August 06, 2005

60 Years of Atomic Weapons

Letter to the Editor

Sixty years ago was one of the darkest days in the history of the human race. It was then that America exploded an atomic weapon over Hiroshima and a few days later Nagasaki killing 300,000 civilians. At the time some scientists worried that exploding an atomic weapon might ignite the atmosphere turning this planet into a sun and destroying all life on Earth. Fortunately they were wrong, but taking that risk was humanities most chilling experiment.

In 1945 then President Truman could have demonstrated the power of the bomb by targeting an uninhabited area, something that he considered and rejected. He decided instead to target highly populated cities to demonstrate the full killing power of this weapon against men, women, and children.

We now have weapons that are hundreds of times as powerful as those two bombs and over 20 nations now have the bomb. To posses such a weapon is a curse because we now have the ultimate responsibility to never never never use these weapons under any conditions whatsoever. I want to say to the world that as an American I am deeply ashamed of what this country did and the terrible legacy we left behind. The sins of our past shall live on as long as anyone possesses nuclear weapons. To have an atomic weapon is a sin against the human race.

Posted by marc at 11:13 PM | Comments (2)