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60 Years Ago Today

Today marks the 60th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb by Allied forces on Hiroshima, at the end of WWII.

I was in Hiroshima three weeks ago, and went to see the Peace Park and the dome, pictured above. I was not prepared for the banality of time: Hiroshima has flourished, trees, people and buildings (life) have returned, and the city, in summer, is lush, hot, and beautiful. The hypocentre of the bomb-blast - targeting the T-shaped bridge - was a smallish island set in the middle of a river, at the heart of the city, and on the island, 50,000 people lived.

They died within seconds. As readers will know, many more died within minutes, hours, and more terribly, days.

The tens of thousands of fatal and violently disfiguring injuries, from heat, blast-force, fire, radiation, and flying glass and steel, should remind those in London and New York of their tragedies - and compel people of good will everywhere to oppose the development of weapons of mass destruction.

I have a few very brief statements I wish to make:

1. The use of the atomic bomb on a civilian target on August 6, 1945, without warning, was a wicked act and a war crime. I am ashamed to read of the Tokyo trials, where Japanese class-A war criminals were hung, while the men who conceived and carried out the attack on Hiroshima thrived, often celebrated.

2. No historical argument, or geo-political strategy can substitute its claims for an ethical imperative that should be at the heart of all human agency: it is always wrong to kill thousands of innocent civilians in a cruel, painful and indiscriminate manner. Once we dicker with the word always in the phrase above, we enter the world of real politique that leads to ash-heap-graves where 50,000 people can crouch in one wheelbarrow.

3. The ongoing development of nuclear weapons and nuclear strategic thinking by Western governments is a crime against humanity.

4. The manufacture, sale, and distribution of arms supported by governments such as the UK, France, Canada, America, etc., is an evil which perpetuates immense suffering and much conflict in the world; the fact that the market can be imperviously-driven by the profits that arms sales unquestionably make only hints at the immense flaw at the core of the Western world in our time.

In honour of the many victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki we must work to rid the world of nuclear weapons. Or lose our own humanity.

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