Obama in Hiroshima

May 28, 2016

President Obama will be the first sitting US president to visit Hiroshima since the bombing 71
years ago in 1945. Japan seeks not an apology or reparation but an awareness and intimate
connection to the common humanity we all share and that is at once threatened by the continued
existence of nuclear weapons.
Any nation that continues to keep these weapons is not more secure or powerful but rather a
bully ready to threaten others and indeed themselves.
Current scientific and medical research has drawn an even closer connection between nuclear
war and catastrophic climate change. We now recognize that a small regional nuclear war for
example between Pakistan and India using 100 Hiroshima size bombs and representing less than
half percent of the global nuclear arsenals would put at risk the lives of 2 billion people on the
planet from the global famine that would follow.
The weapons on a single US Trident submarine can produce this same disaster. The US has 14 of
them, plus a fleet of land based missiles and strategic bombers.
The old adage of MAD for Mutually Assured Destruction is now better termed SAD for Self
Assured Destruction as whomever would unleash such an attack would put their own people at
risk from this climate change becoming de-facto suicide bombers.
We must ignore the voices who continue to promote the myth of nuclear deterrence which in
reality is the greatest driver of the arms race. They do so out of ignorance on the effects of these
weapons, suicidal ideation or financial gain from the purveyors of these weapons of extinction.
The continued existence of these weapons comes at a heavy financial cost as well. Currently
the US is spending $4 million dollars an hour on nuclear weapons and the Obama administration
proposes the US spend $1 trillion dollars over the next 30 years to pursue a second nuclear arms
race which in turn will encourage the other nuclear powers to follow our lead and do likewise.
These current and proposed massive expenditures rob future generations of critical funds needed
to address their basic needs including the threat of climate change.
It is important for President Obama to meet with Hibakusha, survivors of the attack and listen to
what they are saying. For more than seven decades the Hibakusha have tried to make the world
understand the full horror of what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to make sure that
nuclear weapons are never used again.
Like survivors of the Nazi Holocaust they have, over and over again, made themselves relive the
most painful experiences imaginable in the hope that others will not have to suffer their fate. For
decades nuclear armed states have talked about these weapons as though they were playing some
abstract game of chess. The Hibakusha make flesh and blood the real nature of nuclear war.

President Obama came to office offering the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons, but since
the successful negotiation of the New START treaty which was a major step in that direction, his
administration has seemingly abandoned that goal.
The US has refused to join the growing Open Ended Working Group of over 140 nations
supporting a nuclear weapons ban treaty just as other weapons from chemical to biologic and
land mines have been banned.
If the president is serious about seeking a world free of nuclear weapons, we must change course.
We need to abandon the trillion dollar nuclear spending spree and embrace instead the
international movement to eliminate nuclear weapons and the existential threat to human survival
that they pose.
In Hiroshima, we dont need another speech. We need a new nuclear weapons policy.
We have a choice to continue down the path of a second nuclear arms race or to abide by our
legal treaty obligations as required under Article VI of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty and
to move toward nuclear disarmament.
So, we the people implore you, Mr President, as you process your experience, the choice is clear.
You have the opportunity to make history. Choose life Mr President.
This article originally appeared as: On President Obamas Hiroshima Visit.
Courtesy: Commondreams.org