Sunday, December 9, 2012

Why the Secrecy About Fukushima?


There are of course many reasons for the secrecy surrounding Fukushima.

It is my opinion that rising militaristic tensions in the region are one important factor. See Michael Klare's "A New Cold War in Asia?" http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28080

Countries like the US and Japan are run by people who see the world as a chessboard. Their goals are to acquire resources and achieve strategic positions in geopolitically sensitive regions.

Japan is relatively closely aligned with the US, which has emerged as an overt imperialist over the last twenty years.

An example of the two nations military alignment can be found in yesterday's Wall Street Journal. "Tokyo Shows Off its Missile Defense" Dec 8-9, 2012 p. A11 by Chester Dawson:

[Excerpted] the Japanese have spent $12 billion ... deploying the most sophisticated missile-defense system outside the US - and one poised for export to other nations....

The system was controversial when first proposed in 1993 due to its high cost and potential to antagonize neighboring states....

Today, Japan has 16 Patriot firing units... and four Aegis destroyers armed with ballistic-missile interceptors.

The next stage is potentially even more ambitious - and controversial. Japan and the US are set to begin tests of a new interceptor with vastly expanded speed and range . . . the US is pushing hard for Japan to transfer this technology to other allied countries with Aegis systems....

Japan officials, sensitive to domestic and foreign wariness about Japan emerging as a global weapons supplier, are quick to say that no formal decision has been made. But last year, Tokyo cleared the way by lifting a self imposed ban on arms shipments overseas dating from 1967....


Majia here: its instructive to re-examine this December 28, 2011 headline Wall Street Journal: "Japan Lifts Decadeslong Ban on Export of Weapons" p. A8

The article states that the Japanese ban on exports of advanced military technology was introduced in 1967 and tightened in 1976. The ban is now being lifted: "Japan's leading big-business lobby, the Keidanren,which has been one of the strongest proponents of easing the arms-export ban, welcomed the move."

Japan also plans to purchase 42 of Lockheed Martin's "pricey F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter planes to replace its Air Self Defense Force's aging fleet of 1960s era F-4 jets. Japan said it plans to spend Y1.6 trillion ($20.8 billion) on the program over the next 20 years..."

Japan hopes to reduce some of the cost by building and exporting components to other F-35 buyers.
 
Majia here: See also "Japan Weighs Options for Pricey Fighter Jets" Wall Street Journal print edition 12/5/2011 p. A11

"In a move expected as soon as this month, Japan's Defense Ministry will pick a replacement for its aging squadrons of Vietnam-era F-4 fighters from among three finalists, two American and one European. The order for a new fighter is expected to total 40 to 60 planes valued at an estimated $4 billion. It is one of the world's largest military contracts this year."
 
Majia here: The emerging "New Cold War" is enriching the merchants of death, who play important roles for lobbying for the war's development and policy trajectories.  
 
See The Drone Makers And Their Friends In Washington. http://www.kpbs.org/news/2012/jul/05/drone-makers-friends-washington/

Over the past four years, the Obama administration has vastly increased nuclear arms production See the following two posts http://majiasblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/new-nuclear-arms-race.html

The growing militarization of the globe was illustrated by the recent decision to build US bases in Australia.

US imperial strategy is confronting China and Russia in the war over control of global resources, including rare earths (controlled by China), oil, fresh water, farm land, etc.  
 
Japan is strategically located in the region and has territorial claims (many disputed) for areas that are believed to have (underwater) rare earths and natural gas.

The only winners in this new cold/hot war are pontifs of power (our so-called "leaders"), the defense contractors, and other corporate parasites feeding off of the industries of death.
 
So, why the secrecy about Fukushima? The answer is that the facts about Fukushima demonstrate the senselessnenss - no, the insanity - of the global nuclear-industrial-weapons complex.
 
Nuclear is Pandora's box and the development of highly sophisticated weapons for delivering and deflecting nuclear weapons - such as missile interceptors - flow freely from the creation of technologies of death over which human control is ultimately quite limited.
 
The essential link between nuclear power and nuclear weapons is historical and has been chronichled by many historians.
 
The present linkage between the nuclear arms race and the Fukushima nuclear disaster is found in reactor 3, the reactor using Mox fuel, which suffered the most damaging explosion.
 
Japan's history with plutonium,summarized here and in the first link below: http://majiasblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/tokai.html
 
Majia here: I'm not going to unpack in greater detail here the links between plutonium produced for weapons and plutonium used in nuclear energy, but the interested reader can peruse the links provided. 
 
I will conclude by re-asserting my claim that the secrecy about Fukushima is driven in significant part by the geopolitical strategies of leaders and industries seeing the world as a chessboard, blind to the needs, desires, and suffering of people impacted by the scramble for "what is left," as articulated by Michael Klare. 
 
"Leaders" believe the truth about  Fukushima must be managed and hidden so that the populations of Japan and elsewhere do not rise up and demand an end to an industry whose primary purpose is to perpetuate the nuclear-industrial complex, despite the fact that this complex is humanity's undoing.
 
 
Relevant Posts
 
Jun 18, 2012
In 2010, “Japan had more than 46 tons (8.7 Tons in Japan, approximately 37 tons in Europe) of separated plutonium in stock, but its MOX recycling program has made little progress.” (Suzuki, 2010). 46 tons of plutonium ...
 
Jun 03, 2012
From 2006 until three years ago, the nuclear industry said the plutonium-consuming MOX fuel would be used in 16-18 conventional reactors “in or after” 2010. In fact, only two reactors used MOX that year. By the time of the ...
 
Jul 30, 2012
Well, lets see, 3 reactors blew up, the one that blow up the most was a MOX reactor which is like 5% to 10% plutonium, and all reactors produce plutonium as a natural part of the process. And of course all of the "fuel transfer .
 
Jun 17, 2012
(Mox fuel does contain plutonium, but in very low concentrations and Japan has been stockpiling plutonium for years, as has the US, Russia, Britain, etc--see my posts and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOX_fuel) Given the lack ...
 
Jun 26, 2012
As mentioned previously Joseph Trento claims the inventory actually ranges upward to 70 tons of plutonium. Japan's Mox recycling program has been limited. Japan's newly completed Rokkasho reprocessing plant enables ...
 
 
  
 

2 comments:

  1. I have been told that villagers in the most remote parts of Pakistan know about this Cold War with China and the U.S., I believe that the fishing village in Gwadar is one location of this struggle.

    http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=3718

    http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/05/pakistans-fatal-shore/307385/2/

    http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GC04Df06.html

    You'll like the title of this book: Gwadar on the Global Chessboard

    http://logicisvariable.blogspot.com/2011/04/gwadar-on-global-chessboard.html

    2011: The locals are reluctant to criticise their government's handling of Gwadar, though. "People disappear in Gwadar – their bodies are found dumped in a remote area a few days or weeks later. No one knows who is behind it," says Asghar Shah, refusing to speculate further. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/08/gwadar-pakistan-great-game

    NoNukes

    ReplyDelete
  2. Fascinating discussion No Nukes

    How closely nuclear is coupled with imperialism.

    And how sad for humanity.

    But we in the US are often too blinded to see that...

    ReplyDelete

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