How the U.S. betrayed the Marshall Islands, kindling the next nuclear disaster

https://www.latimes.com/projects/marshall-islands-nuclear-testing-sea-level-rise/

181 92 7 years ago

Why is it, when reading this article, all I can picture is that meme of the SS officer saying "Wait a minute... Are WE the baddies?".

I am starting to interpret a lot of things I took for granted in my younger years with a different viewpoint, and I am increasingly horrified when I do, as the perceptions I've always had that most Western countries are the benevolent benefactors is tainted by stories such as this, which shows a brutal, callous disregard for other sovereign nations.

fiendlygenus• 7 years ago

Recall that as they say, "history is written by the victors." The victors tend to whitewash what they do.

kiba• 7 years ago

That's inaccurate. It would be more fair to say that history is written by whoever left behind written records.

Example: Europeans who survived the black death were arguably losers of history.

chvid• 7 years ago

You don’t win the war by being good. But if you win the war you get to write the history.

cyberferret3• 7 years ago

True that. Both my parents grew up near a POW camp in Malaysia during WWII. They said that yes, when the Japanese occupied Malaya, the treatment of the allied prisoners by the Japanese guards was brutal and cruel. But they also said when the tables turned later in the war, and the Japanese were prisoners in the same camps under British and US guards, the treatment dished out was every way just as bad.

skrebbel• 7 years ago

It took me a long time to realize this, but now I recognize that which I think most of my fellow Europeans already know: yes, you're the baddies (I knew that already), but you're the best baddies of the baddies available. Our other options are to associate with eg China or Russia, and between those the US, even with people like Trump at the wheel, is splendid.

Naturally, I think that the US should do a much bigger effort to be less evil. But at least in the US, people can wonder what you're wondering. There's a chance that one day the US will be less bad, while staying a superpower. There's freedom of speech and a generally functioning democracy.

Yes, you're the baddies, ish, and you can help make it better. That's super cool.

EDIT: obviously we (NL, EU, etc, are evil in many ways too. This bothers the shit out of me and I try to do my part to fix it)

gdy15• 7 years ago

"Our other options are to associate with eg China or Russia, and between those the US, even with people like Trump at the wheel, is splendid."

Russia has done nothing even remotely comparable to what the US has done in Middle East: after the second Iraq war the country still hasn't recovered, Libya is a mess, Syria is a mess, ISIS was a horror.

After all that calling the US splendid compared to Russia is bizarre.

Maybe you at least should try to do what benefits the EU, not the US, or Russia, or China.

thrower123• 7 years ago

As much hate as the British get, the British Empire is one of the great forces of advancement and progress in the history of the world. It's unfortunate on a global scale that the US nor anyone else was able to effect a decent handoff when the Brits renounced all their possessions. Untold misery has been the result of that failed transition.

trevyn• 7 years ago

Western countries are the benevolent benefactors is tainted by stories such as this, which shows a brutal, callous disregard for other sovereign nations.

The US took control of the Marshall Islands in 1944. From Japan. After Pearl Harbor. There was no sovereign nation.

elfexec• 7 years ago

most Western countries are the benevolent benefactors

Did you miss out on the world events of the past 500 years? It has been 500 years of war, genocide, rape and theft by the west on the rest of the world. I don't recall anyone using benevolence to describe what happened in the past 500 years.

There isn't an ounce of benevolence in the west or east or south or north or wherever. Human beings are brutes. This isn't really a western trait, it's a human trait. When one group gets the upper hand, you get brutish behavior. For one reason or a another, the west got the upper hand for 500 years. And it's been a relentless and horrific series of genocides, slavery, conquest, mass rapes, nukes, etc - not benevolence.

cmrdporcupine• 7 years ago

Not sure why you're getting downvoted. North America started with the deliberate genocide of its indigenous population -- who by recent estimates numbered in the millions -- continued to brutal enslavement of Africans and then proceeded to project imperial control over the rest of the hemisphere in the 19th century, then the world in the 20th century.

tekkk• 7 years ago

Well when you look down the history you'll find every nation did something horrible (if they have existed long enough). US itself is quite special case in its imperialism which happened much later than the others's (Spain, Netherlands etc).

But coming back to present day, it's the actions that we do now that in my opinion matter the most. And US keeps failing on those still, time after time. European countries are in some regards better, but well we are still far away from that utopian society where all things are in perfect balance.

It's sad though that US can't take responsibility for their own nuclear waste. They spend billions on their armed forces yet fixing the aftermath of their nuclear bomb tests can't be fit into that budget? Makes no sense.

digitalengineer• 7 years ago

I think the people in former Yugoslavia and also the Middle East would love to see the army pick up after itself. Especially the depleted uranium ammunition turns the areas it was used in into a wasteland. I remember a British researcher pulling one used round from a water-tank and brining it home. The airport in the UK went NUTS. One round... The army used 1000 tons of depleted uranium munitions in 3 weeks during the 2003 Iraq war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium#Ammunition

ianleeclark• 7 years ago

US itself is quite special case in its imperialism which happened much later than the others's (Spain, Netherlands etc).

This happened because the US emerged and differentiated itself from a colonial power. Also, the imperialism of the US was there from almost the very beginning. A call-to-action of sorts for the colonies was when their British metropolitan counterparts attempted to limit their western expansion. There's a weird belief where people think the US only turned to imperialism around the time of the Spanish-American war, but this was only due to running out of western expansion within their own lands.

cvwright• 7 years ago

The US paid to develop and maintain those weapons to protect you from Russia for 50 years. Maybe you Europeans could pick up the tab for the clean-up?

atombender• 7 years ago

The US military is an enormous polluter, even on native soil. Places like Hanford site — which is still undergoing cleanup after being decommissioned in the 1970s — are well known, but there are thousands of places the military has ravaged.

One good example is the naval training range the island of Vieques outside Puerto Rico [1], abandoned in the early 2000s and today a superfund site; they're still cleaning that up. Heavy metals such as mercury pollute the soil, cancer rates are way up, and the Eastern side of the island is littered with ammunition, unexploded ordnance and possibly depleted uranium.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Navy_in_Vieques,...

lumberingjack• 7 years ago

Search for fernald nuclear plant the US government did same thing there in my home town. Took the worst nuclear waste known to man put it in a concrete silo that cracked and leaked into our water source. The whole town was drinking from a aquifer that had k-65 waste in direct contact with the water pool and you could see the cracked leaking silo from the road.

magicsmoke• 7 years ago

If you want to be an optimist, the fact that you're worried about atrocities committed by the American empire means that you're not a cold-hearted brute that believes inflicting human suffering is something to be applauded or encouraged. Being concerned about such things means you believe they're not right and should be changed.

If you want to be a pessimist, the ability to be concerned about how America's actions hurt others is actually a luxury you can only afford because you grew up in a time after America has committed all the atrocities that brought it to where it is today. The US has an entire continent of land and resources, a low population density and plenty of room to grow, and no powerful neighbors that could threaten to invade it because it has two oceans as natural boundaries. Back when American settlers couldn't satisfy the lower rungs on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, food and security, they had no problems taking land from natives and eliminating hostile tribes as they expanded to the Pacific. But only after those needs were satisfied could Americans think about needs like esteem and self-actualization. Etc being a compassionate country that doesn't commit atrocities and being a global leader.

Unfortunately, this means that as America's standing in the world becomes less secure with the rise of powerful rivals and changes due to global warming, it's quite likely concerns about "being the baddies" will slide to the background.

haecceity• 7 years ago

Stop thinking too much. Look at the crazy stuff North Korea is doing!

sorokod• 7 years ago

Mitchell and Webb.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hn1VxaMEjRU

ummonk• 7 years ago

If we weren't before, wee certainly are the baddies after the Eddie Gallagher pardon.

aritmo• 7 years ago

Is there a list of similar or bigger issues than this nuclear disaster?

svara• 7 years ago

This is terrifying and so sad. Here they're talking about plans to resettle the displaced local population back to the location of a nuclear bomb test:

""" U.S. government documents from the time show that officials weighed the potential hazards of radiation exposure against “the current low morale of the natives” and a “risk of an onset of indolence.” Ultimately they decided to go forward with the resettlement so researchers could study the effects of lingering radiation on human beings.

“Data of this type has never been available,” Merrill Eisenbud, a U.S official with the Atomic Energy Commission, said at a January 1956 meeting of the agency’s Biology and Medicine Committee. “While it is true that these people do not live the way that Westerners do, civilized people, it is nonetheless also true that they are more like us than the mice. """

mirimir2• 7 years ago

Back in the 40s-60s, the AEC was also cool with radiation exposure testing on US troops, poor Black people, prisoners, etc.

Edit: Plus Japanese, of course. And, arguably, the entire US population.

vectorEQ• 7 years ago

that makes it so much better... These scientists knew exactly what they were doing and what the fallout would be. They just chose to dump the large part on some foreign place and continue to this day to lie and deceive these peoples. not to say they were the only one. but it's sick, and that's it. nothing else to it. They should by now in 2019 know better and respond better.

julienfr1123• 7 years ago

Just send an email inviting Iran to come and get the plutonium. Before the email even left your server, US money and people from three letters agencies will start raining ....

adventured2• 7 years ago

Your premise is the worst possible choice, next to the other person that suggested starting a nuclear war against the US with the material. Emailing the Iranians to come get it will get you blockaded, sanctioned and occupied by the US military if all else fails. The Iranians aren't close to being stupid enough to act on it.

thawaway1837• 7 years ago

For some reason some of these ideas on this comment section remind me of those Coke employees who stole the “secret formula” and tried to sell it to Pepsi.

Pepsi, unsurprisingly, immediately called the cops and had them arrested.

julienfr1123• 7 years ago

As long as you don't do anything out of the box , US won't take responsibility for their mess. Why should they ? Not their best interest to spend money at a small remote island. Calling Iran is just about making it their problem again. I think you are the type of people that don't ask for a raise because you are afraid not being seen a "team player". How nice of you !!

_trampeltier• 7 years ago

I asked myself almost the same question. It should be pretty easy to get radioactive material there for a couple of dirty bombs.

LatteLazy4• 7 years ago

Technically this waste became the problem of the Marshall Islands when they became independent in 1979. That was the time to negotiate with the US about the remaining waste. This is similar to how Chernobyl is a Ukrainian issue.

That said, the islanders still have a lot of options. As a free and independent nation, they own the waste with all it's problems BUT also with all it's advantages.

Call the Iranians, the North Koreans, the Indians, the Pakistanis and anyone else with cash and ambition (ISIS, the Saudis?). Tell them you have 30 olympic sized pools worth of plutonium-containing waste and you're holding an auction for it on April 1st next year. More than enough for 1000 dirty bombs or maybe even a few high yield A-bombs if they can be bothered to refine it.

Then watch the western world beat a path to your door to talk about how much they want to take the same material for "safe keeping" and how the "global community" is "excited to help".

What was it Churchill said: "You can rely on the US (the western world) to do the right thing; once they have exhausted every other option".

julienfr1123• 7 years ago

we had exactly the same idea ...

LatteLazy4• 7 years ago

Lol, great minds!

It does amaze me when these things come up. It's like everyone wants to avoid paying the bill (I understand that). But if no one pays, the problem will be vastly more than the cost of the bill. So why don't people just sigh and say "we'll pay our share if the EU and China agree to contribute the same"!? Given the tininess of the sums compared to the budgets of the groups involved, its not rocket science.

I was amazed more countries were not willing to contribute to replacing the Chernobyl sarcophagus. If it starts leaking, everyone is will lost 100s of billions, but a few billion is too much to avoid that!?

Heliosmaster• 7 years ago

Another idea to "force" US hand is to make it their problem in other ways. Dig it up, and threaten to leave it / break it on a place where currents flow towards continental United States.

Of course this should never be done, as it is some sort of eco-terrorism, but is one of the many ways the US can have their hands forced.

Edit: in case this is not clear, I am never advocating for something like this to happen. But it is always a stupid idea to leave potentially lethal and dangerous materials on the land of a place you've scarred and destroyed and which doesn't want it at all.

adventured2• 7 years ago

Dig it up, and threaten to leave it / break it on a place where currents flow towards continental United States.

Declaring war on the United States with a threat of intentional nuclear warfare against its population would be a particularly bad idea. That'll get your sovereignty revoked very quickly via military occupation.

The response to what I said of course is: yeah but the US is doing a bad thing. That's correct and it changes absolutely nothing about the fact that declaring nuclear war on the US, declaring the intention to try to harm its people with nuclear material, is a bad idea. Fairness is never going to exist between a superpower and weaker nations, it never has, it never will. The superpower dictates the terms in nearly all cases.

dsfyu404ed• 7 years ago

Another idea to "force" US hand is to make it their problem in other ways. Dig it up, and threaten to leave it / break it on a place where currents flow towards continental United States.

It's not wise for small nations to give big nations the bird like that when there are other options. GP's suggestion is much more tactful because nobody worth taking seriously is going to argue with the idea of selling property to the highest bidder whereas dumping stuff in the ocean is generally frowned upon by everyone.

wrnr• 7 years ago

Do you want to sit on the board of my startup I could use your advice?

LatteLazy4• 7 years ago

:) Depends, what sort of shares are you offering and do you have at least 10 Olympic pools of plutonium-containing waste?

orbifold• 7 years ago

That also seems like a great way of some more bomb testing coming your way.

forgetfulusr• 7 years ago

I agree if by 'beat a bath to your door' you meant - send a battle ship or two, close down all trade routes to and from the islands and declare it a terror state, in need of freedom and nukilear mat extraction. Sounds more plausible.

noobermin• 7 years ago

Threaten the US at your own peril.

senorjazz• 7 years ago

The John Pilger documentary "The Coming War with China" has a big section on the Marshall Islands, I was ignorant of the situation there and found it interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDl9ecICIYg

nisse72• 7 years ago

I also recommend his doco "The War on Democracy"

http://johnpilger.com/videos/the-war-on-democracy

einpoklum• 7 years ago

The Marshall Islanders never had any reason to trust the US. These poor people will be crushed by imperial interest and there is very little they can do about it.

While all this is happening, the Marshall Islands continues to lend a UN GA vote to those exact US interests. For example, they are a staunch friend of Israel against near-unanimous international condemnations, and other such ridiculous votes.

This is sad and tragic, and I hope it gives the US citizens among you some pause regarding what is being done in your name.

PS - Don't expect this to change after the elections.

austincheney• 7 years ago

The language and title of the article seem a bit loaded, though there isn't any reason to question the basic facts of the article.

While it is true that entire islands were blown away and lagoons contaminated with waste from test detonations there was probably only one blast that probably directly and permanently impacted people in the area: Castle Bravo.

Castle Bravo was a test failure that made the Bikini Atoll famous, because the explosion was stupendously larger than the planned detonation. That test was supposed to be a secret experiment, but because it was so large it became an instantly known international incident. Wikipedia says the planned detonation was 6 megatons, though video documentary puts the planned detonation at closer to 4.5 megatons. Even still it would have been the largest man-made explosion to that point.

The actual explosion was somewhere between 14.5-15.5 megatons. The failure was a misunderstanding of basic chemistry under nuclear conditions. Scientists knew at the time that explosive force could be multiplied by an order of magnitude by wrapping a nuclear bomb device in fissile material thereby creating a multi-stage detonation. The first stage is the nuclear bomb itself and the second stage is the reaction of the fissile material to the intense heat and pressure thereby becoming fuel for an additional layer of explosion not used by the initial nuclear detonation.

The reason for a multi-stage devise is that a nuclear core has a specific job and the fuel of the second stage would not help achieve that job. The second stage only becomes valid once the first stage is complete. But that second stage fuel isn't stable. It is a rapidly decaying material, which in this case was radio isotope lithium 6. To increase stability the second stage material was wrapped in a blanket of lithium 7. lithium 7 is a heavier radio isotope, but it does not decay in a way that makes it a fissile material. Specifically, Lithium 6 decays into tritium when bombarded with neutrons and tritium is a very unstable radio isotope of hydrogen with 3 neutrons that is the core of the infamous H-bomb.

What scientists didn't know at the time is that under the heat and pressure of a nuclear detonation lithium 7 sheds a neutron and rapidly becomes lithium 6. That effectively means Castle Bravo was the first 3 stage nuclear bomb where all material supplied decayed in a specific order to become fuel in separate stages and each stage magnifying the explosive capability.

Local islanders were impacted by that detonation, but so were many American observers and scientists 30 miles away. The local islanders, and a Japanese fishing vessel, were further away than the Americans in that area, but were in the path of high altitude wind flow. The largest environmental failure from this was the inability to contain the resulting toxins. Trace amounts of fallout would eventually reason Japan, India, and the US. The entire local region was contaminated in a way that would only be understood or measurable over decades due to the increased presence of heavy metals in the ground and water resulting in toxic food supplies and heavy metal poisoning.

* Castle Bravo - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Bravo

* Radio Isotopes of Lithium - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_lithium

* Bikini Atoll - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bikini_Atoll

* A good video documentary - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qM4ZYQmFGlw

gus_massa• 7 years ago

Nitpicking:

The failure was a misunderstanding of basic chemistry under nuclear conditions.
What scientists didn't know at the time is that under the heat and pressure of a nuclear detonation lithium 7 sheds a neutron and rapidly becomes lithium 6.

I thought that it's very strange that chemistry is involved here and that the heat and pressure cause that, so I looked in Wikipedia:

When lithium-7 is bombarded with energetic neutrons, rather than simply absorbing a neutron, it captures the neutron and decays almost instantly into an alpha particle, a tritium nucleus, and another neutron.

So the cause is an unexpected nuclear reaction, not an unexpected chemical reaction.

newnewpdro• 7 years ago

There's a small hardcover book I found while rummaging through books taken out of circulation at a public library called "Bombs over Bikini" which documents the nuclear tests done over these islands and how the US deceived the Marshallese people.

Its size and format is targeted at children, and contains many photos from the era. It's a very surreal book to page through, leaving me speechless and curious why it would be taken out of circulation. I ended up buying it with a $1 "donation".

https://www.amazon.com/Bombs-over-Bikini-Disaster-Nonfiction...

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18354016-bombs-over-biki...

monster_group• 7 years ago

FTA - “While it is true that these people do not live the way that Westerners do, civilized people, it is nonetheless also true that they are more like us than the mice.”

I find this statement callous and shocking. I get what she is trying to say but to me it seems a very poor choice of words.

stuzenz• 7 years ago

As someone who lives in the South Pacific - in a nuclear free country what's more - the whole affair makes me upset and sad.

The sad irony in the below article is hard to miss.

https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2019-11-14/marshal...

It probably gives you some perspective on why people outside of the States are often perplexed on why the US can lead discussions on nuclear nonproliferation when they continue to be a bad actor.

The above linked article is reasonable evidence U.S government is more concerned about their image than doing the right thing.

How the U.S. betrayed the Marshall Islands, kindling the next nuclear disaster

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