The Next Nagasaki - Nuclear Fears Stalk The World
Global Research Feature Article
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The Next
Nagasaki - Nuclear Fears Stalk The World
Threat to the
American Public
by Yoichi Shimatsu
Global
Research, March 19, 2011
Fourth Media (China)
A
second Hiroshima is happening with the partial meltdowns at
Fukushima 1 nuclear reactors. We can only hope the eventual
toll in lives comes nowhere near close to that of the
world's first atomic catastrophe.
The
international community is now asking: Where will be the
next Nagasaki?
In the US with its 23 aging reactors of identical design as Fukushima's GE Mark 1 reactors, along with another dozen more of slightly modified design?
In France, the world's most nuclear-dependent country?
Probably not in Germany or Venezuela, which are cutting
back their nuclear programs, nor Britain, the world leader
in conversion to offshore wind power. Or even China, a
solar-energy paragon now scaling back plans for new nuclear
plants.
Many people are also wondering: How can the only
nation that ever experienced atomic bombings become so
trusting in nuclear energy? The answer is both simple and
complicated. In the modern economy, the energy to run
machines is intertwined with national security, foreign
policy and warfare.
Uranium-based Progress
World War II was in essence a contest for fossil
fuel. An energy-hungry Japan invaded China for its coal and
Indonesia for oil reserves. Nazi Germany's blitzkriegs were
aimed at oil fields in Romania, Libya and the Caspian Sea
region. The United States and Britain fought the Axis Powers
to retain their control over the world's fossil fuel, and
they're still doing the same in conflicts with OPEC nations
and to control Central Asia and East Asia's continental
shelf.
To prevent the recurrence of another Pacific War,
Washington tried to ween postwar Japan from its dependence
on coal and oil. As Japanese industry revived by the time of
the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, the US pushed Japan to adopt the
"safe and clean" energy of the future - nuclear power
General Electric and Westinghouse were soon given charge of
installing a network of nuclear power plants across the
island nation, while Tokyo was inducted into the US-launched
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the
Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Unlike older fuel resources,
nuclear power was the sole proprietary right of the US,
which not only dominated uranium mining but also production
of boron, the neutron absorbing mineral needed for
controlled nuclear reactions.American labs including Los
Alamos, Lawrence Livermore and Oakridge are the graduate
schools for the world's nuclear physicists.
In the same
period of heady infatuation with technology, the New York
World's Fair of 1964-65 was a debutante ball for a brighter
"universal" future based on atom-splitting. The General
Electric pavilion was called "Progressland" with a
multimedia show featuring a "plasma explosion" of plutonium
fusion for awe-struck visitors. Japan served as the model of
international citizenship and cooperation under the American
aegis of atomic power.The Fukushima nuclear plant designed
by GE was commissioned in 1971.
The modern myth of safe
nuclear power was alternatively resisted and grudgingly
accepted by the Japanese public. In more recent years, once
negative perceptions toward nuclear provider Tokyo Electric
Power company have shifted. A young computer-graphics
designer in Tokyo told me that his generation grew up
thinking "TEPCO has a god-like aura of infallibility and
power greater than the government." My experience as an
editor inside the Japanese press reveals how its corporate
image was cunningly promoted with "greenwash" commercials
falsely claiming environmental-friendliness and hefty ad
revenues for television and print media.
Atomic
Energy in the Cold War
Japan was no stranger
to atomic energy. During the Second World War, the Allies
and the Axis competed for an exotic new energy source
-uranium. While the Manhattan Project was secretly crafting
the atomic bomb in New Mexico, Japan opened uranium mines in
Konan, North Korea, which now are the source of Pyongyang's
nuclear energy program.
Following the Allied victory,
the Soviet Union aimed to break the American nuclear
monopoly by establishing a protectorate called the Republic
of East Turkestan in China's northwest province of Xinjiang.
The rich uranium deposits near Burjin, in the foothills of
the Altai mountains, provided the fissionable material for
development of Soviet nuclear capability. The hastily dug
Soviet mines left behind the curse of radiation disease for
the predominantly Uyghur and ethnic Kazakh inhabitants as
well as to downstream communities in eastern Kazakhstan.
Kazakh and Chinese scientists have since run soil
remediation projects, using isotope-gathering trees to
cleanse the irradiated land.
To prevent the Soviets from
amassing a nuclear arsenal, the Truman administration
initiated a top-secret program to control the world's entire
uranium supply. Operation Murray Hill focused on sabotaging
the Altai mining operations. Douglas MacKiernan, operating
under the cover of US vice consul in Urumchi, organized a
covert team of anticommunist Russians and Kazakh guerrillas
to bomb the Soviet mining facilities. Forced to flee toward
Lhasa, MacKiernan was shot dead in case of mistaken identity
by a Tibetan border guard and is honored as the CIA's first
agent killed in action.
The covert global operations of
Operation Murray Hill are carried on today by the CIA's
counter-proliferation bureau. A glimpse into its clandestine
operations is provided in "Fair Game", the book and movie
about Valerie Plame, the agent exposed under the Bush
administration. Battles open and covert against nuclear foes
have been fought as far afield as Pakistan, Egypt, Libya,
Argentina, Indonesia, Myanmar and Iraq as well as against
usual suspects Iran and North Korea.
Threat to the
American Public
The partial meltdowns at
Fukushima 1 are putting Washington into a quandary. Had
these radiation releases occurred in North Korea or Iran,
Washington could have summoned UN Security Council sessions,
demanded IAEA inspections and imposed tough sanctions and
possibly military intervention. The meltdowns, however, are
from American-designed reactors operating under protocols
created by the US.
The Obama administration has,
therefore, downplayed the seriousness of the current nuclear
drama shaking its security ally Japan. In an unconvincing
defensive tone, the American president has backed nuclear
energy as part of "the energy mix" supporting the US
economy. His pro-nuclear stance is irrational and
irresponsible, when smaller allied countries including
Britain, the Netherlands and Germany are making massive
investments in offshore wind farms in the North Sea to end
their dependency on nuclear and fossil fuels.
The
international community is well aware of the double standard
in policy. The US quietly applauded Israeli air strikes
against Saddam Hussein's Osirak nuclear-energy plant in 1981
and has since demanded ever-stricter sanctions against
Tehran and Pyongyang. Yet Washington refuses to lead by
example, shrugging off the anti-nuclear movement's pleas to
stop plans for new reactors and shunning calls from the
citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for total nuclear
disarmament. America's campaign for an atomic monopoly, or
at least nuclear dominance, is driving smaller powers toward
obtaining a deterrence capability. These nations aren't some
"axis of evil"; they're just playing the survival game by
the rules - not the words - set by Washington.
In the
days and months ahead, America's own citizens will be
cringing from the dreaded arrival of radioactive fallout.
Terrorism is now practically forgotten when a much wider
threat may soon blanket American skies from "sea to shining
sea." Unless Washington moves rapidly toward repudiation of
its own nuclear addiction, the specter of another Nagasaki
will overshadow the land of the free and home of the brave.
Yoichi Shimatsu is Former Editor of The Japan Times Weekly