Oppenheimer Oscar leaves bad taste

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The movie does kinda paint Oppenheimer (correctly) as bit of a martyr.

Much like the recent movie about Allen Turing.

Oppenheimer is a good movie.

Maybe not THE best of the year.

But you cant put a copyright on the laws of nature.

If the US hadnt invented the A bomb we would not be living in a nuclear free utopia today. Some other nation would have invented it.

Indeed Oppenheimer is shown as having resisted and reigning in his own subordinate, Edward Teller, and Teller's fanatical pressure, to skip the fission bomb altogether and go straight for building a fusion (ie hydrogen) bomb which would have been a thousand times more powerful the bombs actually used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The "sweet pea" people who live in modern China, Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Phillipines, and Indonesia, have as many fond memories of their Japanese occupiers as the people of Europe have their German occupiers. And have no problem with the movie I would imagine.

First of all, at the time, Japan had an incredibly greedy dictator. In terms of movies, you want to check out "Empire of the Sun," which takes place during WWII in Changhai. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092965/plotsummary/. Back then, the Japanese confiscated several British colonies and put them into prison camps.

https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/education ... tomic-bomb

If I also recall wasn't there an alliance between Japan and Nazi Germany during that time?

Sure, "Little Boy" and "Fat Man" did some serious damage, however, Japan wanted to invade the US. They also did other horrible things like the Kamikaze

Last edited by Summer_Twilight on 15 Mar 2024, 9:13 am, edited 1 time in total.

China has not forgotten Japan’s biological and chemical experiments on captured prisoners during the war. Many of them were Chinese. Also, Japanese airmen dropped infected rats into Chinese towns during WWII to cause plague on the countryside. Not to mention the raping of Nanking by the Japanese army. I could go on for a while, but I will stop at just those few incidents.

China was denied their revenge on Japan after the war because the US took over the Japanese mainland and protected them from it. They wanted to level Japan for those actions. Imagine how the Chinese would have acted if they had the atomic bombs first. Japan would have been carpet bombed with them until it was a valley in the bottom of the ocean. Most Japanese people are told a different story of the war growing up and cannot really understand why they were bombed. Yet, the Chinese remember what was done to them quite well.

interesting.

Didnt realize that the US ended up as Japan's protector.

Both of the two Chinas were beholden to post war Japan for aid and trade. So niether raised much of stink about it until recent years.

Did see a news story on TV about an exhibit in Japan about that Japanese germ warfare program in Manchuria. An attractive young Japanese woman viewing it had her mouth covered in horror at finally learning some of what her country had done.

You have to understand the politics of the post war played greatly into why Japan was being protected by the US. Shortly after the war, the would fell into a Cold War situation. We needed a buffer country in Asia to counter China and Russia. So, we built them back up like we did in West Germany for the European theater of the Cold War.

It goes a bit deeper than you think. The US pardoned the leader of Unit 731 after he gave the information to the US government on human testing for both biological and chemical agents. Most of the test subjects were Chinese, along with POWs of other countries. If you are not prepared for the horrors, I recommend that you do not look up specific information on the organization. It will trigger nightmares for most people. China has not forgotten that issue either.

The US used ex-Nazi Wernher Von Braun in operation paperclip to develop rockets in Texas. Not only was he pardoned but he became a cold war hero in the US. American school children in school praised him as the father of NASA. Von Braun famously worked slave labourers to death (Russians and jews) and tested his weapons on live POWs.

Germany's capitulation was the only reason they weren't a nuclear fallout zone. Of course incoming Soviet troops made sure the Germans paid (at least partly) for their crimes in the east.

Really? You think General Mcarthur would roll out the red carpet to the Chinese communists inviting them and telling the Japanese "hey these guys will take care of you".

Last edited by cyberdad on 15 Mar 2024, 10:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Japan was toast in 1945, but it all came down to death toll, America did not want to sustain losses so it was a huge relief to their troops they used nuclear bombs to finish the war. In this respect Roosevelt was far more humane than Churchill who unnecessarily sent thousands of Australian troops to their deaths as cannon fodder in WWI. He did it again when he marooned thousands of Australian and British troops in Singapore, Burma and Malaya allowing them to die in Japanese death camps for POWs.

Boy do you LOVE to proudly display your ignorance at every turn!

The head of state of China at the end of WWII was (the same guy who had headed China the previous twenty years) Chiang Kai Chek, head of Nationalists.

Chiang was one of the "Big Five" leaders at Yalta (along with Stalin, Roosevelt, Churchill, and DeGaul) who divied up the post war world at that conference.

The Communist Chinese were stilled holded up as a desperate guerilla force in the caves of Manchuria, and not a factor.

WE got to rule all of Japan, but we divided up the formerly Japanese ruled Korea with the Soviets, and let the Soviets have Manchuria. The Soviets gave captured Japanese weapons to Mao...and the Chinese resumed their Nationalist vs Communist civil war after WWII. And of course the division of Korea led to the Korean war...and the half century standoff between the two Koreas since.

Mao swept down to the south...and drove Chiang and the Nationalist off the mainland to Taiwan. And by 1949 the Chinese civil war was over and the current Communist dog and Nationalist tail on little Taiwan situation started.

Niether Mao nor Chiang had an naval power to speak off. So neither could project power beyond China itself ...so neither could attack Japan. Japan was ours.

Seriously dude. Go back to gradeschool and re learn the history of your part of the world PLEASE.

I am tired of having to give you remedial education about it all of the time!

The reason I posted that was because I always felt that we Americans shoulda ...allowed the Enola Gay to have a Chinese crew ...so some Chinese guys could have the fun of revenge. Didnt realize that the Chinese people woulda actually have...appreciated that! Lol!

Yes. The thousands of British civilians killed by the V2 rockets fired from Nazi occupied Europe were actually fewer than the number of slave laborers who died making the darn things.

We learn about Asian history in some detail in Australian highschools. I knew McArthur protected Japan after the war and helped with their reconstruction. But thanks for the "remedial" education, I think you should comfortable that my knowledge of Asian history trumps yours. For one thing, I lived in the region, I am guessing you haven't set foot here.

Thanks to my efforts...you're slowly getting up to speed. But you once posted that "Chiang Kai Chek would have been installed as China's leader in 1945" showing disturbing educational impairment.

Yes the ethical alogithm doesn't favour Von Braun, but I guess he took full advantage of opportunities presented to him by the Americans.

The old running joke in the early Cold War was that "our American German scientists are better than your Russian German scientists". Both victors grabbed as many as they could.

And some, like physicist-turned-musician Tom Leherer had some harsh words for him.

.

But...what if you WERE Van Braun? And dreamed of building space rockets. And first the Fuhrer, then the US enemy gave you blank checks to build your dream toys? Maybe you or I would make the same choices.

I guess no movies for Von Braun, No Jewish director or producer would touch that script. His children have made regular appearances in the media (one of his 4 kids is a scientist) and speak warmly of him

Come to think of it ...he was the opposite of heroes of recent movies like Alan Turing and (to some extent) Oppenheimer, who served their respective countries, and then got f****d over BY their countries for their efforts!

He was an enemy genius who...got pampered and ass-kissed by us!