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REMEMBER HIROSHIMA
(This editorial is from the August 1-31/2000 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.)
FIFTY-FIVE YEARS AGO, the Second World War ended with the horrifying atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan's military regime was already considering surrender after the USSR's entry into the war doomed the main Japanese ground forces in Asia. In fact, the people of the two cities were slaughtered as a message from Washington that the post-war world would be dominated by American military power.
Since that fateful August in 1945, humanity has remained in the shadow of nuclear death. Generations of peace activists have campaigned tirelessly for disarmament, with some successes, such as international court rulings against the use of nuclear weapons. But even as the overall number of obsolete weapons falls, those remaining in the arsenal of the major imperialist powers have become more effective and deadly.
Just as alarming is the continued proliferation of nuclear weapons, to over a dozen countries. The "nuclear club" now includes the unstable military dictatorship in Pakistan (a key ally of Washington), and its neighbour India, governed by the BJP regime which never hesitates to whip up religious and nationalist hysteria to cover up its sellout of the country's economy.
Possibly the most dangerous escalation of the post-Cold War arms race is Washington's insistence on violating international agreements banning anti-ballistic missile systems. The claim that the USA needs a "shield" against attacks by "rogue states" is nothing but a cover-up for a new drive to keep the entire planet under the thumb of US-based transnational corporations.
Every failed test of the "National Missile Defense" system costs upwards of $100 million. In a world of obscene poverty and vast gaps between rich and poor, this effectively means new Hiroshimas and Nagasakis on a regular basis, by wasting resources desperately needed to provide jobs, clean water, medical programs, schools and other necessities for impoverished billions of people. These realities underline the need for a massive renewal of the peace movement. Both the danger of war and the needs of the world's people and environment are too great to allow the arms race to continue!
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