Picture by vaXzine
“Political satire became obsolete when they awarded Henry Kissinger the Nobel Peace Prize.” – Tom Lehrer.
We’re in between two anniversaries at the moment. On 6 August 1945, the United States dropped an atom bomb on Hiroshima; on 9 August 1945 it dropped another atom bomb on Nagasaki. Somewhere between 90,000 and 166,000 people died in Hiroshima, somewhere between 39,000 and 80,000 died in Nagasaki. Half of these died on the first day. In the following months, many Japanese people died form burns, radiation sickness and other injuries. There was a fair-sized military garrison in Hiroshima but the majority of those who died were civilians.
Think about it. The Omagh bomb killed 29 people – or make that 31 if you count the unborn twins in their mother’s womb. OK, we’ll split the difference. Make it 30. What’s another death less or more. That’d mean, at the most conservative estimate, that for the death toll in Japan to be replicated here, we would have had to endure an Omagh death toll – 30 people- every day of the year for 12 years. Think about it. No weeks off for holidays or days off for the Sabbath. Every single 24-hour cycle for 12 years.
The Americans were the ones who dropped the bombs. Not just one city was hit, but two, to drive the point home. And yet, straight-faced, Bill Clinton at one point compared our warring sides here to a couple of drunks who just can’t stay on the wagon. And yet, straight-faced, the US decries Iran and other ‘rogue states’ for aiming to develop a nuclear arsenal. This must be the classic instance of a dark-as-midnight pot calling the kettle black. When they’re reminded of what they did, the Americans argue that there’d have been a far higher death toll of American troops had they tried to subjugate Japan with conventional weaponry. The thing is, we’ll never know about what might have happened; we do know what did happen. At least 140,000 Japanese dead, with the lucky ones dying instantly.
And yet Jeremy Corbyn is denounced as a starry-eyed old dreamer when he talks of ending Britain’s reliance on nuclear weapons. The £100 billion saving could go to do all sorts of things in health, in education, in business. David Cameron and the Conservative party say don’t be ridiculous, we need our nuclear deterrent. So are all the countries which haven’t developed a nuclear arsenal misguided and helpless? Even though the weapons can only exist as a deterrent, never actually used?
If Corby seems mad not to believe in the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), what would you call those who want to spend £100billion on weapons that can never be used? When I was small, I remember overhearing my sisters and mother, as they washed the dishes, talking about a bomb so big it could blow up the world. I tried to grapple with that. You’d be safe nowhere: not up a tree or in an airplane or in a boat. For years after I had a recurring nightmare: the bomb had been dropped, the mushroom cloud was rising, it had happened: the entire world was about to die. It was terrifying.
And now they say Jeremy Corbyn is mad to want to eliminate this monstrous, obscene, cripplingly-expensive, out-dated military option. If he never did another thing in his life, Corbyn has earned the gratitude of every person on the planet for proposing a sane approach to his country’s defence system.
Ar fheabhas!
Go raibh maith agat, Gerard…
Brilliant Article Jude. Beyond our Country, in Britain, whose influence is pervading in our part of Ireland, Jeremy Corbyn is a voice of Sanity whose importance cannot be underestimated. Indeed I think we owe it to all of the marginalised in our two countries to back this voice of Reason, and support him in the leadership vote forthcoming in the Labour Party.
I am no Unionist, but neither is Corbyn. To confine ourselves to a parochial view as Irishmen and women, and to negate our possible influence in our joint affairs, is possibly capital folly. Your assessment of Corbyn Jude, I, and many of us, fully endorse, but it is only in a Parnellite spirit transformed into Political power, can we do justice to his vision as humanitarians, who wish a cogent alternative to the Tory Consensus prevalent across the water which pervades all our affairs and influences.
I joined the Labour Party a few days ago, as I said in a prior price here on your forum Jude. Tony Benn and other deceased beacons of light against this consensus, would endorse such a pragmatic view. As a Republican in the Spirit of Tone, Emmet, Larkin and Connolly, we must try to help foment this fracture of the Austerity driven consensus in Britain. My membership is temporarily expedient to try to help Corbyn cross the line in the forthcoming leadership vote, and it will be as quickly dissolved as soon as its impact or not, helps precipitate this change.
The nuclear threat to all our peoples, the struggling families in Ireland, and Britain suffering under austerity while the Capital classes bail the Bankers, and the Stock market Criminal speculators allowing fifty thousand plus souls daily to evaporate daily due to Starvation, malnutrition, and diseases easily preventable….I believe we need to strongly Support a left wing Alternative in Britain, to bring hope and renewal to Ireland, as much as Britain and beyond. To fail to do so because of a brittle principle at such a Key moment, is folly and negligence. A push to try to help forge a new future, means I believe we must Join this fractured Party, and try our utmost to bring a change that will galvanise a real humanitarian alternative, near and far. For Corbyn to fail by a single vote, may leave each of us wondering why we did not shadow him with our conditional support Now. Every vote counts, and the Spirit of Tom Paine would wretch, that the Irish, of all persecuted People under Albion’s shadow, faltered on a more than waylaid principle perhaps, when real pragmatism might light a new fire.
Rubbish. Utter claptrap.
We are told there is no more money for public services and ‘cuts’ are necessary to the welfare budget. In 2016, parliament is expected to support funding to the tune of £100 billion for nuclear weapons. That is mad, bad and sad.
At least we know where Not So New Labour stands on welfare issues and nuclear capability.
Look at defence spending around the world. It is often higher than education spending. If everyone agreed to half defence spending from the level it was in Jan 2014 we’d all be much better off and under no increased ‘threat’. The spending on Nuclear Arms is crazy. It is about time one government says look if they fire first then humanity is done for anyway, I am going to enjoy the spending the money on something that will benefit us all. I hope Corbyn gets to see his dream. I think he will have too many enemies that would never allow him to become Prime Minister though.
There was a splendid drama about that very thing – a Labour government going for unilateral nuclear disarmament – some thirty years ago on telly. Somebody has to make the first move and since, as you say, if the bomb is used we’re all dead, why not release billions so society has a life worth living in the meantime?
It makes so much sense Jude , that I’m sure it’ll never get off the ground Can you imagine the way they fight here over bits of cloth and building huge fires and all the rest of it .Just multiply that paranoia on a UK wide scale and all the Little Englanders who still think they are a power to be reckoned with would abhor the very idea of defencelessness. Spend all that lovely loot on medicine, food and education?….Never …never…never!!
Well they actually could, if they wished, use it for weapons that might be effective, if they’re into violence. Nuclear weapons are the one type you can’t use. Like a rubber gun in the end.
You’re surely not minimalising the bomb in your home area, Jude? I accept that it is there possibly to import a sense of scale. For me, however, size is not the argument. Every single death is tragic; it leaves whole families and communities in despair. I am going to see Antigone at the Festival. Antigone must bury her brother, not just as a sibling but to restore a sense of morality in the sake of tragedy. Pope Francis and Jeremy Corbyn would make strange bed-fellows but they are as one on necessity to reduce and totally remove nuclear weapons.
I’m certainly not minimizing what happened in Omagh (mind you, sin sceal eile) – but part of the reason that Omagh was so high-profile was that there were more people killed than in your average explosion. And on the scale of culpability, I’d still put in a lower pit of hell the man who ordered the deaths of a couple of hundred thousand than the man who ordered (or allowed) the deaths of 31 people.
And what about the devastating bombings of German cities with untold loss of life and suffering?
And , since we are discussing the hierarchy of suffering, what about the Holocaust, the Rape of Nanking ,Shanghai, the Korean comfort women?
It was Harry Trumans job to peer into the future and put an end to all of it with minimal loss of life to his constituents. After the conclusion of hostilities the USA responded by installing a democratic form of government in Japan and by implementing the Marshall Plan , thus avoiding the mistakes made after WW1 in the form of the punitive Treaty of imposed by the European leaders.
Oh God – you again…I find that almost risible, Beachguy. The US kills a couple of hundred thousand Japanese and then takes on itself to tell them what kind of government they should have. Just as the US leads the charge to insist that Iran doesn’t develop nuclear weapons, a) having used said weapons itself; and b) knowing full well that Israel has a bursting bunkerful…
The numbers killed by the US (and British) firebombings and nuclear explosions dwarves in comparison to the numbers killed in its war on terror.
But Jude, it is because of Jeremy Corbyn’s reasoned sanity that the present-day powers consider him to be so dangerous.
The lunatics of today are most definitely in charge of the asylum.
They know they can dream up stories to frighten the bejaysus out of us, and enough of us have been so conditioned to accept what we see or hear on tv from our politicians will believe the tallest tale they tell.
The EU even went along with arch-madman Obama in his campaign against Putin by imposing sanctions against Russia, using the situation in Ukraine as an excuse.
Did they never think Vladimir would react by using sanctions, with the result that NI farmers claim to be in dire straits about the glut of milk and milk products, and they are now getting support from English farmers also feeling the financial strain?
The Chinese, aware of the American trade bully-boy tactics, have been developing their own agricultural industry, and just about a week ago they announced the setting up of a dairy farm with 100,000 cattle. So they don’t need our dairy products either.
The US and UK have been bombing Arab countries to smithereens for years and now the EU is suffering from an unheard of refugee crisis – again the militaristic lunatics never seemed to think there would be consequences to their actions.
So you can see how dangerous it would be to these leaders if someone like Jeremy started explaining that these kings actually had no clothes.
If his beliefs started to gain popular traction it would not be beyond the bounds of possibility that Mr Corbyn would suffer a fatal ‘accident’. – don’t put such an idea past our present lunatic leaders!
Maith thú, Sherdy – well put. As to your last dark suggestion – what was the name of that turbulent scientist who conveniently committed ‘suicide’ in the throes of the Iraq invasion?
Dr David Kelly, a weapons specialist, who had been to Iraq and gave ‘evidence’ to Tony Blair of the WMDs which we now know did not exist, and it seems was about to turn whistle blower, was the victim of the UK’s dirty tricks department.
We can only assume that Blair personally gave the go-ahead for him to be dispatched – he couldn’t be allowed to tell the truth!
Blair’s political survival was more important than a life.
I remembered it was reported David Kelly warned he would be ‘found in the woods’. In a public interview a spook try to laugh this off saying it was just a phrase used in the industry. Imagine working for a vile organisation where ‘being found in the woods’ was an everyday phrase. I don’t think anyone in England could have protected that poor man. The same forces will see to it that Corbyn doesn’t come to power. They will released some secret recordings or set him up in a very awkward situation. If that doesn’t work they will try an concoct some accident.
Funny thing, Esteemed Blogmeister, but the nicknames for the two H-bombs dropped on Japan for some reason keep reminding one of a former vast figure who once loomed H for Huge on the British political landscape and who is also currently in the news.
They would be, respectively, ‘Little Boy’, ‘Fat Man’ and Cyril Smith.
(And – mirabile dictu ! – not a RC cleric in sight.).
Westmnister, of course, is where the Morally Superiors of the Order of the Garter have been finger wagging for yonks in a westerly direction but in more recent times in a specifically north westerly one. To keelhaul the croppies and/or tongue-lash the taigs about Omagh, Enniskillen, Kingsmill, Warrenpoint and all those other fingered beads on the rosary of Republican mayhem.
While all the time stockpiling a Nuclear Arsenal which costs millions, billions even. So cosmic indeed are the costs that they almost rival the bottom line of (gasp) Arsenal FC itself.
From Mustard Gas to the Mushroom Cloud, the weaponry to windup a world class, critically acclaimed war may well be traced from one, em, M to another M.
The leprechaun for mushroom,incidentally, is ‘fas aon oiche’ / one night growth so it may be argued that a mushroom cloud could be translated as ‘bas aon oiche / one night death. (American papers, please copy).
Westminster, as you point out, E.B., defends its M.A.D. (Mutually Assured Destruction) policy on the deterrent premise. Indeed, this deterrence is the very pith and marrow of the peace policy. And worthy of a Nobel Prize, named in honour of the Dynamite Man.
(‘Pith’ is a darling word, Joxer, a daaarling word).
Little wonder therefore that there’s a whiff of cordite about those opponents of Corbyn for his killjoy efforts to deprive the UK on yet another Nobel bauble: Jeremy’s the ultimate no-bell knocker.
Little surprise therefore that the Dublin Government (Westminister dutiful branch office in the Wesht) has adopted a M.A.D. policy towards the revival of leprechaun. So far, it has proved the ultimate deterrent: nobody speaks it.
To prep oneself properly for the 70th anniversary of the Game Changer in Japan one took down the DVD of the BBC Shakespeare. The better to wallow in the text of The Great Shake’s most bloodthirsty drama: Titus Andronicus.
Full of decapitated heads, extracted tongues – and red hands, lobbed off at the wrist. Though all is not doom and gloom and gore as exquisite lines do still manage to linger among the carnage: ‘the eagle suffers little birds to sing’.
(Never fear: DruidShakespeare will in time up the ante when it comes to text improvement, big time).
Speaking of which drama, there is a remarkable facial resemblance between Trevor Peacock who plays the lead role, and Mickey Harte
Which reminds one, must fly. To the 32 inch flat screen in the corner of one’s villa..
To see whether the eagles of Tyrone will permit the little birds of Monaghan to sing. Before doing the (gulp) inevitable.
Taim as an ait seo !.
Go h-iontach aris, Perkin! I’m heading a similar direction, thanks to the revered Mr Murdoch, he of the wife with the right hook. Hasn’t Gaelic football come on in leaps and bounds (literally and metaphorically) since the relatively drab dead days of yesteryear. Come awwwwn, Turooooonnnne!
A Grecian ghost once said: I made the Paddiad from such a local row.
The Lad Homer was not without irony: it was the Bros Cavanagh what most done down the Kavanagh County.
Dean an jab ceanna ar na Yerras agus beimid buioch, A Mhaistir Ionuin Blog !
Hubba hubba hubbaaaaaa….
Didn’t know Perkin was a Tyrone fan!Great result!
Yeeehoooo! We’ll allow him to be an honorary one, shall we, Argenta?
‘Pith’ is a darling word indeed, but alas, due to a slight lisp I am unable to use it in public without raising ignorant guffaws from those within earshot!
Give that man a cigar….
If the point of your post is the folly of a nuclear arsenal needed by the Brits you are right on.
But if you are second guessing the decision to drop the bombs on Japan you had better reconsider your thinking.
The Japanese military establishment didn’t wish to surrender even after the second bomb exploded but finally did so only after the Emperor thought it wise to do so and issued an order.
Furthermore, the Japanese had a large military component on the Asia mainland that, had the bombs not been utilized , would have been had to be dealt with after the subjugation of the Japanese home islands.
Keep in mind that the Russians only declared war after the bombs were used ,so had they not been, the USA would have had to first slug it out alone, first on the islands and then across the sea onto the mainland.
A more interesting argument concerning the bombs is whether a demonstration or two of the bomb in a remote area without the loss of life may have caused the Japanese to surrender.
Thanks for your thoughts, Beachguy. I’m afraid I still see justification for the bombs as peering into the future and saying what would have happened, when no one will ever know. As to demonstrating the bomb’s power in a remote area being better than dropping it on cities, I’d agree. But both are classic acts of terrorism.State terrorism but terrorism none the less.
Well Harry Truman was in the hot seat and was confronted with these actualities ,not speculative arguments made 70 years after the fact.
If you wish to wade into the question of ” terrorism” then you are embarking on a treacherous intellectual trip as I’m sure you know.
Who was it who said that yesterday’s terrorist is today’s statesman?
‘Treacherous intellectual trip’? I think not. My point is that Harry Truman employed terrorist tactics – frighten the population into surrender as distinct from the opposing army. But yes, you’re right, people that have repeatedly been called terrorists end up as statesmen. Like, say, Nelson Mandela.
Yes Nelson Mandela. And can you think of any people closer to home both now and in the past?
And let me give you a scenario to ponder.
So one fine morning you find yourself strolling along Lower Newtownards Road. As you pass St Matthews you strike up a conversation with a bloke in the grounds .
He passionately describes all the blokes
across the street as terrorists and all the chaps on his side as heroic defenders..
So you cross over the street to the Memorial and a man there says the same thing about the man and his friends in the chapel grounds that you just spoke with.
Usuns are the heroes. Themuns are the terrorists.
And oh yes, do you recall what happened at Pearl Harbor and elsewhere in December 1941?
Beachguy – we can’t – or I can’t – keep meeting like this. Right.
I don’t remember saying that because H Truman was a classic case of state terrorism, that he was exclusively the only terrorist that ever lived. Pearl Harbour? I honestly amn’t sure but I have a vague idea that US warships were attacked. If I’ve got that right, it wouldn’t qualify as terrorism as I understand the word, although it might qualify as unprovoked attack on another state. As to the thing about themuns etc. – of course, that’s what two opposing sides do. That doesn’t mean that one of them mightn’t be right. Or righter. Not everything is ‘one’s-as-bad-as-t’other’- too easy, not to say lazy thinking.
Here’s what I don’t understand.
Despite constant criticism it’s the good old USA that gets the call whenever there’s a problem. It’s Barack not Vladimir who gets that 3:00 AM call .
So since Americans seem only too willing to step in whenever called upon why don’t the Brits simply do away with their nuclear arsenal and rely on Uncle Sam to do their retaliation for them?
I’m in complete agreement Beachguy…
Spot-on! Without the USA in the Second World War, Europe would now be under the jackboot. History inevitably repeats itself. If immigration into Europe continues at the level it is now, we may need the USA to bale us out again. Merkel’s recent “niceness” towards migrants is very suspicious.
Maybe Harry Truman made use of the same sort of ‘intelligence’ George Bush had when declaring that Saddam Hussein had WMDs which could be triggered in 45 minutes.
The Emperor surrendered two days after the Soviets said they were coming to execute him and his family. The Soviet declaration of war forced the Japanese to surrender.
Does Beachguy really accept the lie that they were dropped to save american soldiers’ lives? Would he accept Hitlers’ argument that by killing the Jews he was saving German lives? Some of those Jews would have joined socialist resistance groups and Killed Nazis.
The US dropped the bombs because they wanted to test them. The scientists were under a lot of pressure to get them ready before the war ended. Nothing justifies attacking civilians and the Geneva Convention prohibits it. If the Axis had won the war some allied leaders would rightly have face war crimes tribunals. It wasn’t just the US the British Air chief who devised the firebombing of Dresden was also a war criminal.
Americans accept the lies and the covering up of the brutal war that occurred.
I’m getting weary of this.
One last question though.
What should Truman have done?
I await your reasoned , thoughtful reply.
Well, Beachguy, I was weary several answers back. But I’ll tell you what he should have done: he should have called for a peace conference. Except, that is, he thought it was better to kill people. Innocent people.
You’re obviously correct. A peace conference would have done it.
I believe they had already had a few which included .Winnie, Franklin and that paragon of fairness ,Josef. But wouldn’t it have been wonderful to have included Adolph and Tojo. And maybe Benito but I think he had already been strung up by some disgruntled locals.
If everyone was as fair minded as you Jude it would be a much better world we live in but I’m afraid that there are some very bad boys and girls out there who might carve you up.
First you want to kill my daughter, now you’re talking about carving me up. I’m getting a little bit worried about you, Bg.
it was a war these things happen,you would think they would come to their senses after the first one went off,the japs were hardly blameless ,
I agree, Billy. But it’s not sensible to judge the morality of an action by citing what someone else is up to.
So if someone murders your daughter you should not judge the morality of the act from your point of view but rather should delve into the kind of the actor and look to find some common ground and understanding?
Are you thinking of murdering my daughter? Please don’t – I have but one. I’m struggling to keep responding to you, Bf, and struggling equally hard to remember the point you’re panting after. Is it that I’ve suggested killing 200,000 people is worse than killing 13? If it is, I think I’ll make my excuses and leave you to it.
Not only should there be no nuclear weapons on the neighbouring island, the first item on the agenda for a united Ireland should be the standing down of the Irish army.Ireland has no call for an army at all as they do not belong to any military alliance and any humanitarian work abroad could be done by civilians.
Totally agree, Michael C. Any country with an army clearly believes in achieving its political ends through violence – which we are told we should not do. By, for example, Britain and the US
if the 50 plus 1 is to be believed surely an army will be needed,just for the smooth hand over mind,
Standing down of the Irish Army?? Not to be rude and I’m in no way hunting for an argument but what the hell are you and Jude smoking, Michael? That’s a serious question. Has the last 800 years taught you or Jude anything? Of all the people in Europe that needed a good army over those years was the Irish people in order to rid us of British Imperialism.
Europe might be at relative peace with itself at the minute (excluding Ukraine) but do you think it will be like that forever? I’d be willing to bet my house that it wont and I’m sure the vast majority of people reading this comment would agree with me. So we need an Army, a decent Army, the current Irish Army wouldn’t be able to hold off an invasion force consisting entirely of WW2 veteran pensioners, never mind a modern army because its so underfunded, small and neglected. That’s why it needs built up. And yes, we do have the numbers to protect our own people and we can get the money to pay for modern technology (Helicopters, tanks, planes, etc). Its absolute madness to me not to have an Army and leave our country and people completely open to attack and oppression, absolute utter madness.
I have a brother who was in the French Foreign Legion for 5 years. He first applied to the Irish Army and got turned down due to medical reasons. He would never have even considered the British Army due to political reasons/beliefs. So he went to France and that was the last we seen of him for 5 years, from 2008 to 2013. So many of his friends were aspiring soldiers, many of them wanted a career in the Army. None of them applied to the British Army for obvious reasons. Many applied to the Irish Army and were turned down.
We here in Ireland lose maybe hundreds of young people to the British Army every year. I can see that increasing dramatically if the Irish Army was abolished. Why should our young people go in search of an army career in a foreign country? essentially serving a foreign country? That’s why the Irish Army needs expanded, not abolished. Because if the Irish Army is abolished then, yet again, Ireland has just opened another channel where its talented, most skilled and educated young people are lost to yet more foreign countries, Britain being the main one to benefit. Ireland has to stop having its young talented people being its best export.
A conventional army is completely useless against a more powerful invader anyway. The real test of an occupiers strength is keeping the civilians oppressed. In Ireland’s case the army has never fought for independence, it has only been used on home soil to attack Irish people. I think the threat of armed ‘civilian’ resistance is the biggest deterrent Ireland has. Ireland’s army is so small it would not be able to stand up to any invasion, so maybe the money could be better spent.
I take your point about career seekers, however I don’t really give too much credence to someone that joins the army as a career choice. If it is simply a career choice then why not let Irish people join the British army. If however someone realises something deeper is at play then surely they should question joining the army in the first place.
We lose so many teachers, nurses, engineers, scientists, it would be crazy to expand the army to people who want that career an option to stay in Ireland.
I do have sympathy for your personal story though. I wanted to be a police man but I felt I could only do that by going to the US. In the end I decided that I would become a teacher, that meant I had to go oversees anyway. My brother only ever wanted to join the Irish army, he couldn’t get in either and has been jumping between jobs ever since.
I believe the Ferguson police are looking for recruits
Does ISIS freely allow humanitarian organizations into it’s areas of control? Oh yes, I forgot, they behead some of them.
Maybe it’s wiser to minister to the poor in deprived areas of Belfast but be careful there too if you don’t fit the picture of an acceptable person.
Then , of course, certain so called UN peace keeping army units are accused of spending their spare time deflowering the local maidens.
Costa Rica abolished it’s army after WW 2 and seems to have managed to muddle along without in the ensuing years.
Suffer little children…
Spare a thought for Saad Dawabsha (32) who has died of second degree burns after an attack on his home on 31 July 2015, an attack which also killed his son Ali and critically injured his wife and one other son. The family’s home was daubed with slogans in Hebrew, including the word “Revenge”.
We’ll need nuclear weapons for “another” threat before long. So, they must be kept. (non-terrestrial threat)
As for Corbyn…the guy lives in cloud-cuckoo land. He’s now a liability to Labour. He won’t last much longer.