No More Obliteration Ever Again Please

I joined the discussions of Senator Clinton's recent comments about being ready to "obliterate" Iran.

Are American students ever shown the effects of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, up close and personal? American students probably only see the abstract mushroom cloud photos of nuclear weapons. If all students had to understand what their nation had done to the civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they would know on a deeper level how horrible Clinton's statement was. I believe German students are taught about the horrors the Nazi regime committed. And Japanese students learn about the Manchurian Massacre and other horrors committed by the Japanese imperial army, and they have had to fight against revisionist historians trying to "correct" their textbooks. But are our children shown the actual photos and given material to read from eyewitnesses to the devastation wrought when our government dropped "little" nuclear weapons that killed 100,000 civilians in two Japanese cities? Many students around the world have seen that destruction. Our students should see and understand what citizens of other countries know about what our nation has done. Just be aware of how intense such "obliterating" can be. Quite nightmarish.
>>> And another commentator reminded me that No, in fact, PBS ombudsman criticized journalist Moyers for not attacking Wright's criticism of the US attack on Hiroshima. AND Smithsonian (Gov't Museum institution) was forced to CANCEL an exhibit of the Enola Gay 50th anniversary at the Air and Space Museum because veterans groups and Congress threatened to fire all the curators for being anti-nuke. (They wanted to display the photos you mention and were silenced.)

Someone in another discussion reminded us that some countries have vowed to annihilate others. I reminded them that only the USA has ever done so and U.S. students should be shown clear photographic evidence of the effects of the little bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Those effects are not abstract to the Japanese people, or any international citizens who have looked over the photographs and read the accounts of witnesses to those little nuclear weapons the USA tested on the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That knowledge should be a part of every American student's education. It may just be that the Iranians have seen the actual gore that resulted from previous nuclear use by the USA. Those bombs killed hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians-- incinerating some and melting the flesh from the bones of others and serving up birth defects for subsequent generations. Here are some photos taken at the time http://faculty.ucmerced.edu/smalloy/atomic_tragedy/phot... .. Not an abstract awesome mushroom cloud photo from a nuclear test in the desert. The results of bombs dropped on urban centers that melted or incinerated the flesh of hundreds of thousands of people. The USA has done that. Over there. On those Japanese people. If a prominent US politician threatened your country with nukes and had already invaded a neighboring country under false pretenses, how would you feel?

I seem to recall minutes of silence on August 6th of every year, in which people came together to renew a shared commitment to be sure that there is No More Hi-ro-shi-ma, No More Na-ga-sa-ki... I am hearing that phrase repeated, as it is chanted in demonstrations here and in Japan. I remember moments of silence for that in San Francisco, too. Missed them recently. And I do remember the Enola Gay exhibitions being canceled at the Air & Space Museum. And I have encountered lots of Americans who seem to think those horrifying bombings should be irrelevant when considering what might be "the best goddamn country" in the world.