Shadows on the Wall of History
Sixty-two years ago today, a single plane delivered a single bomb and obliterated an entire city. This tale of tragedy and suffering is well-remembered by history. The plane was a B-29 Superfortress. The bomb: the first of two atomic weapons ever used in combat. The city was a hapless and unlucky port and industrial center that should never be forgotten by future generations, Hiroshima. The second bomb followed three days later. In two days, over 100,000 had been instantly killed. From the scores of thousands of wounded would later come the after-effects of disease, deformity, suffering, and more dead.
The human costs of the bombings were no more or no less great than a total span of 5 days of bombing, three years apart, by the massive conventional fleets of planes that created man-made hurricanes of flame, heat, and gas in the German cities of Hamburg and Dresden. But in the land of Japan in August 1945, the nuclear era began. Total war, man’s insane pursuit of more efficient and “better” ways of violence, destruction, and the suicide of morality, had been finally achieved. It was so quick, relatively cheap, easy, and effective.
In the closing statements of the first Nuremberg trial of the senior Nazi Party leadership in 1946, “Hitler’s architect” made a plea to humanity. Albert Speer, the single most capable and competent Nazi bureaucrat who ran Germany’s arms industries, was on trial for his life, faced with charges of crimes against humanity and crimes of aggressive war. It is not clear whether his plea was a shrewdly calculated court-room drama for leniency, or a deep moral guilt within him needing to be expressed. He said words to effect that humanity’s achievements in science and economics, wedded to politics and war (particularly missile technology and atomic technology) created a threat to the continuation of civilization on earth, and to the very survival of all life on the planet.
We have been fortunate so far in the nuclear age that such weapons have not been used since 1945 in anger. Several times during the Cold War, by accidental procedures, irresponsible foreign policies, and public threats of statesmen unbalanced by paranoid fear and insatiable greed, the world came to the brink of a holocaust. Cooler heads and sheer luck intervened every time to prevent nuclear war. Since the early 1970s, other nations beside the club of five nuclear powers (the US, Russia/USSR, Great Britain, France and China) have acquired nuclear weapons. Three nations have voluntarily dismantled their nuclear arsenals (South Africa, Kazakhstan, and the Ukraine). But four others (India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel) in very unstable relations with their neighbors have such weapons. India and Pakistan even had low-level combat between them which threatened to become nuclear combat. One nation (Iran) is suspected to be close to having them. The fear and greed that prevails toward these nations within the minds of their regional neighbors forces other nations to seek the protection of another nation’s nuclear deterrent (e.g. South Korea and Japan relying on their alliances with the US to deter North Korea).
Only the mutually assured destruction of incalculable and unacceptable levels if nuclear combat becomes a reality keeps the cork on the gun. It is a policy in international relations that rests on a tower of cards. It might one day fall. When reasons and logic breakdown, the consequences cannot be imagined. The greatest fear is that no one knows how to end it, or where it would end.
The time has come for all nations to seek the common safety for their people within a new international system. It cannot be world government or global empire, since these things would only produce police states, dictatorships, oppression, and darkness for all humanity. Securing the common safety of nations and peoples begins with admitting our difficulties, proceeds to dialogue, and is secured by finding the common interest all humanity has in liberty, prosperity, security, and peace. The key to building this new system lies not in parliaments or palaces. It begins at the grass roots, within and between communities.
The leaders of the world are unwilling to place the interests of the people before their own private interests. Therefore, the people must secure to themselves the knowledge to understand the problems, but only the action of the people, beginning at home, can change the leaderships of nations. It is a firm belief of The Cepia Club’s that people in neighborhoods and communities, if they can surrender their fear and greed, and canreach out to the people close to them, and help one another overcome common prejudices, common problems, difficult issues, and build fellowship, then the world has a chance for peace.
The process begins with the individual. Awareness and activism, a “community ending public ignorance and apathy” is the way to prevent another Hiroshima and Nagasaki or worse. Time is short. The process is beginning. But everyone who cares about their family and friends and the places and things they love has to become involved. Think smarter, act now! It is the only way.
The human costs of the bombings were no more or no less great than a total span of 5 days of bombing, three years apart, by the massive conventional fleets of planes that created man-made hurricanes of flame, heat, and gas in the German cities of Hamburg and Dresden. But in the land of Japan in August 1945, the nuclear era began. Total war, man’s insane pursuit of more efficient and “better” ways of violence, destruction, and the suicide of morality, had been finally achieved. It was so quick, relatively cheap, easy, and effective.
In the closing statements of the first Nuremberg trial of the senior Nazi Party leadership in 1946, “Hitler’s architect” made a plea to humanity. Albert Speer, the single most capable and competent Nazi bureaucrat who ran Germany’s arms industries, was on trial for his life, faced with charges of crimes against humanity and crimes of aggressive war. It is not clear whether his plea was a shrewdly calculated court-room drama for leniency, or a deep moral guilt within him needing to be expressed. He said words to effect that humanity’s achievements in science and economics, wedded to politics and war (particularly missile technology and atomic technology) created a threat to the continuation of civilization on earth, and to the very survival of all life on the planet.
We have been fortunate so far in the nuclear age that such weapons have not been used since 1945 in anger. Several times during the Cold War, by accidental procedures, irresponsible foreign policies, and public threats of statesmen unbalanced by paranoid fear and insatiable greed, the world came to the brink of a holocaust. Cooler heads and sheer luck intervened every time to prevent nuclear war. Since the early 1970s, other nations beside the club of five nuclear powers (the US, Russia/USSR, Great Britain, France and China) have acquired nuclear weapons. Three nations have voluntarily dismantled their nuclear arsenals (South Africa, Kazakhstan, and the Ukraine). But four others (India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel) in very unstable relations with their neighbors have such weapons. India and Pakistan even had low-level combat between them which threatened to become nuclear combat. One nation (Iran) is suspected to be close to having them. The fear and greed that prevails toward these nations within the minds of their regional neighbors forces other nations to seek the protection of another nation’s nuclear deterrent (e.g. South Korea and Japan relying on their alliances with the US to deter North Korea).
Only the mutually assured destruction of incalculable and unacceptable levels if nuclear combat becomes a reality keeps the cork on the gun. It is a policy in international relations that rests on a tower of cards. It might one day fall. When reasons and logic breakdown, the consequences cannot be imagined. The greatest fear is that no one knows how to end it, or where it would end.
The time has come for all nations to seek the common safety for their people within a new international system. It cannot be world government or global empire, since these things would only produce police states, dictatorships, oppression, and darkness for all humanity. Securing the common safety of nations and peoples begins with admitting our difficulties, proceeds to dialogue, and is secured by finding the common interest all humanity has in liberty, prosperity, security, and peace. The key to building this new system lies not in parliaments or palaces. It begins at the grass roots, within and between communities.
The leaders of the world are unwilling to place the interests of the people before their own private interests. Therefore, the people must secure to themselves the knowledge to understand the problems, but only the action of the people, beginning at home, can change the leaderships of nations. It is a firm belief of The Cepia Club’s that people in neighborhoods and communities, if they can surrender their fear and greed, and canreach out to the people close to them, and help one another overcome common prejudices, common problems, difficult issues, and build fellowship, then the world has a chance for peace.
The process begins with the individual. Awareness and activism, a “community ending public ignorance and apathy” is the way to prevent another Hiroshima and Nagasaki or worse. Time is short. The process is beginning. But everyone who cares about their family and friends and the places and things they love has to become involved. Think smarter, act now! It is the only way.
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posted by Scipio Cepicanus @ 10:46 AM
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