Dr. Abdul Ruff in New Delhi
On April 11, US Secretary of State John Kerry visited the Japanese city of Hiroshima, the target of the first nuclear bomb ever used in wartime or since then.
On August 6, 1945, the United State, having developed the atomic bomb and badly wanted to test its efficacy on humans during the war itself as anything is fair in a war, dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima, killing between 70,000 and 146,000 civilians outright. For some obvious testing reason, again, three days later, on August 9, the Americans dropped a second nuclear bomb on the city of Nagasaki, killing a further 39,000 to 80,000 civilians.
The US and Hiroshima
The use of nuclear bombs against Hiroshima and Nagasaki, under conditions in which the Japanese government was actively seeking terms of surrender, was not, as the official US narrative claims, a measure to hasten the end of the war. Rather, the nuclear incineration of hundreds of thousands of people was intended to communicate, particularly to the Soviet Union, that the Americans would stop at nothing to secure its hegemony in the postwar order.
Americans consider the nuclear attack on the humanity as a part of ‘legitimate’ war and hence there is no need to apologize for the bomb attack. Japan, now a close ally of USA as being a part of NATO terror organization, has not asked for any apology from Washington.
Japan, together with Australia, forms the linchpin of Washington’s anti-Chinese alliance. To this end, the US has encouraged the aggressive remilitarization of Japan, promoting the very tendencies that led to the deaths of millions of people and horrendous war crimes during Japan’s invasion of China and other countries in the Pacific in the 1930s.
Earlier this month, a reinterpretation of Japan’s pacifist constitution, agreed to in 2014, went into effect, allowing the Japanese military to fight wars abroad in support of its allies, including the United States. Last week, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the country’s constitution did not prohibit it from possessing nuclear weapons.
The deepening US-Japanese anti-China alliance is at the heart of a sweeping remilitarization of the Asia-Pacific region, where military spending increased by six percent last year. The Philippines and Indonesia, key US allies in the gang-up against China, increased their military spending by 25 percent and 16.5 percent, respectively.
The Obama government made clear that Kerry, the highest-ranking US official ever to visit the city, was not coming to apologize for these terrible crimes. “..nor is there any interest in reopening the question of blame for the sequence of events that culminated in the use of the atomic bomb,” the US State Department announced very tactfully.
No apology from Kerry
On his part, Kerry said the bombing of Hiroshima reminds everybody of the extraordinary complexity of choices in war and of what war does to people, to communities, to countries, to the world.” He did not seek to reconcile this hypocritical statement with the fact that he is a representative of the state responsible for the crime against humanity.
Kerry’s visit took place against the backdrop of a major escalation of Washington’s belligerent actions against China. USA is eager to reassure the powers around South China Sea where Beijing has built a military site on US role in the region.
The main purpose of Kerry’s trip, therefore, was to cement US alliances in East and Southeast Asia for the militarily encirclement of China. The ceremony at the site of the 1945 bombing followed a summit of G7 foreign ministers in Hiroshima, which issued a pointed statement indirectly warning China against intimidating, coercive or provocative unilateral actions that could alter the status quo and increase tensions.
As Kerry was speaking, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter was in the midst of a visit to India, which the US is seeking to integrate into its anti-China alliance as part of ‘Asia pivot’ which Russia, a close arms-reactor ally of New Delhi, opposes.
Carter will go to the Philippines, which is receiving hundreds of millions of US dollars in exchange for its cooperation in the US war drive. Carter will visit a location less than 100 miles from the disputed Spratly Islands archipelago claimed by China. That can certainly annoy Beijing.
US double speak on denuclearization of the world is known. Kerry praised President Barack Obama’s efforts to create and pursue a world free from nuclear weapons. In reality, despite Obama’s vow early in his presidency that the US would not develop new nuclear warheads or pursue new military missions or new capabilities, the US government is in the midst of a $1 trillion program to upgrade its nuclear stockpile.
The world’s danger state
In 2011, the USA spent $61.3 billion on its nuclear weapons program, more than all other countries combined. The amount was nearly 10 times more than China and almost 100 times more than North Korea.
Despite claiming in 2009 that it would “reduce the role of nuclear weapons in US national security strategy, the White House made explicit in a 2010 strategy document that the US military maintains the right to use nuclear weapons without being attacked, including against countries that do not possess nuclear weapons themselves. Russia was indeed reacting to similar Russian policy statement.
In the specific circumstances of August 1945, the use of the atom bomb showed that a psychologically very normal and democratically elected chief executive could use the weapon just as the Nazi dictator would have used it. USA showcased its military supremacy by bombing Japan and now refuses to apologize for the ghastly crime against humanity because of its superiority in military equipment and posture.
Today, the USA is wasting resources on terror wars to ensure energy security. It is wracked by internal maladies and facing the protracted decline of its economic power, has only one trump card to secure its preeminent place in the global capitalist order: the threat to use its enormous military and nuclear arsenal.
Capitalism is the cause for imperialism and terror wars. As WMD threaten the very existence of human society, USA remains the danger state to the world and not Russia or China or any other nation.
The writer contributes articles to newspapers and journals on world politics; Chancellor-Founder of Center for International Affairs (CIA); former university teacher; Author of many books; Editor: foreign policy issues, Palestine Times: website: http://abdulruff.wordpress.com/ email abdulruff_jnu@yahoo.com;Phone: 91-8129081217
Source: weeklyholiday