Hiroshima
Hiroshima, Japan... On August 6th, 1945, an atomic bomb was detonated over the city, instantly killing perhaps 80,000 men, women and children. Thus opened the nuclear era. A few days later, another bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. In seconds, there was nothing left of the city.
The destructive power of the Hiroshima bomb was equal to about 20,000 tons of TNT, or equivalent to the bomb payload at that time of 2000 B-29 bombers. Today's nuclear warhead devices can each generate an explosive force comparable to the detonation of more than 1.2 million tons of TNT.
In 2012, the Federation of American Scientists estimated there were more than 17,000 nuclear warheads in the world, many of them on operational status.
In 2007, I interviewed experts in nuclear weapons and nuclear waste, and also visited Hiroshima, where I interviewed the Mayor of Hiroshima and survivors of the Hiroshima bombing. I created a 40-minute video and distributed it to more than 100 organizations around the United States for discussions on the subject of nuclear weapons. The video has also been viewed online by hundreds of thousands of viewers.
The two video segments are presented below. The first part is a recap of what happened in Hiroshima the day of the bomb, and a story of one of the survivors. The second part is a look into the many different events and people shaping and surrounding the dropping of the bomb.
Many people, on seeing these videos, respond with antagonism and a sense that Japan got exactly what it deserved for initiating the war in the first place, and for the atrocities that the Japanese military committed in China. There is no denying these claims. This is not the point of the videos however. The videos are meant to reinforce the horror of nuclear weapons, and to drive home the point that no one - absolutely no one - has the right to push a button or turn a key and utterly annihilate hundreds of thousands or even millions of human beings in an instant. What needs to be annihilated is the devilish nature and dark power within each human being that even contemplates such deeds.
The battle is within, and has always been within. There is where the Bomb needs to be confronted.
