The Bombing Of Hiroshima And Nagasaki: Pros And Cons

Ultimately, war is evil. Harry Patch, the last living soldier from the first World War, once said, “War is organized murder; and nothing else.” The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are perhaps one of the most criticized while simultaneously being one of the most defended moments in the history of the world. Regardless of the outcome, the United States did what they had to do to end the cold-blooded fighting that plagued the world for over half a decade. On August 6, 1945 the United States dropped he first atomic bomb on the Japanese city, Hiroshima. The instant shock wave and scalding temperatures immediately killed around 80,000 civilians and military personnel. Three days later, the U.S. dropped a second atomic bomb on another Japanese …show more content…
Some scholars suggest that that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki could be considered illegal acts of war that violated international humanitarian law by attacking civilian populations and causing unnecessary suffering to combatants (VanRhyn and Mikaberidze). Also, many people have insisted that the lasting effects of the atomic bombings has been quite detrimental to the health of the civilians of Japan. A recent study, that has been published in the journal Genetics, has claimed that these long-term health effects were not as severe as originally thought. The researchers looked about 177,000 survivors and their children. They compared their findings with 200,000 people that were not exposed to the atomic bomb. The researchers found that exposure to the bomb's radiation increased the survivors' risk for cancer by about 10 to 44 percent but on average, they lived only a few months shorter than the people who were not exposed to the radiation. The findings likewise showed no radiation-associated mutations in the survivors' children …show more content…
To continue the war effort, the United States would have to invade Japan and fight on Japanese soil. The Japanese would be relentless, and they would combat with anyone until there was not a single soldier left standing. The United States would have to shock Japan into surrender (Freedman). As the saying goes, “drastic times call for drastic measures”. What other option did the United States have? It might not have been ethical, but it had to be done. If the United States had not used such drastic measures, perhaps the present situation would be worse; after all, nuclear weapons have never been used since Nagasaki (Cameron and Miyoshi). Out of all the war crimes that the United States was convicted of during World War II, none of the offenses involved the Japanese. On the other hand, the Japanese committed an abundance of war crimes against the United States, and many other countries for that matter. Regarding the bombings, yes, there were civilian casualties, but one thing to keep in mind is the fact that Japan was allied with Germany. Germany is notably responsible for the mass killing of over six million civilians of a single race. Quite frankly, World War II took the lives of over 60 million people, and at this point in the war, it was not a matter of which country’s citizens were more valuable; the United States was just trying to put a stop to all the nonsense. War is evil and merciless, and these moment in history should