Gotta Get Rid of the Nukes!

Hiroshima 1945

Is it so unbelieveable, so unimaginable, to think that the nation-states with nuclear-weapons capabilities would dis-band and disarm them? That by doing so would decrease the possibilitiy of further disbursal of nuclear arms material throughtout the world?

Scrapping nukes vital for human survival – ElBaradei VIENNA (Reuters) - The carnage wrought by the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 60 years ago demonstrates the need to eliminate nuclear weapons for the sake of human survival, the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Friday...

"It has always been hoped that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki stand as constant reminders of why preventing the further use and proliferation of such weapons -- and why nuclear disarmament leading to a nuclear weapon-free world -- is of utmost importance for the survival of humankind and planet Earth," he said.

The Allies killed as many people in one "hit" as the atomic bombs, with conventional bombing prior to the nuclear “gadget” in Japan. It wasn’t as if mass murder wasn’t possible. The Nazis killed millions, one by one, in the Holocaust.

Toward the end of World War II, as Allied planes rained death and destruction over Germany, the old Saxon city of Dresden lay like an island of tranquillity amid desolation. Famous as a cultural center and possessing no military value, Dresden had been spared the terror that descended from the skies over the rest of the country.In fact, little had been done to provide the ancient city of artists and craftsmen with anti-aircraft defenses. One squadron of planes had been stationed in Dresden for awhile, but the Luftwaffe decided to move the aircraft to another area where they would be of use. A gentlemen's agreement seemed to prevail, designating Dresden an "open city."—Dresden Holocaust

The death toll was staggering. The full extent of the Dresden Holocaust can be more readily grasped if one considers that well over 250,000 -- possibly as many as a half a million -- persons died within a 14-hour period, whereas estimates of those who died at Hiroshima range from 90,000 to 140,000. --Dresden Holocaust

Kurt Vonnegut was in Dresden when it was bombed in 1945, and wrote a famous anti-war novel, Slaughterhouse Five, in 1969.

"You guys burnt the place down, turned it into a single column of flame. More people died there in the firestorm, in that one big flame, than died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined." --Kurt Vonnegut, Jr

There is the controversy to this day, whether or not the nuclear bomb was necessary to end the awful war with Japan. The real question is whether or not humanity can continue to live with this unimaginable weapon. Can we actually disarm? I don’t think there’s a choice.

Was a Hiroshima — and by extension today’s nuclear-armed world — a necessary evil? Dr. Charles Waldren, a native of Colorado, is an expert on the medical legacy of the atomic bomb…

“…It was a horrible, horrible event,” Waldren said. “But it could have been worse.”

Waldren said he believes bombing Hiroshima was justified.

“…My brother was in the Battle of the Bulge,” he said. “He was badly wounded, but they planned to ship him off to the Pacific. There was no doubt in my family that (dropping the bomb) was the right thing to do. “I think it ended the war,” he said. “And I think it was a good thing.”--Hiroshima’s complex legacy re-examined, AP, August 5, 2005