James Costello: Obama should live up to his fine words at Hiroshima
President Barrack Obama just made an historic symbolic act as the first sitting U.S. President to visit Hiroshima. He said, “Let all the souls here rest in peace; for we shall not repeat the evil.”
However, President Obama’s words in Hiroshima are contradicted by his actions on nuclear disarmament. He has laid the groundwork to spend $1 trillion over the next three decades to modernize the U.S. nuclear arsenal. President Obama should begin negotiations to eliminate nuclear weapons, as required by the 1970 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. In the meantime, he should dramatically reduce the U.S. nuclear arsenal and urge Russia to do the same.
He should also cancel the $1 trillion, 30-year program to modernize the U.S. nuclear arsenal and redirect those funds to meet human needs here.
He should ensure that “...we shall not repeat the evil.”
James Costello, Ceres
This story was originally published May 31, 2016 at 2:19 PM with the headline "James Costello: Obama should live up to his fine words at Hiroshima."