Yesterday was Hiroshima Day: At a ceremony to mark the dropping 57 years
ago of the first nuclear bomb, Tadatoshi Akiba, mayor of Hiroshima, protested
against US unilateralism: "America has not been given the right to impose
a 'Pax Americana' and to decide the fate of the world. . . Rather, we, the people
of the world, have the right to insist that we have not given you the authority
to destroy the world." [CNN].
Fat chance when the US is contemplating the use of mini-nukes, low-yield nuclear weapons designed
to destroy underground bunkers. [Guardian].
Freeman Dyson, physicist, on the corruptive power of nuclear weapons:
"I have felt it myself. The glitter of nuclear weapons. It is irresistible
if you come to them as a scientist. To feel it's there in your hands, to release
this energy that fuels the stars, to let it do your bidding. To perform these
miracles, to lift a million tons of rock into the sky. It is something that
gives people an illusion of illimitable power, and it is, in some ways, responsible
for all our troubles - this, what you might call technical arrogance, that overcomes
people when they see what they can do with their minds." [From
the film The
Day After Trinity].
