The US, Korea, and Japan Share an 80 Year Nuclear Nightmare |
On the right corner of my desk, next to my laptop and always in eyeshot, sits a metal model of an atom bomb I assembled from a kit, a model of “Little Boy,” the bomb the US dropped on Hiroshima. The model is made from aluminum alloy parts and is a one-twelfth scale of the original atom bomb, about nine inches long. The ad for the bomb contained a video with dramatic music showing the model spinning through the air as it falls toward its imagined target.
“Perfect for collectors,” the ad boasted. “A must-have for history enthusiasts. Very enjoyable assembly process.”
Toward the bottom of the ad, perhaps as an afterthought, perhaps recognizing the implications of marketing such a murderous model, was the following: “By assembling this model, you can understand the history and moral issues of nuclear weapons and trigger thoughts about the future of the world.”
The kit came with a tiny screwdriver, two dozen tiny screws, a sanding rod, glue, and decals. The aluminum alloy parts were in molded plates. The model even had a metal cart to assemble that the bomb sits on so it can be pulled around your desk, pretending you’re getting ready to load it onto the Enola Gay and extinguish a city in a flash.
The bomb wages war against the future.
On the morning of August 6, 1945, the real “Little Boy” exploded with a flash 2,000 feet above the city of Hiroshima, which sits on the Ota River delta on Hiroshima Bay. The Ota River has six channels splitting Hiroshima into islets. Bomb victims staggered toward these channels to throw themselves into the water hoping to extinguish their burning bodies. The channels became so clogged with bodies that others couldn’t squeeze in. Some people, closer to the hypocenter, were vaporized, reduced to shadows seared into stone. Temperatures on the ground reached 4,000°C.
As we once again approach that fateful day of August 6, it is important to recognize that not just the US and Japan are intertwined in a nuclear nightmare that has lasted over 80 years, but also 70,000 Koreans who were exposed to the two atomic bombs incinerating Hiroshima and........