U. S. ‘ does n’t like … any concerns about the accepted belief of World War II as a’ good’ conflict’
The entry into World War II and its subsequent conduct has had many flaws, but the least contentious was likely the decision to go into it.
After two years of fighting, we suddenly stepped up after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941.
After almost four bloody years, the Chinese accepted defeat when the United States dropped their fresh nuclear weapon on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The U.S. had made the logical choice to use the A-bomb to push a swift retreat, saving hundreds of thousands of lives on both sides, given that atomic weapons technology was only invented and the shame surrounding them was almost nonexistent at the time.
But Michigan State University’s Naoko Wake, who’s “explored gender, cultural, cross- national identities that emerged in Asia and Asian America in post- imperial contexts”, claims the U. S. “does n’t need to raise any questions about the accepted notion of World War II as a’ excellent’ war”.
Wake , ( pictured ) expressed these misgivings regarding the film” Oppenheimer” in a recent interview and op- ed. Her views are n’t specifically original, when the movie came out Wake’s like- minded” philosophers” were out in power.
But, alas, the picture just cleaned up at the Academy Awards.
Wake is miffed” Oppenheimer” is another offering of the “narrative” which “paints the] A -] bombs ‘ creation as a morally fraught but necessary project” … and, like other nuclear holocaust epics such as” The Day After” and” Testament“, makes it “easy to believe that if a nuclear attack had ever occurred, it must have been in a U. S. city”.
MORE: On the 70th anniversary of the nuclear attacks of Japan, avoid the ideologues
In the end, movie like” Oppenheimer” present few, if any, fresh perspectives about the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and their implications.
More than 200, 000 people died, and the victims included Koreans who had been in Japan as required workmen or military soldiers as well as residents who had lost their lives.
In reality,  , 1 in every 10 people who survived the weapon were Koreans, but the U. S. state has not recognized them as victims of U. S. martial problems. They still struggle to get medical care for their long-term energy illness.
As Wake more zeroes in on the victims of the A-bombs, eliciting love for those who had endured long-lasting effects of energy such as cancer, the picture of the interview highlights the contemporary dangers of context-free history pushed by “influencers.”
Oppenheimer has been released in Japan, eight weeks after its international release.
We spoke with writer Naoko Wake to find out why the United States refuses to accept responsibility for the war crimes committed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and why all of this is pertinent to what we do now. photograph. twitter.com/sQQS8SWyLd
— AJ+ ( @ajplus ) April 1, 2024
” Many]bomb victims ] decided not to have family at all”, Wake tells the young female narrator. ” They did n’t want to have children because they were afraid of deformity”.
The speaker informs people that under today’s requirements, use of the A- bombs may be considered a combat crime. Oh, and “let’s no forget”, she says,” that the U. S. is actually the only country ever to employ nuclear weapons in battle”.
She next laments that no U.S. president has ever expressed an apology to the A-bomb victims and therefore delves into how this lack of explanation fits into the design of the United States never acknowledging its crimes in foreign policy.
” So why does it matter how the U. S. conversations about Hiroshima and Nagasaki”? the storyteller asks. ” Well, if the U. S. avoids reckoning with its past use of atomic weaponry, it raises the problem of how they may be used in the future”.
Well, let’s see: The fact no nukes have been used in warfare since Nagasaki ( 80 years ) should allay a good deal of concern, especially given the Korean War ( for which the use of nukes was seriously considered — just a mere five years after WWII ) and 1962’s Cuban Missile Crisis.
Given the deaths from Japanese atrocities in the late 1930s through 1945 numbered in the , millions ( and let’s certainly not forget its ally Nazi Germany ), the aforementioned novelty of atomic weaponry, and the keen myopia of Professor Wake and her young interviewer, sane people know it’s a good thing that America developed ( and used ) atomic technology first.
If it did n’t, existing fields of study such as Wake’s” 20th Century, Comparative, Cultural, Women &, Gender, Science/Medicine” would not even be permitted to exist.
MORE: A Princeton course examines the connection between” settler colonialism” and “nuclear science.”
IMAGES: Shutterstock .com, Michigan State U.
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