nuclear-news

Huge cost to humanity of nuclear weapons and nuclear power

Hiroshima Day, Ban all nuclear weapons,The Guardian, CPA Australia, Anna Pha, 6 August 11, On August 6, 1945, a US B-29 bomber dropped a uranium bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. It was the first nuclear weapon tested on a civilian population. On August 9 a plutonium bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. The immediate death toll of the two bombings was over 200,000 with many thousands injured and thousands more experiencing slow and painful deaths over the years to come.

The 66th anniversary is a time to remember the victims and raise awareness of the current dangers posed by the proliferation and build-up of far more powerful and sophisticated nuclear weapons. The nuclear meltdown at Fukashima is also a grim reminder of the dangers of the nuclear industry.

The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not necessary to defeat the Japanese or end the Second World War. That is a lie used to cover up the cold-blooded barbarity of nuclear tests on civilian populations when the war was all but over.

The dropping of bombs was “an unnecessary experiment,” according to Admiral William “Bull” Hasley, commander of the US Third Fleet that fought Japanese forces.

Far from learning from the horrors and dangers of the use of nuclear weapons, US imperialism has over the following decades continued to build arsenals of ever more sophisticated and deadly nuclear weapons capable of destroying human life on this planet many times over. Its most recent additions to its arsenal include mini-nukes, bunker busters and weapons designed for use in space.

The US’s nuclear build-up precipitated a nuclear arms race over the decades since Hiroshima. The world is on the brink, facing the threat of a nuclear conflict in Asia or the Middle East, as well as a high risk of an accidental nuclear war. There is also the very real possibility of nuclear weapons getting into the hands of terrorists.

The US remains prepared to use nuclear weapons against any state in a first strike or “pre-emptive” capacity, even where that state does not possess nuclear weapons.

Huge cost to humanity

The cost of developing, producing and testing nuclear weapons has been and continues to be enormous – in both human and economic terms, as well as causing considerable environmental damage.

Nuclear testing in the Pacific and on Indigenous lands in Australia has displaced whole populations, taken many lives and left many people very sick. Today, the US continues to carry out non-explosive testing in flagrant breach of international law banning all tests.

The arms race has taken a huge toll diverting government budgets from social to military spending, none more so than in the US.

Yet Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal (07-07-2011) is calling for a larger military budget to take on “the challenge of a rising China” and ensure US domination in Asia. In an article titled, “Asia Needs a Larger US Defense Budget”, Dan Bluenthal and Michael Massa from the powerful, right-wing American Enterprise Institute, refer to China’s “aggressive build-up” in Asia. They claim that “China’s military rise is changing the balance of power in its neighbourhood.

They refer to the US Defence Department’s new military concept, called AirSea Battle, for the expansion of operations in the Asian region. …..

The US military have had a blank cheque, expenditure continuing to rocket to the point that it consumed more than half the US federal budget two years ago. In 2010 it had been contained to 48 percent of the US budget according to the War Resisters League’s calculations. Military-related spending cost taxpayers US$1.372 trillion in 2010. To put that figure into perspective, it is larger than the national income (GDP) of Australia ($1.2tr) in the same year! Australia has the 12th largest GDP in the world.

No economy can sustain that level of parasitic spending. Crunch time is fast approaching, the small cuts to military spending being attempted by the Obama administration are too little and too late. The people of the US have paid heavily with cuts and chronic under-funding of essential services and are being told to pay even more by the finance sector and ratings agencies that are making it difficult for the government to extend its debts……

Despite US president Obama’s expressed support for the abolition of nuclear weapons, it is still business as usual at the Pentagon. The war hawks continue with their plans to weaponise space in their pursuit of global military domination and have not abandoned their preparedness to use a pre-emptive nuclear strike. They believe there is such a thing as a “winnable nuclear war.” The US Space Command openly admits its role is to dominate “the space dimension of military operations to protect US interests and investment”.

There are no winners in a nuclear war. Abolition of all nuclear weapons would make the world a far safer place and the billions of dollars saved could be directed to feeding the world’s hungry, providing medical services, safe drinking water, housing and creating jobs……

—http://www.cpa.org.au/guardian/2011/1512/01-hiroshima-day.html

August 7, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | general