AN ANNIVERSARY WORTH REMEMBERING

Seventy years ago today, when I was eleven and the Second World War was winding down, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.  Three days later, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Nagasaki.  The two bombs caused the deaths several hundred thousand people.  As American politicians debate the wisdom of the agreement negotiated with Iran, and issue hysterical warnings of the unimaginable dangers that would result were Iran to develop nuclear weapons, two elementary facts are worth keeping in mind:  First, the United States, which arrogates to itself the role of world moral arbiter, annually issuing a list of "terrorist" nations, is the only nation in the history of the world ever to kill someone with a nuclear weapon;  and Second, despite the calls to keep the Middle East a nuclear-free zone, Israel is in fact already in possession of a fully functional arsenal of two hundred or more nuclear weapons, some of which, capable of being launched at Iran, are carried on diesel powered submarines patrolling Middle Eastern waters.