Today is the anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945. We’ve hung a banner at Toons to commemorate the week. It reads NO MORE HIROSHIMAS -AND NAGASAKIS (Don’t run over to see it right now, I had to take it down in the rain, it’s hand sewn.) Nagasaki was bombed August 9. The Sisters Witness Against War vigil at Peterson AFB serves as an annual reminder of those bombings.
Who could have envisioned that today we’d be begging our government not to use a nuclear bomb for a punitive expedition against Iran?
The protest against nuclear arms has always been theoretical to my mind, about their proliferation and use in strategic power plays. I would never have conceived that the half-century-old pacifist movement to curb the nuclear buildup would find itself on the front line of the present anti-war movement. Do not bomb Iran.
Whether or not nuclear weapons are involved hardly matters. Back in 1945, more Japanese civilians died during the infamous fire-bombings of Tokyo than from the atomic bombs. This protest appeals to the minds at the Air Force who are prepared to sanction the remote mass destruction of fellow human beings.
“That radioactive elements created by us are found in nature is an astounding event in the history of the earth and of the human race. To fail to consider its importance and its consequences would be a folly for which humanity would have to pay a terrible price.”
– Albert Schweitzer
Let us not forsake that which has protected us.
The citizens of Utah managed to convince a brief sanity this year to put a halt to Operation Divine Strake. If not for their efforts, all of us would be inhaling a little bit more radioactive dust.
This is not 1945. WWWII is over.
This is not 1962. Kennedy and Khrushchev derived that nuclear build up was beyond rationality. Communication and diplomacy was the way to global resolutions.
This is 2007. The world borders on global crisis at many fronts but nuclear weaponry should never be considered a resolve.
The fallout of nuclear testing remains in the air over the United States and world. The flow of these toxic particle concentrations pend on air currents, not borderlines. Even when dispersed these poisonous remain hazardous in the smallest of quantities, absorbed by the soil, and measurable in the human thyroid.
A GRAPHIC OF THE ACCUMULATED FALLOUT IN THE UNITED STATES is available at the State of Nevada’s Division of Environmental Protection’s website.
http://ndep.nv.gov/BOFF/radexp01.gif
The fallout is cancerous.
This graphic was prepared for Nevada by the National Cancer Institute in 1997. Yet many believe even this data was an underestimate.
THE UNITED STATES IS ALREADY UNDER A NUCLEAR ATTACK!! Not by North Korea, nor France, but the United States and world is under attack by the accumulated fallout levels by ALL nuclear testing worldwide. THE ENEMY IS THE FALLOUT.
So let us not forget those that recently put a temporary cessation to Nuclear Weaponry this year.
The story of Divine Strake can be found at:
http://stopdivinestrake.com/ and http://www.downwinders.org/
You can also read just a sample of the scores of testimonies from U.S. citizens about the effects of fallout in the Nevada area at:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/013007N.shtml#1
What a shame to read these testimonials. Citizens turned victims, they are all homefront soldiers in an unnamed undeclared war – a war against ignorance and human destruction.
Thank you citizens of Utah and activists everywhere – for uniting to save our country and world from cancer and even more horrific fates of human catastophic war error.
If you cannot attend the August 9th event with the Sisters, please, at the very least remember NUCLEAR WAR IS NOW. Its not about to start, and it is the task of every human to see its end. Spread the word.
No More Nukes!