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Butt Science
Sep 3, 2007

I always like to remind people of this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655

Just occasionally acknowledging the fact that, yes, the United States did just happen to shoot down a civilian (Iranian) airliner back in the late 80's, but hey, no big deal or anything.

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Butt Science
Sep 3, 2007

Banana Cream Pie posted:

Okay as long as you're not denying that they intentionally made these places uninhabitable with radiation due to multiple drops, Bravo was just the biggest. It is still impossible to excuse the other 66 testings. How is that not deliberate, intentional and malicious? Do you think it would have happened if the people were white?

As has been stated previously, this is ridiculous. After World War II, the Marshall Islands became part of the US Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. Which meant that from 1947 to the mid-eighties, the US administered the Islands. This just happened to make these territories the furthest possible point from the mainland United States that we could still consider our 'real estate' so to speak. The US government did not specifically seek out a particular indigenous people to irradiate.

And while that may seem to support your point (we're not blowing this poo poo up in our backyard), you have to remember the limited knowledge on the effects of radiation at the time. As someone else stated, Radium was available in consumer products at unsafe levels for years. The guys at Los Alamos, the dudes building these bombs, were playing around with plutonium wearing lab coats and slacks. The idea of Radiation itself, and along with it the idea that it might be harmful, didn't come about until the very beginning of the 20th century. Just like any other new concept, it takes time to understand, time to develop and time to reveal itself in full. It wasn't until several years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki and, indeed, the very tests that were conducted at these islands (ships were usually placed several km from the epicenter of the blast, loaded with livestock) that we began to understand the harmful effects of radiation in full.

Also, it's not like we just said "gently caress Off" to everybody in the areas the US tested in, the government has paid nearly $800 million in reparations for health effects and lasting damage caused by the bombs.