TEHRAN - People in Japan are marking the 78th anniversary of the United States' nuclear bomb attacks. 

Ceremonies are being held in Japan to mark the American nuclear bomb attack on Hiroshima that killed 140,000 civilians. The bomb turned the city to ashes. 

The nuclear attack took place on August 6 and days later, the U.S. military dropped a second nuclear bomb on the Japanese city of Nagasaki, this time murdering 70,000 people. 

Survivors of the attacks are still being treated in hospitals. The U.S. is the only country in history to use nuclear weapons against civilians in wartime. 

"Leaders around the world must confront the reality that nuclear threats now being voiced by certain policymakers reveal the folly of nuclear deterrence theory," Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui said at a ceremony.

There has been no serious explanation by the United States to justify its nuclear attacks. 

Was killing 200,000 civilians in the cruelest way possible really aimed at ending the Second World War because Japan refused to surrender or were the atomic bombs dropped in a warning to the former Soviet Union?

Experts say the dropping of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and three days later on Nagasaki was unjustified from a military standpoint and that it was a political act to frighten the Soviet Union.

Many U.S. political leaders, at the time, were firmly opposed to the bombardment and saw it as a very reckless move that would have long-term consequences for America’s international image.  

Since the apocalyptic scenes in Japan 78 years ago, the U.S. has expanded its atomic weapons arsenal as well as its policy of nuclear proliferation. This was evident just recently with the AUKUS deal that involves Australia, the U.S. and UK. 

Critics have accused Washington of violating the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) with AUKUS scheme.
On March 14, 2023, the Guardian said AUKUS represents a violation of the NPT as it transfers “fissile material and nuclear technology from a nuclear weapons state to a non-weapons state.” 

The Guardian added it “allows fissile material utilized for non-explosive military use, like naval propulsion, to be exempt from inspections and monitoring by the UN nuclear watchdog…, (and) makes arms controls experts nervous because it sets a precedent that could be used by others to hide highly enriched uranium, or plutonium, the core of a nuclear weapon, from international oversight.”

The Chinese mission to the UN accused the U.S. and UK of “clearly violating the object and purpose of the NPT”. It added that “such a textbook case of double standard will damage the authority and effectiveness of the international non-proliferation system”.

The U.S. has also brought the world closer to an Armageddon by launching a proxy war against Russia in the Ukraine war, risking a nuclear conflict by provoking another nuclear-armed state.

The same can be said about North Korea, with Washington militarily harassing Pyongyang and risking a catastrophe in East Asia.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has been shielding Israel, its top proxy in West Asia, which has 200 to 300 nuclear weapons and the biggest source of insecurity in the region.

The regime, which has invaded or violated the territory of many regional states and refused to sign the NPT, enjoys the full backing of the United States.

This is while Washington accuses Iran of seeking a nuclear bomb despite the fact that the U.S. intelligence community testified before Congress that Tehran’s nuclear program is peaceful.  

Numerous reports by inspectors from the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, have failed to produce any evidence that Iran’s nuclear activities have been diverted to a weapons program.

Observers believe America and its close allies have been making accusations against the Islamic Republic to scare the West Asia region and beyond.

The atomic bombing of Hiroshima, as pointed out by experts, remains a very dark strain on America’s global image. Hiroshima’s mayor is not alone in calling for nuclear disarmament.  

The UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres supported his call. "World leaders have visited this city, seen its monuments, spoken with its brave survivors, and emerged emboldened to take up the cause of nuclear disarmament," Guterres said in remarks read by a UN representative. "More should do so, because the drums of nuclear war are beating once again."

U.S. President Joe Biden, ironically, was in Hiroshima not so long ago to attend the 2023 Group of Seven leaders’ summit.

In line with his predecessors, Biden fell short of offering an apology at the gathering for the nuclear attacks, despite Japanese officials repeatedly calling on Washington to do so. He did visit the Hiroshima Memorial Museum, which critics branded as a publicity stunt.

The museum includes the remains of the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall, the only building left standing after the U.S. nuclear attack.

The file footage of people walking past destroyed buildings after the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima in 1945, along with the rubble in the flattened city will never go away.

One atomic bomb survivor, Teruko Yahata, recalled the horror this year at the G7 summit in Hiroshima, saying "at that moment, and all of a sudden, the entire sky flashed and was illuminated in bluish-white, as if the heavens had become one huge, fluorescent light. I immediately fell to the ground and lost consciousness."

Pointing to herself, aged three, in a family photo taken in 1940, she recalled her mother saying "'Let's die together, while we're still together.' My mother pulled me from the ruins and began to pull futons and bedding from the cupboard."

Yahata, her voice breaking as she recalls the morning of August 6, 1945, also said "I had this very vague dream of wanting to be able to communicate in English, in my own voice, my own words, the destructive power of the atomic bomb and what I remember experiencing that day, the horror, the sadness."

"I studied by looking things up in the dictionary, like, 'oh, so that's how you say nuclear weapon'. I used a manual to put in phonetic symbols, I listened to my teacher's intonation on a tape recording. After I got the (English) translated script, my dream became a goal. I really wanted to do this so I tried very hard"

A British tourist to the city, Denise Hickson, noted “It feels very real still, when she (Yahata) speaks, she brings it like it's happening today, she makes you feel that way.”

A tour guide from Croatia, Daniel Baloh, also weighed, saying "In my opinion, I think that pretty much everybody should come and talk to a survivor, especially our world leaders, to know what we are, unfortunately, a decision away from."

Yahata criticized G7 leaders, saying “I want them to seriously acknowledge the inhumanity of nuclear weapons. They are weapons that can destroy mankind. I want them to strongly feel that these are terrible things and that they have to be abolished."

"The world leaders will all come to G7 with the ideal of abolishing nuclear weapons. I want the leaders who come to be able to take specific action and not just have ideals or release a resolution. I want them to take the first concrete step (towards nuclear weapon abolishment)."

Yahata is what is known in Japan as a "hibakusha" - a survivor of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. She was 8 years old when the first atomic bomb nicknamed "Little Boy" was dropped by the U.S. B-29 warplane Enola Gay in her city.

The nuclear bomb that obliterated the city and killed approximately 140,000 out of an estimated population of 350,000, with thousands more dying later of injuries and radiation-related illness, is perhaps more terrifying that the U.S. refuses to accept the devastation it caused.

As of the end of March 2022, there were only 39,950 U.S. atomic bomb survivors known to still be in Hiroshima, according to data from the city government.