Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
August 4, 2024
Please join us on Tuesday August 6th, at 6 pm to commemorate the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima. We will meet in Hastings at the VFW Plaza (Warburton Ave. and Spring St.)
Hello All – Tuesday will be the 79th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Hundreds of vigils and events will be taking place around the world. As CFOW does each year, we will mark the anniversary with a vigil/rally in Hastings.
Thinking and learning about nuclear weapons, after many years of "out of sight, out of mind," has become urgent for three reasons. The first is that the war in Ukraine and the turmoil in the Middle East have suddenly thrust nuclear-weapons states into conflicts, raising the spectre that such weapons might actually be used, with a likely escalation to a nuclear holocaust.
A second reason is that the United States has embarked on a trillion-dollar "modernization" of its nuclear arsenal. As Daryl Kimball of the Arms Control Association explains below, such a "modernization" will do nothing to make us (or the world) safer, but will only make nuclear war more likely.
The third reason why we should pay attention to nuclear weapons is because the UN General Assembly has now ratified a treaty banning nuclear weapons. This is the outcome of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (see below). While the USA and other nuclear-weapons states have yet to sign the Treaty, it remains a landmark and an aspiration for the peace-loving peoples of the world to rally around, working to bring nuclear states into compliance.
What about Hiroshima?
Most Americans, I believe, still think that using atom bombs on Japan in 1945 was justified, even if was regrettable, because it ended the war and thus saved American lives. For decades, the official line supporting the morality and lawfulness of the Hiroshima bombing has been that it saved up to one million US lives (and many Japanese lives) by ending the Pacific War without an invasion of the Japanese home islands. Historians now know that this is a myth, and that it was known not to be true at the time by President Truman and his advisors. Reading Japanese codes and Japanese messages to the USSR, the Americans in 1945 knew that Japan would surrender if Russia, which had a neutrality treaty with Japan, were to break it and declare war on Japan. Unknown to Japan, at the Yalta Conference in early 1945 Russia had agreed to declare war Japan three months after the German surrender in Europe (May 8, 1945). Thus the United States expected Russia to declare war in mid-August, and for Japan to surrender soon after. There was no need to make using the atom bomb, which was not even tested until July 16th, part of the military planning against Japan. An "invasion of the Japanese 'home islands'" would never be necessary, because the war would be over in August 1945, once Russia attacked.
Why then was the Bomb used? The most important publication addressing this question, imo, is a book by historian Gar Alperovitz called The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb and the Architecture of an American Myth. The story is complex, but it appears that the decision to use the bomb was strongly influenced by the belief that, if the bomb were used and was successful, that it would scare the Russians into conceding US demands re: Eastern Europe and the postwar settlement everywhere else. Going further, it appears that Truman and his close advisers rejected the possibility of a Japanese surrender in the late spring, keeping the war going so that the atomic bomb, if tested successfully, could be used against Japan. The strategy of Truman and his inner circle was to prolong the war until the atomic bomb was ready, and then to use it before Russia entered the war and Japan surrendered. This is a thought almost too horrible to contemplate. Yet it draws support from the frantic efforts of Truman and his supporters after the war to justify the use of the bomb with outlandish tales of a million US casualties if the bomb were not used, part of a campaign to counteract the postwar revulsion against the use of the bomb that threatened the development of a US nuclear arsenal. All this and much more are developed in Alperovitz's book. As William Faulkner once wrote, "the past is never dead. It's not even past." This is certainly true about the first use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
Thinking about "The Bomb"
This is a good place to start. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) is a coalition of non-governmental organizations in one hundred countries promoting adherence to and implementation of the United Nations nuclear weapon ban treaty. This landmark global agreement was adopted in New York on 7 July 2017. … [They write]: "Since our founding, we have worked to build a powerful global groundswell of public support for the abolition of nuclear weapons. … We were awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize for our "work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons" and our "ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons". [Learn More]
Does the United States Need More Nuclear Weapons?
By Daryl G. Kimball, Arms Control Today [July/August 2024]
[FB – The Arms Control Association is home to expert knowledge and cogent explanations about nuclear weapons. This article by their president, Daryl Kimball, unravels the insane thinking behind the US decision to "modernize" its nuclear arsenal.]
---- Proposals have been advanced to expand the U.S. nuclear modernization program to provide the United States with the capability and flexibility to deploy more strategic nuclear weapons on more delivery systems and field new types of theater-range nuclear weapons. Some experts argue that the United States should prepare to build up its deployed nuclear force at some unspecified future point while others suggest that such efforts should begin now. An expansion of Russian and U.S. deployed nuclear forces would be unnecessary, counterproductive, and expensive for both sides. Adding more nuclear warheads to missiles, fielding more nuclear-capable bombers, or deploying nuclear-armed cruise missiles would not enhance deterrence capabilities or improve security. [Read More]
The First to Oppose: Atomic scientists against the arms race.
Alice Kimball Smith, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists [December 1, 1981]
[FB – In 1943, Alice Kimball Smith moved to Los Alamos, where her husband was employed on the atomic bomb project. She came to know many atomic scientists and how they worked and thought. Her book, A Peril and A Hope: The Scientists' Movement in America, 1945-1947, is a study of what scientists did to try to prevent/stop the nuclear arms race.] ---- The atomic age began when the first nuclear explosion shattered the darkness of a New Mexico desert night on July 16, 1945. At that moment, among several of the scientists who had worked feverishly for years to bring about this very event, there occurred a sudden revulsion, the beginning of deep misgivings about what they had done. These doubts grew instantly to real fears when the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. And this was followed by a wave of outright protest from a large part of the nuclear science community when, three days later, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Within weeks, what later became known as "the scientists' movement" was born. This was perhaps the first time in American history that a significant portion of a powerful, scientific community had publicly contested official government policy. [Read More]
News Notes
(Video) Northwest Yonkers Neighbors for Black Lives Matter dedicates weekly vigil to Sonya Massey
---- Last Monday, Channel 12 News covered the weekly vigil in Yonkers that memorializes and protests the police killing of Black people. The News reported: "For years, the racial justice group has been meeting here at the corner of Odell and Warburton avenues on Mondays to read the names of Black people who have been killed by police. This week they added another name to the list. News 12's Jade Nash has more." [See the Program]
Sixty years ago today - the "Tonkin Gulf Incident"
---- The "Tonkin Gulf Incident," August 4, 1964, opened the door to further escalation by the United States in its war against Vietnam. The "Incident" grew out of US naval involvement in support of a covert operation against what the US called North Vietnam, and then an imagined attack by North Vietnam against one of the US destroyers (falsely) claimed to be in "international waters." In the event, President Johnson produced a resolution giving him broad powers to fight a war in Vietnam, which was quickly passed by Congress. The vote was unanimous on the House, but in the Senate there were two dissenters, Alaska's Ernest Gruening and Oregon's Wayne Morse. Morse was a passionate supporter of democracy, of "the people's" right to control foreign policy. Here is a clip from a TV interview Morse made at the time. Each year we honor Ernest Gruening and Wayne Morse and thank them for their bravery; we will always remember them.
CFOW Nuts & Bolts
Please consider getting involved with Concerned Families of Westchester. Weather permitting we meet for a protest/rally each Saturday in Hastings, at 12 noon at the VFW Plaza (Warburton and Spring St.) A "Black Lives Matter/Say Their Names" vigil is held in Yonkers on Mondays from 5:30 to 6:00 pm at the intersection of Warburton Ave. and Odell. Our newsletter is archived at https://cfow.blogspot.com/; and news of interest and coming events is posted on our CFOW Facebook page. Another Facebook page focuses on the climate crisis. If you would like to join one of our Zoom meetings, each Tuesday and Thursday at noon, please send a return email for the link. If you would like to support our work by making a contribution, please make out your check to "Frank Brodhead," write "CFOW" on the memo line, and send your check to CFOW, PO Box 364, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706. Thanks!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
The CFOW Weekly Reader
Featured Articles
A Mountaineer's Prayer [Appalachia]
By Sarah D. Phillips, Counterpunch [August 2, 2024]
---- Even if J. D. Vance did qualify as Appalachian, he certainly does not speak for all of Appalachia. He uses anecdotes from his own life to paint a vast swath of the United States in broad brushstrokes. Appalachia spans 206,000 square miles and comprises 423 counties across 13 states. He overlooks Appalachia's rich diversity and her 26.4 million residents, instead offering his own experiences as representative of "hillbilly culture."… In dedicating his elegy to "hillbillies," a term associated with whiteness, Vance already discounts the experiences of anyone in Appalachia who is not white. According to the Appalachian Regional Commission, one-fifth of the population of Appalachia are people of color (Blacks, Hispanics, and other people of color), as are over a third of the population of Southern Appalachia. Appalachia includes three federally recognized and five state recognized Native American Tribal Communities. … And so I offer my mountaineer's prayer: that people will look beyond J.D. Vance's skewed portrait of Appalachia to appreciate the unique beauty and challenge of the region's past, present, and future. That folks will see through the myth of bootstrapping and do the hard work needed to support one another as we navigate the election cycle, climate change, health care crises, and the so-called culture wars. And that universities will remain big tent spaces where freedom of speech and assembly, critical thinking, and diversity, equity and inclusion thrive. [Read More]
A Reflection On Venezuela
By Boaventura de Sousa Santos, ZNet [August 2, 2024]
---- I am not, nor have I ever been, a staunch Chavista. Hugo Chavez was a benevolent political meteorite who shook the Latin American sub-continent and the world in the first decade of the 21st century. In 2013, shortly after Hugo Chavez's death, I wrote a piece entitled "Hugo Chavez: the legacy and the challenges". I identified some signs of authoritarianism and bureaucratization and ended the text with the following sentence: "Without external interference, I am sure that Venezuela would know how to find a non-violent and democratic solution. Unfortunately, what is happening is that all means are being used to turn the poor against Chavismo, the social base of the Bolivarian revolution and those who have benefited most from it. And, at the same time, to provoke a rupture in the Armed Forces and a consequent military coup to oust Maduro. Europe's foreign policy (if it can be called that) could be a moderating force if it hadn't lost its soul in the meantime."[i] I have to admit that my fear has not been realized to date, although there has been no shortage of attempts to make it happen. I believe that the current moment is yet another such attempt. Hence the importance of reflecting on the clamor in the Western media about the possibility of fraud in the recent elections in Venezuela and the consensus on the right and left about the need to audit the results. This perplexes me greatly and forces me to reflect. [Read More] Also of interest is "U.S. Sanctions Have Devastated Venezuela. How Does That Help Democracy?" by Aída Chávez, The Intercept [August 2 2024] [Link]
Kashmir: Crackdowns and Plunder
By Tariq Mir, New York Review of Books [July 21, 2024]
---- When the Modi government came to power in 2014, one of its aims was to hollow out Kashmiri sovereignty, which decades of Indian occupation had already severely eroded. In 2019 the Lok Sabha revoked Article 370, a constitutional statute that allowed Kashmiri legislators to write laws to protect land, jobs, and culture, thereby ending Kashmir's semiautonomous status—the condition on which it acceded to India in 1947.
The consequences of the revocation cannot be overstated. First, it has facilitated a land grab: under Article 370, outsiders could not acquire property in Kashmir. Now they can. Authority over public lands has passed from the state government to New Delhi, which has evicted locals and sold plots to new arrivals. … Modi said that the revocation of Article 370 would "integrate" Kashmir into India. In fact it marks the onset of a settler-colonial project. After decades of suffering under army occupation and violent counterinsurgency, the region is now exposed to Indian settlers and industrialists. Kashmiris justifiably fear being turned into a minority in their own homeland and eventually driven out. In November 2019 Sandeep Chakravorty, India's consul-general in New York City, told a gathering of expatriates that settlements have "happened in the Middle East. If the Israeli people can do it, we can also do it." [Read More]
The War on Gaza
(Video) Netanyahu's End Game: Why Israel Assassinated Hamas Chief in Iran
An interview with Gideon Levy, The Big Picture [August 1, 2024]
---- Two assassinations. Two capital cities. Less than 24 hours. One struck an apartment in downtown Beirut, killing a woman and two children – targeting a Hezbollah senior commander. Then just hours later, a strike in the heart of Tehran, assassinating Hamas' most high profile figure, and its political chief – Ismail Hanieyah. Israel has claimed the first attack, though not the second – at least not yet – but the reverberations are already starting to be felt – as are fears that we're barreling towards an inevitable regional war – one that could spiral quickly out of control. This week on The Big Picture Podcast, we sit down with award-winning Israeli journalist and author Gideon Levy about the significance, and wisdom, of the two high profile assassinations. … Now less than 100 days before an election that could return Trump to the White House – can the US really afford to follow Israel into a war with Hezbollah – and possibly – a war with Iran? [See the Program]
What it's like for Palestinian women living through the Gaza genocide
By Yasmin Abusayma, Mondoweiss [July 24, 2024]
---- While the world often focuses on the political and military aspects of Gaza, the daily realities encountered by women are frequently overlooked. Women in Gaza bear heavy burdens, demonstrating remarkable resilience while navigating the harsh realities of Israel's genocidal war. In April, UN Women released its latest Gender Alert on Gaza, highlighting the profound impact of the ongoing war. Six months into the war, at least 10,000 Palestinian women in Gaza had lost their lives, including approximately 6,000 mothers, resulting in 19,000 children left without parents. Surviving women face displacement, widowhood, and severe food shortages due to Israeli airstrikes and ground operations. This catastrophic impact underscores the war's disproportionate toll on Gaza's women. As the war continues to reshape traditional gender roles, the strength and perseverance of these women will undoubtedly have long-lasting effects on Gaza's social dynamics and gender equality. [Read More]
'An entirely preventable disaster': Health officials warn of catastrophic polio epidemic in Gaza
By Tareq S. Hajjaj, Mondoweiss [August 2, 2024]
----Sewage water is flowing in most of the streets of the Gaza Strip. Mountains of garbage are piling up next to crowded refugee camps and shelters. In some areas of the strip, children can be found rummaging through the piles of trash in search of food or scraps that their family can use. Due to Israel's targeting and destruction of Gaza's water and sewage networks, millions of Palestinians in the crowded Strip have nowhere to dispose of waste other than the street. And with the total collapse of municipal and sanitation services, there is no one to collect the waste. The sanitation workers who try to reach the dumps near the border to dispose of waste are targeted by the Israeli military. … For months the Gaza Ministry of Health and other international public health agencies have warned of the spread of diseases due to the lack of clean water and untreated sewage in the streets. In mid-July, in cooperation with the World Health Organization, the Gaza health ministry conducted an analysis of samples of sewage water in the Gaza Strip, and found the presence of poliomyelitis, or as it is more commonly known, the polio virus. [Read More]
War Crimes
Crimes of War in Gaza
By Kenneth Roth, New York Review of Books [July 19, 2024]
---- Civilians in Gaza are in grave danger from Israel's disregard for international law. Some people defend Israel's behavior in Gaza by pointing to Hamas's atrocities of October 7, its indiscriminate rocket attacks on populated areas in Israel, and its calls for the eradication of Israel, but these, too, bear on the country's reasons for fighting, not the means by which it fights. None of Hamas's actions justifies Israeli violations of the laws of war. Assessing the extent of those violations is difficult while Israel's military assault continues and the Israeli government limits the access of international journalists and human rights investigators to Gaza. Still, by talking to witnesses there, using satellite imagery, and analyzing photos and videos that Israeli soldiers and Palestinian civilians have posted on social media, it is possible to determine that the Israeli government has repeatedly violated international humanitarian law in ways that amount to war crimes. [Read More] Also of interest is "The ICJ opinion on Israel's occupation leaves the US facing a hard choice," by H A Hellyer, Aljazeera [July 29, 2024] [Link].
Israel Is Using Starvation as a Weapon of War. Where Is the Outrage?
By Yousef Aljamal, American Friends Service Committee [August 2, 2024]
---- When starvation first started to spread in Gaza at the end of October 2023, the international community expressed alarm. The World Food Programme warned that "People in Gaza are starving to death right now. The speed at which this man-made hunger and malnutrition crisis has ripped through Gaza is terrifying." The European Union and the United States released statements urging Israel to open crossings and let in thousands of aid trucks. The argument then was that starvation should never be used as a weapon of war. Palestinians should not be starved for political reasons, or as a mechanism to push them out of Gaza. Israel, as the occupying power, has an obligation to ensure an adequate supply of crucial goods. That was months ago. The humanitarian crisis in Gaza has only gotten worse by every measure. And the starvation of Palestinians has become normalized. [Read More]
The IDF Just Destroyed a Key Rafah Water Facility Rachel Corrie Spent Her Last Month of Life Defending
By Younis Tirawi, Drop Site News [July 28, 2024]
---- The soldiers who blew up the water system this week were carrying out a strategy that has been explicitly articulated by the Netanyahu government. In October, an adviser to Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Giora Eiland, laid out the strategy to deprive Palestinians not just of water from outside Gaza, but to disrupt their [ability to pump and purify water locally, on the IDF's radio station, GLZ. "Israel, as I understand, closed the water supply to Gaza," said Eiland in a Hebrew-language interview. "But there are many wells in Gaza, which contain water which they treat locally, since originally they contain salt. If the energy shortage in Gaza makes it so that they stop pumping out water, that's good. Otherwise we have to attack these water treatment plants in order to create a situation of thirst and hunger in Gaza, and I would say, forewarn of an unprecedented economical and humanitarian crisis." [Read More]
A Wider War?
(Video) Netanyahu Hell-Bent on a Wider War
An interview with Trita Parsi, The Analysis News [August 1, 2024]
---- The assassination of Hamas' top political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, on Iranian soil was an embarrassment to the Iranian regime and its new president, Masoud Pezeshkian. Trita Parsi, Executive Vice President of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, lays out how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking to corner Kamala Harris - should she win the presidency - into steering U.S. policy in the direction of an all-out war in the Middle East. Yet neither is her bear hug of Netanyahu, nor a war, inevitable. [See the Program]
Does Israel Really Believe It Can Win a War Against Hezbollah?
An interview with Amal Saad, by Jeremy Scahill, Drop Site News [July 30, 2024]
---- While the Netanyahu regime has consistently threatened war against Lebanon over the past 10 months and specifically against Hezbollah, many leading regional analysts believe such action would result in catastrophe for Israel, militarily and politically. Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, far less sophisticated and armed groups, have managed to wage a nearly 10-month insurgency against Israeli ground forces in Gaza while enduring sustained bombardment from U.S.-provided weapons. Iran has also shown a willingness to attack Israel. The rise of the Axis of Resistance, which, in addition to Iran, includes Ansar Allah (the Houthis) in Yemen, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, as well as the Syrian government and the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, introduces an array of other forces that could join Hezbollah's side in a war with Israel. [Read More]
The War in Ukraine
Biden team blows off deadline for Ukraine war strategy
By Anatol Lieven, Responsible Statecraft [August 2, 2024]
---- It is now August and there is still no sign on the part of the Biden Administration of any intention to submit [the mandated] strategy to Congress. This inevitably leads to the suspicion that no such strategy in fact exists. It also suggests that without a massive change of mindset within the administration, it is not even possible to hold — let alone make public —serious and honest internal discussions on the subject, as these would reveal the flawed and empty assumptions on which much of present policy is based. Since President Biden will in any case step down next January, he could take a risk and try to bequeath to his successor not war, but peace. In terms of domestic politics, to open negotiations with Russia now would deprive Donald Trump and JD Vance of a campaigning position, and would spare a future Democrat administration (if elected) from a very difficult and internally divisive decision. The first step in this direction is for the Biden administration clearly to formulate its goals in Ukraine, and — as required by law — to submit these goals to the American people. [Read More]
Our History
Blank Checks for War: Congressional Abdication from Tonkin to Gaza
By Christian G. Appy, Counterpunch [August 2, 2024]
---- With the U.S.- backed carnage in Gaza continuing and the threat of growing violence looming throughout the region (in Lebanon, Iran, and who knows where else), we need to think more deeply than ever about how the American people have historically been excluded from foreign policy decision-making. An upcoming anniversary should remind us of what sent us down this undemocratic path. Sixty years ago, on August 7, 1964, Congress handed President Lyndon Johnson the power to wage a major war in Vietnam, solidifying its long-standing deference to the presidency on foreign policy. Not once since World War II has Congress exercised its constitutional responsibility to vote on declarations to decide if, when, and where the United States goes to war. The Tonkin Gulf Resolution of 1964 flew through Congress, in part because most members trusted the president's assurance that he sought "no wider war." Their trust was misplaced. The Johnson administration kept secret and lied about its plans for future military escalation in Vietnam. It also lied about the incident used to persuade Congress to give LBJ a blank check to use military force however he wanted: the false claim that American ships had been the targets of unprovoked and unequivocal attacks by North Vietnamese patrol boats. [Read More]
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