A Reflection on the Significance of Remembering the 60th. Anniversary of Hiroshima!

dublin | anti-war / imperialism | opinion/analysis

Wednesday August 03, 2005 19:11

by Ciaron - Dubin Catholic Worker/Pit Stop Ploughshares (personal capacity)

087 918 4552

Hiroshima Day, August 6th. 60th. anniversary.

For those of us who lived through the nuclear stand off the Cold War and didn't fold to resignation or denial - Hiroshima Day August 6th remains significant.

Throughout the '80's a priority was to alert folks
that the defensive posture of Mutual Assured
Destruction (MAD), where sities were the primary targets, had given away to an offensive posture of Counterforce or First Strike. Moved forward
under Prez Carter - the folks at the Pentagon were
talking about fighting and winning a nuclear war, by targeting the USSR weapons with the strategy of knocking out the majority of their weapons in their bunkers and taking sustainable casualties.

Hiroshima Day would see us out on the streets trying to wake people up to the dangers at hand. With the 1st. World - Europe & North America - being a likely nuclear battlefield, a lot of people did wake up and a broader anti-nuke weapon movement emerged. People marched in their hundreds of thousands and resisters moved into nonviolent resistance. Hiroshima Day took
me in the company of other resisters to dusty uranium mines in the Australian outback, slick hi tech corporate buildings in Southern California, the Nevada Test site 60 miles from Vegas, U.S. war fighting targeting bases all over the world.

In '87, I found myself in the basement of a homeless shelter in Washington DC with Phil Berrigan & the U.S. Plowshares crew. They had been taking nuclear disarmament literally since the 1980. We spent the evening with Hibakushu (survivors of the Hiroshima bombing) who shared their childhood stories of surviving the nuclear attack, of the 100,000 people who died in their city that day and the tens of thousands who died slowly of leukemia's and cancers in the years that followed.

What had been denounced as a Nazi war crime at the beginning WW2 - the targetting of civilian
populations & cities had been perfected over
Hiroshima and a few days later Nagasaki. The U.S. have offered no apologies for this act of total war that makes everything that has happened in its wake permissible. How many hospitals were bombed? How many commuters on their way to work were melted? How many had died torurous deaths? How many children slain? The paradigm had shifted.

After listening to the Habkishu, we planned Non Violent Direct Action for the White House & Pentagon in the morning.

When we woke news had come through of two plowshares actions having gone down in the east and west. August 6th being the "Feast of the Transfiguration" seemed an appropriate day to take nuclear disarmament literally and challenge the paradigm. It was a good crew to be with, many of them having done years in prison for nonviolent resistance, with few illusions of what it would take to turn this thing around. Most of them grounded with solidarity work with the homeless and in America's colonies.

hthttp/wwwwwlplowsharesactionsrg/wewebpagesRTRANSFIGURATIONPLOWSHARESthtm

In 1990, I was back in the basement in D.C. It had
been a weird 6 months in D.C. The Cold War had
officially ended with the Berlin Wall tumbling down in Christmas '89. Lots of folks in the homeless scene were talking about the "peace dividend"....the math went that with the USSR out of business and no realistic enemy, the U.S. military would have to wind down, decommission and all the money and resources that had been wasted on war could be turned to meeting human needs...like the 3 million homeless in the U.S. at that time.

We rose early to head off to blockade the 23,000 heading for work at the Pentagon,only to find that Maggie Thatcher & George Bush Snr demonizing their former buddy Saddam Hussein and announcing sanctions on Iraq. Little did we realise then, that this would be a Weapon of Mass Destruction that would kill over 1 million Iraqi
children in the years to come.

What has happened in the '90's is that the powers-that-be have co-opted and harnessed all that anxiety about nukes that the peace movement had generated in the '80's. George Jr. has gone to war marketing those anxieties justifying the invasion of Iraq (& maybe soon Iran) on the basis that they are only a short time away from possessing WMD. U.S. pre-emptive strikes on the basis that someone else maybe mimicing nuclear weapons production. Since the likely nuclear battlefields are 3rd. world, there is an absence of a broader anti-nuke movement in the 1st. That's the problem when you build a movement based on self-interest & anxiety rather than solidarity & love.

The Plowshares are still taking nuclear disarmament literally and nonviolently and Sr. Ardeth Platte is presently imprisoned in Alderson Fed Pen for begining the disarmament of an ICBM missile silo in Colarado. Unlike the U.S. & British militaries she & two friends had no trouble finding WMD.

http://www.plowsharesactions.org/sacred_earth_and_space_plowshares%202.htm

We will head to the U.S. Embassy on Saturday August 6th. to demand Sr. Ardeth's release and that U.S. should apologise for Hirohima and lead the way in disarming their nukes & WMD

_________________________

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Comments (22 of 22)

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LINK-Transfiguration Plowhshares- East & West

by Ciaron

Wed Aug 03, 2005 19:17

http://www.plowsharesactions.org/webpages/TRANSFIGURATIONPLOWSHARES.htm

Remembering Hiroshima in Tennessee & DC

by Jonah House

Wed Aug 03, 2005 19:23

Baltimore, USA

FAITH AND RESISTANCE RETREAT THE 60TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE NUCLEAR BOMBS
DROPPED ON HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI

The Dorothy Day Catholic Worker and Jonah House Community will travel to
Oak Ridge TN August 5 - 7, 2005

There we will join the thousands who will gather at the following US weapons sites Aug. 6: Lawrence Livermore Lab, The Nevada Test Site, Los
Alamos National Lab and The Y12 Plant in Oak Ridge to send a clear message to the world that the people of the U.S. say NO to all nuclear weapons.

The invitation from friends in OREPA spoke to our hearts: “We need you to come, to stand shoulder to shoulder with us to say “No!” to nuclear
weapons and “Yes!” to life.”

Then we will gather at St. Stephen and the Incarnation Church in Washington DC on August
8 to reflect, pray and plan for a witness at the Pentagon on the morning of August 9.

Join us for any or all of the above, if you can.

--

Remembering Hiroshima in Omaha/STRATCOM

by Frank - Des Moines Catholic Worker

Wed Aug 03, 2005 19:30

The DM CW, the Omaha CW and the Omaha Spirit of Peace Community invite you to join us for our annual 3 1/2 day vigil at the gates of Offutt
Air Force Base, in Bellevue, NE. home of the Strategic Nuclear (StratCom) and the US Military Space Commands.

Come stand, pray and do penance with us as we commemorate the 60th Anniversary of the USA atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan on Aug 6 and 9, 1945. Contemplate with us the work and mission of these god-awful Commands, the challenges they pose to all life on our planet and the demonic claim it holds on the soul and spirit of our nation.

This year's vigil begins Saturday Aug 6th at 8 a.m. the hour the USA dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, at the Kinney gate and main entrance of Offutt AFB. The vigil ends Tuesday Aug 9th at 11
a.m., the hour the USA dropped the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki.

The vigil will begin at 8 a.m. each day and last until 8 p.m. (12 hours) to Tuesday Aug 9th. On Aug 9th the vigil concludes with a prayer circle and line crossing at 11 a.m. Floor space is available in
the basement of St John's Church on Creighton University's campus starting Friday evening Aug 5th. People are welcome to bring food and
drinks to share. Call and let us know you are coming and have any special needs.

Offutt's main entrance and site of our 3 – vigil. Speakers will include
Veteran peace activist Medea Benjamin of "Code Pink:
Women for Peace" and
"Global Exchange" and Loring Wirbel, author of "Star Wars: U.S.
Tools of Space Supremacy".
For more info on this and other events
planned in Omaha for Aug 6 - 9 visit SOS's web page

-----

Remembering Hiroshima-Aldermaston Womens Peace Camp(aign)

by W

Wed Aug 03, 2005 19:55

http://www.aldermaston.net/camp_news/articles/articles.php?id=32

Ciaron,

by Devil Dog

Wed Aug 03, 2005 23:42

Two points:

1. I notice the USSR is absent from the list of places in which you campaigned agaainst nuclear weapons in the 80's. Curious that, eh?

2. Do you think the Japanese would have surrendered without the atomic attacks? How many civilians would have died in Operation Olympic?

Dr. Hagelin Speaks At Peace Symposium In Hiroshima

by Raymond McInerney - Global Country of World Peace

Wed Aug 03, 2005 23:46

raymond.mcinerney at ul dot ie

Limerick

086 0638611

Dr. John Hagelin recently traveled to Hiroshima, Japan, to address an International Symposium on World Peace held at the University of Hiroshima and sponsored by the city government. The symposium focused on the urgent need for new approaches to creating and maintaining world peace.

Dr. Hagelin presented his Proposal for Preventing Terrorism (available online at www.permanentpeace.org) to a packed and appreciative audience. The peace symposium continued the following day at the Technical University of Tokyo, where Dr. Hagelin also spoke. Dr. Hagelin explained the scientific research supporting his Proposal and commented, “The ability to deliver massive retaliation affords little deterrence to terrorists. We need a new approach—one that can neutralize terrorist attacks and prevent wars before they begin.”

Following the symposium, Dr. Hagelin met individually with 13 top Members of the Japanese Parliament and was very gratified by their deep understanding of the principles of his Proposal and their receptivity to it.

“The Japanese people understand that there’s a field of silence and unity underlying the field of change,” he said. “Peace is even built into the Japanese Constitution, which disallows Japan from creating an offensive military force. So the people were excited to learn that their self-defense forces could be trained in a science of peace that would not only protect Japan but also create global peace.”

Black Rain

by Elaine

Thu Aug 04, 2005 02:39

“In the grounds of the Yokogawa Shrine, which lay on the east side of the station, nothing remained of the main sanctuary save a number of naked uprights. The worship hall in front of it had vanished, leaving only its clay foundation, a bare and ugly hump. The people in the street by the shrine grounds were all covered over their heads and shoulders with something resembling dust or ash. There was not one of them who was not bleeding. They bled from the head, from the face, from the hands; those who were naked bled from the chest, from the back, from the thighs, from any place from which it was possible to bleed. One woman, her cheeks so swollen that they drooped on either side in heavy pouches, walked with her arms stretched out before her, hands drooping forlornly, like a ghost. A man without a stitch of clothing on came jogging along the road with his body bent forward and his hands between his legs, for all the world like someone about to enter the communal tub at a public bathhouse. There was a woman in her slip who ran wearily along the road groaning as she went. Another carrying a baby in her arms, crying, “Water! Water!” and constantly wiping at the baby’s eyes between her cries. Its eyes were clogged with some substance like ash. A man shouting at the top of his voice; women and children shrieking as they ran; others crying for relief from their pain . . . A man plumped down by the side of the road with his arms thrust sky-wards, waving them frantically. An elderly woman sitting earnestly praying with her eyes closed, her hands pressed together in supplication, beside a pile of tiles that had slid off a roof. A half-naked man who came along at a trot, cannoned into her and ran on cursing her foully. A man in white trousers who crept along a little at a time on all fours, weeping noisily to himself as he went . . . .
All these I saw in less than two hundred yards as I walked from Yokogawa Station along the highway towards Mitaki Park. The street was swarming with people, like the rush hour in front of the station, and I simply let myself walk in the same direction as the throng.”

Extract from the book Black Rain by Masuji Ibuse based on real diaries and interviews with survivors of the bombing of Hiroshima.
I don’t know if it’s still in print but track down a copy if you can. I defy you not to cry while reading it. ISBN 0-553-24988-6 Bantam Books edition July 1985

U.S. suppressed footage of Hiroshima for decades

Thu Aug 04, 2005 03:02

Few Images of the Aftermath of Hiroshima are available on the net. Here you will find out why...

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N02633708.htm

"In 1945, U.S. policymakers wanted to be able to continue to develop and test atomic and eventually nuclear weapons without an outcry of public opinion.

"They succeeded but the subject is still a raw nerve. Americans remain very divided about nuclear weapons. We'll never know what impact the footage, if widely aired, might have had on the nuclear arms race and nuclear proliferation that plagues and endangers us today," Mitchell said. "

Anarchists in Japan to demonstrate in Hiroshima on 6 Aug 2005

by Joe

Thu Aug 04, 2005 11:18

On early morning of 6 August 2005, anarchists living in Japanese islands (tokio, osaka, hiroshima.) will hold a "anti Nuke, anti-governments" gathering in Hiroshima city.

Response to Diablo Dog

Thu Aug 04, 2005 11:21

1. I am from the Irish diaspora in Australia. Australia, like Ireland, is a colony of the U.S. Empire with considerable influence still wielded by the former British Empire.

In Australia this had meant British nuclear tests, uranium supply to US/UK, hi tech U.S. targeting bases such as Pine Gap, smaller NSA targeting bases like Cabalah, Watsonia etc,. In '84 when Aotearoa/New Zealand had the courage to ban U.S. nuclear ship visits, this menat the Australian Labor Government joining with the U.S. to unsuccessfully pressure the kiwis to fold. There were weekly nuclear B-52 flights from Guam to Darwin.Just to point out there was enough to keep me busy at home.

I was influenced early by the Catholc Worker & Plowshares traditions and moved to the U.S. to learn from the elders. I was imprisoned & deported after participation in a plowshares action on a nuclear armed B-52 Bomber in upstate New York.

In the mid-90's I came to England to do trial support work for the imprisoned "Seeds of Hope Ploughshares", (acquitted) in Liverpool. In the past 9 years I have prioritised organisng around 7 plowshares communities and trials. For the past 2 1/2 years I have been stuck in Ireland on bail and go to retrial in October. Just to point out my geographic trajectory.

Throughout the '70's and '80's we were in proactive solidarity with dissident groups in Czech & Polska leading to arrests on occassion.

The USSR was eventually bankrupted by the arms race. Russia lost 20 million (1 in 3) in WW2.

2. It is historically recognised that the nuking of Nagasaki & Hiroshima were not the closing shots of WW2, they were the opening shots of the 50 year cold war with the USSR & a U.S. weapons test. Imperial Japan had been defeated before the bombing of Hiroshima, expansionist USSR had not.

Remembering Hiroshima- Dublin U.S. Embassy Saturday August 6th. 10am-12 noon

by DCW

Thu Aug 04, 2005 11:38

http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=71270

Published - Sept. 1945 _ Dorothy Day opposes the nuking of Hiroshima

Thu Aug 04, 2005 11:46

As America danced in the streets following the bombing of Hiroshima, Dorothy Day founder of the Catholic Worker wrote prophetically denouncing the war crime.

Check the link for her original article published withina monthof the bombing....

http://www.catholicworker.org/dorothyday/daytext.cfm?TextID=554&SearchTerm=Hiroshima

How Britain helped Israel get the bomb

by redjade

Thu Aug 04, 2005 11:54

Documents uncovered by Newsnight in the British National Archives show how, in 1958, Britain agreed to sell Israel 20 tonnes of heavy water, a vital ingredient for the production of plutonium at Israel's top secret Dimona nuclear reactor in the Negev desert.

Robert McNamara, President John F Kennedy's defence secretary, has told Newsnight he is "astonished" at the revelation that Britain kept this secret from America.

[....]

Until now both France and Norway have been criticised for helping the Israelis develop the bomb, but Britain has escaped criticism.

Frank Barnaby, who worked on the British bomb project in the 1950s, and later debriefed the Israeli whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu, says he had "no idea" that Britain was "involved" in supplying Israel with heavy water.

"Heavy water was crucial for Israel," he says. "Therefore it was a significant part of their nuclear programme."

More extraordinary, the archives suggest that the decision to sell heavy water was taken simply by civil servants, mainly in the Foreign Office and the UK Atomic Energy Authority.

Newsnight has found no evidence that ministers in the Macmillan Government were ever consulted about the sale, or even told about it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/4743493.stm

-- -- --

Indymedia.ie Oct 2004 Interview with Mordechai Vanunu
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=66917

Devil Dog answered

by Boa Vista

Thu Aug 04, 2005 13:20

Devil dog wishes to know:

1. Would Japan have surrendered without the attack?

2. How many civilians would have been killed in Operation Olympic? (i.e. invasion of Japan)

These questions were answered by the US top brass of the time (who should have had some idea!)

US CHIEF OF STAFF, ADMIRAL WILLIAM LEAHY

".. the use of this barbarous weapon ... was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrended"

WIlliam Leahy

GENERAL DWIGHT EISENHOWER, ALLIED COMMANDER EUROPE

"... the Japanese were already defeated and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing."

Dwight Eisenhower

GENERAL DOUGLAS MCARTHUR, PACIFIC THEATRE COMMANDER

"When I asked General MacArthur about the decision to drop the bomb, I was surprised to learn he had not even been consulted. What, I asked, would his advice have been? He replied that he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier, he said, if the United States had agreed. as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institute of the Emperor."

Norman Cousins, "The Pathology of Power"

There is much more but I'm tired typing...

Name to watch: AQ Khan [also, Iran may already have the bomb]

Thu Aug 04, 2005 13:22

AQ Khan
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=68402#comment100576

AQ Khan is one of those people that rarely get the attention deserved - he's responsible for the Pakistani Bomb and has offered assistance to many other 'rouge state' - all while the US looked the other way.

Also

Iraq may already have the Bomb
but they may have got from the US!
(The US lost a couple nukes in 1991 off the coast of Somalia)
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=71275#comment117097

Hiroshima - was it all right?

by Pol

Thu Aug 04, 2005 17:56

Some of think it was. Chesk out the images on the following site and then ask yourself the question: was this the best thing to do?http://www.mctv.ne.jp/~bigapple/

SCOTLAND - Remembering Hiroshima

by Scotland CND

Fri Aug 05, 2005 11:00

In August 1945 the US dropped nuclear bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki in Japan. The cities were obliterated, over 250,000 people were killed
and generations poisoned by radiation.

The use of nuclear weapons is a crime against humanity. In May 2000, the nuclear
weapons states agreed on an "unequivocal undertaking" to accomplish the
elimination of nuclear weapons. Yet even now, tens of thousands of nuclear
weapons still threaten the survival of the world.

Britain has just under 200 nuclear warheads. Each warhead has eight times the
power of the bomb that devastated Hiroshima.

As we commemorate the 60th anniversary of the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, we are calling on the government to make a commitment that the UK will
neither use, threaten to use nor develop nuclear weapons, and will take
immediate steps for their abolition.

Join us on Saturday 6th August to mark the 60th anniversary of the bombing of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki

SATURDAY 6th AUGUST:

- GLASGOW: 12 noon; vigil, George Square, Glasgow

- EDINBURGH 12.30; St John's Church Princes Street

- DUNDEE 11.30; assemble at the top of Hill St for annual Peace Walk up The Law

- STIRLING 1.00pm; vigil at Peace Pillar at the Smith Museum, Dumbarton Road

- DUMFRIES 12 noon -1.00pm; vigil by the fountain in Dumfries High Street.

Hiroshima today

by Justin Morahan - Peace People

Sat Aug 06, 2005 09:54

Reuters report of tens of thousands commemorating 60th anniversary in Hiroshima this morning
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-08-06T053511Z_01_MCC583967_RTR

In the Air and On the Ground

Sat Aug 06, 2005 10:24

IN THE AIR "They briefed us that the weather was good. . . .We had a final breakfast and then went down to the plane. . .There was a lot of picture-taking and interviewing going on. . .
It was perfectly clear and I was just doing all the things I'd always done. . . As we flew over an inland sea I could make out the city of Hiroshima . . my first thought was 'That's the target, now let's bomb the damn thing'. . .There was a great jolt . . .it looked like a pot of hot oil down there. . . We were pleased that the bomb had exploded as planned and later we got to talking about what it meant for the war". - Mr Theodore Van Kirk (84) (Navigator) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4718579.stm

IN THE AIR "I was a young second lieutenant in the US Air Force. . .I had spent five months at Harvard and three months at MIT studying radar design.. . .There was a box in the plane's forward compartment that connected to the bomb via a cable system. . .I took out three testing plugs that isolated the bomb and put in three red firing plugs. . . , the crew reported a huge flash and it had gone off. . . .Everyone's thoughts turned to what devastation there would have been down below. . It was the right thing to do." - Mr Morris Jepson (83) Weapons test officer http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4718579.stm

IN THE AIR "My abiding memory is of it being a very exciting time, working with all the best scientific minds of the day. . . I was part of a great undertaking.. . .I was on board The Great Artiste, a second B-29 that had tailed the Enola Gay to the bombing zone. . . I don't think anyone realised exactly what would happen. . .My honest feeling at the time was that they deserved it, and as far as I am concerned that is still how I feel today. . . .there are no innocent civilians in war, everyone is doing something, contributing to the war effort, building bombs. .What we did saved a lot of lives in the long run and I am proud to have been part of it . . About three-quarters of the US nuclear arsenal was designed under my tutelage at Los Alamos. That is my legacy" - Dr Harold Agnew (85) Scientist on observation plane http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4718579.stm

ON THE GROUND

140,000 dead by the end of the year and 60 years of suffering and death for tens of thousands others in Mr Van Kirk's "pot of hot oil down there".
Shame on these men. Van Kirk last night was heard on BBC World Service trying to justify his part in the atrocity absolutely.
He was not proud of it, he said later under questioning, but not ashamed of it.

One Hundred Million Will Die for the Emperor and Nation

by Noel

Sat Aug 06, 2005 10:57

The United Nations issued the Potsdam Proclamation, which called upon Japan to surrender unconditionally or face total destruction. Three days later, the Japanese governmental news agency broadcast to the world that Japan would ignore the proclamation and would refuse to surrender.

During this same period it was learned -- via monitoring Japanese radio broadcasts -- that Japan had closed all schools and mobilised its school children, was arming its civilian population and was fortifying caves and building underground facilities.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved millions and prevented the biggest bloodbath in military history.

Unhappy Anniversary of the Bomb

Sat Aug 06, 2005 13:14

The Hiroshima Cover-Up
by Amy Goodman and David Goodman
August 5, 2005 by the Baltimore Sun

A story that the U.S. government hoped would never see the light of day finally has been published, 60 years after it was spiked by military censors. The discovery of reporter George Weller's firsthand account of conditions in post-nuclear Nagasaki sheds light on one of the great journalistic betrayals of the last century: the cover-up of the effects of the atomic bombing on Japan.

On Aug. 6, 1945, the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima; three days later, Nagasaki was hit. Gen. Douglas MacArthur promptly declared southern Japan off-limits, barring the news media. More than 200,000 people died in the atomic bombings of the cities, but no Western journalist witnessed the aftermath and told the story. Instead, the world's media obediently crowded onto the battleship USS Missouri off the coast of Japan to cover the Japanese surrender.

A month after the bombings, two reporters defied General MacArthur and struck out on their own. Mr. Weller, of the Chicago Daily News, took row boats and trains to reach devastated Nagasaki. Independent journalist Wilfred Burchett rode a train for 30 hours and walked into the charred remains of Hiroshima.

more at....
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0805-20.htm

. . . . .

Unhappy Anniversary of the Bomb
by Matthew Rothschild
August 5, 2005 by The Progressive

First of all, if the United States had detonated a demonstration bomb on an unpopulated island and proved to Japan how lethal these weapons were, it's possible that the Japanese government would have surrendered.

And secondly, the event that had the most to do with that ultimate surrender was the Soviet Union declaring war on Japan on August 8, two days after the Hiroshima blast, argues Professor Tsuyoshi Hasegawa in a new book entitled Racing the Enemy.

The Japanese had long understood that once the Soviets joined the battle, the war was over. They were looking for assurances that Emperor Hirohito would remain in power, and if they got such assurances, they were prepared to surrender. The last thing they wanted was the Russian army, a historical enemy, to be occupying the country, writes Hasegawa.

For a while, the United States wanted the Soviets to join the effort against Japan. But once the U.S. came up with the bomb, Washington felt it no longer needed the Soviets to enter the war. In fact, it wanted the Soviets to bug out, historian Gar Alperovitz contends.

The Hiroshima bombing on August 6 was therefore as much an effort to preempt the Soviets, and to scare them into a submissive position at the dawn of the Cold War, as it was to bring the war to a speedy conclusion.

Anyone who argues for the utility of the Hiroshima bombing has to come to terms with Nagasaki three days later, which appears utterly senseless and sadistic.

more at....
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0805-28.htm

Report from vigil outside U.S. Embassy in Dublin

by Ciaron - PSP/DCW

Sat Aug 06, 2005 14:27

A dozen of us from Ireland, Australia, New Zealand & England gathered (we were joined by a passing Russian) outside the U.S. Embassy to remember Hiroshima, call for disarmament of nuclear weapons and demand the release of Sr. Ardeth Platte serving 4 years in a U.S. prison for a plowshares action on an ICBM missile silo, the Aldemaston Peace Gardeners from custody following their action yesterday at England's nuclear weapons factory and for Israel to let Vanunu leave (after serving 18 years in prison for exposing Israel's nuclear weapons production.

RTE, Channel 3, News of the World, a radio station and Special Branch also came along to check us out.

After vigil, we formed a circle around images of Hiroshima to hear a song in Irish by Robbie and share reflections on the nuclear terrorism inflictedon Hiroshim and the ongoing nonviolent resistance to nuclear wepon producition & deployment. Fintan shared about his recent experiences in New Mexico and the protest on the 60th anniversary of the original nuclear weapons test.

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A Reflection on the Significance of Remembering the 60th. Anniversary of Hiroshima!

Comments (22 of 22)