yrinth of pipes, where the
bodies of two missing nuclear workers-never before disclosed to the press-
were found, could well contain the answer to the mystery: a lab that none
- Political Warfare
- In reaction to Prime Minister Naoto Kan's demand for
prompt reporting of problems, the pro-nuclear lobby has closed ranks, fencing
off and freezing out the prime minister's office from vital information.
A grand alliance of nuclear proponents now includes TEPCO, plant designer
General Electric, METI, the former ruling Liberal Democratic Party and,
by all signs, the White House.
- Cabinet ministers in charge of communication and national
emergencies recently lambasted METI head Banri Kaeda for acting as both
nuclear promoter and regulator in charge of the now-muzzled Nuclear and
Industrial Safety Commission. TEPCO struck back quickly, blaming the prime
minister's helicopter fly-over for delaying venting of volatile gases and
thereby causing a blast at Reactor 2. For "health reasons," TEPCO
's president retreated to a hospital ward, cutting Kan's line of communication
with the company and undermining his site visit to Fukushima 1.
- Kan is furthered hampered by his feud with Democratic
Party rival Ichiro Ozawa, the only potential ally with the clout to challenge
the formidable pro-nuclear coalition
- The head of the Liberal Democrats, which sponsored nuclear
power under its nearly 54-year tenure, has just held confidential talks
with U.S. Ambassador John Roos, while President Barack Obama was making
statements in support of new nuclear plants across the U.S.
- Cut Off From Communications
- The substance of undisclosed talks between Tokyo and
Washington can be surmised from disruptions to my recent phone calls to
a Japanese journalist colleague. While inside the radioactive hot zone,
his roaming number was disconnected, along with the mobiles of nuclear
workers at Fukushima 1 who are denied phone access to the outside world.
The service suspension is not due to design flaws. When helping to prepare
the Tohoku crisis response plan in 1996, my effort was directed at ensuring
that mobile base stations have back-up power with fast recharge.
- A subsequent phone call when my colleague returned to
Tokyo went dead when I mentioned "GE." That incident occurred
on the day that GE's CEO Jeff Immelt landed in Tokyo with a pledge to rebuild
the Fukushima 1 nuclear plant. Such apparent eavesdropping is only possible
if national phone carrier NTT is cooperating with the signals-intercepts
program of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA).
- The Manchurian Deal
- The chain of events behind this vast fabrication goes
back many decades.
- During the Japanese militarist occupation of northeast
China in the 1930s, the puppet state of Manchukuo was carved out as a fully
modern economic powerhouse to support overpopulated Japan and its military
machine. A high-ranking economic planner named Nobusuke Kishi worked closely
with then commander of the occupying Kanto division, known to the Chinese
as the Kwantung Army, General Hideki Tojo.
- Close ties between the military and colonial economists
led to stunning technological achievements, including the prototype of
a bullet train (or Shinkansen) and inception of Japan's atomic bomb project
in northern Korea. When Tojo became Japan's wartime prime minister, Kishi
served as his minister of commerce and economy, planning for total war
on a global scale.
- After Japan's defeat in 1945, both Tojo and Kishi were
found guilty as Class-A war criminals, but Kishi evaded the gallows for
reasons unknown-probably his usefulness to a war-ravaged nation. The scrawny
economist's conception of a centrally managed economy provided the blueprint
for MITI (Ministry of International Trade and Industry), the predecessor
of METI, which created the economic miracle that transformed postwar Japan
into an economic superpower.
- After clawing his way into the good graces of Cold Warrior
John Foster Dulles, Eisenhower's secretary of state, Kishi was elected
prime minister in 1957. His protégé Yasuhiro Nakasone, the
former naval o