EDITORIAL: ‘Those who the gods would destroy, they first make mad…’

THE FAMOUS WORDS of Greek tragedian Euripides, written thousands of years ago, might well have been written as a commentary on our own times.

As this Voice goes to press we are marking the 81st anniversary of nuclear bombing and mass murder of the populations of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with some 200,000 dead with many more over
the subsequent years.

The mushroom clouds had barely dispersed when the lies and propaganda — which continues to today — started. With the Japanese surrender and the US occupation, their military commander General McArthur placed an iron cloak of secrecy around the use of the nuclear terror weapons in a determined drive to portray them in a positive light. Hence the assertion that the war would not have ended without the incineration of the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and this in turn saved the lives of two million US and allied soldiers who would, according to the pro-bomb script, have had to fight a fanatical Japanese resistance
inch by inch to subdue the country.

It’s a powerful tale very much still in use to this day but, as in such propaganda it misses out the full story.

Firstly horrific as the use of the A-bombs were the US bombers in thousands based off Japan took full advantage of the flammable nature of bamboo based cities and killed tens of thousand as the fire bombed cities including Tokyo. Made infamous during the Vietnam war — recall the picture of the child running in terror — Napalm, a deadly mixture of petroleum jelly and high explosive which sticks to what it touches, including human flesh, had a starring role on this deadly slaughter.

Why then use the bombs when all this power was at hand?

Politics and the emerging cold war lies at the heart of the real reason that ushered in the nuclear age. The so called ‘big three’ wartime allies — the US, Britain and the Soviet Union — fought a unified war in Europe to defeat Hitler and were due to do the same against Japan Stalin had agreed that the Red Army would join the action against Japan within an agreed time gap and this was underway with large scale fighting between Japanese and Red Army troops.

But at the same time the Japanese — giving the lie to their supposed determination to fight to the death — were frantically making diplomatic overtures vis Moscow for peace deal.

The dropping of the atomic bombs was a clear demonstration aimed at the USSR as to what the “west” had in the emerging cold war. Unbeknown to Truman the Soviet leadership knew of the weapon and were busily making their own.

However although all the horrors of dropping the bombs and the traumas of radiation sickness etc were denied, lied about and the US press gagged on the issue as part of rolling the pitch to smooth the normalisation of nukes the truth couldn’t be concealed for ever.

Enter the man who broke to iron dome of atomic secrecy — and journalistic hero of this editor — Australian Wilfrid Burchett, fresh from covering the Pacific war for the British Daily Express.

The Express of those days was rather better than today’s namesake and not under the handcuffs of US censorship. Burchett slipped the press pack and took a train to Hiroshima uncovering the reality of death, destruction and horrific injuries and illness there.

‘A warning to the world’

To the consternation of the US, his story was front page of the then millions selling Express running under the headline, “I WRITE THIS AS A WARNING TO THE WORLD,” trenchantly indicting the realities of nuclear weapons for humans.

McArthur’s PRs briefed and lied and denied Burchett’s story but the truth was out and the public horror of nuclear war can’t be put back in the bottle. Yet 82 years later, we still confront the descendants of those US apologists for nuclear death including here in our own government which is unswervingly committed to spending vast billions on war and accepts the possession of nuclear missiles and bombs as almost as a law of nature.

This amidst stagnant wages, demands for benefit cuts and cuts in services stretching back over decades and forwards as far as the eye can see. From Labour’s 2024 landslide — based on a third of the vote and won for not being the Tories — we have seen a determined drive to place the burden of the post 2008 crash squarely on the shoulders of workers, tenants, pensioners and the working class pampering the rich.

Fight climate change, not wars

Hence the only real re-industrialisation as promised by Burnham is likely to be in the production of arms — despite the urgent need to design, develop and produce equipment and technology to meet to challenges of the ever worsening climate crisis.

This as the mighty Danube runs dry, causing nuclear power stations to halt for lack of cooling water, massive fires burn from Cairngorm to Greece and failing crops threaten food shortages, around the cabinet table, the cry goes up for more nukes. The so-called “Defence” Investment Plan costs £300bn over the next four years, with an additional £5bn for drones and £64bn for further nuclear weapons and expanding UK reach with jets, armed with nuclear weapons.

This against a background of certain cuts both at UK and Scottish levels imperilling living standards and services which drive the conclusion that all the sunshine stories about condemning the wrong turn to Neoliberalism so much hot air.

Voice readers will be well advised to treat the new working class hero in Downing Street with a shovel of salt. Only a decisive break with the reality of our class divided society can open the way to a jobs not bombs, people and planet before profit future.