The nuclear terrorist state

The atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are now fifty years behind us. Yet we're still struggling with the reality of the “bomb” and a U.S. nuclear national‐security state that operates secretly, wielding nuclear weapons as a policy instrument. Since the Japanese bombings, the U.S. has used nuclear weapons to achieve various political ends. Most of them violate international law, often flagrantly. Their use constitutes both nuclear terrorism and state criminality. International law, while fluctuating in strength over the years, provides a good standard for judging the legality of state policies. Many of the U.S. atomic and nuclear actions have violated international standards. For example, they violate the United Nations Charter, which prohibits threats to the peace and wars of aggression. They violate the Genocide Convention, which forbids any plan for the destruction of a racial or ethnic group. They violate the Nuremburg Principles, which forbid reckless and non‐consensual human experiments conducted under state auspices. Thus, U.S. nuclear policy is not merely lamentable and injurious, but also criminal under international laws the U.S. claims it endorses. Contrary to popular perceptions, the U.S. did not stop using atomic and nuclear weapons after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They have been used seriously to threaten enemy states at least a dozen times since 1945, including Truman's threat against Iran in 1946, Eisenhower's 1954 offer to “protect” Indochina for the French, and Kennedy's threat against the Soviet Union several times during his administration

Charter · International law · Nuclear ethics · Nuclear terrorism · Nuclear weapon · Political science · Politics · Principle of legality · State (computer science · Terrorism · United Nations Charter · International Law and Human Rights · Law · Nuclear and radioactivity studies · Nuclear Issues and Defense