Hiroshima recalled

For the past 25 years members of local peace groups re-dedicate themselves to the campaign for international  harmony. Flowers are cast on the waters of Tredegar Park Lake to recall a similar ceremony in Hiroshima.

 

Arguments still rage on the need to bomb the two Japanese cities. Some argue that it shortened the war and saved lives. Others claim that Japan was already in the process of surrendering and the USA wanted to demonstrate their bomb to assert post-war world domination.

 

The accounts of this largest civilian slaughter ever still haunt us. A sunny day, a flash of blue light, a thunderous roar, a killer wind, fire and black rain. Then the atomic plague.

 

There are encouraging signs of previous cold warriors flocking to the cause of a de-nuclearised world.

Will the world eventually obliterate from its military dreams any possibility of a similar act of mass barbarism?

 

Another occasion to  recall the remarkable topicality of Declaration Against the First World war and the present situation in Afghanistan.

 

Siegfried Sassoon: Declaration against the War

I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority, because I believe that the War is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it. I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers. I believe that this War, on which I entered as a war of defence and liberation, has now become a war of aggression and conquest. I believe that the purpose for which I and my fellow soldiers entered upon this war should have been so clearly stated as to have made it impossible to change them, and that, had this been done, the objects which actuated us would now be attainable by negotiation.

 

 I have seen and endured the sufferings of the troops, and I can no longer be a party to prolong these sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust. I am not protesting against the conduct of the war, but against the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed. On behalf of those who are suffering now I make this protest against the deception which is being practised on them; also I believe that I may help to destroy the callous complacency with which the majority of those at home regard the contrivance of agonies which they do not, and which they have not sufficient imagination to realize.

Comments

[Ad]

'Will the world eventually obliterate from its military dreams any possibility of a similar act of mass barbarism?'

No because the military top brass, and the upper echelons of the political establishment are still the same class as they where in WW1. Murderers.

What happened in Hiroshima happens again in Fallujah:

Toxic legacy of US assault on Fallujah 'worse than Hiroshima'
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/toxic-legacy-of-us-assault-on-fallujah-worse-than-hiroshima-2034065.html

Hiroshima, Iraq victims have much in common, activist says

http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m68596&hd=&size=1&l=e

[Mikecrid]

Hiroshima and Nakasaki were acts of mass murder to end a horrific war, whilst the Rape of Nanking was mass murder just for the fun of it. 300,000-400,000 innocent men women and children killed for the fun of it.

[HuwOS]

So, what are you saying Mikecrid, that Fallujah is better compared to the rape of Nanking than to Hiroshima?

You may have a point if that was what you were saying.

[HuwOS]

I hope Mikecrid is not engaging in that wonderful tactic of justifying any crime by claiming that other people, the baddies were bad and deserved it.
But we are goodies and even when we do bad things its always for noble reasons and there is no reason to examine these acts too closely or to learn from them or to avoid committing them again.

That reasoning is always enough for anyone of GW Bush's level of intellect, but is insufficient for any normal person over the age of 6.

[John]

Cancer rates near the cities of Fallujah, Najaf and Basra (the latter "liberated" by the British) are now higher than those at Hiroshima. "UK forces used about 1.9 metric tonnes of depleted uranium ammunition in the Iraq war in 2003