standard policy in the casino industry not only to ban cheaters for life, but to circulate photos of the cheats among other casino owners, so they are unwelcome at virtually every major casino in the United States.

One of the many companies owned by Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is Helzberg Diamonds. Would someone caught breaking into a Helzberg store ever be able to “earn the right” to shop at the store? More likely, their photo would be posted in every store to alert security.

And what would happen to a person who broke into a secure area at one of Gates’ Microsoft facilities? Would that individual be allowed to “earn the right” to work for, or even visit, a Microsoft facility?

Yet that is exactly what these men (and all who support a “path to citizenship” for those who have violated our immigration laws by illegally crossing our borders) are asking Congress to do.

Adelson, Buffett, and Gates wrote: “It’s time for the House to draft and pass a bill that reflects both our country’s humanity and its self-interest.”

However, even if an immigration bill that called for increasing border security and stricter penalties for those who cross our borders illegally managed to pass the House (which is by no means assured, given that half of the “Gang of Eight” were Republicans), would the Senate ever agree to it? And, more important, would President Obama, who has failed miserably to enforce even our present immigration laws, ever sign it?

Considering these questions provides a clue as to what the “Gang of three” business magnates would like to see happen: simply for the House to rubber stamp the key parts of what the Senate “Gang of Eight” created, including amnesty, by whatever name it is given.

GOP Mega-Donor Sheldon Adelson: Amnesty, Driver’s Licenses, Bank Accounts for Illegals

by

Originally posted 20 Jun 2014

breitbart.com

Las Vegas hotel magnate and prominent GOP donor Sheldon Adelson believes all of the country’s illegal immigrants should be put on a path to citizenship and given driver’s licenses and bank accounts while on that path.

A post-election poll showed that former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) was ousted because of his support for amnesty legislation, but Adelson said he hoped that would not derail it.

“Let’s start by instituting a process in which all undocumented immigrants receive permits to legally work here,” he wrote at Politico, even as the country faces a crisis with illegal immigrant children flooding across the border and overwhelming the system. “Let’s provide them with the opportunity to get driver’s licenses and bank accounts—simple things that we all take for granted.”

He also said illegal immigrants should be given work permits because they “are willing to take on jobs that are not appealing to many Americans.” He added that “many of them are exploited because of their illegal status in this country.” 

The Congressional Budget Office has determined that the Senate’s amnesty bill would lower the wages of American workers, and conservative Pat Buchanan said on the Laura Ingraham Show Friday that Adelson just wanted cheap labor for his casinos. Adelson also pressed for more high-tech visas, even though numerous scholars and studies have shown that there is a surplus of American high-tech workers.

Adelson suggested that illegal immigrants who are put on a path to citizenship could do community service “as compensation for being here illegally.”