Lessons of Hiroshima

August 6, 1945 stands as one of history's darkest days.

HIROSHIMA (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of people from around the world gathered in Hiroshima on Sunday to pray for peace and urge the world to abandon nuclear weapons on the 61st anniversary of the first atomic bombing.

..."Radiation, heat, blast and their synergetic effects created a hell on Earth," said Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba.

Lamenting a global trend toward nuclear proliferation, Akiba called for a campaign to free the world of atomic weapons.

"Sixty-one years later, the number of nations enamored of evil and enslaved by nuclear weapons is increasing," Akiba told the crowd gathered under a blazing summer sun.

"The human family stands at a crossroads. Will all nations be enslaved? Or will all nations be liberated?"

The Peace Bell tolled at 8:15 a.m. - the moment the Enola Gay B-29 warplane dropped the bomb on August 6, 1945 - as the crowd stood and bowed their heads for a moment of silence.

I don't think there is any chance of the world being a nuclear-free zone.

Impossible.

Sadly, it's only a dream. It's not going to happen. That's the reality.

...U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan expressed fear that nuclear weapons could fall into the hands of "non-state actors."

"More than six decades after the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the unspeakable horror of nuclear weapons remain etched in our collective consciousness," Annan said in a message read on his behalf during the 45-minute ceremony.

"The worrying possibility of dangerous nuclear material falling into the hands of non-state actors should energize efforts to strengthen the non-proliferation regime."

Annan is a disgrace.

This doofus is talking about the dangers of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists, or "non-state actors" as he prefers to call them.

How lame is that? "Non-state actors." That sounds like Illinois actors coming up to Spring Green to appear in a Shakespeare production.

Annan won't condemn terrorists. He won't even call them terrorists, yet he's talking about the danger of them getting their hands on nuclear weapons.

How can the problem be effectively addressed when so many nations are in a state of denial when it comes to the true nature of Iran, North Korea, and terrorist militias like Hezbollah and Hamas?

With all due respect, Annan's statements are simply idiotic. Under his watch, the menace of "non-state actors" looking to do massive harm (nuclear harm) to Israel and the rest of the free world has flourished because he and the impotent, corrupt United Nations chose a policy of appeasement.
It's amazing that it has been sixty-one years since an atomic bomb was used. It really is remarkable when you think about it. There have been so many wars, but none have escalated to nuclear proportions.

The awesome power of the bomb ended the most horrific war in human history. World War II killed more people and involved more nations than any other war ever.

The bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and then the bombing of Nagasaki on August 9, led the Japanese to surrender. The war was over. Finally. Peace.

Although the end of World War II meant the end of hostilities and suffering, in a real sense, there was no peace. When World War II ended, the race for nuclear weapons was on. It's a race that is still underway.

Those atomic blasts in Japan brought an end to that war, but it did nothing to quell the desire to wage war.

Starting at 8:15AM on August 6, 1945, the threat of nuclear annihilation became real. It exists and always will.

I honestly don't expect to see nuclear weapons used in my lifetime. Maybe that's because the thought is just too frightening to imagine. Maybe it's because I so badly want to believe that no one would prefer mutual destruction to life. Maybe I'm kidding myself.

The anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima causes me to reflect on the uncertainty and the fragility of being, especially as the most recent phase of the conflict in the Middle East plays out. That heightens my feelings of uneasiness.

Knowing how hated the Israelis are, hearing the obscene rhetoric of nuts like Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and watching the world-wide demonstrations held in support of terrorists, makes the very existence of nuclear weapons terrifying. That shadow of impending doom could easily be realized.

For me, sometimes the fear of a nuclear exchange is more palpable than at other times; but it's always there, like evil.
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Studs Terkel's August 2002interview with Paul Tibbets, pilot of the Enola Gay, is an interesting read.
(Excerpt)

Terkel: You came back, and you visited President Truman.

Tibetts: We're talking 1948 now. I'm back in the Pentagon and I get notice from the chief of staff, Carl Spaatz, the first chief of staff of the air force. When we got to General Spaatz's office, General Doolittle was there, and a colonel named Dave Shillen. Spaatz said, "Gentlemen, I just got word from the president he wants us to go over to his office immediately." On the way over, Doolittle and Spaatz were doing some talking; I wasn't saying very much. When we got out of the car we were escorted right quick to the Oval Office. There was a black man there who always took care of Truman's needs and he said, "General Spaatz, will you please be facing the desk?" And now, facing the desk, Spaatz is on the right, Doolittle and Shillen. Of course, militarily speaking, that's the correct order: because Spaatz is senior, Doolittle has to sit to his left.

Then I was taken by this man and put in the chair that was right beside the president's desk, beside his left hand. Anyway, we got a cup of coffee and we got most of it consumed when Truman walked in and everybody stood on their feet. He said, "Sit down, please," and he had a big smile on his face and he said, "General Spaatz, I want to congratulate you on being first chief of the air force," because it was no longer the air corps. Spaatz said, "Thank you, sir, it's a great honour and I appreciate it." And he said to Doolittle: "That was a magnificent thing you pulled flying off of that carrier," and Doolittle said, "All in a day's work, Mr President." And he looked at Dave Shillen and said, "Colonel Shillen, I want to congratulate you on having the foresight to recognise the potential in aerial refuelling. We're gonna need it bad some day." And he said thank you very much.

Then he looked at me for 10 seconds and he didn't say anything. And when he finally did, he said, "What do you think?" I said, "Mr President, I think I did what I was told." He slapped his hand on the table and said: "You're damn right you did, and I'm the guy who sent you. If anybody gives you a hard time about it, refer them to me."

Terkel: Anybody ever give you a hard time?

Tibbets: Nobody gave me a hard time.

Terkel: Do you ever have any second thoughts about the bomb?

Tibbets: Second thoughts? No. Studs, look. Number one, I got into the air corps to defend the United States to the best of my ability. That's what I believe in and that's what I work for. Number two, I'd had so much experience with airplanes... I'd had jobs where there was no particular direction about how you do it and then of course I put this thing together with my own thoughts on how it should be because when I got the directive I was to be self-supporting at all times.

On the way to the target I was thinking: I can't think of any mistakes I've made. Maybe I did make a mistake: maybe I was too damned assured. At 29 years of age I was so shot in the ass with confidence I didn't think there was anything I couldn't do. Of course, that applied to airplanes and people. So, no, I had no problem with it. I knew we did the right thing because when I knew we'd be doing that I thought, yes, we're going to kill a lot of people, but by God we're going to save a lot of lives. We won't have to invade [Japan].

Here is the story of a survivor of the blast, Tomiko Morimoto West.

Considering what she went through, it amazes me that she says, "I never, never, never hated the Americans."

(Excerpts)

She was just 13. The horrific atomic blast on Aug. 6, 1945, all but wiped out her hometown in an instant. Her widowed mother was killed, and her grandparents would die later in agony.

"They left me all by myself," she said.

All alone, she suffered the effects of radiation sickness, which may have contributed to her inability to have children. But she is not bitter.

West, now 73 and a retired Vassar College lecturer, believes the atomic bomb that robbed her of her family and her innocence saved countless lives - Japanese and American.

...On the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, West was in a factory courtyard with other girls her age, where they worked to support the war. She recalled how they all looked up at the American plane in the cloudless sky.

"Suddenly, there was a flash," she said.

She wouldn't know until much later that a 5-ton atomic bomb had been dropped on her city. Forty thousand people were killed instantly. Another 100,000, including her grandparents, would die by the end of the year from wounds and radiation sickness.

After the flash, she saw a brilliant orange orb, the color of the sun as it sets in the ocean, erupt in the sky - and she hit the ground.

When she looked up, the buildings around her and much of the city were on fire. The students ran up a small mountain to escape the flames.

Her teacher told the students, "You have to stay until somebody comes to pick you up."

But no one came for West. So when morning came, the teacher told her to go home.

West was stunned by the hellish ruins of Hiroshima. Burned soldiers, their skin dripping off their arms, begged her for water. Wailing mothers stopped her to ask if she had seen their children. A charred trolley car was packed with lifeless passengers still hanging onto the handrail. As she crossed a bridge over a river, she looked down and saw "a sea of dead people."

When West finally reached her home, she found it flattened. "I didn't know where to go," she said.

West tracked down her grandparents in a mountain cave surrounded by other wounded survivors. "I remember the horrible smell," she said. Her grandfather was hurt, with shards of glass embedded in his back.

About a week later, she went back to her house and found her mother's body crumpled in the rubble. "I guess [the house] came down on her."

What absolute horror!

Sixty-one years ago today.

It's sort of strange, but even as the Middle East is exploding and little Hitlers like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong Il are threatening to hold the world hostage, I don't feel powerless.

I certainly know I can't achieve anything on a grand scale. I can't personally bring about peace throughout the world, but that's no excuse to despair and say, "Why bother trying?"

I can achieve peace in my own dealings with others. I can take responsibility for my actions and live in a manner that respects life and promotes justice and peace.

I believe that what I do is significant and it does make a difference.

What each of us chooses to do matters.

"We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop."

--MOTHER TERESA