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A Look at Chernobyl
Written a few days after March 11, 2011, the story of what then was "the world's worst nuclear accident" in pictures...
http://photos.denverpost.com/2011/03/15/a-look-at-chernobyl-the-worlds-worst-nuclear-accident/#21
34 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
The story connects a few dots from the present day back to World War II.
War crime, Yakuza, Secret Government. Why not?
Japan’s Nuclear Industry: The CIA Link.
By Eleanor Warnock
June 1, 2012, 10:18 AM JST.
Wall Street Journal Blog
Tetsuo Arima, a researcher at Waseda University in Tokyo, told JRT he discovered in the U.S. National Archives a trove of declassified CIA files that showed how one man, Matsutaro Shoriki, was instrumental in jumpstarting Japan’s nascent nuclear industry.
Mr. Shoriki was many things: a Class A war criminal, the head of the Yomiuri Shimbun (Japan’s biggest-selling and most influential newspaper) and the founder of both the country’s first commercial broadcaster and the Tokyo Giants baseball team. Less well known, according to Mr. Arima, was that the media mogul worked with the CIA to promote nuclear power.
SNIP...
Mr. Shoriki, backed by the CIA, used his influence to publish articles in the Yomiuri that extolled the virtues of nuclear power, according to the documents found by Mr. Arima. Keen on remilitarizing Japan, Mr. Shoriki endorsed nuclear power in hopes its development would one day arm the country with the ability to make its own nuclear weapons, according to Mr. Arima. Mr. Shoriki’s behind-the-scenes push created a chain reaction in other media that eventually changed public opinion.
SNIP…
Mr. Shoriki, backed by the CIA, used his influence to publish articles in the Yomiuri that extolled the virtues of nuclear power, according to the documents found by Mr. Arima. Keen on remilitarizing Japan, Mr. Shoriki endorsed nuclear power in hopes its development would one day arm the country with the ability to make its own nuclear weapons, according to Mr. Arima. Mr. Shoriki’s behind-the-scenes push created a chain reaction in other media that eventually changed public opinion.
CONTINUED...
http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2012/06/01/japans-nuclear-industry-the-cia-link/
After President Carter was out of office, it was pretty much full-steam ahead for the Japanese bomb during the Pruneface Ronnie-Poppy Bush years. Hence, Fukushima Daiichi Number 3 and other select Japanese reactors were set up to process plutonium uranium fuels.
United States Circumvented Laws To Help Japan Accumulate Tons of Plutonium
By Joseph Trento
on April 9th, 2012
National Security News Service
The United States deliberately allowed Japan access to the United States’ most secret nuclear weapons facilities while it transferred tens of billions of dollars worth of American tax paid research that has allowed Japan to amass 70 tons of weapons grade plutonium since the 1980s, a National Security News Service investigation reveals. These activities repeatedly violated U.S. laws regarding controls of sensitive nuclear materials that could be diverted to weapons programs in Japan. The NSNS investigation found that the United States has known about a secret nuclear weapons program in Japan since the 1960s, according to CIA reports.
The diversion of U.S. classified technology began during the Reagan administration after it allowed a $10 billion reactor sale to China. Japan protested that sensitive technology was being sold to a potential nuclear adversary. The Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations permitted sensitive technology and nuclear materials to be transferred to Japan despite laws and treaties preventing such transfers. Highly sensitive technology on plutonium separation from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site and Hanford nuclear weapons complex, as well as tens of billions of dollars worth of breeder reactor research was turned over to Japan with almost no safeguards against proliferation. Japanese scientist and technicians were given access to both Hanford and Savannah River as part of the transfer process.
SNIP...
A year ago a natural disaster combined with a man-made tragedy decimated Northern Japan and came close to making Tokyo, a city of 30 million people, uninhabitable. Nuclear tragedies plague Japan’s modern history. It is the only nation in the world attacked with nuclear weapons. In March 2011, after a tsunami swept on shore, hydrogen explosions and the subsequent meltdowns of three reactors at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant spewed radiation across the region. Like the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan will face the aftermath for generations. A twelve-mile area around the site is considered uninhabitable. It is a national sacrifice zone.
How Japan ended up in this nuclear nightmare is a subject the National Security News Service has been investigating since 1991. We learned that Japan had a dual use nuclear program. The public program was to develop and provide unlimited energy for the country. But there was also a secret component, an undeclared nuclear weapons program that would allow Japan to amass enough nuclear material and technology to become a major nuclear power on short notice.
CONTINUED...
http://www.dcbureau.org/201204097128/national-security-news-service/united-states-circumvented-laws-to-help-japan-accumulate-tons-of-plutonium.html
Those of who have seen The World at War series on the tee vee are familiar with the black and white footage and great narrative chronicling the main events and figures of World War II. One of those episodes was entitled "The Bomb" and featured an interview with John J. McCloy, Assistant Secretary of War to President Roosevelt and President Truman.
Here's part of what Mr. McCloy said about the Atomic Bomb – the use of which he counseled only as a last resort, after warning Japan to surrender (around 7:30 mark of Part 2):
“Besides that, we’ve got a new force, a new type of energy that will revolutionize warfare, destructive beyond any contemplation. I’d said, I’d mention the bomb. Mentioning the bomb, even at that late date, in that select group, was like, it was like they were all shocked. Because it was such a closely guarded secret. It was comparable to mentioning Skull and Bones at Yale – which you’re not supposed to do.”
After the war, McCloy was the United States High Commissioner to Germany, administering the U.S. zone of occupation, making him one of the front-line leaders of the Cold War. In that capacity, one of the questionable things he did was to forgive several NAZI industrialists and war criminals.
The great cartoonist Herb Block, HERBLOCK, depicted McCloy holding open a prison door for a NAZI, while in the background Stalin took a photo (if anyone has a copy or link to the cartoon, I’d be much obliged). About 15 years later, Mr. McCloy served the nation as a member of the Warren Commission.
While he wasn’t a member of Skull and Bones, McCloy certainly worked closely with a bunch of them, including Averell Harriman and Prescott Bush. As a Wall Street and Washington insider, "Mr. Establishment" he was called, Mr. McCloy used the offices of government to centralize power and wealth. That is most un-democratic.
Mother Jones goes into detail:
The Nuclear Weapons Industry's Money Bombs
How millions in campaign cash and revolving-door lobbying have kept America's atomic arsenal off the chopping block.
— By R. Jeffrey Smith, Center for Public Integrity
Mother Jones
Wed Jun. 6, 2012 3:00 AM PDT
Employees of private companies that produce the main pieces of the US nuclear arsenal have invested more than $18 million in the election campaigns of lawmakers that oversee related federal spending, and the companies also employ more than 95 former members of Congress or Capitol Hill staff to lobby for government funding, according to a new report.
The Center for International Policy, a nonprofit group that supports the "demilitarization" of US foreign policy, released the report on Wednesday to highlight what it described as the heavy influence of campaign donations and pork-barrel politics on a part of the defense budget not usually associated with large profits or contractor power: nuclear arms.
As Congress deliberated this spring on nuclear weapons-related projects, including funding for the development of more modern submarines and bombers, the top 14 contractors gave nearly $3 million to the 2012 reelection campaigns of lawmakers whose support they needed for these and other projects, the report disclosed.
Half of that sum went to members of the four key committees or subcommittees that must approve all spending for nuclear arms—the House and Senate Armed Services Committees and the Energy and Water or Defense appropriations subcommittees, according to data the Center compiled from the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics. The rest went to lawmakers who are active on nuclear weapons issues because they have related factories or laboratories in their states or districts.
Members of the House Armed Services Committee this year have sought to erect legislative roadblocks to further reductions in nuclear arms, and also demanded more spending for related facilities than the Obama administration sought, including $100 million in unrequested funds for a new plant that will make plutonium cores for nuclear warheads, and $374 million for a new ballistic missile-firing submarine. The House has approved those requests, but the Senate has not held a similar vote on the 2013 defense bill.
CONTINUED...
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/06/nuclear-bombs-congress-elections-campaign-donations
It isn't ironic or coincidental. It is the Establishment, the in-group, the Elite, the One-Percent that’s pretty much gotten the lion’s share of the wealth created over the last 50 years. The same group that’s pretty much had their fingers on the atomic button ever since the Bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as profited from the development of nuclear power, nuclear weapons, and the almost continuous state of war since then. For lack of a better term, I call them the BFEE, or War Party.
"Tell the People of Japan to run." -- Natalia Manzurova, a surviving Chernobyl "Liquidator"
Natalia Manzurova, now 59, has suffered a variety of ailments since she worked at Chernobyl, but she says she is the only member of her team still alive.
Surviving Chernobyl Cleaner: 'Tell The People Of Japan To Run!'
Dana Kennedy
AOL
EXCERPT...
What message do you have for Japan?
Run away as quickly as possible. Don't wait. Save yourself and don't rely on the government because the government lies. They don't want you to know the truth because the nuclear industry is so powerful.
When you were called to go to Chernobyl, did you know how bad it was there?
I had no idea and never knew the true scope until much later. It was all covered in secrecy. I went there as a professional because I was told to -- but if I was asked to liquidate such an accident today, I'd never agree. The sacrifices the Fukushima workers are making are too high because the nuclear industry was developed in such a way that the executives don't hold themselves accountable to the human beings who have to clean up a disaster. It's like nuclear slavery.
CONTINUED...
http://www.aolnews.com/2011/03/22/chernobyl-cleanup-survivors-message-for-japan-run-away-as-qui
Chernobyl story helps explain the scarcity of real news and information from TEPCO, Japan, the IAEA, the U.S. NRC...Corporate McPravda... since 1986...
Worker checks Elephant’s Foot site a decade after the indcident. (Stringer/Reuters)
Deep in the remains of the Chernobyl Power Plant lies what is an aptly titled structure known as the “Elephant’s Foot”. Over 2 meters wide and weighing tons, it’s the remnants of a molten fuel/sand mixture that dripped through the floors of the plant after the reactor explosion.
Initially the mixture was emitting over 10,000 Roentgens per minute (500 roentgens in five hours is lethal). Initial photos(months after the accident) had to be taken by sending a wheeled camera (video here) to the mass to take pictures. 10 years later, in the second photo, they were around 800.
SOURCE: http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/elephant's%20foot
Incredible bravery.
Special Report: 1997: Chernobyl
Containing Chernobyl?
EXCERPT...
In December 1986, an intensely radioactive mass was discovered in the basement of Unit Four and scientists rigged up a crude wheeled camera to investigate. The mass was more than two metres across and weighed hundreds of tons. Because of its odd wrinkled shape, it was christened, "the elephant's foot". To approach it meant certain death.
Analysis of the material showed that it was composed of sand, glass and nuclear fuel, and the proportion of sand suggested to scientists that a large amount of fuel had escaped from the reactor in this form. Underneath the reactor, the investigation team found steaming hot concrete and, draining into the basement, lava and spectacular unknown crystalline forms - Chernobylite.
The findings meant that the risk of a second explosion had receded, but that serious problems remained.
The walls of the sarcophagus are starting to fall down, having been built straight on top of the collapsed and unstable reactor walls. If the walls collapse, the resulting radioactive dust will escape. The explosion also threw the 2000 ton reactor lid into the air. It fell on its edge into the mouth of the core, and rests at a precarious angle half way down.
Scientists who worked on the Complex Exploration say that there are likely to be major collapses in the next ten years without further construction work.
Russian research into Chernobyl has now been cut back because of safety problems, and the high death rate - caused by radiation and the stress related conditions - of the scientists involved.
CONTINUED...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/special_report/1997/chernobyl/33005.stm
And humanity's leaders put their fingers in their ears and keep on going "La-dee-da la-dee-da...I can't hear you..." Geece.
...some argued the guys got fried, others saying because the image was taken about 10 years after the melt-down, the thing had "cooled" off considerably, allowing for a quick visit.
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=672660
Personally, I wouldn't recommend even a quick visit, although a virtual tour sounds interesting.
Mrs. Raisa Gorbachev toured Chernobyl with her husband Mikhael in 1986. She suffered a stroke in 1993 and developed leukemia in 1999, cancer which claimed her life. No telling if the onset of the conditions are related to the visit. Were not so much research conducted in secret, we would know more.
The Act sets a limit on the monetary liability of companies for a nuclear accident, and defines
the procedural mechanisms for the industry’s insurance coverage.
PDF with details from the People's perspective: http://www.citizen.org/documents/Price%20Anderson%20Factsheet.pdf
The elected servants of the People, for some reason -- probably very practical and certainly for the good of $ociety -- sided with Big Science in deciding to allow the People to pick up the nuclear disaster tab, should anything untoward occur:
the procedural mechanisms for the industry’s insurance coverage.
PDF with details from the People's perspective: http://www.citizen.org/documents/Price%20Anderson%20Factsheet.pdf
The elected servants of the People, for some reason -- probably very practical and certainly for the good of $ociety -- sided with Big Science in deciding to allow the People to pick up the nuclear disaster tab, should anything untoward occur:
