Brett Wilkins discusses the story about Hiroshima and Nagasaki that everyone learned in school: the U.S. was forced to drop the atomic bombs, because the alternative would have meant a ground invasion of Japan that would have cost a million American lives. In reality, Japan was already making moves toward negotiating a surrender, especially after the USSR declared war on Japan earlier that summer. What’s more, seven out of eight U.S. generals at the time, including Eisenhower and MacArthur, agreed that the bomb was unnecessary. Scott and Wilkins go on to talk about the state of the world’s nuclear powers today, reminding us that this is surely the most important geopolitical issue of our time.

Discussed on the show:

• “Nuclear War or Invasion: The False Dichotomy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki” (Antiwar.com Original)
• Collective 20
• The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood―and America―Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
• “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)” (IMDb)
• NSC-68
• War is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America’s Most Decorated Soldier
  
• “The elusive horror of Hiroshima” (MSN)
• Unit 731
• “8/7/20 Kingston Reif on the Growing Nuclear Tensions Between the US, Russia and China” (The Libertarian Institute)
• “The Day After (TV Movie 1983)” (IMDb)
• “Doomsday Clock” (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists)
• New START Treaty
• The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner
  
• “Threads (TV Movie 1984)” (IMDb)

Brett Wilkins is the editor-at-large for US news at the Digital Journal and a contributor at The Daily Kos. Follow him on Twitter @MoralLowGround.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; Listen and Think Audio; TheBumperSticker.com; and LibertyStickers.com.

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