The 'Fire' in Hiroshima & Nagasaki

Ken Sumida

As 9/11 is an unforgettable day for Americans, 8/6 and 8/9 are unforgettable days for Japanese. On these days in 1945, America dropped atomic bombs. This attack has been believed to be indispensable in order to cease the Pacific War. Actually, many people, in particular Americans advocate that. Was it necessary? Honestly, I can't understand why Americans have believed that. Contemplating that, there are several controversial points.
 
Initially, America defeated Japanese forces and occupied the Okinawa Islands by that time and so nobody anticipated Japan would launch destructive counterattacks. It was absolutely obvious that Japan was bound to sooner or later surrender to the US forces. Secondly, America dropped two different types of atomic bombs. For America, the series of attacks were large-scale experiments. In fact, in order to make these experiments successful, America secretly conducted prior experiments time and again. They would have never done that, if they had had a piece of humanity. Up to here, I've criticised the American conduct in anger. But I don't intend to aim at blaming them. Rather, it is more important to discuss the role of Japan as the only atomic bomb nation in the world.
 
After the World War 2, sad to say, there were quite a few wars in a row in the world. Wars have continued to break out and the damage resulting from wars has lingered on. Under the circumstances, what does Japan need to do to contribute to peace? I think Japan is unfortunate to have been the atomic bomb victim, but only Japan can tell the world about the brutality of nuclear weapons. For a long period, nuclear weapons have been believed to serve as a deterrence for occurrence of wars. What's going on as a consequence of following this philosophy? All in all, an increase in the number of nuclear weapons has commenced to threaten our life. It is undeniable that a country may suddenly launch a nuclear missile. Thus, we need a new framework in order to keep the world peace. Nuclear weapons are no longer indispensable. Combative solutions are going to bear no fruit at all.
 
As the old saying, it is easier said than done, looking for replacements for nuclear weapons will possibly be difficult because, this, we know, must involve tremendous effort or drastic changes. That means plentiful vested interests are going to be wrecked. Therefore, American might not be able to do that, because of its great dependence on huge military industries. However, I confidently believe that Japan is able to guide other countries to do that. Unfortunately, Japan is a domesticated dog of America now. This really humiliates me so much!! Anyway, no more wars!!