Mairead Maguire: "The World Should Join in Call to Stop US War in Syria"

Nobel Peace Laureate and Global Article 9 supporter Mairead Maguire, is calling for the Obama administration to rethink its plan to bomb Syria and is asking people everywhere to join her  in the September 7, 2013 worldwide day of prayer and fasting for peace in Syria:

I would like to add my support to Pope Francis’ appeal and pledge to pray and fast for peace on September 7th. I encourage people of all faiths and none to join that global day of fasting and prayer for peace, and to act for peace and against U.S. military intervention by the United States in Syria.

...Every act has its consequences and every violent act, like the proposed U.S. military intervention, has its violent consequences which will cause the death of further Syrian civilians and result in many more refugees.

In the last decade, the world has watched in horror as the U.S., the U.K. and NATO have used military intervention in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and other countries. Now President Obama has promised a military intervention on Syria “with teeth.” In Iraq, we were promised military intervention with “shock and awe.” We have also been promised that he will continue to support the armed opposition in Syria (a majority of which are Jabhat al-Nusrah-Victory Front, and other such al Qaeda groups).

Such U.S. military action, which will probably involve trying to destroy the Syrian army, will leave the civilian population unprotected from the onslaught of armed opposition forces. It will embolden and strengthen the thousands of Islamic extremists from all over the world who have poured into Syria. They are financially supported and trained by some western governments, and their intent to remove the Syrian Government and kill all those who oppose them.

Their mission and aim coincides with that of the U.S., Saudi Arabia, and Israel—all of whom refuse to support Geneva II and a peaceful solution to the proxy war being perpetrated for oil, resources and control.

There is still time to stop this mad rush to war. The people of America can do it. As the British people put pressure on their members of Parliament and insisted “enough is enough” and said “No to military intervention,” so too can the American people mobilize and act to stop this proposed illegal war. (Without a U.N. Security Council resolution, any U.S. government military action is illegal.)

...Together, let us fast, pray and send a clear message to President Obama, the U.S. Senate and Congress—“No war, no military attack, no support for armed opposition, no support for al-Qaeda, no bombings.”

Give peace a chance!

Read Mairead Maguire's entire statement at the Peace People.

Humanitarian Aid or "Humanitarian Bombs"?; Pope Francis initiates interfaith, global "Prayer for Peace for Syria"

Zainah Ismail lives in a tented settlement with 3 families in Lebanon. 

“We used to hear hear extremely loud sounds from bombs and firing.” 

(Photo: Luca Sola, Oxfam: Don't let Syria down: Join the call for Syria Peace Talks now)

As a result of the prolonged civil war between the Syrian government and al Qaeda-affiliated rebels, four million Syrians have fled their homes to safer parts of the country. Two million Syrians have take refuge in neighboring countries. Iraqi refugees (who left their country for Syria because of over a decade of US bombing) are now trying to return to Iraq.  However, Iraq and Turkey have set limits on the number of Syrians allowed to enter their borders.

If the Obama administration bombs Syria as "punishment", fewer Syrians will be able to escape the escalation in violence that will ensue. Many Syrian Christians say they fear becoming victims of the same kind of targeted violence that accompanied the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.

At the start of Syrian conflict in March 2011, many members of Syrian minorities supported the movement for reform and more political freedoms. But the movement was hijacked by violent, radicalized members of Syria's Sunni majority and foreign jihadists (trained, armed, and paid by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, France, UK and the US).   The interests funding these mercenaries want to use the rebellion to destabilize and overthrow the Assad government, for selfish aims.

 There has been no evidence hat the Syrian government was responsible for the chemical attack that took the lives of hundreds of civilians.

David Swanson, quoting a friend who works in humanitarian aid, questions how US bombing will help Syrians  in "Who the Missiles Will Hurt" at Warisacrime.org:

"Before we contemplate military strikes against the Syrian regime, we would do well to carefully consider what impact such strikes would have on our ongoing humanitarian programs...These programs currently reach hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people throughout Syria, in areas controlled both by the regime and the opposition.  We know from past military interventions, such as in Yugoslavia and Iraq, that airstrikes launched for humanitarian reasons often result in the unintended deaths of many civilians.  The destruction of roads, bridges, and other infrastructure, which such airstrikes may entail, would significantly hamper the delivery of humanitarian aid in Syria.

"The provision of this assistance in regime controlled areas requires the agreement, and in many cases the cooperation, of the Asad government.  Were the Asad regime, in response to U.S. military operations, to suspend this cooperation, and prohibit the UN and Nongovernmental Organizations from operating in territory under its control, hundreds of thousands of Syrian civilians would be denied access to food, shelter, and medical care.  In such a scenario, we would be sacrificing programs of proven effectiveness in helping the people of Syria, in favor of ill considered actions that may or may not prevent the future use of chemical weapons, or otherwise contribute to U.S. objectives in any meaningful way."

In other words, the U.S. government is not just considering investing in missile strikes rather than diplomacy or actual aid, but in the process it could very well cut off what aid programs exist and have funding.  Humanitarian war grows more grotesque the more closely one examines it.

A nonviolent (and humanitarian) alternative to bombing and supporting rebel militias (largely comprised of radical Islamists and al Qaeda members, according to McClatchy and other media outlets): Call for an immediate ceasefire and the immediate ban of supplying arms to either the Syrian government or the rebels; close the borders to arms traders; remove foreign fighters from Syria; and spend the money the Obama administration would like to use for bombing on humanitarian assistance for refugees.

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Since the end of the Second World War, Washington has bombed one third of the world in the name of "democracy", "humanitarian" interventions, and  "peace." These bombings have never achieved professed aims. Instead they have only resulted in millions of deaths and injuries of innocent civilians; cancer and genetic mutations from nuclear radiation, Agent Orange, and depleted uranium; untold destruction; heartbreak and trauma for generations. 

China 1945-1946

Korea and China 1950-53

Guatemala 1954

Indonesia 1958

Cuba 1959-1961

Guatemala 1960

Belgian Congo 1964 

Laos 1964-73

Vietnam 1961-73

Cambodia 1969-70

Artwork  in Vientiane, Laos depicting a cluster bomb discharging "bombies", submunitions

(each contain enough explosive and shrapnel to kill or injure a roomful of people).

 (Photo: "HEALING CHILD VICTIMS OF CLUSTER BOMBS",

Where the Wars Were: Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia

"For Laos, the secret war goes on." "Land of the Bomb" photo series by Andrew McConnell

Guatemala 1967-69

Grenada 1983

Lebanon 1983, 1984 

Syria, 1983, 1984

Libya 1986

El Salvador 1980s

Nicaragua 1980s

Iran 1987

Panama 1989

Iraq 1991 (Persian Gulf War)

Kuwait 1991

Somalia 1993

Bosnia 1994, 1995

Sudan 1998

Afghanistan 1998

Yugoslavia 1999

Yemen 2002

Iraq 1991-2003 (US/UK on regular basis)

Iraq 2003...

2013: Ten year anniversary of "Shock and Awe" 

The United Nations estimates that  2.2 million Iraqis have fled Iraq since 2003, 
with 100,000 fleeing to Syria and Jordan each month between 2003 and 2006.  
The civil war in Syria has forced tens of thousands of people to seek shelter in Iraq,
including Iraqi refugees who fled there after the U.S.-led invasion. 

We are dealing with a psychopathic situation. And all of us, including myself, we can’t do anything but keep being reasonable, keep saying what needs to be said. But that doesn’t seem to help the situation, because, of course, as we know, after Iraq, there’s been Libya, there’s Syria, and the rhetoric of, you know, democracy versus radical Islam. When you look at the countries that were attacked, none of them were Wahhabi Islamic fundamentalist countries. Those ones are supported, financed by the U.S., so there is a real collusion between radical Islam and capitalism. What is going on is really a different kind of battle.

And today, you have the Democrats bombing Pakistan, destroying that country, too. So, just in this last decade, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria—all these countries have been—have been shattered.

- Arundhati Roy, "Iraq War’s 10th: Bush May Be Gone, But "Psychosis" of U.S. Foreign Policy Prevails", Democracy Now

Afghanistan 2001-present

"11 Afghan Children Among Dead in Latest US/NATO Bombing: 

Civilians 'killed when an air strike hit their houses' 

(Photo: Common Dreams via Reuters, April 7, 2013)

Pakistan 2004-present

"Leaked Pakistani report confirms high civilian death toll in CIA drone strikes"

(Story and 2006 Photo: The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, July 22, 2013)

Somalia, 2011

Libya 2011

Yemen 2013

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Pope Francis has called for an interfaith, non-sectarian (including non-believers) Day of Prayer for peace for Syria to be held worldwide on September 7 from 19:00 to midnight:

May the cry for peace ring out loud around the world...Never has the use of violence brought peace in its wake...

The Grand Mufti of Syria, Ahmad Badreddin Hassou, spiritual leader of the majority Sunni  in Syria is instructing his community to "welcome the appeal that the Pope extended to all religions to pray for peace" in all Syrian mosques during the Saturday vigil. 

Gregory III Laham, Melkite Greek - Catholic Patriarch of Antioch, of all the East, of Alexandria and Jerusalem announced that all parishes of the Greek Melkite Church in the Middle East and around the world have  begun preparations to respond to prayer initiative." "In Syria, we will keep our churches open until midnight to allow everyone (Catholics, Orthodox and Muslims) to pray." For Gregory III , the spiritual closeness of Francis and the Church is central to all the Syrian people - Christian and Muslim - who without support are likely to lose hope. 

Keiji Nakazawa in Barefoot Gen's Hiroshima: "I decided to use manga to confront the Bomb."

Trailer from director Yuko Ishida's Barefoot Gen''s Hiroshima (Hadashi no Gen ga Mita Hiroshima) a documentary film in which the camera man (Koshiro Otsu) follows "Barefoot Gen" creator Keiji Nakazawa as he visits neighborhoods throughout Hiroshima and recalls living through the nuclear explosion when he was six-years-old.

The film opened in Tokyo on August 6, 2011, and Nakazawa died of lung cancer a year later, on December 19, 2012.

Roger Pulvers' wonderful  film review at  the JT connects the nuclear radioactive dots between Hiroshima in 1945 and Fukushima in 2011:

When the bomb dropped in 1945, Nakazawa was a 6-year-old, first-year pupil at Kanzaki National Elementary School, which was a mere 1.2 km from ground zero. Luckily, on his way into school, he lingered by the wall adjacent to the front gate to speak with someone, and that wall saved his life...

Nakazawa’s father, sister and brother...were all crushed by pillars and beams, and killed. His father had been a vocal opponent of Japan’s war of aggression, and he had spent more than a year in prison as a result. The family had been ostracized by the community. This is a bitter irony of all indiscriminate bombing, since it murders many who are not only blameless non-combatants but also proponents of peace.

Nakazawa never forgot what he saw. He turned his personal experience and that of the people of Hiroshima into a series of manga that was carried in the magazine Weekly Shonen Jump for 12 years from 1973. The story of Barefoot Gen kept the plight of the victims of the bomb and its radiation in the minds of citizens of the nation that had become the most intimate ally of the country that caused that holocaust, the United States.

This fact led the Japanese government to isolate the issue as something local — to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the other city atom-bombed by the U.S. three days after Hiroshima — as opposed to national. In addition, the vigorous pursuit of “atoms for peace,” an American initiative to promote nuclear power spearheaded in the early 1950s by President Dwight Eisenhower further divorced the radiation spread by the bombs from its possible spread by reactors generating electricity all around Japan.

It is thanks to Nakazawa, and eminent authors such as Kenzaburo Oe, Hisashi Inoue and, most recently, Haruki Murakami — all of whom have taken up the nuclear tragedies of 1945 — that the dangers of radiation lingering in our bodies, our soil, our water, and in the air, are now finally being understood by the Japanese people.

However, a truly remarkable aspect of the story of Barefoot Gen...is its message of optimism and hope. The hero, little Gen, stunned by the devastation and death surrounding him, says, “I’m going to live, to live! I’m going to live through this, you’ll see!”

In those pages...the stench of destruction are everywhere, just as in the prefectures of Tohoku most badly affected by the earthquake and tsunami of March 11. Yet Gen does not give up hope...

He goes on to point out that the gen in the name is the same character as that in the word genki, which means full of vitality and strong of mettle...

In his message to children, Nakazawa states, “If you come to feel that you wish for a world without war and without atomic bombs, for a world where peace is priceless...then the subject of this film, namely Keiji Nakazawa, will be content.”

Motofumi Asai's in-depth interview, "Barefoot Gen, the Atomic Bomb and I: The Hiroshima Legacy Nakazawa Keiji"i, translated by Richard H. Minear at APJ: Japan Focus explores the anti-war beliefs of Nakazawa's father as well as those of the writer himself who counsels us to be resilient and persistent in the support of respect of life, human dignity, and an ethos of peace:

In order to effect change, each person has to work away at it. I’m a cartoonist, so cartoons are my only weapon. I think everyone has to appeal in whatever position they’re in.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we gradually enlarged our imaginations! We have to believe in that possibility. Doubt is extremely strong, but we have to feel that change is possible. Inspire ourselves. And like Auschwitz, Hiroshima too must sing out more and more about human dignity.

Barefoot Gen anime film online in Japan through Aug. 31; debate continues over ban of anti-war manga series in Matsue

The energetic public debate over the decision by Matsue (Shimane Prefecture) Board of Education to ban the manga series "Barefoot Gen reflects the vibrancy of anti-war attitudes in Japan, a widespread desire of the majority of Japanese citizens to admit and atone for Japanese Imperial wartime atrocities, and to witness for the abolition of uranium and nuclear weapons.

The series depicts realistic images of the entire Pacific War, including Japanese Imperial beheadings and rapes of Chinese people, as well as the US nuclear bombings of Japanese civilians and other wartime suffering.

The controversy has generated an outpouring of support and renewed interest in "Barefoot Gen" whose author passed away in December of last year. Our friends at New York Peace Film Festival report that the anime film adaptation of the manga series, Barefoot Gen,  is available to watch online in Japan until Aug. 31.

Link: http://gyao.yahoo.co.jp/player/00592/v12021/v1000000000000000721/

Synopsis: Barefoot Gen a 1983 war drama based on Keiji Nakazawa's manga series. Director Mori Masaki depicts the final days of the Pacific War and the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima from the point of view of a child, Gen Nakaoka, who is caught in the explosion's aftermath.  The film begins and ends with boat symbolism reminiscent of Toro Nagasahi (ceremony during which lit paper lanterns are released on a river to remember the dead).

The story is set during the final days of the Second World War.  Gen's malnourished family struggle survive in Hiroshima. The family wonders why their city has been spared from US napalm (jellied gasoline) firebombings that have destroyed most of Japan's other cities. They sense something is wrong even though they could never imagine that  Hiroshima  had been chosen as a "pristine" target to test one of the two new American nuclear bombs.

On the morning of August 6, Gen, after promising his brother he will take him to the river to play with a toy boat, makes his way to school. Overhead, he notices a single B-29 bomber.  At home, his family watch as a large number of ants ominously enter their home.  Gen drops a pebble he is playing with, and, as he bends to pick it up, a flash of white light erupts in the sky. The eyes of people around him begin to melt. At home, Gen's house collapses, burying his family alive. Gen escaped injury from the flash because he was bent downward in front of a  stone wall, but he is also buried under rubble.

The nuclear blast vaporizes people and destroys most of the buildings throughout Hiroshima. Burned and mutilated people wander through streets looking for water and help. After digging out of the rubble, Gen returns home to find his mother has survived, but his father, sister and little brother are trapped under the ruins of their house. As a firestorm approaches, Gen's father tells Gen they must leave to protect his mother and her unborn child. As they obey Gen's father and leave, they hear their family's screams as they burn to death.

His mother gives birth to a baby girl they name Tomoko; Gen searches for food and help but finds neither in a city filled only with the dead and injured. He finds a mother with a dead baby who shares her breast milk with Gen's infant sister.  People start to show signs of radiation illness: defecating and vomiting blood; losing hair.

After days of searching for food, Gen finds some rice and vegetables in a storehouse.  On August 16, they dig up the skulls of their dead family at their burned home. They're told Tokyo has finally surrendered.  But peace has come too late for them (and many millions of other people throughout the Asia-Pacific, as well as Okinawa and the rest of mainland Japan).  They take in an orphaned child, Ryuta, whom they meet when he tries to steal their food.

To earn money to buy milk for Tomoko, Gen and Ryuta take a job, caring for a dying, embittered man who, in the end, expresses gratitude for their care.  But, of course, Gen's infant sister dies anyway: the odds are stacked against survival in Hiroshima.

As grass and plants start to recover, so does Gen; his hair grows back.  Gen recalls his father's advice: no matter how beaten down, never give up. He decides to fulfill his promise to his brother and builds another boat. Two weeks after the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, Gen, his mother, and Ryuta go to the river, where they light a candle on top of the boat and release it in the water. They pray as the boat sails away.

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"‘Barefoot Gen’ pulled as anti-war images strike too close to home?" (Jun Hongo, JT, Aug. 21, 2013)

"Board’s request to restrict ‘Barefoot Gen’ assailed" (Aug. 22, 2013, Kyodo, JT)

Wikileaks: Tokyo Rejected Suggestion of Obama visit to Hiroshima in 2009

(Photo: The Nuclear Abolitionist)

Thanks to Chelsea Manning and Wikileaks, we know Tokyo nixed the suggestion of a presidential visit to Hiroshima in 2009.

This was a year of heightened hope after Obama's April 5 "Prague Speech" (in which the US president called for a world free of nuclear weapons).  Hibakusha and their supporters campaigned for an Obama visit to Hiroshima — to spark the nuclear abolition movement.  However, some in Tokyo wanted to dampen "expectations":

VFM [Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs] Yabunaka pointed out that the Japanese public  will have high expectations toward President Obama's visit to  Japan in November, as the President enjoys an historic level  of popularity among the Japanese people.  Anti-nuclear groups, in particular, will speculate whether the President  would visit Hiroshima in light of his April 5 Prague speech  on non-proliferation.  He underscored, however, that both governments must temper the public's expectations on such issues, as the idea of President Obama visiting Hiroshima to apologize for the atomic bombing during World War II is a "non-starter."

WikiLeaks: Washington and Tokyo plotted secret whaling deal; targeted Sea Shepherd in 2010

Thanks to Chelsea Manning and Wikileaks, we know (via John Vidal, environment editor at The Guardian):

WikiLeaks: Secret whaling deal plotted by US and Japan: American diplomats proposed Japan reduce whaling in exchange for US help cracking down on the anti-whaling activists Sea Shepherd, leaked cables reveal

Japan and the US proposed to investigate and act against international anti-whaling activists from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society as part of a political deal to reduce whaling in Antarctic waters.

Four confidential cables [dated from 2009 to 2010] from the US embassy in Tokyo and the state department in Washington, released by WikiLeaks, show US and Japanese diplomats secretly negotiating a compromise agreement ahead of a key meeting last year of the International Whaling Commission, the body that regulates international whaling.

The American proposal would have forced Japan to reduce the number of whales that Japan killed each year in the Antarctic whale sanctuary in return for the legal right to hunt other whales off its own coasts. In addition, the US proposed to ratify laws that would "guarantee security in the seas" – a reference to acting against groups such as Sea Shepherd that have tried to physically stop whaling.

The US proposal was eventually shot down by Britain and the EU in June 2010, but the cables show that the Sea Shepherd group had become a political embarrassment to Japan after stopping its whaling fleet reaching its annual quota of whale killed for several years.

Wikileaks: Tokyo warned in 2008 about earthquake threat to nuclear plants; "pattern of secrecy and denial"

Thanks to Bradley Manning and Wikileaks, we know that Tokyo was warned in 2008  about the earthquake threat to Japan's inadequately designed, aging nuclear plants:

Japan earthquake: Japan warned over nuclear plants, WikiLeaks cables show (The Daily Telegraph, March 15, 2011):

Japan was warned more than two years ago by the international nuclear watchdog that its nuclear power plants were not capable of withstanding powerful earthquakes, leaked diplomatic cables reveal.

An official from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in December 2008 that safety rules were out of date and strong earthquakes would pose a "serious problem" for nuclear power stations...

Warnings about the safety of nuclear power plants in Japan, one of the most seismologically active countries in the world, were raised during a meeting of the G8's Nuclear Safety and Security Group in Tokyo in 2008.

A US embassy cable obtained by the WikiLeaks website and seen by The Daily Telegraph quoted an unnamed expert who expressed concern that guidance on how to protect nuclear power stations from earthquakes had only been updated three times in the past 35 years.

The document states: "He [the IAEA official] explained that safety guides for seismic safety have only been revised three times in the last 35 years and that the IAEA is now re-examining them.

"Also, the presenter noted recent earthquakes in some cases have exceeded the design basis for some nuclear plants, and that this is a serious problem that is now driving seismic safety work."

The cables also disclose how the Japanese government opposed a court order to shut down another nuclear power plant in western Japan because of concerns it could not withstand powerful earthquakes.

The court ruled that there was a possibility local people might be exposed to radiation if there was an accident at the plant, which was built to out of date specifications and only to withstand a "6.5 magnitude" earthquake. Last Friday's earthquake, 81 miles off the shore of Japan, was a magnitude 9.0 tremor.

However, a cable from March 2006 reported that the court's concerns were not shared by the country's nuclear safety agency.

It says: "Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency believes the reactor is safe and that all safety analyses were appropriately conducted."

The Government successfully overturned the ruling in 2009.

A Wikileaks diplomatic cable published at The Guardian on March 14, 2011 further revealed:

...politician Taro Kono, a high-profile member of Japan's lower house, tells US diplomats that the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry – the Japanese government department responsible for nuclear energy – has been "covering up nuclear accidents and obscuring the true costs and problems associated with the nuclear industry".

In 2008, Kono told them: "The ministries were trapped in their policies, as officials inherited policies from people more senior to them, which they could then not challenge." He mentioned the dangers of natural disasters in the context of nuclear waste disposal, citing Japan's "extensive seismic activity, and abundant groundwater, and [he] questioned if there really was a safe place to store nuclear waste in the 'land of volcanoes'."

"What we are seeing follows a clear pattern of secrecy and denial," said Paul Dorfman, co-secretary to the Committee Examining Radiation Risks from Internal Emitters, a UK government advisory committee disbanded in 2004.

"The Japanese government has always tended to underplay accidents. At the moment the Japanese claims of safety are not to be believed by anyone..."

The Japanese authorities and nuclear companies have been implicated in a series of cover-ups. In 1995, reports of a sodium leak and fire at Japan's Monju fast breeder reactor were suppressed and employees were gagged. In 2002, the chairman and four executives of Tepco, the company which owns the stricken Fukushima plant, resigned after reports that safety records were falsified.

Chelsea Manning: "There is not a flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people."

Chelsea Manning's  Aug. 21, 2013 statement, posted at Common Dreams:

The decisions that I made in 2010 were made out of a concern for my country and the world that we live in. Since the tragic events of 9/11, our country has been at war.  We've been at war with an enemy that chooses not to meet us on any traditional battlefield, and due to this fact we've had to alter our methods of combating the risks posed to us and our way of life.

I initially agreed with these methods and chose to volunteer to help defend my country.  It was not until I was in Iraq and reading secret military reports on a daily basis that I started to question the morality of what we were doing.  It was at this time I realized in our efforts to meet this risk posed to us by the enemy, we have forgotten our humanity.

We consciously elected to devalue human life both in Iraq and Afghanistan.  When we engaged those that we perceived were the enemy, we sometimes killed innocent civilians.  Whenever we killed innocent civilians, instead of accepting responsibility for our conduct, we elected to hide behind the veil of national security and classified information in order to avoid any public accountability.

In our zeal to kill the enemy, we internally debated the definition of torture.  We held individuals at Guantanamo for years without due process. We inexplicably turned a blind eye to torture and executions by the Iraqi government.  And we stomached countless other acts in the name of our war on terror.

Patriotism is often the cry extolled when morally questionable acts are advocated by those in power.  When these cries of patriotism drown our any logically based intentions [unclear], it is usually an American soldier that is ordered to carry out some ill-conceived mission.

Our nation has had similar dark moments for the virtues of democracy—the Trail of Tears, the Dred Scott decision, McCarthyism, the Japanese-American internment camps—to name a few.  I am confident that many of our actions since 9/11 will one day be viewed in a similar light.

As the late Howard Zinn once said, "There is not a flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people."

I understand that my actions violated the law, and I regret if my actions hurt anyone or harmed the United States.  It was never my intention to hurt anyone. I only wanted to help people.  When I chose to disclose classified information, I did so out of a love for my country and a sense of duty to others.

US Army Private Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning leaked military and government documents to Wikileaks, including the "Collateral Murder" video, which showed a US Apache helicopter crew killing unarmed Iraqi civilians, including children and a 22-year-old Reuters photographer in 2007.  The soldiers laughed at their downed, crawling victims, trying to escape.  The helicopter crew also killed people trying to rescue the wounded. Under the Geneva Convention, these are war crimes.

The release of this video came shortly after the US military admitted special forces troops attempted to cover up the killings of three Afghan women in a February 2007 raid by removing the bullets from their bodies.

Manning's revelations also resulted in the "Afghan War Diary," published by WikiLeaks on July 25, 2010.  These documents revealed some of the hundreds of US (and Allied) killings and woundings of Afghan civilians.  They also revealed what can only be described as a culture of military sexual violence: US soldiers and US military contractors routinely committed rape, including upon children, with impunity.  One US contractor, DynCorp, supplied "peacekeepers" for the UN in Bosnia, where some of them engaged in trafficking, sexual slavery, torture and rape of women and children. Employees of the same company  also engaged in child prostitution in Afghanistan.  (This year, the Obama administration sent DynCorp to recruit police in Haiti, where UN "peacekeepers" have committed sexual assaults on children.)

"The Iraq War Logs" detailed US military and US contractor killings of civilians and also the use of torture.

The release of US diplomatic cables, known as "Cablegate" revealed some of  Washington's and Tokyo's recent machinations in Okinawa and that Tokyo was warned about earthquake threats to nuclear plant safety in 2008.h in U.S. History
reveals that concern about human rights abuses motivated Manning's actions.

Steve Nguyen: Hiroshima Revisited

In public imagery, both Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been fixated in time, at the respective moments the two cities were nuclear bombed.

Linda Hoaglund's recent film, Things Left Behind. a cinematic exploration of  photographer Miyako Ishiuchi's exhibition of the same title,  pierces through to the other side of 8:15 a.m., August 6, 1945, to explore (and humanize) the lives of the people who died on that day.

In Hiroshima Revisited Steve Nguyen breaks through to the other side of that moment: the ongoing process of rebuilding and healing in the resurrected city.  This beautiful, sensitive short film might be considered a personal sequel to  HIBAKUSHA, an animated documentary/drama featuring his friend, Kaz Suyeishi, now an 84-year-old woman, who "recalls her most vivid and horrific experiences as an 18-year-old Japanese American student during the morning of August 6, 1945 when the atomic bomb dropped on her hometown."

This look at Hiroshima today brings home not only the striving of Hiroshima survivors and their descendants to rebuild their city and lives, but also the struggle of survivors of manmade annihilation throughout our world (Guernica, Chonqing, Warsaw, and many hundreds of cities, regions...)  who have similarly sought to restore what has been destroyed and broken by war.

Artists hold 'thousand-stitch belt' exhibit to encourage war memory, promote peace

Hoping to see their men return home safely from battle, women in wartime Japan would often send soldiers off with a protective amulet called a "thousand-stitch belt" -- or "senninbari" -- a cloth wrap that, as its name suggests, featured 1,000 stitches sewn by 1,000 different women.

To prevent the tradition from fading into history, a Tokyo-based women's artist collective known as "Stand Up Sisters" is holding a "needle and thread for peace" ("Ohariko Project") exhibition at the Hako Gallery in Tokyo's Yoyogi-Uehara district. In addition to educating younger generations about the existence of the "senninbari" tradition, the exhibit also offers visitors a chance to participate in hands-on stitching -- thereby encouraging people to consider history in a more personalized way.

Miho Tsujii, a member of the collective and one of the event organizers, explained that putting together the exhibition was a challenge -- if for no other reason than the fact that almost no information on the practice was available.

"We almost never hear the word 'senninbari' today, but when we do, it is usually surrounded with an air of secrecy," she explained. "This is likely due to the fact that war memories are a very painful topic for people to discuss -- and that the subject also tends to be tinged with accusations of complicity in the war."

Tsujii added that most women likely presented the soldiers with the belts because they wanted them to come home safely -- although some may have done so hoping that the men would die honorably in battle.

"This is just speculation, however, since there has been so little material handed down about 'senninbari' history that we really just don't know for sure," she said. The practice is said to have begun around the time of the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, and Tsujii added that while the government eventually organized the initiative into a full-scale war support effort, its origins were likely rooted in pre-modern Shintoism.

Stand Up Sisters has held various exhibitions focused on the common theme of encouraging women's empowerment and self-expression through art.

Following last December's return to power of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe -- known to support creating an official Japanese military, and also the target of feminist criticism during his first term on 2006-07 for his conservative views toward women -- the members of the collective decided to organize an exhibition that would feature the keywords "women" and "war." It was then that they hit on "senninbari."

"In doing our research on the history of the practice, we also came across the technique of "tamadome," or "knot-stitching," which was common among our grandmothers' generation," commented collective member Ayumi Taguchi. "This fit in with our theme of passing down techniques that may be lost to future generations if young people do not learn them."

Visitors to the exhibition are encouraged to sit down at the gallery's communal table and stitch for as long as they like -- and in whatever style they want to -- using the available cloth, needles and thread, while also enjoying snacks and relaxed conversation with the artists and other attendees.

"Participating in this project was a fascinating experience," commented local resident Chika Hirata after stopping by the exhibition. "I found the stitchwork to be extremely relaxing -- and I also found myself imagining that women in wartime probably felt a similar sense of calm from concentrating on this kind of handiwork. It must have given them some relief from the complex thoughts that were likely racing through their minds at the time."

"Each of the women who engaged in 'senninbari' had her own unique story to tell," commented Stand Up Sisters member Nao Ushikubo, who also cited members' concern with political matters as a motivating factor in organizing the exhibition.

"With all of the talk in the news regarding constitutional revision and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (free trade talks), we began to fear that Japan was possibly headed down a similar path as it was prior to the First World War, which we found extremely disturbing," she said. "Even this week, around the anniversary of (World War II's) end, the Japanese media is full of reports about how our country is building up its defense capabilities. Clearly, the majority of people here don't realize that this may lead to war, which is really disheartening and frightening."

The gallery is also hosting several related exhibitions in addition to the "needle and thread for peace" workshop, including postcards from the Puerto Rico-based "Honoring our Black Grandmothers" project encouraging island residents to take pride in their racial identity; a display of T-shirts designed by street children in India through the Tara Trust project that will eventually be given to children in Fukushima affected by the nuclear disaster; and sales of handcrafted cloth figures designed by local homeless women through the "Nora" project.

The exhibition is ongoing at the Hako Gallery in Yoyogi Uehara from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. through Aug. 18, 2013. For further details, see the gallery website at http://hakogallery.jp/event/. 

From the event announcement:

* * * One Thousand Needles Project * * *

During the wars in the last century, a vast majority of women in Japan took part in making amulets to protect soldiers from bullets with thousand stitches on a piece of cloth.

This practice of “Senninbari (one thousand needles)” is hardly known today, or if it is said, it seems to burn the lips. It often faces dismissal for the accusation that it constituted women’s participation in war. It carries too much pain otherwise.

Handwork has always been part of human life. It has been handed down from one generation to another throughout the world, as a tool for living and community connections. Some handworks were born out of sorrow and war.

Handworks shape the soul of their creators. Perhaps we can find ourselves in those works and see how we are living today.

Diversity. Dialogue. Justice. Transparency. Human Rights. Education. Love. Environment. Taking care of oneself. Making a living. Safe and healthy food.

A piece of cloth can be strengthened the more stitches you add onto it.

Similarly, your hopes can can gain strength by connecting with others. Your actions will not end here. This is an endless relay of hope that continues to shift  its shape.

Handworks will resonate across generations, nationalities, ethnicities, religions and differences.

An additional event will be held at the Ogatsu O-link House community center in Ogatsu, Ishinomaki City, from May 1-9, 2015.

-- Kimberly Hughes