nuclear war

   I was with my father, on leave from the Royal Artillery, when the first atomic bomb was dropped by the Americans.   It wiped out Hiroshima, at the end of the second World War, equalling 20,000 tonnes of TNT and killing 140,000.   Thousands more later died from horrific diseases caused by the radiation.     The first plutonium bomb was to kill 74,000 at Nagasaki, leaving it uninhabitable.

              This meant the war with the Japanese was over.  The Nazis had already been defeated.  It meant my brother, flying Hurricane fighters and later American Thunderbolts against the Japanese in Burma, could at last come home after five years. 

               So why was my father, who had also served on the Somme in the first World War, not overjoyed at the news of the bomb?  Instead, he just looked worried.  "I don't think you realise what this means," he said.  "It's going to be the end of civilisation.  It will be like living in caves again - no electricity."   He looked at me but I still could think no further than that I would be seeing my brother again.

     When he did get home, at the age of 25, he started enjoying life with parties and dances and an MG sports car before it was too late, and went back to his old job in the family construction firm.   He did something else.   He helped to found one of the first branches of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in Yorkshire.   

             That was because of only two bombs.   Now, nine countries have more than 17,000 nuclear weapons, with the US and Russia having about 2000 each on high alert with thousands more stockpiled.    Each bomb now is at least 10 times more powerful than the original Hiroshima bomb.   What are they for?  When will they be used?  

              Britain is now planning to spend £20bn on updating the submarines which carry the Trident nuclear weapons leased from the US.   At a time of economic downturn, with cutbacks in health and education spending, why does the Trident project still remain?     It is backed not only by the Coalition (though the LibDems are the only main party to be openly  anti-nuclear) but by Labour.   Gordon Brown, when Labour Prime Minister, told a City gathering, "And of course we will maintain our independent nuclear deterrent."      (Admittedly, his constituents in Scotland depended on Trident for their jobs and the submarines are based on the Clyde in Scotland.)
          From the days of leftwinger Michael Foot, opposing the bomb has been equated with a lack of patriotism in this country, even though European countries generally - apart from France and others hosting US weapons - do not have them.
         Now that both President Obama and President Putin have begun to trade war threats over the uprisings in Ukraine - with Russian supporters in the east and a US-backed government in the capital - we are entitled to ask, what sort of military confrontations are they thinking of?    The Russians lost 17 million in the war against the Nazis in the second World War, and in so doing also saved Britain.    The Americans lost the thousands of troops they sent over to Europe to join the British - and the Russians - in the fight.   After two World Wars, Russia and Europe have had enough.   The foundation of the European Union meant the European countries were at last bound together peacefully, with the only fallouts being words about the terms of the Brussels agreement.
      On June 21 and 22, campaigners and civil societies from 23 countries will meet in Ankara, Turkey, to discuss efforts to achieve a global ban on nuclear weapons.   ICAN is a powerful international campaign, supported among others by Ban ki-Moon, the United Nations director, Desmond Tutu and Global Zero, former US officers seeking nuclear weapons production to be reduced to zero.     The International Trades Union confederation has tabled a resolution banning nuclear bomb use, manufacture, stockpiling and possession, and 1500 trade union representatives from 161 countries met in Berlin to adopt it last month.    Regarding the use of nuclear weapons as a war crime and calling for a total world ban on them is the INLAP organisation and the World Court Project.
     The nuclear non-proliferation talks are held every five years by the members of the NPT organisation and were held in Geneva in April.       But as one member said, there are now too many meetings, too much talking, and not enough success in getting rid of this huge threat to the survival of the plant.     India, Pakistan, and Israel have the bomb.   If being powerful in the world means possessing nuclear weapons, countries on the fringe, like Iran and north Korea, seek them too.   Now is the time for Britain to become a world leader in calling for their abolition, starting with her own.
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