Hiroshima mayor slams nuclear deterrence claims as ‘folly’, marking US nuking of city

Hiroshima mayor has slammed the nuclear deterrence claims of world’s Western powers as “folly” while Japan marks the 78th anniversary of the US atomic bombing on the city that massacred nearly 140,000 people and has never apologized for the major crime. 

Japan on Sunday marked the 78th anniversary of the US deadly atomic bombing on Hiroshima, where the city mayor called the Group of Seven leaders’ idea of nuclear deterrence a “folly.”

“Leaders around the world must confront the reality that nuclear threats now being voiced by certain policymakers reveal the folly of nuclear deterrence theory,” Mayor Kazumi Matsui said, referring to the Group of Seven leaders’ idea of justifying such theories.

“They must immediately take concrete steps to lead us from the dangerous present toward our ideal world,” he added.

On August 6, 1945, during World War II (1939-45), an American bomber dropped the world’s first deployed atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima killing around 140,000 people. Three days later, a second bomber dropped another a-bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 74,000 people.

There has never been an official apology from Washington for its nuclear bombing of the two Japanese cities. The US has rather been careful not to apologize while only expressing sorrow over the colossal destruction it caused.

The US continues to boastfully justify the bombings and the ensuing carnage, contending that they were necessary to end the war and “save lives,” although many historians question that view and insist they were unjustified.