Darfur for Dummies

by Mik Awake

If you’re anything like us here at The Inquirer, the utterly baffling conflict that continues to rage in Darfur is about as clear to you now as the plot of A Midsummer Night’s Dream was in high school. Like many, you’re probably at a loss to explain who is fighting whom, who are the victims, and what’s at stake.

It seems as though every time someone attempts to take a step back and decipher the situation, the coverage only makes sense (like many Shakespearean dramas) while you’re reading it. But after you put away the article, magazine or treatise, all sense eludes you.

Fret not, for today The Inquirer has assembled a Cliffs Notes version of the conflict that, since 2003, has become the first genocide of the 21st Century. Or: the world’s most urgent humanitarian crisis. Or: simply, Darfur.

Setting
Sudan is a large country in northeast Africa. Darfur, roughly the size of France, is in the western part of Sudan. Darfur is populated mainly by subsistence farmers.

Actors
Al-Bashir, the Warrior King: Arab; 62 years old. Military leader of Sudan. Lives in the capital, Khartoum.

Janjaweed, the Evil Horsemen: Government-backed henchmen. Commonly employ such tactics as “scorched-earth policy,” burning entire villages, raping and enslaving women. As Samantha Power describes them in her gripping New Yorker piece of 2004, the Janjaweed are:

Arab militiamen who have carried out much of the pillaging, killing, and raping in Darfur. These men, who receive orders on Thuraya satellite phones, have joined up with the Sudanese Air Force and Army . . .

The Darfur People: Black Africans. Muslim subsistence farmers. At the hands of the aforementioned Evil Horsemen, over 2,000,000 are now displaced, spread across western Sudan and neighboring Chad. Anywhere between 50,000 and 500,000 are dead.

The Rebels of Darfur, Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA) and Justice and Equality Movement (JEM): The SLA is a large military faction composed of Black African fighters from Darfur. Originally organized in the late 1980s to defend the people of Darfur against the threat of the – then under-armed – Evil Horsemen, they are the only thing standing in between the Warrior King and the people of Darfur. To fend off the Evil Horsemen, the SLA have joined forces with the JEM. It is a shaky marriage at best.

The JEM are a newer, smaller Islamist rebel group led by Hassan al-Turabi, who was once a close ally of Sudan’s Warrior King. The JEM have strong links to radical Islamist groups like Hezbollah and al-Qaeda. The Warrior King, al-Bashir, is perhaps most fearful of the aspirations to power secretly held by the JEM. 

Conflict
To begin understanding Darfur, toss religion away as a motivating cause. Though religion fueled the twenty-year Sudanese civil war between the Muslim North and Christian South, Darfur is not a religious genocide like the Holocaust. It is first and foremost a political conflict between a geographical region and its government. But as with many other African nations, the political and the ethnic are often two names for the same thing.

Put simply, the people of Darfur have been left out of the Sudanese government for years. The people of Darfur were accustomed to threatening the government with secession. Their anger reached a breaking point in early 2003 when they attacked government positions in Darfur. The Warrior King Bashir, sensing a threat to his power, unleashed his Evil Horsemen on the civilians of Darfur. The wheels of the Darfur crisis were thus put in motion.

Plot Summary
See The Inquirer’s GENOCIDE IN DARFUR: Sudan Timeline

Themes
In his article, “The Politics of Death in Darfur,” which was originally published in the May issue of Current History and republished in the August Harper’s, Gerard Prunier gives a lucid account of the conflict. Among his many targets (Kofi Annan, Bush, and the African Union, to name a few), he fingers the American media for its manipulative, reductive coverage of the situation. When in March 2004 U. N. humanitarian coordinator for Sudan, Mukesh Kapila, labeled the situation in Darfur the “world’s greatest humanitarian crisis,” Prunier says:

Newspapers went wild. The angle had been found: Darfur was a genocide and the Arabs were killing the blacks. The journalists did not seem unduly concerned that the Arabs were often black, or that the “genocide” was strangely timed to Khartoum’s goal of reaching a peace accord in Naivasha. The first genocide of the twenty-first century was a good story, unlike the peace negotiations, which had been dragging on for two years. “World opinion” finally cared about Darfur, even if what was actually happening remained obscure.

And then, Prunier delivers the moral of the story, which helps to explain why this particular African conflict has become one of the most hard to understand crises in recent memory:

The moral outrage overshadowed the political nature of the problem. The various lines of causality were lost amid the loud calls for “action”––a big word, given how few went so far as to demand military intervention.

Short-Term Resolutions
Immediate disarmament of the Janjaweed. Armed UN peacekeeping force in Darfur. Resuscitated food aid and resettlement programs for the displaced.

Long-Term Resolutions (The “Never Again” Factor)
Balanced ethnic representation in Khartoum. Independence from foreign aid. Transparent governance. Equitable distribution of resources and wealth. Sound infrastructure: education, health, and social welfare.

(Originally published 8/4/06. Photo from the Genocide Memorial in Nyamata, Rwanda from flickr.)

Comments

[Genocide Intervention Network]

The Genocide Intervention Network has a weekly Darfur news roundup available online or via email. GI-Net is endorsed by Eric Reeves, Samantha Power, Juan Méndez and others.

The Coalition for Darfur blog also has great up-to-the-minute posts on the current situation.

[Jay McGinley]

DARFUR - HOW MANY DIE BEFORE NGO'S/COALITIONS STEP UP?
Day 32 Hunger Strike, Day 84 Vigil at White House

I do not believe that the NGOs/COALITIONS are poplulated by cowardly, self-serving people. BUT HOW ELSE DOES ONE INTERPRET THE FACTS THAT DEPITE PROOF THAT THEIR TACTICS OF REPORTS, EMAILS, POSTCARDS, DIVESTMENT, 4 HOUR DEMONSTRATIONS, 5 MINUTE DIE-INS... ARE FAILING THEY DO NOT ESCALATE?!?!?!?!!?

LIVES MUST BE PUT ON THE LINE TO STOP GENOCIDE. HUNGER STRIKES. MASS CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE, MASS ARRESTS.

Darfur, Three Months Hence: Extrapolating from Current Conditions
Eric Reeves' latest full-length analysis is now available both on his site and on Sudan Tribune; here is the second section (the first being devoted to a "hypothetical dispatch" from this coming November--i.e., three months from now)...

Click to read more . . .

[Jay McGinley]

HOW PLAUSIBLE A “HYPOTHETICAL” ACCOUNT?

Could conditions in Darfur deteriorate so rapidly? Could the already appalling security crisis grow to such threatening proportions? Could human mortality---already exceeding 500,000---accelerate? (See my global mortality assessment of April 2006 at http://www.sudanreeves.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=102.) Could the residual destructiveness of violence that became genocidal over three years ago increase even further? Could the international community remain inert as these realities became relentlessly clearer?

The only answers available are those deriving from current assessments of conditions on the ground in Darfur and eastern Chad, as well as statements by major international actors; but these suggest there is neither exaggeration nor implausibility to any feature to this hypothetical account.

DANGER TO HUMANITARIANS IN DARFUR AND EASTERN CHAD

The warnings concerning violence against humanitarians and the continuing attenuation of humanitarian access could not be more blunt. Citing a “more than 100% increase in violent clashes [in Darfur] in the first half of 2006 compared to the first half of last year,” UN humanitarian aid chief Jan Egeland declared:

“The situation in Darfur was going from really bad to catastrophic.” (Jan Egeland interview, August 10, 2006, transcript from UN Department of Public Information [Geneva])

Mike McDonagh, senior humanitarian affairs officer at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Khartoum, declared:

"During the second half of July [2006], we lost more aid workers than over the previous two years.” (UN Integrated Regional Information Networks [IRIN] [dateline: Nairobi], August 3, 2006)

More recently IRIN reports:

“July was the most dangerous month of the three-year-old conflict in Darfur for aid workers, four major international humanitarian agencies working in the region said on Tuesday [August 8, 2006]. Violence has escalated since the signing of the Darfur Peace Agreement on 5 May [2006] between the government and the largest rebel group. Eight Sudanese humanitarian workers were killed in July alone. The increasing insecurity is also limiting the ability of aid agencies to reach people in need, with potentially disastrous consequences, warned the four agencies---Care, International Rescue Committee (IRC), Oxfam International, and World Vision.” (IRIN [dateline: Nairobi], August 10, 2006)

This assessment was echoed by Manuel da Silva, United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan:

"‘The level of violence being faced by humanitarian workers in Darfur is unprecedented,’ da Silva [said]. ‘The situation is made even more serious by the fact that the need for humanitarian assistance is increasing while our ability to respond is being ever more restricted,’ da Silva added.”
(IRIN [dateline: Nairobi], August 10, 2006)

The view is the same from the African Union: Baba Gana Kingibe, Special Representative of the AU Commission Chairperson, declared bluntly in el-Fasher [capital of North Darfur], “Security in Darfur ‘is plummeting’” (Associated Press [dateline: el-Fasher], August 7, 2006).

What Kingibe did not discuss is the continuing failure of the AU to fashion a working cease-fire commission in Darfur per the terms of the May 5 Abuja agreement---or to publish even the most rudimentary reports about massive, ongoing military violence in North Darfur. This includes active collaboration between Khartoum’s regular military forces and those of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) faction of Minni Minawi, now Special Assistant to National Islamic Front President and Field Marshal Omar el-Bashir. Nor does Kingibe discuss the implications of the AU providing transport and accommodations to Minawi’s commanders in the field, even those implicated in recent atrocities.

To his credit, Kingibe has finally spoken out against the numerous and highly credible charges of torture used as a weapon of war by Minawi’s forces. But this came only a week after authoritative accounts of atrocities by Minawi’s forces had been published by Amnesty International and Refugees International. The latter reported:

“One woman in the Tawilla camp [North Darfur] described the nature of these [threatened] punishments [of non-signatories to the DPA]. She said that hundreds of Minawi’s soldiers entered her village and started shooting. They went inside the houses one by one shooting the men, including her husband, and beating or raping the women and girls. The soldiers took whatever they could find---clothing, shoes, money, livestock. Her story is remarkably consistent with thousands of others in the region that detail targeted executions of men and violent, forced displacement.” (Refugees International, “Town in North Darfur Reflects Changing Nature of Conflict,” July 24, 2006)

Amnesty International reports that:

“The African Union peacekeeping force in al-Fasher has not only been unable to protect civilians in Korma [North Darfur], but has yet to investigate the killings. Civilians reported the attacks to [the African Union] on 5 July [2006], but the SLA (Minni Minawi) reportedly opposed [the AU’s] going to Korma.” (Amnesty International, “Korma: Yet more attacks on civilians” [AI Index AFR 54/026/2006])

Moreover, the AU has lost all initiative in patrolling within camps or rural areas: there is no AU access in the vast majority of camps, many fewer patrols are being mounted, morale is abysmal, and few of the troops deployed are looking to more than a September exit. A senior UN aid official on the ground in North Darfur estimates privately that unchecked internecine fighting between SLA factions has left over 60% of North Darfur inaccessible to humanitarian operations for the past two months. IRIN reports Turid Laegreid, a senior UN humanitarian official in el-Fasher, as declaring that “access to the local population in North Darfur is at an all-time low” (IRIN [dateline: Nairobi] August 1, 2006).

And while North Darfur is currently the most threatened of the three Darfur states, the potential for explosions in both South and West Darfur is all too clear. Indeed, last week Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), the largest international humanitarian presence in Darfur, reported that in West Darfur,

“Security incidents have led to the evacuation of our teams in Serif Umra and two projects in the Jebel Marra, as well as the interruption of mobile clinics, and the limitation in the referral of emergency cases to surgical facilities in other areas. [ ] Many MSF activities are currently suspended, leaving thousands of patients untreated everyday. MSF has been attacked in the past weeks in several locations in all regions of Darfur.” ("Increased insecurity hampers MSF medical assistance to the population of Darfur," MSF [press] release, August 3, 2006)

Not only is medical care being denied to desperate civilians, but food aid as well:

“The UN World Food Program was unable to deliver supplies to 400,000 people in July, up from 290,000 in June.” (Associated Press [dateline: el-Fasher, North Darfur], August 8, 2006)

The number of people in Darfur not receiving food aid in mid-August is over 500,000 and rising rapidly. And this represents those currently targeted for food delivery, not the global Darfuri population in need.

Conditions in eastern Chad in many ways mirror those in Darfur, as the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) declared in an August 8, 2006 press release in Geneva:

“UNHCR is very concerned about the safety of humanitarian workers in eastern Chad following a deterioration in the security situation there. We are particularly worried about the situation in and around the town of Guereda, which is located about 65 kilometres from the border with Sudan.”

“Last Friday, seven men brandishing assault rifles and wearing military uniforms broke into the compound of a non-governmental organisation in Guereda. Three aid workers were hit in the head with rifle butts and one of them was later evacuated to a French military hospital in Abeche, capital of eastern Chad. [ ] This is the seventh time humanitarian workers have been targeted in the Guereda area since May. Three weeks ago, two vehicles from another NGO were stolen. At the beginning of July, two UNHCR cars were stolen from our Guereda office after armed men overpowered the guards.” [ ]

“We are extremely concerned about these incidents. The growing insecurity is making it more difficult and more dangerous for humanitarian agencies and their staff to provide assistance to Sudanese refugees from Darfur in the area. Some international and local humanitarian agencies are working with only essential staff and have reduced their activities in the camps.”

None of these trends will be reversed in the foreseeable future; on the contrary, all evidence suggests a further deterioration of security. The UN’s “Darfur Peace Agreement Monitor” (July 2006) gives a grim assessment of the fundamentally changed dynamic of violence on the ground:

“The increasing fragmentation of armed groups has made humanitarian action more difficult and dangerous. Previously, humanitarian actors used an established notification system to inform armed groups of their movements. During the past month, the number of military actors increased, combat zones multiplied, and chains of command disintegrated. In some cases, established notification systems have failed completely, dramatically increasing the humanitarian actors’ operational risks.” (UN “DPA Monitor,” July 2006, page 11)

[Peter Eichenberger]

Who is going to step in to save the people of Iraq? The Janjaweed are patty-cake compared to what your tax dollars pay for.
"It wasn't necesssary to hit them with that awful thing," Dwight Eisenhower, on the atomic experiments of 1945.

[biddet]

peter...........stupid on so many levels. You even show your ignorance in times you didn't even live in or know about.

[Peter Eichenberger]

Biddet? What kinda name is that? Yo mama musta been really hated being pregnant to name you after a piece of sanitary plumbing.
On my stupidity, I merely quoted Eisenhower. Get mad at him, not me. My grandfather was in at Alamagordo, on the team. I also know a guy, a physicist for Oppenhiemer. He was nine miles away when they detonated the "gadget". He saw the bones hrough his hands. So that's two people. What's your connection?

[Rod]

"He saw the bones through his hands" - that's your argument?? (It means that it worked.) Wasn't that the idea? A weapon that would end the war. Maybe it was you that wanted to be in a Higgens, crouched low - squeezing a cruicfix, chugging up to some godforsaken beach near Tokyo.

[Peter Eichenberger]

LIke so many of your fellow US monkey people, most of what you believe are lies. I can bury you with this stuff.

Have a safe and happy new year, Rod.

Peter Eichenberger

The following is an excellent resource.
http://www.doug-long.com/quotes.htm

"During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of 'face'. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude..."
- Dwight Eisenhower, Mandate For Change, pg. 380
"It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons.
"The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children."
- William Leahy, I Was There, pg. 441.
On May 28, 1945, Hoover visited President Truman and suggested a way to end the Pacific war quickly: "I am convinced that if you, as President, will make a shortwave broadcast to the people of Japan - tell them they can have their Emperor if they surrender, that it will not mean unconditional surrender except for the militarists - you'll get a peace in Japan - you'll have both wars over."
Richard Norton Smith, An Uncommon Man: The Triumph of Herbert Hoover, pg. 347.
On August 8, 1945, after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Hoover wrote to Army and Navy Journal publisher Colonel John Callan O'Laughlin, "The use of the atomic bomb, with its indiscriminate killing of women and children, revolts my soul."
quoted from Gar Alperovitz, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb, pg. 635.
"...the Japanese were prepared to negotiate all the way from February 1945...up to and before the time the atomic bombs were dropped; ...if such leads had been followed up, there would have been no occasion to drop the [atomic] bombs."
- quoted by Barton Bernstein in Philip Nobile, ed., Judgment at the Smithsonian, pg. 142
Hoover biographer Richard Norton Smith has written: "Use of the bomb had besmirched America's reputation, he [Hoover] told friends. It ought to have been described in graphic terms before being flung out into the sky over Japan."
Richard Norton Smith, An Uncommon Man: The Triumph of Herbert Hoover, pg. 349-350.
In early May of 1946 Hoover met with General Douglas MacArthur. Hoover recorded in his diary, "I told MacArthur of my memorandum of mid-May 1945 to Truman, that peace could be had with Japan by which our major objectives would be accomplished. MacArthur said that was correct and that we would have avoided all of the losses, the Atomic bomb, and the entry of Russia into Manchuria."
Gar Alperovitz, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb, pg. 350-351.

Norman Cousins was a consultant to General MacArthur during the American occupation of Japan. Cousins writes of his conversations with MacArthur, "MacArthur's views about the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were starkly different from what the general public supposed." He continues, "When I asked General MacArthur about the decision to drop the bomb, I was surprised to learn he had not even been consulted. What, I asked, would his advice have been? He replied that he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier, he said, if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor."
Norman Cousins, The Pathology of Power, pg. 65, 70-71.
"I have always felt that if, in our ultimatum to the Japanese government issued from Potsdam [in July 1945], we had referred to the retention of the emperor as a constitutional monarch and had made some reference to the reasonable accessibility of raw materials to the future Japanese government, it would have been accepted. Indeed, I believe that even in the form it was delivered, there was some disposition on the part of the Japanese to give it favorable consideration. When the war was over I arrived at this conclusion after talking with a number of Japanese officials who had been closely associated with the decision of the then Japanese government, to reject the ultimatum, as it was presented. I believe we missed the opportunity of effecting a Japanese surrender, completely satisfactory to us, without the necessity of dropping the bombs."
McCloy quoted in James Reston, Deadline, pg. 500.

On June 28, 1945, a memorandum written by Bard the previous day was given to Sec. of War Henry Stimson. It stated, in part:
"Following the three-power [July 1945 Potsdam] conference emissaries from this country could contact representatives from Japan somewhere on the China Coast and make representations with regard to Russia's position [they were about to declare war on Japan] and at the same time give them some information regarding the proposed use of atomic power, together with whatever assurances the President might care to make with regard to the [retention of the] Emperor of Japan and the treatment of the Japanese nation following unconditional surrender. It seems quite possible to me that this presents the opportunity which the Japanese are looking for.
"I don't see that we have anything in particular to lose in following such a program." He concluded the memorandum by noting, "The only way to find out is to try it out."
Memorandum on the Use of S-1 Bomb, Manhattan Engineer District Records, Harrison-Bundy files, folder # 77, National Archives (also contained in: Martin Sherwin, A World Destroyed, 1987 edition, pg. 307-308).
Later Bard related, "...it definitely seemed to me that the Japanese were becoming weaker and weaker. They were surrounded by the Navy. They couldn't get any imports and they couldn't export anything. Naturally, as time went on and the war developed in our favor it was quite logical to hope and expect that with the proper kind of a warning the Japanese would then be in a position to make peace, which would have made it unnecessary for us to drop the bomb and have had to bring Russia in...".
quoted in Len Giovannitti and Fred Freed, The Decision To Drop the Bomb, pg. 144-145, 324.
Bard also asserted, "I think that the Japanese were ready for peace, and they already had approached the Russians and, I think, the Swiss. And that suggestion of [giving] a warning [of the atomic bomb] was a face-saving proposition for them, and one that they could have readily accepted." He continued, "In my opinion, the Japanese war was really won before we ever used the atom bomb. Thus, it wouldn't have been necessary for us to disclose our nuclear position and stimulate the Russians to develop the same thing much more rapidly than they would have if we had not dropped the bomb."
War Was Really Won Before We Used A-Bomb, U.S. News and World Report, 8/15/60, pg. 73-75.

[Beth]

The Japanese butchered 300,000 Chinese AFTER they captured the city of Nanking - (more than they lost in Nagasaki and Hiroshima) For 9 years The Japanese proved themselves savages -having no regard for human life and were prepared to give the last life of the island before surrendering. Continue if you like, peter, to write for the audience that prefers muddeled fantasy to the uncomfortable truth. Pray for their departed souls but not to change the reality of what is history.

[Peter Eichenberger]

My quotes were from people who were THERE, unlike you, silly twit. Read the post before you make a fool of yourself. Blah blah blah about how wrong the SUPREME ALLIED COMMANDER WHO WON WWII was, not me.

"During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of 'face'. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude..."
- Dwight Eisenhower, Mandate For Change, pg. 380

[Peter Eichenberger]

Furthermore, Learn some actual history instead of the propaganda this poisonous culture shovels into your thimble sized mind.

Have a nice year.

[Beth]

peter, you ignorant twit. Ike was NOT the Supreme Allied Commander as you state. Go back to creating mismash relish for your hamburgers. That is who you are, isn't it???

[peter eichenberger]

http://www.army.mil/cmh/brochures/Ike/ike.htm
Today, the name Eisenhower is synonymous with dynamic leadership in a complex international environment. ... Yet, within three years and under the intense pressure of a global war, he rose to become Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe. The leadership skills that won the great land campaigns of the twentieth century did not come about overnight. They were the product of years of development-development that took place in the small peacetime Army of the 1920s and 30s. As we shape the force for the future, that example should serve as a source of inspiration for professionals throughout our ranks.

[Beth]

in Europe.....In EUROPE, you twit. There IS a difference.
McArthur was the Supreme Allied Commander in Pacific.

[Beth]

Ike was Supreme Allied Commander Europe. In Europe, you twit. There IS a difference. Douglas McArthur was Supreme Allied Commander Pacific. There was no Supreme Allied Commander. Harry Truman was the head of the Military - if you will. twit

[peter eichenberger]

I never said he was, fool. Now onto MacArthur.
"When I asked General MacArthur about the decision to drop the bomb, I was surprised to learn he had not even been consulted. He replied that he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb.

Norman Cousins, The Pathology of Power, pg. 65, 70-71.

[peter eichenberger]

Anything besides what Beth thinks? Take the time to read .. ah, never mind, I'm rather enjoying this!
"...I felt that it was an unnecessary loss of civilian life......We had them beaten. They hadn't enough food, they couldn't do anything."
Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet, quoted by his widow.

"Nimitz considered the atomic bomb somehow indecent, certainly not a legitimate form of warfare."
E. B. Potter, naval historian.

"The first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment......It was a mistake ever to drop it......(the scientists) had this toy and they wanted to try it out, so they dropped it......It killed a lot of Japs, but the Japs had put out a lot of peace feelers through Russia long before."
Admiral William "Bull" Halsey, commander of the Third Fleet.

"Especially it is good to see the truth told about the last days of the war with Japan.....I was with the Fleet during that period; and every officer in the Fleet knew that Japan would eventually capitulate from...the tight blockade. "I, too, felt strongly that it was a mistake to drop the atom bombs, especially without warning."
Rear Admiral Richard Byrd.

(The atomic bomb) "was not necessary to bring the war to a successful conclusion.....it was clear to a number of people...that the war was very nearly over. The Japanese were nearly ready to capitulate.....it was a sin - to use a good word - (a word that) should be used more often - to kill non-combatants...."
Rear Admiral Lewis L. Strauss, special assistant to the Secretary of the Navy.

"The war would have been over in two weeks without the Russians entering and without the atomic bomb........the atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at all."
Major General Curtis E. LeMay, US Army Air Forces (at a press conference, September 1945).

"Russia's entry into the Japanese war was the decisive factor in speeding its end and would have been so even if no atomic bombs had been dropped..."
Major General Claire Chennault, founder of the Flying Tigers, and former US Army Air Forces commander in China.

"....from the Japanese standpoint the atomic bomb was really a way out. The Japanese position was hopeless even before the first atomic bomb fell..."
Henry H. "Hap" Arnold, Commanding General of the US Army Air Forces.

"Arnold's view was that it (dropping the atomic bomb) was unnecessary. He said that he knew that the Japanese wanted peace. There were political implications in the decision and Arnold did not feel it was the military's job to question it...........I knew nobody in the high echelons of the Army Air Force who had any question about having to invade Japan."
Lieutenant General Ira C. Eaker, Arnold's deputy.

"When the question comes up of whether we use the atomic bomb or not, my view is the the Air Force will not oppose the use of the bomb, and they will deliver it effectively in the Commander in Chief decide to use it. But it is not necessary to use it in order to conquer the Japanese without the necessity of a land invasion."
Arnold, quoted by Eaker.

"No! I think we had the Japs licked anyhow. I think they would have quit probably within a week or so of when they did quit."
General George C. Kenney, commander of Army Air Force units in the Southwest Pacific, when asked whether using the atomic bomb had been a wise decision.

"...Both felt Japan would surrender without use of the bomb, and neither knew why a second bomb was used."
W. Averall Harriman, in private notes after a dinner with General Carl "Tooey" Spaatz (commander in July 1945 of the Pacific-based US Army Strategic Air Forces, and Spaatz's one-time deputy commanding general in Europe, Frederick L. Anderson.

"I voiced to him (Secretary of War Stimpson) my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was at that very moment seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of 'face'........It wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing"
General Dwight D. Eisenhower.

"I told MacArthur of my memorandum of mid-May 1945 to Truman, that peace could be had with Japan by which our major objectives would be accomplished. MacArthur said that was correct and that we would have avoided all of the losses, the Atomic bomb, and the entry od Russia into Manchuria."
Herbert Hoover.

"MacArthur once spoke to me very eloquently about it....He thought it a tragedy that the Bomb was ever exploded. MacArthur believed that the same restrictions ought to apply to atomic weapons as to conventional weapons, that the military objective should always be to limit damage to noncombatants.... MacArthur, you see, was a soldier. He believed in using force only against military targets, and that is why the nuclear thing turned him off, which I think speaks well of him."
Richard M. Nixon.

[peter eichenberger]

General Douglas MacArthur, "My staff was unanimous in believing that Japan was on the point of collapse and surrender."

[Peter Eichenberger]

Anthony Sutton was a Research Fellow at the prestigious HOOVER INSTITUTE OF WAR, REVOLUTION AND PEACE. Sutton details how this same group of monopoly capitalists financed and supplied both the leftist state of Russia and the rightist state of Germany and clashed them in war for profit..

[Zeko]

tell me something peter.....do you think this is some type of karioke machine or something where you can come and perform for us?

[Mich]

word is that he married Erika Eichelberger, but too many things were close to the same including the name

[peter eichenberger]

No, I haven't thought about that, Zeko. I've seen Karaoke machines before. They are nothing like this. I quess it is a big planet. And you, Mitch, if you did a survey of the letters of the names, you may find they are different.

[Mich]

exactly as i said.................things were close. (read: different)

[peter eichenberger]

Pointing out the obvious now, I see. What is your point? You must be paid by the hour.

[Mich]

by your smugness, may i suggest that you are ted turner in drag?? am i correct, peter??