India’s oldest Socialist Weekly!
Editor: Dr. G.G. Parikh | Associate Editor: Neeraj Jain | Managing Editor: Guddi
On October 27, 1962, Soviet naval officer Vasily Arkhipov helped prevent the outbreak of World War III and saved humanity from nuclear catastrophe.
To protect ourselves from the dangers of the nuclear enterprise, we need to stop the nuclear weapons and nuclear power reactor programs—a tall order, for sure. But if we seek success in our efforts, we are well advised to understand the forces we are engaging with.
Current talks between Washington and Tehran’s rulers to restore the 2015 nuclear agreement have been stalled, and there is little hope that progress will be made any time soon. Naturally, the U.S. places the blame on Tehran. However, U.S. propaganda grossly distorts the reality of the situation.
After dropping two atomic bombs on Japan in August 1945, killing between 100,000 and 200,000 civilians, top U.S. government officials lied, claiming there was “no radioactive residue” in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and that Japanese reports of deaths due to radiation were “propaganda.”
Each anniversary of the atomic bombings provides us a unique opportunity to study and reflect on the horrors of possible nuclear war and the massive destruction already wrought by pursuing nuclear madness.
The Pentagon is just one element in an ever more costly American national security state. Adding other military, intelligence, and internal-security expenditures to the Pentagon’s budget brings the total upcoming “national security” budget to a mind-boggling $1.4 trillion.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine, I’ve heard more discussions of nuclear war than I did in the entire nine years that I wore an air force uniform. I’m glad that people are finally discussing the existential dangers of nuclear weapons. There have been more near-misses than the world knows.
“Coming out” on thyroid cancer — or indeed about any negative health impacts resulting from the Fukushima nuclear disaster — remains largely taboo in Japan. Studies that conclude the medical impacts are significant or even substantial, are met with hostility, stoniness or just plain silence.
Even when the West expresses genuine human solidarity with Ukraine, we cannot overlook its racist context and Europe-centric bias. The West’s solidarity is reserved for whoever is willing to join its bloc, and is not found when violence is directed against non-Europeans.
I am against killing and destruction. I will therefore join in a march for peace – but not in step with the greedy, violence-hungry forces who have taken up the Ukraine issue to pursue their own disastrous goals.
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