When the "Nagasaki Hiroshima A-Bomb Exhibition: 60 Years Later" opens at the Peace Museum in Chicago this afternoon, visitors probably won't learn that twice as many people were hacked to death by machetes or beaten to death with nail-studded clubs in the 1994 Rwanda civil war than had died in the two nuclear attacks. Maybe three times as many. The Peace Museum started in the early 1980s to promote justice, peace and conflict resolution locally and internationally, according to Alan Jackson, a member of the board of directors. World citizen Yoko Ono also is on the board. The exhibit, sponsored by Japanese organizations, is intended to promote peace and remind everyone that the United States was the only country to use nukes and that Japanese society still is scarred because of it, Jackson said. Maybe America should apologize for ending the war so quickly. Or something. As the next generation of ban-the-bomb-niks stages events such as the "No Nukes! No Wars!" march and rally held last Sunday in New York City, note that mutual assured destruction has kept the Americans, Brits, French, Russians, Chinese, Indians, Pakistanis -- and perhaps the Israelis -- safe. Much safer than the losers in the Rwanda civil war who were sliced and diced with the brutal efficiency of a Ronco Veg-O-Matic. Visitors to the exhibit will be encouraged to make paper cranes -- supposedly the symbol of the peace movement in the land of the rising sun. The museum will send the first thousand paper cranes to Iraq "as a symbolic gesture to demonstrate that we share in Iraq's wish for peace." Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld shares the same wish, sans the origami. The 60th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing is Aug. 6. Back then, there was strong bipartisan support for the nuclear option -- the only opposition being what was left of the Japanese empire. The city of Hiroshima -- along with something called the Mayors for Peace and 611 member cities in 109 countries and regions -- declared the period between Aug. 6, 2004, and Aug. 9 (the month and date of the Nagasaki bomb) of this year as the Year of Remembrance and Action for a Nuclear-Free World. Japan will be providing lots of nuclear devastation props, including atomic bomb survivors, to shame America for having its nuclear arsenal, because "the egocentric worldview of the U.S. government is reaching extremes," according to the Hiroshima mayor's Peace Declaration. But as Barry Goldwater said, extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Thank goodness America has a nuclear arsenal second to none. And that potential enemies know this republic will launch every arrow in its quiver to protect itself. Fear is a wonderful deterrent. If America had been able to announce before Dec. 7, 1941, that the Manhattan Project had been a complete success, there would have been no Pearl Harbor and probably no entry into World War II. In fact, the threat of total annihilation could have caused the Axis powers to cease and desist or risk being vaporized. "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" was one of the great films of all time. Its surreal story line was based on the worst-case scenario of mutual assured destruction. "Hotel Rwanda" also was a great film. It was based on fact.

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