This August, people in Japan are marking the 78th anniversary of nuclear bomb attacks by the United States. Ceremonies are being held to mark the nuclear bomb attack on Hiroshima that killed 140,000 civilians. The bomb turned the city to ashes. The first nuclear attack took place on August 06 and days later, the United States dropped the second nuclear bomb on the Japanese city of Nagasaki that killed 70,000 people.
"Leaders around the world must confront the reality that nuclear threats now being voiced by certain policymakers reveal the folly of nuclear deterrence theory," Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui said at a ceremony.
Was killing 200,000 civilians in the cruelest way possible really aimed at ending the Second World War because Japan refused to surrender or were the atomic bombs dropped in a warning to the former Soviet Union?
Experts say the dropping of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and three days later on Nagasaki was unjustified from a military standpoint and that it was a political act to frighten the Soviet Union.
Since the apocalyptic scenes in Japan 78 years ago, the US has expanded its atomic weapons arsenal as well as its policy of nuclear proliferation. This was evident just recently with the AUKUS deal that involves Australia, the US and UK.
Critics have accused Washington of violating the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) with AUKUS scheme. On March 14, 2023, the Guardian said AUKUS represents a violation of the NPT as it transfers fissile material and nuclear technology from a nuclear weapons state to a non-weapons state.
The Guardian added, “It allows fissile material utilized for non-explosive military use, like naval propulsion, to be exempt from inspections and monitoring by the UN nuclear watchdog…, (and) makes arms controls experts nervous because it sets a precedent that could be used by others to hide highly enriched uranium, or plutonium, the core of a nuclear weapon, from international oversight.”
The Chinese mission to the UN accused the US and UK of clearly violating the objective and purpose of the NPT. It added that such a textbook case of double standard will damage the authority and effectiveness of the international non-proliferation system.
The US has also brought the world closer to an Armageddon by launching a proxy war against Russia in the Ukraine war, risking a nuclear conflict by provoking another nuclear-armed state.
The same can be said about North Korea, with Washington militarily harassing Pyongyang and risking a catastrophe in East Asia.
Meanwhile, the US has been shielding Israel, its top proxy in West Asia, which has 200 to 300 nuclear weapons and the biggest source of insecurity in the region.
The regime, which has invaded or violated the territory of many regional states and refused to sign the NPT, enjoys the full backing of the United States.
This is while Washington accuses Iran of seeking a nuclear bomb despite the fact that the US intelligence community testified before Congress that Tehran’s nuclear program is peaceful.
Numerous reports by inspectors from the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, have failed to produce any evidence that Iran’s nuclear activities have been diverted to a weapons program.
Observers believe the US and its close allies have been making accusations against the Islamic Republic to scare the West Asia region and beyond.
The atomic bombing of Hiroshima, as pointed out by experts, remains a very dark strain on the US image. Hiroshima’s mayor is not alone in calling for nuclear disarmament.
The UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres supported his call. "World leaders have visited this city, seen its monuments, spoken with its brave survivors, and emerged emboldened to take up the cause of nuclear disarmament," Guterres said in remarks read by a UN representative. "More should do so, because the drums of nuclear war are beating once again."
US President Joe Biden, ironically, was in Hiroshima not so long ago to attend the 2023 Group of Seven leaders’ summit.
In line with his predecessors, Biden fell short of offering an apology at the gathering for the nuclear attacks, despite Japanese officials repeatedly calling on Washington to do so. He did visit the Hiroshima Memorial Museum, which critics branded as a publicity stunt.
The museum includes the remains of the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall, the only building left standing after the US nuclear attack.
The file footage of people walking past destroyed buildings after the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima in 1945, along with the rubble in the flattened city will never go away.
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