Sixty years ago on August 6, President Truman gave the order to drop the world’s first nuclear bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. Just three days later, another one fell on Nagasaki. The death, suffering and destruction that followed were unprecedented in the history of war. More than 100,000 people died instantly and today descendants of the survivors are still afflicted with illnesses caused by the radiation.
On the eve of the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Greenpeace volunteers fly "Peace Doves," bearing messages of peace.
This weekend, Hiroshima and Nagasaki commemorations are
happening around the world. At 8:00 a.m. on August 5, dove
balloons carrying nearly 10,000 short messages for a nuclear-free
and peaceful world were flown in front of the Atomic Bomb Dome in
Hiroshima city.
After 30 years of talking about disarming their nuclear weapons,
the world's nuclear states still hold up to 30,000 nuclear weapons.
It is time for people to speak up for peace and demand the end to
the continued threat of nuclear weapons.
"In any war, it is cities and the people living in them that
suffer. As Hiroshima and Nagasaki attest, this suffering becomes
total destruction when nuclear weapons are involved," said
Hiroshima's Mayor Akiba.
President Bush is pushing for the United States to adopt an
increasingly aggressive nuclear doctrine. The Bush administration
is determined to build a new generation of nuclear weapons -
smaller, more targeted bombs with names like "Robust Nuclear Earth
Penetrator." It's a stance that is inflaming tensions in Asia and
the Middle East.
Nukes = Insanity
Former U.S. Secretary of Defense, Robert Macnamara, told ABC's
Background Briefing that current U.S. nuclear policy is
"insane."
"The U.S. has deployed 6,000 strategic nuclear warheads, each
one on average with a destructive capability 20 times that of the
Hiroshima bomb... 2,000 are on hair-trigger alert, ready to be
launched on 15-minute warning by one man without any consultation,
the president. That's insane. And it's insane secondly, because it
stimulates others, the North Koreas, the Irans to try to move
toward development of nuclear weapons, which is contrary to their
national security interest, and certainly contrary to ours."
Hopes that the United States and the world's other nuclear
powers - Russia, the UK, France, China (and the unofficial nuclear
states - Israel, India and Pakistan), would stick to their
commitments under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty to disarm
their nuclear arsenals, were dashed in May this year. The Nuclear
non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference made no progress toward
setting a timetable for disarmament.
Never Again
We envision a world where the kind of death and destruction
caused in Hiroshima and Nagasaki can never happen again. Since 1971
we've been working toward that goal.
Read our solemn promise that we will continue fighting for
peace, signed by 28 of our executive directors from around the
world.