Fukushima: A Nuclear War without a War
The Unspoken Crisis of Worldwide Nuclear Radiation
INTRODUCTION
The World is at a critical crossroads. The Fukushima
disaster in Japan has brought to the forefront the dangers of Worldwide
nuclear radiation.
The crisis in Japan has been described as "a nuclear war without a war". In the words of renowned novelist Haruki Murakami:
"This time no one dropped a bomb on us ... We set
the stage, we committed the crime with our own hands, we are destroying
our own lands, and we are destroying our own lives."
Nuclear radiation --which threatens life on planet
earth-- is not front page news in comparison to the most insignificant
issues of public concern, including the local level crime scene or the
tabloid gossip reports on Hollywood celebrities.
While the long-term repercussions of the Fukushima
Daiichi nuclear disaster are yet to be fully assessed, they are far
more serious than those pertaining to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in
the Ukraine, which resulted in almost one million deaths (
New Book Concludes - Chernobyl death toll: 985,000, mostly from cancer Global Research, September 10, 2010, See also Matthew Penney and Mark Selden
The Severity of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster: Comparing Chernobyl and Fukushima, Global Research, May 25, 2011)
Moreover, while all eyes were riveted on the
Fukushima Daiichi plant, news coverage both in Japan and
internationally failed to fully acknowledge the impacts of a second
catastrophe at TEPCO's (Tokyo Electric Power Co Inc) Fukushima Daini
nuclear power plant.
The shaky political consensus both in Japan, the U.S. and Western Europe is that the crisis at Fukushima has been contained.
The realties, however, are otherwise. Fukushima 3
was leaking unconfirmed amounts of plutonium. According to Dr. Helen
Caldicott, "one millionth of a gram of plutonium, if inhaled can cause cancer".
An opinion poll in May 2011 confirmed that more than
80 per cent of the Japanese population do not believe the government's
information regarding the nuclear crisis. (quoted in Sherwood Ross,
Fukushima: Japan's Second Nuclear Disaster, Global Research, November 10, 2011)
The Impacts in Japan
The Japanese government has been obliged to
acknowledge that "the severity rating of its nuclear crisis ... matches
that of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster". In a bitter irony, however, this
tacit admission by the Japanese authorities has proven to been part of
the cover-up of a significantly larger catastrophe, resulting in a
process of global nuclear radiation and contamination:
"While Chernobyl was an enormous unprecedented
disaster, it only occurred at one reactor and rapidly melted down. Once
cooled, it was able to be covered with a concrete sarcophagus that was
constructed with 100,000 workers. There are a staggering 4400 tons of
nuclear fuel rods at Fukushima, which greatly dwarfs the total size of
radiation sources at Chernobyl." (
Extremely High Radiation Levels in Japan: University Researchers Challenge Official Data, Global Research, April 11, 2011)
Fukushima in the wake of the Tsunami, March 2011
Worldwide Contamination
The dumping of highly radioactive water into the
Pacific Ocean constitutes a potential trigger to a process of global
radioactive contamination. Radioactive elements have not only been
detected in the food chain in Japan, radioactive rain water has been
recorded in California:
"Hazardous radioactive elements being released in
the sea and air around Fukushima accumulate at each step of various
food chains (for example, into algae, crustaceans, small fish, bigger
fish, then humans; or soil, grass, cow's meat and milk, then humans).
Entering the body, these elements - called internal emitters - migrate
to specific organs such as the thyroid, liver, bone, and brain,
continuously irradiating small volumes of cells with high doses of
alpha, beta and/or gamma radiation, and over many years often induce
cancer". (Helen Caldicott,
Fukushima: Nuclear Apologists Play Shoot the Messenger on Radiation, The Age, April 26, 2011)
While the spread of radiation to the West Coast of
North America was casually acknowledged, the early press reports (AP
and Reuters) "quoting diplomatic sources" stated that only "tiny
amounts of radioactive particles have arrived in California but do not
pose a threat to human health."
"According to the news agencies, the unnamed sources
have access to data from a network of measuring stations run by the
United Nations’ Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization. ...
... Greg Jaczko, chair of the U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, told White House reporters on Thursday (March
17) that his experts “don’t see any concern from radiation levels that
could be harmful here in the United States or any of the U.S.
territories”.
The spread of radiation. March 2011
Public Health Disaster. Economic Impacts
What prevails is a well organized camouflage. The
public health disaster in Japan, the contamination of water,
agricultural land and the food chain, not to mention the broader
economic and social implications, have neither been fully acknowledged
nor addressed in a comprehensive and meaningful fashion by the Japanese
authorities.
Japan as a nation state has been destroyed. Its
landmass and territorial waters are contaminated. Part of the country
is uninhabitable. High levels of radiation have been recorded in the
Tokyo metropolitan area, which has a population of 39 million (2010)
(more than the population of Canada, circa 34 million (2010)) There are
indications that the food chain is contaminated throughout Japan:
Radioactive cesium exceeding the legal limit was
detected in tea made in a factory in Shizuoka City, more than 300
kilometers away from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
Shizuoka Prefecture is one of the most famous tea producing areas in
Japan.
A tea distributor in Tokyo reported to the
prefecture that it detected high levels of radioactivity in the tea
shipped from the city. The prefecture ordered the factory to refrain
from shipping out the product. After the accident at the Fukushima
nuclear power plant, radioactive contamination of tea leaves and
processed tea has been found over a wide area around Tokyo. (See
5 More Companies Detect Radiation In Their Tea Above Legal Limits Over 300 KM From Fukushima, June 15, 2011)
Japan's industrial and manufacturing base is
prostrate. Japan is no longer a leading industrial power. The country's
exports have plummeted. The Tokyo government has announced its first
trade deficit since 1980.
While the business media has narrowly centered on
the impacts of power outages and energy shortages on the pace of
productive activity, the broader issue pertaining to the outright
radioactive contamination of the country's infrastructure and
industrial base is a "scientific taboo" (i.e the radiation of
industrial plants, machinery and equipment, buildings, roads, etc). A
report released in January 2012 points to the nuclear contamination of
building materials used in the construction industry, in cluding roads
and residential buildings throughout Japan.(See
FUKUSHIMA:
Radioactive Houses and Roads in Japan. Radioactive Building Materials
Sold to over 200 Construction Companies, January 2012)
A "coverup report" by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (May 2011), entitled
"Economic Impact of the Great East Japan Earthquake and Current Status of Recovery" presents "Economic Recovery" as a
fait accompli. It
also brushes aside the issue of radiation. The impacts of nuclear
radiation on the work force and the country's industrial base are not
mentioned. The report states that the distance between Tokyo -Fukushima
Dai-ichi is of the order of 230 km (about 144 miles) and that the
levels of radiation in Tokyo are lower than in Hong Kong and New York
City.(Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry,
Impact of the Great East Japan Earthquake and Current Status of Recovery, p.15
).
This statement is made without corroborating evidence and in overt
contradiction with independent radiation readings in Tokyo (se map
below). In recent developments, Sohgo Security Services Co. is
launching a lucrative "radiation measurement service targeting
households in Tokyo and four surrounding prefectures".
"
A map of citizens' measured radiation levels shows radioactivity is
distributed in a complex pattern reflecting the mountainous terrain and
the shifting winds across a broad area of Japan north of Tokyo which is
in the center of the of bottom of the map."
"Radiation
limits begin to be exceeded at just above 0.1 microsieverts/ hour blue.
Red is about fifty times the civilian radiation limit at 5.0
microsieverts/hour. Because children are much more sensitive than
adults, these results are a great concern for parents of young children
in potentially affected areas.
The fundamental question is whether the vast array of industrial
goods and components "Made in Japan" -- including hi tech components,
machinery, electronics, motor vehicles, etc -- and exported Worldwide
are contaminated? Were this to be the case, the entire East and
Southeast Asian industrial base --which depends heavily on
Japanese components and industrial technology-- would be affected. The
potential impacts on international trade would be farreaching. In this
regard, in January, Russian officials confiscated irradiated Japanese
automobiles and autoparts in the port of Vladivostok for sale in the
Russian Federation. Needless to say, incidents of this nature in a
global competitive environment, could lead to the demise of the
Japanese automobile industry which is already in crisis.
While
most of the automotive industry is in central Japan, Nissan's engine
factory in Iwaki city is 42 km from the Fukushima Daiichi plant. Is the
Nissan work force affected? Is the engine plant contaminated? The plant
is within about 10 to 20 km of the government's "evacuation zone" from
which some 200,000 people were evacuated (see map below).
Nuclear Energy and Nuclear War
The crisis in Japan has also brought into the open the unspoken relationship between nuclear energy and nuclear war.
Nuclear energy is not a civilian economic activity.
It is an appendage of the nuclear weapons industry which is controlled
by the so-called defense contractors. The powerful corporate interests
behind nuclear energy and nuclear weapons overlap.
In Japan at the height of the disaster, "the nuclear
industry and government agencies [were] scrambling to prevent the
discovery of atomic-bomb research facilities hidden inside Japan's
civilian nuclear power plants".1 (See Yoichi Shimatsu,
Secret Weapons Program Inside Fukushima Nuclear Plant? Global Research, April 12, 2011)
It should be noted that the complacency of both the
media and the governments to the hazards of nuclear radiation pertains
to the nuclear energy industry as well as to to use of nuclear weapons.
In both cases, the devastating health impacts of nuclear radiation are
casually denied. Tactical nuclear weapons with an explosive capacity of
up to six times a Hiroshima bomb are labelled by the Pentagon as "safe
for the surrounding civilian population".
No concern has been expressed at the political level
as to the likely consequences of a US-NATO-Israel attack on Iran, using
"safe for civilians" tactical nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear
state.
Such an action would result in "the unthinkable": a
nuclear holocaust over a large part of the Middle East and Central
Asia. A nuclear nightmare, however, would occur even if nuclear weapons
were not used. The bombing of Iran's nuclear facilities using
conventional weapons would contribute to unleashing another Fukushima
type disaster with extensive radioactive fallout. (For further details
See Michel Chossudovsky,
Towards a World War III Scenario, The Dangers of Nuclear War, Global Research, Montreal, 2011)
The Online Interactive I-Book Reader on Fukushima: A Nuclear War without a War
In view of the official cover-up and media
disinformation campaign, the contents of the articles and video reports
in this Online Interactive Reader have not trickled down to to the
broader public. (See Table of contents below)
This Online Interactive Reader on Fukushima contains
a combination of analytical and scientific articles, video reports as
well as shorter news reports and corroborating data.
Part I focusses on The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster: How it Happened? Part II pertains to The Devastating Health and Social Impacts in Japan. Part III centers on the "Hidden Nuclear Catastrophe", namely the cover-up by the Japanese government and the corporate media. Part IV focusses on the issue of Worlwide Nuclear Radiation and Part V reviews the Implications of the Fukushima disaster for the Global Nuclear Energy Industry.
In the face of ceaseless media disinformation, this
Global Research Online I-Book on the dangers of global nuclear
radiation is intended to break the media vacuum and raise public
awareness, while also pointing to the complicity of the governments,
the media and the nuclear industry.
We call upon our readers to spread the word.
We
invite university, college and high school teachers to make this
Interactive Reader on Fukushima available to their students.
Michel Chossudovsky, January 25, 2012
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