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Oppenheimer

Oppenheimer, American Exceptionalism And Myths About US Nuking Japan

Dropping the atomic bombs on Japan wasn't necessary, didn't save lives and did not end WWII, argues historian Peter Kuznick. On the 78th anniversary of the US dropping two atomic bombs on Japan, Truth Defence spoke to Peter Kuznick, Professor of History and Director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at American University, based in Washington D.C. Professor Kuznick discusses how the historical record continues to be distorted to this day and what he feels the new Christopher Nolan film "Oppenheimer" gets right and wrong. Professor Kuznick is the author and co-author of numerous books including co-authoring "The Untold History of the United States" with Oliver Stone.

Survivors Of Oppenheimer’s Trinity Test Are Still Fighting For Justice

Eighteen years ago, as Tina Cordova read her local newspaper in the town of Tularosa, New Mexico, she noticed a letter to the editor that made her pause. It was written by the now late Fred Tyler, a fellow New Mexican, about his mother’s recent passing from cancer, after having suffered from several types over the course of her life. “I’m wondering,” Cordova recalled Tyler writing, “when we are going to hold our government accountable for the damage they did by detonating an atomic bomb in our backyard?” In south-central New Mexico, the world’s first atomic bomb was detonated on July 16, 1945.

Atomic Bombing Of Japan Was Not Necessary To End WWII

It is very common for Western governments and media outlets to tell the rest of the world to be very afraid of North Korea and its nuclear weapons, or to fear the possibility that Iran could one day soon have nukes. But the reality is that there is only one country in human history that has used nuclear weapons against a civilian population – and not once, but twice: the United States. On the 6th and 9th of August, 1945, the US military dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Around 200,000 civilians were killed. Today, nearly 80 years later, it is still very common to hear US government officials, journalists, and educators claim that Washington had no choice but to nuke Japan.

Oppenheimer’s Deadly Legacy Of Nuclear Terror

To glorify such deadly science and technology as a dramatic character study, is to spit in the face of hundreds of thousands of corpses and survivors scattered throughout the history of the so-called Atomic age. Think of it this way, for every minute that passes during the film’s 3-hour run time, more than 1,100 citizens in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki died due to Oppenheimer’s weapon of mass destruction. This doesn’t account for those downwind of nuclear tests who were exposed to radioactive fallout (some are protesting screenings), it doesn’t account for those poisoned by uranium mines, it doesn’t account for those killed during nuclear power plant melt-downs, it doesn’t account for those in the Marshall Islands who are forever poisoned.

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