Hiroshima then and now

59 years ago today an American warplane dropped the world’s first “operational” atomic weapon. It was designed to detonate some 200 meters above the ground, to maximize fallout on the heavily populated Japanese industrial city of Hiroshima. Some 30 minutes prior to dropping the bomb, other American planes had dropped sensors at various points around the city so they could gauge the radiation and other effects of the big one.
200,000 Japanese people were killed by that bomb. Some fast, in the firestorm that engulfed the city. Some more slowly and agonizingly–from drinking radiation-polluted water, or from developing radiation-induced cancers.
Three days later, the U.S. military was eager to test a different bomb design. So without even giving Japan a chance to surrender, they dropped the second bomb on the equally heavily populated city of Nagasaki.
Let’s not confuse the effects of an atomic bomb–even a “primitive” form of atomic bomb like those 1945 models–with those of other forms of weapons, through too much easy talk of “weapons of ‘mass’ destruction”. Atomic weapons, like the 7,094 nuclear warheads that are in the US arsenal today, are whole orders of magnitude more deadly than the most lethal chemical or biological weapon.
Why does the US ruling elite think the country “needs” to have such a large nuclear arsenal–or indeed, any nuclear arsenal at all?
They claim they are defending “civilization”. What twisted idea of “civilization” is this that would require even one nuclear weapon to defend it?
There is another, more plausible explanation: it is that the ruling elite wants the US–with a total of just 4 percent of the world’s population!–to continue to exercise hegemony over the entire world. Under this explanation, the use of the bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the prime example of the doctine of “shock and awe”, otherwise known as terrifying/terrorizing the rest of the world until it bows to Washington’s will.
Enough. Enough. Let’s start working seriously, from here on, for a truly nuclear-weapons-free world.
The Bush administration, need I add, has just about the opposite idea. Far from being ready to start stepping down the USA’s own reliance on nuclear weapons in any way, manner, or form, it is aggressively reserving for itself the right to continue to upgrade and “update” the US nuclear arsenal.
The latest indicator of this is the administration’s refusal to allow any provisions for inspections other verifiaction measures to be included in the terms of the still-under-negotiation Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty…

The FMCT is an international effort to ban the production of two vital nuclear-weapons ingredients: highly enriched uranium and plutonium. Completely. The five “recognized” nuclear-weapons states–the US, UK, France, Russia, and China–would all be party to it. So would the three de-facto NW states: Israel, India, and Pakistan. So would the on-the-brink NW state: North Korea. So would everyone else.
But now, the Bushites are digging in their heels over the treaty’s provisions for inspections and verification. The New York Times, which at least had an editorial on this subject today–though without mentioning the name of Hiroshima!–argued that,

The Bush administration argues, unpersuasively, that such inspections might interfere with making fuel for American nuclear submarines and might allow foreign inspectors to glimpse secret American nuclear technology. To the extent that these are legitimate concerns, it would be better to try to persuade other nations to grant narrowly tailored exemptions instead of eliminating inspections…

But why should any other countries be expected to grant exemptions to the US? Why should the US even ask for exemptions? One rule for all!! Isn’t that a fundamental principle of the rule of law, whether at home or abroad?
…Four years ago, Bill and Lorna and I traveled to Hiroshima. We were there shortly before August 6. The city has come wonderfully back to life, but in the center of it is the vast “Peace Park” area that has been left as a monument to the days of burning and of terror. We were shown around the park by a woman some 15 years older than me who had been a 10-year-old child on the day of the attack. Her memories of what happened then and in the days that followed were heart-breaking.
I have to go back and look for the journals I kept of that trip. One thing I remember is the fairly new set of memorials to the Korean forced laborers–of whom there were many in the city–who had died in the blaze along with their Japanese overseers. One of those memorials took the form of a big stone turtle. The fact that the city council, which supervises the park, had allowed that to be erected was a sign of a new readiness to examine some of Japan’s own rights abuses, and many excesses , during the war.
None of which provides a justification for the dropping of of even one nuclear bomb over a heavily populated area– far less two.
These are somber days we’re living in.
They’re made even worse by the fact that a gung-ho generation of young US military commanders seems to think that their own reincarnated version of “shock and awe” is going to bring them something worthwhile by gleefully announcing the killings of large numbers of Shi-ite resisters in Iraq. The whole business is morally quite obscene.
And from the practical point of view, in terms of actually contributing to the stabilization of Iraq on–as I assume they seek–the Bushites’ terms? You just have to be kidding! This is absolutely not the way to achieve that.
Someone–please!–take all those dangerous military toys out of those American boys’ hands. Soon! Can’t we all just think of the United States, uh, rejoining the human race on equal terms instead of having to deal with it through militarism and “shock and awe”? Is there anything so bad about that?