Eighty Years After Hiroshima, Washington Still Chooses Fire
By Mohamad Hammoud
Hiroshima and the Beginning of a Dark Era
At 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945, a lone US B-29 bomber opened its bay doors over Hiroshima and released a uranium bomb nicknamed Little Boy. By nightfall, an estimated 70,000 civilians lay dead. Three days later, a second atomic bomb fell on Nagasaki, bringing the death toll to over 200,000. Entire cities were vaporized, and the United States became the only country in history to use nuclear weapons in war. The official justification was to end World War II and save American lives.
But for many, those bombings were not the end of war—they were the beginning of a new age, one where Washington would repeatedly demonstrate that when its interests are threatened, the mass killing of civilians becomes acceptable—even routine.
A Template, Not an Exception
The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not an exception—they set a precedent. In Korea, US carpet bombing killed millions. In Vietnam, Agent Orange and saturation bombings claimed two million lives. Cambodia and Laos remain littered with deadly ordnance. In Iraq, from Desert Storm to the 2003 invasion, over a million perished. In Afghanistan, two decades of war killed at least 46,000 civilians. In Yemen and Syria, US support and airstrikes left tens of thousands more dead.
This is not an unfortunate series of isolated events. It is a pattern—a strategy. When the United States claims to bring “democracy,” “stability” or “freedom,” civilians die in industrial numbers. Over and over again, America has chosen fire.
From Firebombing to Drone Wars—A Continuum of Violence
The weapons change—napalm, nuclear bombs, bunker busters, drones—but the underlying logic stays the same. Washington wields its power with overwhelming, often disproportionate force, usually against weaker nations. Civilian casualties are rebranded as “collateral damage,” and mass killings become bureaucratized through sanitized language like “precision targeting” or “surgical strikes.” But the result is always the same: entire communities obliterated, cities turned to ash, and countless lives reduced to footnotes in foreign policy briefings.
Gaza: The Fire This Time
Nowhere is the moral failure more glaring than in Gaza. Since October 2023, “Israel”—armed, financed, and diplomatically shielded by the United States—has carried out one of the most sustained and brutal military assaults in modern history. Over 60,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, have been killed. Entire neighborhoods have been flattened. Hospitals, schools, refugee camps, and places of worship have been bombed. US cargo planes continue to land in “Tel Aviv” with fresh shipments of 2,000-pound bombs, while Washington blocks ceasefire resolutions and parrots “Israel’s” language of self-defense.
What the world fails to grasp is that the tonnage of explosives dropped on Gaza now exceeds that of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. Reports estimate over 65,000 tons of bombs have been dropped on one of the most densely populated places on Earth. By comparison, the nuclear bombs on Japan had a combined explosive yield of 36,000 tons. Gaza, besieged and without shelter or escape, has endured nearly double that destructive force—backed by American weaponry and political cover.
And unlike Hiroshima, where the attack was over in seconds, Gaza has endured this bombardment for nearly two years. A slow, grinding genocide in real time.
The Silence That Enables
The so-called international community watches in silence. European governments that once condemned the firebombing of Dresden now rationalize the firebombing of Gaza. Human rights organizations, once bold in their denunciations of Vietnam or apartheid South Africa, tread carefully when it comes to “Israel”. Major media outlets echo Pentagon talking points and cast doubt on Palestinian casualty figures, despite the overwhelming evidence.
The lesson Washington claims to have learned from Hiroshima—“never again”—turns out to be a warning only to its enemies, never to its victims.
The Next Target: Lebanon
And now, the fire spreads. Having destroyed Iraq, fractured Libya, and plunged Syria and Yemen into chaos, Washington is turning its gaze to Lebanon. US officials are pressuring the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah—even if that means civil war. The Lebanese Army has been instructed to draft a disarmament plan. The path to war is being paved once more—not in secret, but openly.
As before, the flames are fanned from afar. If Lebanon burns, it won’t be because of ancient sectarian hatreds—it will be because Washington, yet again, chose fire over diplomacy.
The Real Legacy of Hiroshima
Eighty years after Hiroshima, the real danger is not that the United States has forgotten that day. The real danger is that it remembers and repeats it. From Japan to Korea, from Vietnam to Iraq, from Afghanistan to Gaza, the pattern is unmistakable. Destruction is normalized. Civilians are dehumanized. And violence is rebranded as virtue.
Hiroshima should have been a moral alarm, a reckoning with the dangers of arrogance and unchecked power. Instead, it became a blueprint. A doctrine. A message: If you are strong enough, no crime is too great.
On this grim anniversary, we must stop pretending that the world learned a lesson in 1945. Because if it did, the lesson was not “never again”. The lesson was: do it again—just better. And call it peace.
