Weekly Warning Words

     Police actions & wars included since olden times a good number of risks of self-destruction, an "acceptable" percentage of victims of over-eagerness & ignorable innocents, smashed to smithereens because they happened to be in the crossfire of cops & thieves or lived in the crossroads of aggressive or preventive "defenders" who felt duty-bound to fire first.

     While those trained bands were part & parcel of police states and authoritarian or theocratic tyrannies, poor victims endangered themselves even more if they dared to mourn over the violent death(s) in their families. However, our barely surviving constitutional safeguards still permit our "free" press to mention the out-pourings of mass destruction aiming & hitting without due caution. Where hand-to-hand sharpie-shooting takes place in house-to-house clearance & shoot-before-being-shot scenes, brother soldiers aim to be anxious heroes & can hardly avoid killing a few comrades rounding the same corners from opposite directions.

     Even if a tough Islamic ghetto could be left alone to smother in its own dirt, famine & blood, a boasting marine general pledged he would take the town of Falluja by the use of his overwhelming firepower as though our "victory" required the destruction of every town.

     How can we know whether it was lack of early sighting of unexpected dust bowlers who got into the fiery shooting gallery/alley or deliberate masculine application of principles of jealousy, revenge or carelessness when some English friends & allies shot down one of our airplanes or helicopters or when our flying heroes smashed English tanks to bits.

     Our fighting men are taught to be fearless killers, & Lt. General James Mattis of the Marines laughs: "Actually it's quite fun to fight them, you know. It's a hell of a hoot. It's fun to shoot some people." The K.K.K. & the N.R.A. couldn't have expressed this better. One of Bush's most pious generals had declared Arab Muslims permissible targets in the light of born-again Christianity. (Was his name Boykin?) We shall never know what percentage of our dead heroes were murdered by their best friends, brethren or cousins.

     However, when some Jewish leaders suggested to Churchill & F.D.R. to bombard the Auschwitz (Oswitecim) Concentration Camp, the 2 warleaders kept their friendly fire on weapon factories, bridges & empty railway tracks which saved a few thousand lives instead of hundreds of thousands.

     Anecdotal writing could add hundreds of cases to this study. May I take the liberty to mention one friendly-fire killing of 22 Jews in their Japanese - installed World-War II Shanghai ghetto along with at least 86 Chinese?

     My position as a lonely elementary teacher at Dr. Tongg's "Asia Seminar" for the continued education of Chinese teachers gave me a special significance because I had been elevated to the position of director of education and of the curriculum when all my colleagues had at least a Ph.D. or a M.D.

     The 2 top chair persons of the local Pao Chia, a self-defence corps, let me do some training & organizing.

     Big U.S. A19s & 24s had been flying almost daily from West China dropping their bombs on harbor installations. I "knew" they would not destroy the Japanese Naval Headquarters, located more than 2 miles from the northend of the ghetto, because their radio station guided our aviators.

     On July 17, 1944, I had a prophetic feeling. I ordered my 10 cluster schools closed. Then when I heard the remote humming, I ordered all people off our huge roof & cursed those who didn't obey me. With 2 students under my arms, I jumped down the stairs & forced our way to under a solid Chinese table which I upheld with my hard head, its steel helmet & my leather jacket after the heavy roofdoor fell on top of our table shelter.

     Using my boys as towncriers, I rushed into action, treating the wounded & labeling the corpses. On my roof I had 2 stubborn disbelievers ready for burial. Soon my medical allies & subchiefs - Chinese & Jews - administered the 4 1/2 blocks which were badly hit. The vice-admiral, a sober Japanese, accepted my command. Unwilling Japanese Kempetai (military police), consular police, sailors & marines began to obey me when they heard me say "Hirohito", the wargame name of their heavenly majesty which forced every Japanese to fall down on his belly, to prostrate himself.

     Within 5 or 6 hours, we had searched the houses (most Chinese victims lay right on the boiling asphalt of the hot streets) & doing some good & much of decision making. By evening, I had taken over the Kadoorie School to house the now new homeless 300 plus. I reported to the White Russian police chief who began to scold my only boss, Engineer Stricks. The founder of the Pao Chia who learned to hate me was found headless with his body smashed…..

     Once I had earned my Ph.D., I tried to use my rights as a researcher to obtain those parts of our war records which might have shed some light on my case. As soon as Forrestal became Secretary of Defence, the archives were "emptied". No mentioning of their US bombing of the Shanghai Ghetto. Friendly fire remains unfriendly to the truth? Who knows? But how could I forget this meaningless sacrifice of human lives just before 2 atomic breaths over Japan brought peace to our world for a very short time.
Week 79- March 23, 2005 - Public-Pubic Relationships

March 16, 2005 - Week 78 - "Friendly" Fire?

BY DR. BRUNO J. KEITH