It is August 1998 and for the umpteenth time, a crisis with Iraq looms. The U.S. is enraged.
Major media pontificate on the danger.
Peace activists observe the 53rd anniversary of the 192,000 victims of the Hiroshima bomb and commemorate the 8th anniversary of the million-plus victims of the sanctions on Iraq. If the inspectors are looking for weapons of mass destruction, they ought to start a little closer to home. The UN-maintained economic sanctions have already produced more than five times the Hiroshima body count through malnutrition and easily preventable diseases. At tremendous cost to national budgets and true world security, these states have so far avoided fulfilling their obligation to conclude a general convention on nuclear disarmament, as they are bound to do under Article VI of the Nonproliferation Treaty they have all signed. Consequently, activists are taking matters into their own hands.