Wow, just started watching it. I had no idea the Marshall Islands were settled thousands of years ago. Horrifying that they just detonated atomic bombs there and let people deal with the fallout...
It's literally a big middle finger to the American government. It's America's flag but with some black stars hanging out amongst the stripes:
"The three black stars in the upper right represent the three islands that were disfigured in March 1954 during the 15-megaton Bravo test by the United States. The two black stars in the lower right corner represent where the Bikinians live now, Kili Island, 425 miles to the south of Bikini Atoll, and Ejit Island of Majuro Atoll. These two stars are symbolically far away from Bikini's stars on the flag as the islands are in real life (both in distance and quality of life)."
And in large black letters, the text "Everything is in the hands of God."
Let's just say they didn't appreciate their home being irradiated.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bikini_Atoll#Nuclear_test_site
- this is more economical
- better them than us, let this small island deal with it
- nobody will ever find out about this (read as not enough people will find out for it to matter) and even if they do then we don't really need to deal with much of a consequence because it's a small island, what are they early going to do about it
- let's evacuate everyone off the island, throw some cheap concrete dome on it, and by the time it starts failing the world will have forgotten about this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_4.1
Search Nuclear Savage or "John the Savage" and there are declassified videos of these islanders being tested for radiation.
It would be like someone wanting to test the effects of electrocution and placing a live wire on the street. Someone "accidentally" steps on it and you can conduct your experiments on the victim. But it wasn't intentional since you didn't tell the victim to go step on the live wire.
I guess it depends on what you mean by "intentional". Did they douse Marshallese directly? Did they blow up the nukes hoping some of the radiation landed on some unsuspecting Marshallese so that they can see the effects and conduct experiments? To me both are intentional, though some could argue only the former is intentional.
The problem with war is not the war itself, it's the weapons, including people, you leave laying around after. Once you get the bad lines of thinking started they perpetuate.
You'd do very well for yourself to remember that while you're re-writing the history of WW2. It's one heck of a spin to call the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki "an experiment"; there was a war going on. The Americans knew exactly what was going to happen from the nuke; kill lots of Japs and hope they surrender and given the belligerance of both sides, I'd say they were probably right.