Hiroshima mayor sends nuclear alert to Bush

The mayor of Hiroshima seems to be a ninny.

Akiba urged U.S. President George W. Bush to visit both his city and Nagasaki -- targeted by a second atomic bomb three days after Hiroshima -- to see the destructive power of nuclear weapons.

"America has not been given the right to impose a 'Pax Americana' and to decide the fate of the world," he said, condemning what some see as America's go-it-alone stance.

And yet, Go-It-Alone America is the only major nation (with the arguable exception of Britain) actually doing anything about nuclear proliferation. The USA is trying to keep them out of the hands of Saddam Hussein and others who would certainly use them. But anti-Americanism and "multilateralism" is so bound up in this sort of thinking that the thinkers can't accept it. The United States is acting unilaterally, which must be bad, even though we're trying to prevent nuclear war. That's your Pax Americana.

By the way, whatever positive attributes George W. Bush has, deep personal introspection is not one of them. I doubt visiting Hiroshima and Nagasaki would have much of an effect on him.