71 years after the first atomic strike, Obama calls for the end of nuclear weapons at Hiroshima

[bemildred]

Source: WaPo

HIROSHIMA — Nearly 71 years after an American bomber passed high above this Japanese city on a clear August morning for a mission that would alter history, President Obama on Friday called for an end to nuclear weapons in a solemn visit to Hiroshima to offer respects to the victims of the world’s first deployed atomic bomb.

Writing in the Hiroshima Peace Park guest book, Obama called for the courage to “spread peace and pursue a world without nuclear weapons.” In later remarks, he said that scientific progress must be matched by moral progress or mankind was doomed.

Obama’s visit had brought great anticipation in Hiroshima, and across Japan, among ordinary residents who had longed for an American president to acknowledge the suffering of the estimated 140,000 killed during the bombing on Aug. 6, 1945, and its aftermath. That figure includes 20,000 Koreans who had been forced by the Japanese military to work in the city for the imperial war machine.

Three days later in 1945, a second U.S. atomic bomb in Nagasaki killed a total of 80,000, including another 30,000 Koreans. Most of those killed in both cities were civilians. The Japanese emperor announced his nation’s surrender a week later.



Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-visits-hiroshima-more-than-seven-decades-after-the-worlds-first-atomic-strike/2016/05/27/c7d0d250-23b6-11e6-8690-f14ca9de2972_story.html

[Martin Eden]

1. There will be nuclear weapons as long as there is the potential for war

Nukes are the ultimate weapon. No nation that has it will completely disarm when a potentially hostile rival has nukes or the ability to acquire them. Human civilization must evolve beyond killing each other on an industrial scale before we come out from under the shadow of nuclear holocaust.

Peace has to come first, and that can only be achieved with economic and social justice for all the people on our little blue planet.

[retrowire]

2. yeah i kinda feel like Obama is making a feel good statement here.

All these nation's with nukes is essentially the same thing as an international Mexican standoff.

[bemildred]

3. There will be war as long as there are nuclear weapons.

Look at us, we've had nukes for 71+ years now, and we are the most war-happy nation on the planet. Because we think our nukes protect us and we can get away with it.

[Martin Eden]

9. The USA is "war happy" because war is a racket that serves the interests of the Powers That Be

This applies with or without the existence of nuclear weapons.

Until our government serves the interests of We The People, the kind of peace that can lead to the elimination of nuclear weapons is empty rhetoric.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. So why is his Defense Secretary encouraging Britain to renew its nuclear weapons?

Britain must keep its Trident nuclear weapons system if it wants to play a significant role in the world, the US defence secretary has said.

Ash Carter told the BBC it was an "important part of the deterrent structure of Nato" and allowed the UK to punch above its weight.
...
Asked whether the UK should be investing in a new fleet of submarines amid stretched defence resources, Mr Carter replied unequivocally that it should.

He said Trident aided the UK's "special relationship" with the US and helped it "continue to play that outsized role on the global stage that it does because of its moral standing and its historical standing".

"It's important that the military power matches that standing and so we're very supportive of it," he said.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-35566480

and upgrading his own weapons:

The $8 billion upgrade to the US B61 nuclear bomb has been widely condemned as an awful lot of money to spend on an obsolete weapon. As an old fashioned ‘dumb’ bomb it has no role in US or NATO nuclear doctrine, but the upgrade has gone ahead anyway, in large part as a result of lobbying by the nuclear weapons laboratories.

In non-proliferation terms however the only thing worse than a useless bomb is a ‘usable’ bomb. Apart from the stratospheric price, the most controversial element of the B61 upgrade is the replacement of the existing rigid tail with one that has moving fins that will make the bomb smarter and allow it to be guided more accurately to a target. Furthermore, the yield can be adjusted before launch, according to the target.

The modifications are at the centre of a row between anti-proliferation advocates and the government over whether the new improved B61-12 bomb is in fact a new weapon, and therefore a violation of President Obama’s undertaking not to make new nuclear weapons. His administration’s 2010 Nuclear Posture Review said life extension upgrades to the US arsenal would “not support new military missions or provide for new military capabilities.”

http://www.theguardian.com/world/julian-borger-global-security-blog/2015/nov/10/americas-new-more-usable-nuclear-bomb-in-europe

[Ichingcarpenter]

5. Obama is also spending ONE TRILLION DOLLARS ON OUR NUKES

This post originally appeared at History News Network.

Isn’t it rather odd that America’s largest single public expenditure scheduled for the coming decades has received no attention in the 2015-2016 presidential debates?

The expenditure is for a 30-year program to “modernize” the US nuclear arsenal and production facilities. Although President Obama began his administration with a dramatic public commitment to build a nuclear weapons-free world, that commitment has long ago dwindled and died. It has been replaced by an administration plan to build a new generation of US nuclear weapons and nuclear production facilities to last the nation well into the second half of the 21st century. This plan, which has received almost no attention by the mass media, includes redesigned nuclear warheads, as well as new nuclear bombers, submarines, land-based missiles, weapons labs and production plants. The estimated cost? $1,000,000,000,000.00 — or, for those readers unfamiliar with such lofty figures, $1 trillion.

Critics charge that the expenditure of this staggering sum will either bankrupt the country or, at the least, require massive cutbacks in funding for other federal government programs. “We’re… wondering how the heck we’re going to pay for it,” admitted Brian McKeon, an undersecretary of defense. And we’re “probably thanking our stars we won’t be here to have to have to answer the question,” he added with a chuckle.

This nuclear “modernization” plan violates the terms of the 1968 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which requires the nuclear powers to engage in nuclear disarmament. The plan is also moving forward despite the fact that the US government already possesses roughly 7,000 nuclear weapons that can easily destroy the world. Although climate change might end up accomplishing much the same thing, a nuclear war does have the advantage of terminating life on earth more rapidly.

This trillion-dollar nuclear weapons buildup has yet to inspire any questions about it by the moderators during the numerous presidential debates. Even so, in the course of the campaign, the presidential candidates have begun to reveal their attitudes toward it.

http://billmoyers.com/story/the-trillion-dollar-question-the-media-have-neglected-to-ask-presidential-candidates/


My Dad worked on the first nuclear test ban treaty
and went to many of the underground tests in Nevada
He thought the planet should find a way to out law them. He realized the real terror they pose for humanity's survival.

[arendt]

8. Exactly. I have long since "watched what they do, not what they say".

If he really wanted to get rid of nuclear weapons, he wouldn't go for this unbelievably expensive and destabilizing program.

So sick of the phoniness and hypocrisy.

[askeptic]

16. A piece on Counterpunch today is quite appropriate to this thread

brutally honest from a true progressive's viewpoint is how I'd describe it...

May 27, 2016
Silencing America as It Prepares for War

by John Pilger

...
The breathtaking record of perfidy is so mutated in the public mind, wrote the late Harold Pinter, that it “never happened …Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest. It didn’t matter … “. Pinter expressed a mock admiration for what he called “a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.”

Take Obama. As he prepares to leave office, the fawning has begun all over again. He is “cool”. One of the more violent presidents, Obama gave full reign to the Pentagon war-making apparatus of his discredited predecessor. He prosecuted more whistleblowers – truth-tellers – than any president. He pronounced Chelsea Manning guilty before she was tried. Today, Obama runs an unprecedented worldwide campaign of terrorism and murder by drone.

In 2009, Obama promised to help “rid the world of nuclear weapons” and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. No American president has built more nuclear warheads than Obama. He is “modernising” America’s doomsday arsenal, including a new “mini” nuclear weapon, whose size and “smart” technology, says a leading general, ensure its use is “no longer unthinkable”.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/05/27/silencing-america-as-it-prepares-for-war/

[colsohlibgal]

6. Tragic And Sad

Oppenheimer was troubled and tortured the rest of his life.

The truth is....we surely had no need to drop the 2nd nuke, and FOI docs now released cast real doubt we needed to drop the first one. Japan was toast before the nuclear bombs.

We kind of ceded the high ground on nukes as well.....only one nation has used them for real and we did it twice.

If party bosses led by James Byrnes had not used arm twisting and pork at the 1944 democratic convention to dump FDRs VP Henry Wallace those bombs would not have been dropped and we still win the war quickly. But Dixiecrats did not want that eras Bernie Sanders on the ticket in 1944 because they knew FDR was highly unlikely to live through that 4th term.

[Moostache]

7. Just wait a few more years...

There will be some "genius" that is going to suggest using controlled nuclear explosions to curb sunlight and bring down global temperatures. I know that there are some people who already believe such idiocy is possible. They will start saying things like, "We have to prepare for war to ensure peace and while we do so, spending another $1T is the logical course we must take."

[AtheistCrusader]

15. The 'plowshares' nuclear test shots were designed to explore peaceful civilian uses for nukes.

Didn't work well overall.

We got some good geological data and some new elements discovered, but the consequences were not great. One of the shots (Sedan) threw radioactive dust toward the Mississippi. Tritiated groundwater. Etc.

All total, they detonated 27 'peaceful' nuclear bombs in just that series. The list reads like an all-out war on the planet itself.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

10. I think that genie is out of the bottle, Barack.

All the wishing won't remove nuclear weapons from existence.

[nyabingi]

11. Obama is a hypocrite

The US has no intention of getting rid of its nuclear weapons, and we're aggressively prodding both China and Russia into a potential nuclear showdown - for no reason other than the interests of the rich and powerful to dominate the globe.

Our bought-and-paid-for media never questions this hypocrisy.

[newthinking]

17. This!

[jalan48]

12. Sounds good.

[A Round Tuit]

13. There will always be wars...

Sadly, it is the nature of mankind.
There were wars before nuclear weapons, there will be wars after nuclear weapons.
It is not fatalism on my part, it is a recognition of the frailties of the human condition.
We have always fought.
We will always fight.

[lark]

14. Yes, please.

No More Nukes!