Hiroshima
Denial is Terror
By Finian
Cunningham
August 06,
2020 "Information
Clearing House"
- Those who deny history, or who are oblivious, are
apt to repeat it. That is the frightening, perhaps
most disturbing aspect of the 75th anniversary this
week of the American atomic bombing of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki.
The
indiscriminate mass murder of 200,000 people on
August 6 and 9, 1945, is beyond words in its horror
and moral depravity. But what is equally condemning
is the ostensible lack of remorse and the
obfuscation to conceal the scale of such evil.
For if
there were any remorse or realization about the
crime there would surely be a commitment to never
repeat it. The most solemn manifestation of
commitment would be the pursuance of nuclear
disarmament.
Seventy-five years on, yes, American news media run
so-called commemorative articles on the historic
events. However, there is a sense of glibness about
the calamity, a sort of dull duty to mark the
occasion as if it is a yearly chore of “regret”.
There is also a sneaking awe at the destructive
power unleashed on those Japanese cities, as well as
the usual inclusion of official justification about
how US leaders at the time were allegedly motivated
by ending the Pacific War quickly. There are even in
some media coverage brief mentions of
acknowledgement that the dropping of the A-bombs was
“unnecessary”.
But it’s
all delivered in an insidious way to obscure the
shocking, barbaric truth that the United States
dropped weapons of mass destruction on civilians.
How about going further and acknowledging it was a
deliberate act of mass terror for political purpose
to establish American hegemony in the postwar order?
No
proper humane or moral lessons, it seems, have been
drawn about
the genocide that took place at Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. Neither
by the people in US government and media
establishments nor, lamentably, by the wider
American population. If lessons were truly learned
then there would be a sense of revulsion and outrage
demanding immediate nuclear disarmament and the end
to all war machinery.
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Just last
month, the US Congress passed an annual military
budget of $740 billion, including for the
development of weapons of mass destruction. This is
while 30 million American workers and their families
are suffering from unemployment and deprivation due
to the coronavirus pandemic and the government
shutting off pittance welfare payments.
The
anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki comes as the
Trump administration issues ever-more provocative
slander against China over the pandemic and other
matters that are really not Washington’s business
nor remit, especially the subjects of alleged human
rights violations or government espionage against
citizens.
Washington
continues to provoke both Russia and China with
ever-expanding plans to deploy intermediate-range
missiles near their territories. This only one year
after Washington scrapped the Intermediate-range
Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty with Moscow.
It is the
US side which is threatening to collapse the New
START accord, the last-remaining nuclear
arms-control treaty with Moscow.
It is the
US side which is pushing recklessly ahead with
weaponizing outer space while falsely, cynically,
accusing Russia and China of doing so, even though
the latter have both repeatedly called for a United
Nations-backed moratorium on militarizing this
domain.
It is the
US side which reserves the unilateral “right to
first nuclear strike” while Russia and China have
declared to only use such weapons as defensive
response to attack.
The
militarization by Washington and its bellicose
policies towards Moscow and Beijing are proof that
the criminality of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has never
been accounted for.
The
criminality of that genocide remains unacknowledged
and ignored by the US ruling system because,
evidently, it wants to use that horror as a
psychological weapon against others. The
psychological weapon being: “We did it before, and
we can do it again”. The ultimate “terror card” was
played and continues to be played, albeit tacitly.
Contemporary developments and indicators of
geopolitical tensions with China and Russia show
that Washington is not willing or indeed capable of
engaging for mutual peace. It is hellbent on stoking
cold war confrontation, even if that confrontation
results in hot war. A war with Russia or China would
inevitably escalate into a catastrophic nuclear end.
On August 6
and 9, 1945, 75 years ago, the world witnessed two
cities despatched to the hell of nuclear
annihilation. It is utterly shameful that the nation
that perpetrated such an absolute crime remains
unapologetic and in denial. But more than that, it
is utterly nefarious because the unapologetic logic
means it could happen again.
