Tag: World War II

The U.S. government’s assault on children

Posted on by kathiemm

We’ve heard considerable rhetoric recently about the vileness of subjecting children to poison gas–and vile it is. So are other means by which children are maimed and murdered, and the government of the United States is complicit in vile acts against the world’s children.

For example, being burned to death–as happened to thousands of children in the World War II firebombing of cities in Japan and Germany–is ghastly, whether it kills or scars for life.

Being born with birth defects related to Agent Orange, or being killed or maimed by unexploded ordinance (a continuing scourge for children in Vietnam) is a legacy of U.S. government intervention.

An article in the Independent reports, “Dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which was bombarded by US Marines in 2004, exceed those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, according to a new study.”

According to a 2012 Children’s Defense Fund report [opens as pdf], “In 2008, 2,947 children and teens died from guns in the United States and 2,793 died in 2009 for a total of 5,740—one child or teen every three hours, eight every day, 55 every week for two years.” Any government that does not fight the gun lobby is complicit.

There is an international chemical weapons convention to which our government has alluded in trying to make its case for bombing Syria.

There is also a convention that prohibits the use of anti-personnel mines, which the U.S. has failed to ratify. How does a government that has authorized widespread “collateral damage” have the moral authority to unilaterally punish other violators of international conventions?

Let us hope and pray that the current administration listens to the millions of American voices calling for a nonviolent alternative to raining terror on children and other innocent civilians in yet another Middle Eastern country.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Military sexual assault, redux

Posted on by kathiemm
Preventing sexual assault Navy poster
Image in public domain.

The Japanese government has formally apologized for forcing women seized from China, South Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Taiwan to act as “comfort women” (sex slaves) for the military during World War II.

Recently, Toru Hashimoto, mayor of Osaka, Japan, sparked considerable rage by saying that wartime brothels “were necessary…to maintain discipline in the army,” and suggesting that the former comfort women were part of “the tragedy of war.”

Similar views, although somewhat less explicit, can be found in the American military establishment.

In response to a Pentagon report indicating that military sexual crimes against women in uniform are increasing and that only a small percentage of the cases are being prosecuted, U.S. General Martin Dempsey suggested that the problem may be linked to the strains of war.

His remarks also provide evidence of a readiness to excuse sexual assaults committed by members of the military: “If a perpetrator shows up in a court martial with a rack of ribbons and has four deployments and a Purple Heart [Medal], there is certainly the risk that we might be a little too forgiving of that particular crime.”

The good news is that the problem of sexual assaults on American women (and men) in uniform is once again getting some attention in the mainstream corporate media and that several women Senators are pursuing the issue.

The absolute failure of the military to solve the problem with educational programs and trained personnel is all too obvious when officers conducting the training perpetrate sexual violence themselves.

Sexual assaults are one more example of the kinds of aggression tolerated in a culture of violence. Apologies are not enough. Justifications are abominable. Abstract educational programs are useless. Time for a Zero Tolerance program for all kinds of violence.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Comfort women

Posted on by kathiemm

By guest author Dot Walsh

Comfort women peace rally
Peace rally with “comfort women” and friends at Japanese embassy in Korea. Photo by Andrea LeBlanc; used with permission.

Comfort women were women and girls forced into prostitution by the Japanese government during World War II.  The name “comfort women” was taken from a Japanese word meaning prostitute.

In reality these women were sex slaves for the military. The recruitment was not voluntary but often involved being kidnapped from countries taken over by the Japanese army.

A recent article in the New York Times highlighted a speech given by Mr. Hashimoto, the mayor of Osaka, who maintained that “comfort women” served a useful purpose: “When soldiers are risking their lives by running through storms of bullets, and you want to give these emotionally charged soldiers a rest somewhere, it’s clear that you need a comfort women system.”

In 2007, Andrea LeBlanc and I joined Japanese peacemakers in Korea on a journey modeled after the Peace Abbey’s Stonewalk. The intention of the Japanese was to apologize for the atrocities committed against the Korean people including the tragedy of the “comfort women.”

During the journey we visited a home for the aging “comfort women,” many of whom had never been able to marry or have a normal life because of the stigma of what had happened to them. We were invited to stay overnight and to meet the women who lived there.  On the property is a museum with graphic pictures of the events that brought them to this place. Many of the survivors bear emotional scars that have never healed.

The following day we pulled the stone to the front door of the Japanese embassy where a vigil is held every week. For Andrea and me, it was an honor to be in the company of these women whose gentle spirits and commitment to speaking truth to power was inspiring.

During the occupation as many as 200,000 or more women (estimated numbers) were confined as sex slaves.

Dot Walsh, longtime peace activist

When to call it a weapon of mass destruction (WMD)?

Posted on by kathiemm

In its Criminal Complaint against accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzokhar Tsarnaev, the FBI charged him with “unlawfully using and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction (namely, an improvised explosive device).” That is, the FBI labeled the pressure cooker device that killed two people and injured more than 200 others a WMD.

Boston Marathon bombing site
Boston Marathon bombing site. Photo by Aaron Tang used under CC Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Glen Greenwald, in the Guardian, wrote a powerful essay entitled “Why is Boston ‘terrorism’ but not Aurora, Sandy Hook, Tucson and Columbine?” Reminder:

  • In Aurora, 12 people were killed and 58 others wounded with multiple weapons, including a semiautomatic rifle.
  • In Sandy Hook, 20 school children and six adults were murdered with a semiautomatic assault rifle.
  • In Tuscon, six people were killed and 14 (including Gabrielle Giffords) were wounded by a semiautomatic pistol.
  • In Columbine, 12 students and one teacher were killed and 24 others were injured by several weapons, including a semiautomatic pistol.

So, here’s another question: When can a weapon or weapon system be called a weapon of mass destruction? Choose one or more of the following answers:

  1. When it falls into the category of nuclear, biological, or chemical (NBC) weapons.
  2. When its sale and use does not profit the weapons industry.
  3. When it can result in as many fatalities over time as nuclear weapons systems.
  4. When it serves the purposes of the military-industrial-corporate media complex.

Let’s consider these possibilities in relation to the Tsarnaev brothers’ pressure cooker devices.

  1. The most common definition of WMD has been NBC weapons. Pressure cooker bombs do not fall into this category.
  2. The pressure cooker bomb does not profit the weapons industry, although semiautomatic weapons do.
  3. Since World War II, pressure cooker bombs have accounted for a miniscule  portion of fatalities. In contrast, as reported (opens in PDF) by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, “small arms” have killed as many people as all other weapons combined.
  4. You decide: in what ways can frequent use of the term “weapons of mass destruction” play into the hands of the military-industrial corporate media complex that Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned our country to beware?

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology