Welcome to the Empire Files podcast. This is Abby Martin. This is the audio version of each episode of the Empire Files hosted on Telesaur English. You can watch every episode at the Empirefiles. TV.

71 years after America dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, Obama became the first U.S. president to visit the

memorial site in Hiroshima. Throughout his high-profile trip, the U.S. media ran countless

stories about why dropping nuclear weapons was necessary to save lives and end the war.

Professor Peter Koznik, Director of Nuclear Studies at American University and co-author,

with Director Oliver Stone, of the untold history of the United States,

both in New York Times bestselling book and HBO series, argues that this is dangerous historical revisionism.

I sat down with Dr. Koznik to understand more about the defeat of the Japanese Empire,

the morphing power structure between the imperial collaborators and the myths about the bomb of the Japanese Empire, the morphine power structure between the imperial

collaborators, and the myths about the bomb. Well, the myth is not just that it was justified.

That's tied to the other even bigger myth in some ways, that the atomic bombs actually ended the

Pacific War, which is being repeated. You might have seen that the National Park Service announced a Manhattan Project National

Park that they're going to be developing these national historical sites.

And when the Secretary of the Interior, Jewel announced it, she said that it may have been

tragic in some ways, but at least it ended the war.

That's the basic myth. at least it ended the war. That's the basic myth.

And if it ended the war and it's a good war and we're the good guys and we're responding to Japanese aggression,

then ergo the bomb is actually justifiable and even moral.

And the argument goes even further to say that it saved lives. And not that

it costs a couple hundred thousand lives, but it actually saved lives. Initially, it was saved

a half million American lives. But then we decided to become more humane. We say, talk

about all the Japanese lives that has saved. So it's part of this broad myth that has got

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