Seventy-two years ago, for the first time people had witnessed one of the largest atomic destructions ever recorded in history when “shock and blast waves rippled over the city, punched the innards of buildings and homes, and bore the detritus on the nuclear wind”- everything immediately turned into dusk after America dropped the Little Boy on Hiroshima and the Fat Man on Nagasaki (Ham 317). To the civilians who saw the bombing of the two cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they would never be able to come back to their normal lives. It was a shock, a fear and a scar in the heart and the soul that can never be cured. There are several perspectives and ongoing debates on this topic since both countries have their own evidence to back up for their
…show more content…
Those days were over, the days when American purposefully dropped two atomic bombs- the Little Boy and the Fat Man- on Hiroshima- “the headquarters of the Japanese Army defending southern Japan and assembly point” and then Nagasaki- “major seaport and [containing] several large industrial plants of great wartime importance”- were over; however, the devastating costs it left behind to the cities and people are not yet over (Stimson 5). Julia Chaitin, Aiko Sawada, and Dan Bar-On in the article The Life after Atomic Bomb published in The World Yesterday have stated that “over 90 percent of buildings at Hiroshima… were blasted, burned and demolished; over the third of all buildings in Nagasaki were severely damaged” (20). In other words, the bomb has brought the two cities back to their starting points- all human constructions were destroyed in just a matter of a second. Not only the cities were demolished, people’s health was also seriously affected by the chemical components of the bomb. To Chaitin et al, the early symptoms noted by the Radiation Effects Research Foundation were “fatigue, high fevers, nausea, vomiting, bleeding from gums, …show more content…
As stated by John Rawls in his well-known Theory of Justice, “the later bombing of Hiroshima on August 6 [was] very great [wrong]” (565). Even though America said that “the bomb was dropped to impress the Russians with American power and to make them more agreeable with [their] demands” of getting Stalin involved in the war against Japan, that is not the truth. Charles Landesman- a professor of philosophy study- has stated in his article, Rawls on Hiroshima: An Inquiry into the Morality of the Use of Atomic Weapons in August 1945, that “the bomb would be dropped even if Stalin had no intention at all of entering the war against Japan” (25). Moreover, to the professor, another reason American argued for having to carry out the atomic bomb plan because “the Japanese rejected the Potsdam Declaration and refused to place any alternatives on the table” (Landesman 26). However, these motives are all unreasonable. Landesman has explained that “the Japanese would never surrender unless the Emperor was retained…. Yet Potsdam Declaration fails to mention the Emperor in its clarification of unconditional surrender” (29). It can be seen here that American wanted to showcase its new powerful war weapons more than their desire to peacefully end the war. Japan was the great subject that America used to test their power as well as state their leading position
Those days were over, the days when American purposefully dropped two atomic bombs- the Little Boy and the Fat Man- on Hiroshima- “the headquarters of the Japanese Army defending southern Japan and assembly point” and then Nagasaki- “major seaport and [containing] several large industrial plants of great wartime importance”- were over; however, the devastating costs it left behind to the cities and people are not yet over (Stimson 5). Julia Chaitin, Aiko Sawada, and Dan Bar-On in the article The Life after Atomic Bomb published in The World Yesterday have stated that “over 90 percent of buildings at Hiroshima… were blasted, burned and demolished; over the third of all buildings in Nagasaki were severely damaged” (20). In other words, the bomb has brought the two cities back to their starting points- all human constructions were destroyed in just a matter of a second. Not only the cities were demolished, people’s health was also seriously affected by the chemical components of the bomb. To Chaitin et al, the early symptoms noted by the Radiation Effects Research Foundation were “fatigue, high fevers, nausea, vomiting, bleeding from gums, …show more content…
As stated by John Rawls in his well-known Theory of Justice, “the later bombing of Hiroshima on August 6 [was] very great [wrong]” (565). Even though America said that “the bomb was dropped to impress the Russians with American power and to make them more agreeable with [their] demands” of getting Stalin involved in the war against Japan, that is not the truth. Charles Landesman- a professor of philosophy study- has stated in his article, Rawls on Hiroshima: An Inquiry into the Morality of the Use of Atomic Weapons in August 1945, that “the bomb would be dropped even if Stalin had no intention at all of entering the war against Japan” (25). Moreover, to the professor, another reason American argued for having to carry out the atomic bomb plan because “the Japanese rejected the Potsdam Declaration and refused to place any alternatives on the table” (Landesman 26). However, these motives are all unreasonable. Landesman has explained that “the Japanese would never surrender unless the Emperor was retained…. Yet Potsdam Declaration fails to mention the Emperor in its clarification of unconditional surrender” (29). It can be seen here that American wanted to showcase its new powerful war weapons more than their desire to peacefully end the war. Japan was the great subject that America used to test their power as well as state their leading position