Us History Atomic Bomb Desision: Right or Wrong
The Atomic Bomb Should Not Have Been Dropped
Cayla Dunaway Sims
1.29.13
We have come a long way since we decided to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II. It is amazing that we continue debating on this subject today. The US should not have decided to drop these atomic bombs. This decision was totally unnecessary. Thousands of people died who did not need to die, and many more became sick from radiation poisoning. The bombs wiped two entire cities off the map. How can anyone even argue for this in the first place? One argument that was used to support dropping the bomb was that the Japanese forfeited their rights when they aggressively attacked Pearl Harbor and committed war crimes against prisoners and the Chinese. This argument does not work for a few reasons. First, there are two types of justice in war. There is the justice for going to war and the justice for how you fight in war. The two are separate. This argument assumes that because the US had a reason to go to war, how they fought the war was automatically justified. This is false. It is possible to fight a just war unjustly. Its between ends and means. Reasonable ends do not justify unreasonable means. Also, violations of the rules of war do not justify similar actions in response. Just because the Japanese fought unfair does not mean that we were allowed too. Saying, “Well, you did it, too!” cannot be the basis for War II was bad, we should not have just forfeited our standards and done bad things as well. Our leaders were operating under the “War is hell” doctrine, which means anything that brings the end of war more quickly is good. This is not a way to actually fight wars. If war is hell, then why do we even have rules of war? Hiding behind “War is hell” is a cop out used to try to escape any responsibility for fighting properly. As long as war is here, we should have rules for it to try to lower its impact. Such rules cause mass killings, for example, the dropping of the
Cayla Dunaway Sims
1.29.13
We have come a long way since we decided to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II. It is amazing that we continue debating on this subject today. The US should not have decided to drop these atomic bombs. This decision was totally unnecessary. Thousands of people died who did not need to die, and many more became sick from radiation poisoning. The bombs wiped two entire cities off the map. How can anyone even argue for this in the first place? One argument that was used to support dropping the bomb was that the Japanese forfeited their rights when they aggressively attacked Pearl Harbor and committed war crimes against prisoners and the Chinese. This argument does not work for a few reasons. First, there are two types of justice in war. There is the justice for going to war and the justice for how you fight in war. The two are separate. This argument assumes that because the US had a reason to go to war, how they fought the war was automatically justified. This is false. It is possible to fight a just war unjustly. Its between ends and means. Reasonable ends do not justify unreasonable means. Also, violations of the rules of war do not justify similar actions in response. Just because the Japanese fought unfair does not mean that we were allowed too. Saying, “Well, you did it, too!” cannot be the basis for War II was bad, we should not have just forfeited our standards and done bad things as well. Our leaders were operating under the “War is hell” doctrine, which means anything that brings the end of war more quickly is good. This is not a way to actually fight wars. If war is hell, then why do we even have rules of war? Hiding behind “War is hell” is a cop out used to try to escape any responsibility for fighting properly. As long as war is here, we should have rules for it to try to lower its impact. Such rules cause mass killings, for example, the dropping of the