Hiroshima Never Again — Stop US "usable" nukes

by Denis Doherty

As the 1945 US nuclear bombing of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and 
Nagasaki are commemorated this week, the threat of nuclear war has not 
receded. Instead the US Government is proposing to develop a new generation 
of nuclear weapons. The world is on the verge of a new nuclear arms race, 
more wasted resources, more poverty, more cuts to social services, more 
attacks on democratic rights, and the risk of more nuclear contamination 
for us all. Worst of all, current US military strategy plans for "usable" 
nuclear weapons. The risk of nuclear war and nuclear winter is with us 
again.

On the morning of August 6, 1945, a ten-year-old boy in Hiroshima was 
chided into doing his chore of cleaning the basement of his house. He heard 
the drone of a B29 and the air raid siren but took no notice as he was used 
to this. He reluctantly went down into the basement and closed the trapdoor 
behind him. This was about 8 am.

Minutes later he felt the impact of the bomb that was dropped on the city 
at a time when most people were out in the open on the way to school or 
work. He emerged from the cellar to see that his world had been blown away. 
His family was vaporised, his house was rubble and his street was totally 
destroyed. He walked along what was left of the street towards the river 
and passed women badly burnt with skin hanging off them, holding babies who 
were in a similar state.

He noticed that all victims were calling out for water, a symptom of 
nuclear sickness. The need for water was so great that people were throwing 
themselves into the river.

The story of Hiroshima was of a nuclear weapon, which used blast to 
obliterate a living and working city. Several days later Nagasaki was 
similarly blasted. The combined death toll was over 200,000 immediately 
with many thousands more dying slow and painful deaths in following years.

The total agony and misery cannot be calculated. The use of nuclear weapons 
is so inhuman, so monstrous.

The survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki know that the bombing was 
unnecessary as the Allies had already won the war. The US dropped the bombs 
as a test, and as a demonstration and a threat to the world.

Use of nuclear weapons

After 1945, nuclear weapons were not used in war but in tests on indigenous 
lands, especially in the Pacific. These experiments caused many casualties 
which were also intergenerational, affecting children born of the 
contaminated.

Testing has revealed three main uses for nuclear weapons. They can provide 
the massive blast which, as at Hiroshima, destroys everything. They can be 
used to destroy living things and leave the inanimate untouched (the 
"neutron" bombs). They can be used to create a massive electronic pulse 
which destroys all electronic equipment in the target area.

Now with the George W. Bush administration, "usable" or low-yield nuclear 
weapons are being developed. On May 21, 2003, the US Senate approved the 
Bush's administration moves to repeal the decade old ban on studying and 
developing "mini nukes" or "bunker busters".

The Pentagon plans to use new nuclear weapons as 'bunker busters' and as 
battlefield weapons in conflict.

A bunker buster can only penetrate 33 feet or less into the earth and the 
blast cannot destroy chemical or biological stocks. Instead it will 
disperse those elements over a wide area causing massive casualties.

A bunker buster one-third the yield of the Hiroshima bomb will cause major 
radioactive fallout and kill people within a few miles of the nuclear 
blast.

"Initial tests of Sandia's new earth-burrowing weapon, for example, show 
that it blasts only 12 feet into concrete, not nearly deep enough to 
prevent deadly nuclear fallout", says Robert Nelson, a physicist at 
Princeton University's Program for Science and Global Security. "To 
completely contain a one-kiloton nuclear explosion, you would have to go at 
least 300 feet."

During debate on mini nukes, Senator Kennedy asked: "Is half a Hiroshima 
OK? Is a quarter Hiroshima OK? Is a little mushroom cloud OK? That's 
absurd."

Senator Feinstein pointed out: "The political effects of US pursuit of new 
nuclear weapons could well be to legitimise nuclear weapons, and US nuclear 
planning could serve as a pretext for other countries and, worse, terrorist 
groups  to build and acquire their own bombs."

Communications for nuclear war

US planning for a pre-emptive nuclear strike includes developing 
communications systems that can survive a nuclear war.

The February 2001 Nuclear Posture Review included a mandate for an 
"assured, survivable and enduring" communications network, one that would 
remain functional even after a full-scale nuclear attack.

Defense Department documents describe how the government is moving ahead 
with a number of new programs toward that end, including a $200-million, 
eight-year effort to expand and streamline nuclear war planning. (William 
Arkin in Los Angeles Times, July 6, 2003.)

Moving Nuclear Weapons to Space

The first Gulf War, Kosovo, Afghanistan and the recent invasion of Iraq 
were all 'space wars'. The US used its satellites to target, communicate, 
control and dominate.

And the US intends to maintain and expand its supremacy in space.

The US Air Forces' Space Command describes its task as "dominating the 
space dimension of military operations to protect US interests and 
investments."

Despite international agreements against the weaponisation of space, Space 
Command intends to put nuclear powered laser weapons into space. American 
Professor of Physics Dr Michio Kaku describes these weapons as the 
equivalent of 12 Chernobyls above us.

Space Command is continuing development of the US missile defence program 
("Star Wars). The US plans to use space assets to fight and win a nuclear 
exchange. Using a pre-emptive nuclear strike, the US expects to destroy 95 
to 98 per cent of enemy missiles and to deal with the remaining missiles 
through the missile defence "shield" as they approach continental USA. The 
US Government and its right wing think tanks believe this is the 'winnable 
nuclear war'.

Australia's role

The Howard Government's complete political subjugation to the US is 
supporting this Doctor Strangelove scenario.

Australia provides facilities for US missile defence at the Pine Gap base 
near Alice Springs and now the US wants Australia to base interceptors and 
radar units on Australian soil and to build new RAN warships to work with 
the US Navy.

Asked if Australia was leaning towards becoming a partner in the 
controversial, expensive and still-experimental system, Defence Minister 
Robert Hill said: "The trend has been in that direction.''

Australians are paying with attacks on Medicare and cuts to public 
education and other services.

The total Australian military budget is forty-three million, three hundred 
and four thousand, eight hundred and fifty-four dollars per day. Pine Gap 
costs millions to run. The 2003/4 Budget includes $600 million for troops 
in Iraq and $400 million for US-Australian war games.

Say No!

Weapons of mass destruction are on the agenda and the first item on our 
agenda must be the abolition of all nuclear weapons.

The United States should be starting to eliminate its weapons of mass 
destruction (the greatest stockpiles in the world) instead of waging war 
against impoverished countries.

Hiroshima Day is the time for us to act, to show the strength of Australian 
opposition to the nuclear arms race and the coming US wars.