Japan's nuclear-bombed cities plan joint bid for 2020 Olympic Games

On August 6 and 9, 1945 the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively, were bombed by the U.S. with atomic bombs.

Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba of Hiroshima and Nagasaki's Tomihisa Taue are the founders of the Mayors for Peace 2020 campaign, that is an effort have a global ban on nuclear weapons by 2020.

Using this campaign as a spring-board, the mayors are also planning to launch a joint-bid for the 2020 Olympics.

"The Olympics symbolize the abolition of nuclear arms and world peace, and we want to work to realize our plan to host the games," Akiba said.

Last month Akiba spoke in Mexico City and asserted that he believed that the world could indeed abolish nuclear weapons by 2020. He further added that nothing would celebrate such an abolition, than for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the only two cities to ever suffer from atomic strike, to host the Olympics on such a momentous occasion.

One must certainly admit that such an unfolding of events would definitely be cause for celebration, and if a nuclear weapon abolition across the globe were to take place, Hiroshima and Nagasaki would indeed be the perfect places for "icing on the cake," but in reality the whole scheme seems nothing short of utopian.

With a nuclear North Korea and Iran not far behind, attempting to accomplish a world ban on nuclear weapons is not only a utopian idea, but also seemingly naive. Though the U.S. has entered the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, along with Russia, both nations still maintain a nuclear arsenal. China as well will surely not give-up such a weapon. Pakistan and India who are bitter rivals will certainly retain their nuclear weapons as a deterrent to the other-side.

Such a list may go on forever, and to hope that a nuclear ban would take place within the next eleven years is too far fetched for the Olympic Committee to agree to allow the two cities to host the 2020 games. While we must all applaud the effort of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to rid the world of nuclear weapons, and as exciting as it would be for a denuclearized world to watch the Olympics in these two historic cities, the reality is that it may yet be all too far out of reach.