Wikileaks reveals Japanese government was warned reactors inabilty to withstand earthquakes but silenced criticism and was accused of cover ups.

According to Wikileaks released cables, Japan was warned two years ago by an international nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency,  that its nuclear plants were, "not capable of withstanding powerful earthquakes".

Quakes of significant strength would pose a "serious problem" the agency said. One of the plants was designed to withstand a quake of magnitude  7.0 but this quake was a 9.0.   Either way, if anything it has been the tsunami, the quake's aftermath that has done the most damage. It is the water that knocked out the backup cooling system.

The Wikileaks released cables reveal that the  Japanese government opposed a court order to shut down a nuclear power plant in western Japan because of concerns it could not withstand powerful earthquakes.  This is for reasons that this blog has pointed out, that the industry is a for-profit industry and the capitalist state will place the interests of profit above public safety. There were even warnings from  the Japanese court that the population might be affected if there was an accident at this particular plant.

Despite the concerns raised,"Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency believes the reactor is safe and that all safety analyses were appropriately conducted." the cables show the government saying. But cables quote one newspaper report as saying,  "There is something precarious about the way all electric power companies are falling in step with each other under the banner of the national policy. We have seen too many cases of cost reduction competition through heightened efficiency jeopardizing safety." 

One politician even accused the Japanese government of covering up experts' concerns about the dangers of the nuclear plants and Japan's nuclear industry as a whole.  But this is what we can expect from capitalism.  It's production process is called "for-profit" not "for need" or "for safety" industries.  So it is as natural as air for profit to be placed before human and environmental security.  As with the former totalitarian Stalinist regimes, past and present, disasters and the misuse of society's resources are a normal occurrence as decisions as to how the resources of society are managed and allocated are made by a small elite group.

We can see why there is a global offensive against Wikileaks led by US capitalism. These released cables show that the Japanese government and the private owners of the nuclear industry are the criminals; that they knowingly put people's lives at risk and now they are guilty of mass murder. Wikileaks undermines capitalist propaganda.

It also turns out that Wikileaks co-founder, Julian Assange, was warned about "dirty tricks" including sexual entrapment.   Sexual entrapment is a common weapon used against those who question the system.  It was used repeatedly against Martin Luther King by those who opposed his struggles for civil rights and, toward the end of his life, questioning capitalism and the raising the need for some form of socialism. He was too influential to ignore, leading a mass movement.

This doesn't mean that this blog treats the issue of rape or sexual misconduct lightly, we have explained in blogs about Assange and Wikileaks and the accusations against him, how they should not be ignored and how we believe they should be investigated. But the history of such tactics, the background of some of the accusers and the timing raises some serious concerns.