by John W. Dower
April 7, 2008
from
MITWorld Website
About the Lecture
The
Bush administration began its “great misuse
of history” shortly after 9/11, says John Dower, when it seized upon
Japan’s 1941 Pearl Harbor attack as a useful analogy, a way to promote its
own invasion of Iraq and subsequent occupation.
Dower views as simplistic these “popular hooks
to history” and mercilessly slashes away at the Bush administration’s
continuing efforts to manipulate the public with historical imagery and
example.
Yet, with his more refined historical lens, Dower finds some
unsettling areas of congruence between those days and our own times.
Reflecting on popular associations between 9/11 and Iraq, and Pearl Harbor
and Japan, Dower offers two lines of analysis (and suggests he’s got a few
more up his sleeve): what he calls “a Pearl Harbor code,” and “Ground Zero
2001 and Ground Zero 1945.”
The first area involves comparing explanations
of failures of intelligence that might have anticipated the attacks.
Congressional and other investigations of the 1941 and 2001 attacks reveal
that despite lots of “noise and chatter,” intelligence agencies grossly
miscalculated and missed enemy intentions.
This represents,
“not just system
breakdown, but a stunning failure of the imagination,” says Dower.
In both cases, the U.S. was caught unawares
because it misjudged the enemy in a manner typical of “white supremacists,”
simultaneously diminishing the other side’s capabilities and casting it as
irrational or illogical.
In an ironic aside, Dower notes that the
Japanese launched their war on,
“a wish and a prayer, with no contingency
planning and no serious contemplation of worst case scenarios.”
How like the “U.S. strategic imbecility in the
Iraqi invasion,” he says.
Dower’s second analytical line describes how a “clash of civilizations”
argument has emerged powerfully since 9/11. Americans believe that Ground
Zero 2001 marked the start of a new era - the West opposing an Islamic
culture that devalues human life.
But Dower shows that a war machine targeting
civilians and noncombatants went into high gear during World War II, with
the U.S. and British air wars against Germany, then Japan. Airborne
slaughter of innocents became standard operating procedure, part of an
“ideological group think we associate with cultures of war.”
Victims are no longer individual civilians, but
entire nations.
Hiroshima and Pearl Harbor became,
“codes for mass destruction and
psychological warfare,” adopted by both bin Laden and the U.S. - “one
side using this as a model for the horrors of 9/11, the other finding
inspiration in what we call the cutting edge of shock and awe, tactics
that were presumably to ensure victory in the invasion of Iraq.”
John Dower on...
"Cultures of War Pearl Harbor/Hiroshima/9-11/Iraq"
...and now Afghanistan & Pakistan
December 7, 2009
from
TenThousandThingsFromKyoto Website
In this hour and a half talk, historian John
Dower discusses how
the Bush administration began its “great
misuse of history” shortly after 9/11, "when it seized upon Japan’s 1941
Pearl Harbor attack as a useful analogy, a way to promote its own invasion
of Iraq and subsequent occupation."
Likewise, the Obama administration has also seized upon 9/11 in its attempt
to justify US military violence in Afghanistan.
And today we're seeing news stories invoking
Pearl Harbor to sanction Obama's war in Afghanistan just as the US corporate
media did to support Bush's war in Iraq.
Videotaped in April 2008, this lecture focuses Iraq, but Dower's insights
may also now be applied to Afghanistan:
Dower views as simplistic these “popular
hooks to history” and mercilessly slashes away at the Bush
administration’s continuing efforts to manipulate the public with
historical imagery and example. Yet, with his more refined historical
lens, Dower finds some unsettling areas of congruence between those days
and our own times.
Reflecting on popular associations between 9/11 and Iraq, and Pearl
Harbor and Japan, Dower offers two lines of analysis (and suggests he’s
got a few more up his sleeve): what he calls “a Pearl Harbor code,” and
“Ground Zero 2001 and Ground Zero 1945.”
The first area involves comparing
explanations of failures of intelligence that might have anticipated the
attacks. Congressional and other investigations of the 1941 and 2001
attacks reveal that despite lots of “noise and chatter,” intelligence
agencies grossly miscalculated and missed enemy intentions.
This represents “not just system breakdown,
but a stunning failure of the imagination,” says Dower.
In both cases, the U.S. was caught unawares because it misjudged the
enemy in a manner typical of “white supremacists,” simultaneously
diminishing the other side’s capabilities and casting it as irrational
or illogical. In an ironic aside, Dower notes that the Japanese launched
their war on “a wish and a prayer, with no contingency planning and no
serious contemplation of worst case scenarios.”
How like the “U.S. strategic imbecility in
the Iraqi invasion,” he says.
Dower’s second analytical line describes how a “clash of civilizations”
argument has emerged powerfully since 9/11. Americans believe that
Ground Zero 2001 marked the start of a new era - the West opposing an
Islamic culture that devalues human life.
But Dower shows that a war machine targeting civilians and noncombatants
went into high gear during World War II, with the U.S. and British air
wars against Germany, then Japan. Airborne slaughter of innocents became
standard operating procedure, part of an “ideological group think we
associate with cultures of war.”
Victims are no longer individual civilians,
but entire nations.
Hiroshima and Pearl Harbor became,
“codes for mass destruction and
psychological warfare,” adopted by both bin Laden and the U.S. -
“one side using this as a model for the horrors of 9/11, the other
finding inspiration in what we call the cutting edge of shock and
awe, tactics that were presumably to ensure victory in the invasion
of Iraq.”
And now airborne drone attacks raining down on
the Afghanistan/Pakistan border and Pakistan are killing the newest
generation of civilian victims of military violence.
The Video