Hiroshima
Good editorial [on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, GLW #536]. Here's something you missed: In a documentary, The Day After Trinity, narrated by Robert Oppenheimer (head of the Manhattan Project), he said, paraphrasing, "We put Hiroshima and Nagasaki off limits to wartime bombing so that we'd have virgin populations to test the two kinds of bombs on". And then following the bombings, doctors were sent in — not to heal but to take notes on types of injuries. Also, bad as these bombings were, they were not the "two worst terror acts in human history". The fire-bombings of Dresden and Hamburg caused more deaths, were equally unnecessary, and were also intended to impress the Soviets.
Richard Moore
Wexford, Ireland
IR laws I
It is obvious that if the present campaign against the new industrial relations laws had been run during the lead-up to the last federal election the federal Labor Party would have won hands down.
Why wasn't it run? It was well known that these laws would become law if the Coalition was returned. And why will the federal Labor Party still not commit itself to repealing them if they are ever returned to government? It is because there is a de facto agreement between big business and the major parties that these laws are desirable — from the point of view of the business community.
Which makes me wonder how long it is going to take the working class to realise that the federal Labor Party does not represent their interests but only wants their votes and their union affiliation fees.
So the federal Labor Party can now play the hero and take the kudos. But if they were fair dinkum they would commit themselves to repeal these laws if re-elected.
Col Friel
Alawa, NT
IR laws II
Having misfired in Iraq, and not yet found a single terrorist at home, it seems that our PM is now gearing up against our own workers as "enemies to be beated" — but just who are these terrible workers?
Are they the train and bus drivers, or the brickies, carpenters, plumbers, and other trades who build everything we need, or are they the miriad shop and factory workers who produce and service it all, or are they the teachers of our children, or the nurses caring for the sick, not to mention the muesling and shearing teams, or the semi-drivers dragging it all to market?
Aren't these "the workers" — union or no-union — that John Howard claims he has to control for future profit-making and a booming economy — but isn't he overlooking the little fact that it's the work of all these workers that has underpinned the booming economy so far, so what of the future? What do you think?
Ken O'Hara
Gerringong, NSW
Iraq
A couple of days ago on the TV news, after a suicide bombing in Baghdad where 18 children had died, I saw a group of traumatised Iraqis screaming into the camera, "It is the Americans who are doing this!" Minutes earlier the Americans had attracted all the children around by giving out sweets — and as soon as they left, the bomber drove in.
On the ABC's 7.30 Report a few months ago, after a multiple bombing, there was a shot in the report of a bomb which hadn't gone off — clearly showing the components, one of which had the blue ICI (Imperial Chemical Industries) logo on it — not an item an insurgent would have easy access to, I would think. Once again a blood spattered Iraqi man, in perfect English, implored us to realise that "it is the Americans who are responsible for these bombings".
I am now convinced the Americans are responsible and are using a tried and true tactic which they applied in Italy and in Vietnam after World War II.
When US liberation forces moved through Italy, they had been given the names of all the local Mafia "godfathers" and immediately made contact with them by using information acquired from Al Capone, who was in prison for tax fraud in America at the time — and ready to "do a deal". Thus the US forces used the Mafia's network and influence to re-establish right-wing Catholic government in Italy — leaving the socialists, who had fought the fascists all along, out in the cold.
Similarly in Vietnam, the Allied forces released Japanese prisoners-of-war to re-establish the power structure of their occupation to crush the Vietnamese independence movement and restore the French colonial regime to power again.
David Huggett
Tamborine, Qld [Abridged]
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, August 10, 2005.
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