A letter a day to number 10. No 1,515
Sunday 07 August 2016.
Dear Mrs May,
Yesterday was Hiroshima Day, the 71st anniversary of the first of the two nuclear bomb attacks on Japan. The death toll was between 90,000 and 146,000 people and the cry across the world to this day is “Never again!”
In writing about terrorism the late Howard Zinn wrote, “war is itself the most extreme form of terrorism.” War contains within it all the brutality of what you call terrorism but with the added might of the full weight of industrial (for profit) armed power and the armed forces of nation states. For all the jingoistic patriotism drummed up through propaganda, in both world wars Britain had to impose conscription on the people. War is glorified and treated as the ultimate form of patriotism, but there is nothing glorious in its reality and no sane person wants it.
War is the province of the aristocracy and despots, whether religious or secular, people with too much time on their hands and dreams of glory and/or conquest. You’ll find no farmers, nurses, secretaries or production line workers plotting war, they are too busy getting on with living, the very idea is utterly absurd, yet it is they who are called upon in time of war and whose lives are sacrificed, whilst the perpetrators take a back seat.
Modern warfare is horrific, not least in the overwhelming escalation of civilian deaths over the last century, from 5% at the turn of the century to 90% at its end and still the deaths roll on.
Nuclear weapons are currently the ultimate weapon and their destructiveness indiscriminate, they represent a threat to all life on Earth. When asked if you would be personally prepared to authorise a nuclear strike that could kill 100,000 men, women and children, you said, ‘Yes!’ Let’s be clear about this, the question was a conservative question, the conditions under which you would use nuclear weapons would be far more horrific. Just one nuclear bomb would take out 100,000.
Why have we not got a government department for nuclear disarmament whose sole purpose would be to work internationally to end this menace to life? It is the people’s money you are spending, the same people who would be wiped out in a nuclear war, do you not think you have a responsibility to us to constantly work to remove the threat of nuclear war forever?
http://www.progressive.org/nov04/zinn1104.html
Fear and Loathing in Great Britain 
Reblogged this on Mark Catlin's Blog.
An excellent question and I’m stunned it hasn’t been asked before!