The US Should Apologize for the Atomic Bombings – and Denuclearize - Antiwar.com Original
The US Should Apologize for the Atomic Bombings – and Denuclearize
Seventy-five years after the atomic bombings, we’re still engaging in a false narrative that attempts to justify the unjustifiable.
by Olivia Alperstein Posted on August 14, 2020
Seventy-five years ago, on August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on a second Japanese city, Nagasaki.
Experts estimate that more than 200,000 people lost their lives and hundreds of thousands were injured or exposed and survived. Generations later, families continue to reckon with the devastating toll of those bombings. To this day, no other nation on earth has engaged in such an action.
The United States owes Hiroshima and Nagasaki an apology for committing atrocities against their citizens, but an apology is not enough. It’s a symbolic gesture, empty without a commitment to concrete action to ensure that such atrocities never occur again.
The United States owes the rest of the world a solemn promise to act to prevent the use of nuclear weapons and to engage in tangible steps toward their elimination.
As the only nation to ever use nuclear weapons in an act of war, it’s past time for the United States to commit to never engage in a nuclear first strike, to take U.S. nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert, and to engage in good faith in multilateral negotiations to reduce and eliminate our nuclear arsenal.
Instead, 75 years after the atomic bombings, we’ve withdrawn from most international treaties that reduce or limit the potential for nuclear war and we’re now considering re-engaging in live nuclear testing for the first time in decades.
