MAKE PEACE, NOT WAR

I recently received my copy of a newsletter from The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), and it is, as usual, a worrying document. For some reason, several otherwise rational governments think it’s a good idea to be ready to annihilate some other nation’s entire population without the trouble of leaving their desks. It’s always a comfort to see that Canada is conspicuous by its absence from the list of nuclear nations.

Our neighbours to the south are responsible for more than half of the global total of nuclear weapons purchases, and even with the recent change of government, the spending goes on. We’ve seen what relatively small, unsophisticated nuclear detonations can do, at Nagasaki and Hiroshima in summer 1945, and for most of us that was more than enough to turn us against such inhuman behaviour. Evidently, there are government leaders and military officials who were delighted with the speed and lethality of those early bombs, but the world was horrified by this demonstration of atomic power and of political barbarity.

The 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons made it illegal, under international law, to manufacture nuclear weapons, but a small number of nations have chosen to carry on stockpiling these devices. These countries include the U.S., the UK, France, China, the Russian Federation and a few more — nations I feel have ambitions to govern the world.

I don’t know If the governments of these countries ever give serious thought to the physical effects of nuclear war on civilian populations, or to the psychological damage done to them as they try to live under threat of nuclear annihilation. It appears that they value their own power and wealth over the lives and the mental stress of others. We must assume they know that nuclear war cannot be localized, but would result in global death and destruction. Plus, of course, the contamination of land, water and atmosphere that would cause widespread disease and starvation.

No rational human could consider launching nuclear missiles, but there seem to be leaders of governments who would not hesitate. We must try to elect the sort of people who would choose peace over warfare, co-operation over competition.

The ICAN report, Complicit: 2020 Global Nuclear Weapons Spending, is available online at www.ICANW.ORG and it’s definitely worth reading.

Ed Healy Marystown