Hey! Check this Out Marshall Island Nuclear Tests

Jorge Larach
Global Politics
Hey, Check This Out! Blog
Topic: College students and professional journalists reveal America's nuclear waste left on the Marshall Islands.

This article talks about immoral nuclear bomb detonations performed during the 50s and 60s in the Marshall Islands. Because of high tensions and the nuclear arms race during the Cold War, the United States chose a remote group of islands in the Pacific and performed nuclear bomb tests for almost two decades. The natives of the islands were systematically convinced that the tests would not be nearly has harmful as they proved to be through wordplay and deceiving assurances. The tests destroyed entire islands and reshaped their topography. After the tests, the natives were exposed to harmful radiation that, over the years, would kill and deform them and their children. The US created Runit Dome, a concrete dome that contains a considerable amount of radioactive soil and debris, including plutonium. Over the decades, the waves surrounding the island have begun to shift the structure, effectively threatening to expose all the harmful material underneath. The natives solicited help from the US, but they were told that since the structure is on their land, it is their responsibility. For the natives, the Runit Dome, nicknamed “the Tomb”, is representative of the broken promises and the damage the US has caused them and their land. The US chose the Marshall islands for their remoteness to the mainland, and the large expanse of islands they could test on. There is a clear lack of sympathy towards the natives of these islands. There is evidence of the US conducting biological weapons tests on these islands, something they left out they would do when forming the agreement with the natives. They also did not test the Marshallese in 1958 that they would be shipping 130 tons of radioactive soil from Nevada to be stored in their islands. This example only furthers the notion that the US is ruthless and unsympathetic when it comes to weapons advancement and dominating the military landscape, even if it comes at the cost of an entire population.

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