MACKINAW CITY – Today's school systems around the country practice active shooter preparedness, which have gained popularity since The Columbine High School massacre in 1999 and Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012.
When Mackinaw City attorney Anabel Dwyer was in school in the late 1940s through the 1950s, practice drills known as “duck and cover” were performed by schools to protect students from atomic bombs falling from the sky.
A “ridiculous” drill Dwyer says, given the known effects of the 1945 U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. The bombings instantly killed over 100,000 people between the two locations on the first day and the four months that followed, the acute effects from the nuclear blasts took an additional 200,000 fatalities, although an accurate death toll has never been determined.
To “duck and cover” in the event of a nuclear attack would be as useless as having the wrong anti-venom while trapped in an inescapable cobra pit. If the bomb didn't get you, cancer, illness, physical and psychological damage would.
U.S. nuclear testing sites in The Marshall Islands and in Western Shoshone land in Nevada also left victims (downwinders) of radioactive fallout with cancer. Most ironically, John Wayne, who filmed "The Conqueror" in Utah was downwind from the detonation site in Nevada. It was also known that among the cast and crew, 91 had come down with cancer.
“Nuclear weapons cannot distinguish between civilian and combatants, and their effects cannot be contained in space or time,” said Dwyer, who is a board member of the Lawyer's Committee on Nuclear Policy, the US Branch of the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms. LCNP and IALANA are two of 468 partner organizations that make up ICAN (International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons), this year's winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.
“Drawing attention to catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons,” is the reason ICAN received the Nobel Peace Prize according to Berit Reiss-Andersen, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
Dwyer's organization worked for many years for complete nuclear disarmament.
“A person or corporation that makes these weapons has to understand and admit to the indiscriminate and uncontrollable harms of heat, blast and radiation. Then you have to realize that this is all done by people against other people and the natural system on which we depend, and we have control of what we do as human beings,” said Dwyer.
Aside from being a board member of the Lawyer's Committee on Nuclear Policy, Dwyer holds a Doctor of Jurisprudence degree from Thomas M. Cooley Law School. Dwyer co-counseled for The Michigan Nuremberg Campaign and was the lead author in a Brief in Support of a Citizens' Petition to State and Federal Authorities entitled, “In re: Request for Investigation/Prosecution of Officers and Directors of Williams International Corporation in Walled Lake, Michigan and Commanders of Wurtsmith Air Force Base in Oscoda, Michigan.” The 1991 Brief presented extensive evidence and law to show claims that at Wurtsmith and Williams International officers and directors planned, prepared and threatened to commit war crimes against peace, and crimes against humanity. “Many dedicated people and organizations working together got rid of the scourge of nuclear weapons in Michigan. Wurtsmith Air Force Base was eventually closed and cruise missile engines were no longer made at Williams International Corporation.
Dwyer continued her journey in the World Court Project and trips to Japan to speak at workshops in early August ceremonies in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Because of the Michigan Nuremberg Campaign, Dwyer was part of a three person legal team during the 1995 Oral Hearings at the ICJ (International Court of Justice) in The Hague in the Netherlands on the request by the UN General Assembly for an advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons. She has also been a defense attorney in a number of US cases of non-violent resistance to nuclear weapons.
The hard work and determination of local philanthropist and accomplished attorney Anabel Dwyer should be what inspires and encourages next generation politicians and military personnel to refrain from the utilization of weapons of mass destruction and the testing of such weapons. The Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons was signed by 190 countries in 1970 to do just that. This year's ICAN Nuclear Ban Treaty signed by 122 countries gives us all new impetus to finally abolish nuclear weapons. Although schools still utilize the “duck and cover” method with regards to tornado or earthquake drills, nuclear weapons in anyone's hands can leave humanity in a cobra pit without anywhere to hide and no anti-venom to survive the fangs of an atomic bomb.