Hiroshima. Nagasaki. The US and nuclear war.

Hiroshima.

Every year at this time there is a peace ceremony in Japan for the horrific events of Hiroshama and Nagasahi. Over 200,000 Japanese, overwhelmingly civilians, were killed when US capitalism dropped its nuclear bombs in 1945. To this day US capitalism maintains its military bases in Japan, some like the Futenma Marine Corps Air Station, which is one of the largest US military bases in East Asia, is in the center of a major crowded Japanese city. We need to use our imagination. If Japanese capitalism had dropped nuclear bombs on major US cities and killed over 200,000 people and continued to maintain military bases in this country and in the middle of major US cities how would this be seen? People would be up in arms. US capitalism in its arrogance refuses to remove its bases.

We are presently hearing about the attempts of North Korea and Iran to get nuclear weapons. And no doubt these are regimes which like all regimes should not have such weapons. We do not hear so much, but we know that the US ally Israeli capitalism with its war footing and mentality, have about 200 warheads and Pakistan have nuclear weapons. Then there is the break up of the stalinist world and the danger of nuclear weapons going "astray." In this background we hear people like the mass murderers of US capitalism Kissinger, Shultz, Nunn, now echoed by Obama, talking about a "world free of nuclear weapons." Life is getting a bit more complicated for these war mongers and nuclear weapons supporters than it used to be. When they and their reliable allies had the monopoly on nuclear weapons it was one thing. Now it is not so simple. They are getting worried.

No sane society would have nuclear weapons. But the insane madness and insoluble contradictions of capitalism make war and nuclear weapons inevitable in that system and make the spread of such weapons also inevitable. On the basis of world capitalism it is inevitable that nuclear weapons will eventually be used again by some rogue regime like US capitalism, Israeli capitalism, Iranian capitalism. Or will be used by individual terrorist groups. There is no solution to this problem but the building of an international socialist movement which can end international capitalism and build a democratic socialist society. Hard? Yes? Extremely hard? Yes. But the continuation of capitalism makes new nuclear horrors inevitable. Building a new world is the only alternative.

A writer recently wrote about his mother's visit to a friend in Hiroshima after the dropping of the bomb. Initially reported missing she had turned up in a hospital. The writer's mother visited her and told him what the woman had said. Moments before the bombings in 1945 the lady had taken shelter from the sun behind a strong wall. Two children were playing in front of her and she watched them with pleasure. Then the bomb hit. And the two children were vaporized in front of her eyes. There was nothing left of them. They disappeared. We must politicize in our consciousness and personalize in our minds and emotions the system and the people who represent that system and who are responsible for such monstrous crimes. They must be fought and removed from power.

US capitalism was in conflict with Japanese capitalism over markets and resources in Asia and the Pacific area. Capitalism, whether of the US variety, the Japanese variety or any other variety, will never be able to live without war and conflict. War is central to capitalism. In 1945 the war between Japanese capitalism and US capitalism had reached a decisive point. US capitalism was on the road to victory. It dropped the bombs, not to make Japanese capitalism surrender, it was going to surrender anyway, it dropped the bombs as a warning to Russian stalinism not to encroach too far into the capitalist world and what US capitalism considered its sphere of influence. For this the 200,000 Japanese died in seconds and the little children were vaporized in the blink of an eye.

At this time of year, August, the month when the bombs fell, we the publishers of this blog remember the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasahi and the victims of all the capitalist wars whether Japanese or American or from whatever country and we dedicate ourselves to oppose war. We also dedicate ourselves to explaining that unless capitalism is ended and replaced with an international democratic socialist system then we cannot end war.

Sean.