The United States is the only country in history to use
nuclear weapons against civilians in wartime. There has been no serious explanation
by the US to justify its nuclear attacks on Japan.
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.
