The film Oppenheimer has reignited discussion of the political and moral circumstances surrounding the U.S. atomic attack 78 years ago today on Hiroshima. Here are 10 articles CN ran on the 75th anniversary exploring the debate over the bomb.
On Aug. 9, 1945, as Japan’s high command met on surrender plans, the U.S. dropped a second bomb on Nagasaki killing 74,000 people instantly, a decision that’s never been adequately explained, writes John LaForge.
After the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki On Aug. 6 and Aug. 9, 1945, there then ensued a U.S. propaganda campaign to claim the slaughter of more than 200,000 people saved lives, writes John LaForge.
Over the past two dozen years, the massive damage that the U.S. has inflicted on Iraq’s population, infrastructure and environment includes the residue from American “deplete uranium” weapons that can cause cancer and other illnesses, writes John LaForge.
Some of our special stories in December 2013 focused on the Saudi role in terrorism, the importance of national security “leakers,” the collapsing case pinning an infamous Sarin attack on Syria, and the renewed war over “the war on Christmas.”
U.S. pundits cheer when some African warlord or East European brute is dragged before an international tribunal, but not at the thought of justice being meted out to George W. Bush or other architects of post-9/11 torture and aggressive war…
The Right’s war on the poor rages on, driven in part by the belief that racial and ethnic minorities are getting much of the help. Yet, as food stamps are slashed, Congress lavishes money on military projects that are judged…
Very little sympathy is felt for Air Force personnel assigned to fire nuclear missiles that could end all life on the planet. But their grim, boring and existentially absurd job has eroded staff morale so much that their collapsing competence…
The warnings about fallout from nuclear tests six decades ago often noted that cancers from the radiation would probably not begin appearing in large numbers for many years. But that time is now and medical experts are wondering whether the…
The U.S. rush to build a giant arsenal of nuclear weapons during the Cold War created an environmental disaster at Hanford in Washington State along the Columbia River. Clean-up costs are staggering and radioactive sludge threatens to contaminate the region’s…