August 6 and 9, 2007 will mark respectively the 62nd anniversaries
of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
On August 6, 1945, Hiroshima was destroyed by a single atomic
weapon with a core of enriched uranium. The blast, heat,
fire and radiation killed 90,000 people almost immediately and
145,000 by the end of 1945.
On August 9, 1945, Nagasaki was destroyed by a second atomic
weapon, this one with a core of plutonium 239. Because
cloud cover kept the bombardier from finding his target in the
center of the city, those killed immediately numbered some 40,000
and those dying by the end of 1945 numbered some 70,000.
These bombs awakened humanity to the Nuclear Age, an age in
which our human ingenuity places us face-to-face with our own
demise. From the onset of the Nuclear Age we have been
challenged to do something never before accomplished in human
history: to ban and totally eliminate an advanced form of weaponry.
Kaz Sueishi, who was 19 years old at the time of the Hiroshima
atomic bombing and survived, said: “One second before it
was heaven. One second after it was hell.” While
she may have overstated the situation before the bombing, she
was undoubtedly correct that the situation after the bombing
was a hell composed of death, devastation and suffering throughout
the city. It is at the precipice of repeating this unmitigated
horror on an even larger scale that civilization and the human
future continue to teeter precariously.
During the Cold War, the US and USSR engaged in a form of nuclear
rivalry known as Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). While
the Cold War was ended by the early 1990s, nuclear weapons continue
to threaten our common future. There are still 27,000 nuclear
weapons in the world. Twelve thousand of these are deployed,
and 3,500 are on hair-trigger alert, ready to be fired in moments.
We live today not only with Mutually Assured Destruction, but
also Mutually Assured Delusions (also MAD) – delusions
that we can possess these weapons indefinitely and not have them
be used by accident or design or fall into the hands of extremist
groups. A key element of this delusional behavior is found
in the belief that we can develop missile defenses that will
protect against nuclear weapons. Another aspect of the
delusional behavior is the belief that we can allow nuclear power
plants to be spread throughout the world without triggering nuclear
proliferation.
In addition to the constant threat to destroy cities, countries
and civilization, three aspects of nuclear weapons that I most
deplore are: first, they kill indiscriminately – men, women
and children, the aged and the newly born, civilians and combatants – and
are thus illegal under international law; second, because they
are long-distance killing machines that target innocent people,
they make cowards of their possessors; and third, they undermine
democracy by placing such enormous power to destroy in the hands
of a single individual or small cabal.
There are currently nine nuclear weapons states: the US, Russia,
UK, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea. More
than 95 percent of the weapons are in the arsenals of the US
and Russia, countries that continue to integrate these weapons
into their military strategies. The US unfortunately promotes
nuclear double standards – one set of rules for friends
and allies such as Israel and India, and another set of rules
for potential enemies such as North Korea and Iran. Such
double standards cannot hold, and it is delusional to think that
they can.
Sixty-two years after the onset of the Nuclear Age humanity
still lives with the constant threat of nuclear annihilation. The
main targets of nuclear weapons are major cities. Why do
we tolerate this? Why do we elect and reelect leaders that
live in a world of Mutually Assured Delusions?
We can do better than this. To start with, all nuclear
weapons states are required by the Non-Proliferation Treaty to
engage in good faith negotiations for nuclear disarmament. The
International Court of Justice has defined this obligation as “to
pursue negotiations in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations
leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict
and effective international control.”
For the United States to show its leadership in this area that
is so critical to the security of its people, it should urgently
convene the “good faith” negotiations for nuclear
disarmament required by the Non-Proliferation Treaty. In
addition, the US should withdraw its nuclear weapons from European
soil; give legally binding assurances of no first use of nuclear
weapons; ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; negotiate
with Russia to take all nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert;
and commence multilateral negotiations for a verifiable Fissile
Material Cut-Off Treaty.
The anniversaries of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are reminders of
the continued peril that humanity faces. This peril is
far too serious to be left only in the hands of government leaders. Citizens
must demand more of their governments – their very lives
and those of their children could depend upon ending the delusions
that nuclear weapons protect us and that nuclear double standards
will hold indefinitely.
David Krieger is the President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
(www.wagingpeace.org) |
