from A-bombs to Iraq (then on to Iran?) ...

  .. via anthrax/bentonite and other such *filthy* lies

-=*=-

Today we commiserate the first grisly A-bombing, carried out by the US, and that on a predominately civilian 'target.'

  «The bombs killed as many as 140,000 people in Hiroshima and 80,000 in Nagasaki by the end of 1945, roughly half on the days of the bombings. Since then, thousands more have died from injuries or illness attributed to exposure to radiation released by the bombs. In both cities, the overwhelming majority of the dead were civilians.»
[wiki]

It is a war crime to deliberately target civilians:

  «6. Status of Targets
A. Dr. Stearns described the work he had done on target selection. He has surveyed possible targets possessing the following qualification: (1) they be important targets in a large urban area of more than three miles in diameter, (2) they be capable of being damaged effectively by a blast, and (3) they are unlikely to be attacked by next August. Dr. Stearns had a list of five targets which the Air Force would be willing to reserve for our use unless unforeseen circumstances arise.»
[Los Alamos, May 10-11, 1945]

But that's exactly what they did (note: "large urban area," aka where people live[1]), and the outrage was repeated three days later, on a similar predominately civilian 'target.' The targets ("unlikely to be attacked by next August") were hardly militarily significant, all those had already come under US Air Force bombardment - and had largely been destroyed, they were in fact 'running out of targets:'

  «After six months of intense firebombing of 67 other Japanese cities, the nuclear weapon "Little Boy" was dropped on the city of Hiroshima on Monday, August 6, 1945, followed on August 9 by the detonation of the "Fat Man" nuclear bomb over Nagasaki. These are to date the only attacks with nuclear weapons in the history of warfare.»
[wiki,ibid.]

Note: "After six months of intense firebombing of 67 other Japanese cities". One cannot justify these war crimes, but such guilty regimes propagandise (largely, sadly successfully) in attempting to deceive the sheople® and thus obscure their crimes.

(Until so-called 'revisionists' come along (beware; 'framing'), correcting the victors' history, aka lying record.)

One of the lies I've recently seen deployed is that Nagasaki was selected because it held a factory that modified Japan's torpedoes used in the attack on Pearl Harbour (a lie deployed to 'hook' emotions, it is a type of non sequitur); whereas the torpedo bit itself may be true, it is a lone fact used in isolation to obfuscate the true reason for selection (see "large urban area" above), and recall that both Hiroshima and Nagasaki ranked behind at least 67 other city-targets in military significance. And this, apropos the most egregious lie, must be neither forgotten nor ignored:

  "Competent testimony exists to prove that Japan was seeking to surrender many weeks before the atomic bomb came."

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Intermezzo (brief):

Recall that Bernays morphed propaganda -> 'public relations.'

Which is deployed to manufacture demand (& consent!!?) - effectively 'sheople-izing' the voters.

That the corporate (venal!) MSM is up to such dirty tricks is understandable (in a way - they do it for $s - even though a) it's immoral & b) it's traitorous), but that publicly financed broadcasters are virtually indistinguishable (they retail the MSM lies as news aka 'truth') is utterly scandalous - and probably criminal; i.e. transmitting lies to us to 'justify' crimes, like Australia's participation in the (illegal!) invasion of Iraq.

-=*=-

Iraq revisited (brief):

After '9/11,' it was quickly decided to attack Afghanistan (actually already in planning well *before* 9/11); that attack was eventually morphed into an invasion/occupation. But even before that, when the smoke/dust from the *three* WTC buildings had barely cleared, we got the anthrax attacks. For a 5-day period, the public were panicked by near-hysterical stories associating the anthrax with Iraq/Saddam via bentonite. The association of bentonite with Iraq/Saddam was an outright lie; there simply was no bentonite. Full-stop; but the lies were broadcast frenetically, and non-stop. This is a vitally important story; once the fear had been generated, once the damage was done - well, we see the 'fall-out;' another illegal invasion, morphed into a brutal occupation (perhaps 1.25mio Iraqis dead, 2+2mio displaced + fled), mass-murder for oil.

Glenn Greenwald revived this issue here, with follow-up here. Jay Rosen has taken it up here and Dan Gillmor in a similar vein here. The blogger Larisa Alexandrovna is adding significant input here, here, here and here. Sorry - but not too sorry; it's a lot but vitally important; it perfectly illustrates the lies deployed, how the venal MSM operates, and the dreadful consequences of those lies - which we see in Afghanistan, Iraq and possibly Iran yet to come (but hopefully not.)

-=*=-

Iran ("All options!"):

Iran stalls on nuke demands
Posted August 6, 2008 05:10:00

  «The major powers say they fear Tehran wants to build an atomic bomb. But Iran, the world's fourth-largest oil producer, insists it is only seeking to master nuclear technology to generate electricity.
...
Tehran has repeatedly refused to halt its atomic work, prompting the UN Security Council to impose three rounds of penalties on Iran since 2006. The United States also maintains its own sanctions against Iran.
...
One Western official who had seen the letter said it added "absolutely nothing" and that no concrete proposals were made by Tehran to resolve the impasse.»
[AusBC]

Comment: The AusBC reports such stuff as fact, when it's full of lies and innuendo. The IAEA is all over Iran like a rash; Iran is 'playing by the rules;' there is no *highly* enriched program (would be needed for a bomb; no highly enriched, no bomb), and no possibility of one while the IAEA supervises so closely, as it does and will continue to do. Iran has the perfect right to enrich, 'Major powers' & 'the West' is code for the US bully plus its cowardly coerced quislings. The "world's fourth-largest oil producer" bit is as if to say "See? They don't *need* nukular!" - another type of non sequitur. In short, the article is propaganda, and the AusBC has no right to transmit same.

The whole ghastly story, plus the "All options!" etc. (like faked and hyped 'map-wiping') coming from both the existing regime & candidates for the next regime is sabre-rattling in the extreme (probably illegal under international law, which both the US and Israel snub/violate on an almost daily basis, so much for the UN); the ugly US élite wants to flatten - to dominate - Iran, for nefarious purposes ("Greater Israel" for their Lobby 'chums,' more oil-theft for themselves, see Iraq) - but they (the US; any and all such ugly élites) have got to be stopped from raping the planet and dragging us all down the greedastrophe® tubes.

-=*end*=-

Ref(s):

[1] urban adj. of, living in, or situated in a town or city. [Latin urbs city]