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75 Years Since Hiroshima & Nagasaki

by Christina Tareq

This August marks 75 years since the United States’ horrific nuclear bombing of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This was the first and so far only deliberate use of atomic bombs against a human population in history. Over 220,000 Japanese civilians lost their lives in the span of two days. Survivors reported seeing charred heads and limbs of loved ones and neighbors strewn through the streets. The cities were flattened within a matter of seconds. Survivors faced a decades-long struggle to recover from the fallout, including nuclear contamination of water and agricultural fields, cancer, and birth defects.

75 years later, despite the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Trump administration and the Pentagon are systematically withdrawing from international treaties that limit the use of nuclear aggression. The Trump administration declined to renew the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in August of 2019. That same year 22 billion in tax payer dollars were budgeted towards the further development and accumulation of the nuclear arsenal. The likelihood that the U.S. will renew the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in 2021 seems increasingly remote.

Despite the irreversible destruction that nuclear weapons pose to the very existence of our planet and human life, the Trump administration, Pentagon and allies are forging ahead to expand the US nuclear arsenal program over the next decade to the tune of $1.7 trillion in American taxpayer dollars. Congress has approved the 2020 National Defense Military Act, which will allot $740.5 billion to military spending (the most US military spending since WWII) to further develop and amass a nuclear arsenal to be stored in US military bases around the world. This same act hypocritically renews sanctions on North Korea due to their ownership of nuclear weapons. The Federation of American Scientists report that while the US has nearly 7,000 nuclear weapons, it is estimated that North Korea has 30 to 60 at most.

It’s clear the National Defense Act has nothing to do with defending the American people and everything to do defending American capitalist profits abroad, through war and fear-mongering. With only a fraction of what the Pentagon is proposing for weapons of mass destruction, every person in the US could have quality healthcare, safe jobs or universal income.

It’s time for the resurgence of a mass movement in the US to demand that working people are no longer looted to fatten the wallets of arms manufacturers and war-hungry CEOs. The wealth American working people create must be used to feed and protect the people, not to export mass destruction and terror on other working people of the world.

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Trump Kills Iran Nuclear Deal

U.S., Israel Stockpiling Nuclear Warheads

Hands Off Iran!

By Quest Riggs

In early May, the head of the US, our would-be emperor Trump, arrogantly declared he was “pulling out“ of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the Iran nuclear deal. The entire world agreed that Iran had completely adhered to the deal, but Trump ignore everyone. This was a move to crush the people of Iran and take over their country for U.S corporate interests.

Trump’s decision also, in violation of all international law, moved the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and recognized Jerusalem as the Israeli capital. These two actions were also similar because they were both aggressive “stand-alone” actions on the part of the US and Israel, and they were not even supported by their imperialist allies like France and Saudi Arabia.

Both decisions have been met with world outrage by those who see them for what they are – naked imperialist aggression at the expense of the Palestinians, Iranians and all people of the Middle East.

What was the Iran Nuclear Deal?
Iran has always denied having the ability or desire to start developing a nuclear weapons program. Nevertheless, the U.S. used Iran’s small nuclear energy program to start an aggressive sanctions and military campaign against it.

The agreement was that if Iran phased-out its nuclear energy program and allowed regular inspections by international organizations, then the imperialist countries would drop their harsh decades-long sanctions on Iran. Iran accepted the deal despite its obvious unfairness because sanctions have devastated their economy and society since their republic was started. International organizations have inspected Iran dozens of times and certified there is no nuclear weapons program.

What does it all mean?
The US breaking the nuclear deal should be seen as another event in a string of aggressive moves in the Middle East by imperialists that represent their desire for world domination. The U.S. ignores any respect for Iran’s sovereignty and independence and has been planning for decades to destroy the country.

It was the U.S which openly admitted it engineered a coup in Iran which overthrew a democratically elected government in 1953, bringing decades of brutal tyranny and oppression under the Shah (king). Now it wants to destroy the Iranian Islamic Republic and seize their resources.

Who is the real nuclear threat?
The US has 7,000 nuclear warheads and Israel has 80. This makes them the first and third largest nuclear powers. The US government has proven itself barbaric enough to use atomic weapons on people. In 1945, they dropped, not one, but two atomic bombs on Japanese civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They did this even though they knew the allies had already defeated imperial Japan, which was preparing to surrender. The monsters simply did it to send a message to the people of the world: don’t resist us or we can and will annihilate you. The people of Japan still wear the physical and emotional scars today.

There is no moral or security reason that the US and Israel should be dictating who can and can’t have nuclear weapons. Instead we, the people in the US, should join with the people of the world to demand that both countries suspend their nuclear programs. Our lives and the lives of people everywhere depend on it.

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Trump Threatens World With Nuclear War

DISMANTLE U.S. NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARSENAL

By Dylan Borne

It’s very clear that everyone in Korea wants peace. On January 2nd, North Korea offered an olive branch to the South: they asked to attend the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. South Korea accepted and responded with its own offer—diplomatic talks— which the North accepted. To many Koreans, peace and reunification might be possible.

Yet the United States government, controlled by its capitalist ruling class, continues to press for war. Korea sits on trillions of dollars’ worth of mineral wealth and tens of millions of laborers. The rich that run the US see them like they see their workers— as possible resources. And the US government is stopping at nothing to wage war to take those resources. That’s why:

  • It’s the US, not North or South Korea, that split the country by imposing the 38th parallel in 1945 (a divide and conquer approach)
  • It’s the US that continues to occupy the peninsula with almost 30,000 troops and forced the South to give the US permission in their constitution (Koreans can’t even call their country their own!)
  • It’s the US that continues to make nuclear threats (Trump screaming “my nuclear button is bigger!”)

The corporate media has no right to make North Koreans look like they’re the ones that are war-crazy. Nor does it have a right to make it look like the South supports the US government. The US has over 4,600 nuclear weapons and North Korea has no more than 20. Koreans in the South have been protesting every part of the US military occupation for decades. North Korea pledged that it would never strike first in nuclear war, and it even promised it would stop testing weapons if only the US stopped conducting military drills. But the US refuses when Koreans on both sides ask for peace.

The ruling class in the US wants war for the same reason that it wants to raise our rents and lower our wages: money and wealth. Every bullet, rifle, tank, missile, and warship commissioned by the US military adds to arms contractors’ profits. That’s not even counting all the looting US corporations could do after a war. And our taxes pay for it all. Meanwhile, the rich line their pockets, workers still live from paycheck to paycheck, and the government’s so focused on war that it hasn’t done a thing for our roads or schools.

The Workers Group stands in solidarity with the people of Korea, both for their sake and so we can see money being spent on workers at home.

Let’s see schools built before the next bomb.