Nagasaki has marked the 81st anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing. The mayor called nuclear weapons "absolute evil" on Sunday and denounce
The anniversary coincided with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi ’s government revising the country’s defense policy to further bolster the military’s offensive capability. Speculation has risen about whether Takaichi, who supports nuclear dissuasion, may allow nuclear weapons to be brought into the country, going against the third non-nuclear principle. Mayor Shiro Suzuki said that while some countries argue the possession of nuclear weapons helps deter potential attackers, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had demonstrated that humans can cross the line. “The theory of nuclear deterrence is extremely dangerous and fragile. Nuclear weapons are not a ‘necessary evil’ but an ‘absolute evil,’ and can never coexist with humanity,” Suzuki said. “To all leaders of the nuclear states and nations relying on nuclear deterrence, you must face the reality that the more you rely on nuclear deterrence, the more you increase the risk of a nuclear war.” The United States launched the Nagasaki attack on Aug. 9, 1945, killing 70,000 by the end of that year, three days after the bombing of Hiroshima that killed 140,000.
This reminds me of interview I read by someone with the UN task force for securing nuclear material within the former soviet union. He basically said they never announced where they were going to work or were working, only where they had fully secured a site, because the risk was so high. The best security was total lockdown on info and publicity.
The US has thousands of similar sites contaminated with some levels of nuclear material. Some of those you can see listed on the Superfund site.
But every step of making and then holding a nuclear weapon involves large amounts of security and always runs the risk of a step getting fumbled and contaminating the area. And once you've finished, you have a terrible items you must spend huge amounts of manpower and money and keeping secure and *not using*. and even then, it has a finite time it can be usable before you just have to decommission the thing because its past maintaining.
Absolutely no one should ever build a new one as a "deterrant". You're stealing from your present and future to get a thing you can't use unless you want everyone to lose.
I hope Japan stays out of the nuclear weapon game. I pray the US never builds more and just keeps decommissioning old ones that are past functional life.
