Was the U.S. justified in dropping bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

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24 Contributors
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Yes
50% of users

  • I believe this action was difficult but justified, and I also believe that it ended World War II.

    Although many thousands of lives were lost in these two bombings, this decision was taken with the knowledge that many thousands more would have died had World War II continued to escalate and expand. The U. S. needed to use its considerable military might to bring that escalation to a sure and sudden end.

    Yes ObsoleteDanny

  • yes, we were justified

    japan attacked us first. they drew "first blood"

    Yes Anonymous

  • Absolutely

    I would never subject my military to a ground war on the Japanese mainland.. it would have only prolonged the war and cost countless more lives.. War is a sad and brutal thing.. it is truly hell.. and while no one ever wants to use the bombs, they were necessary. Those who want to be mad at America need to be mad at Japan.. they launched a cowardly sneak attack on us while we were trying to find compromise with their diplomats here in the US.. we lost lots of men at Iwo Jima and we knew that prolonging the conflict would have only been more horribly devastating than the bombs were. We dropped the first bomb and demanded that they surrendered, they did not and condemned their people to round 2. Bomb 2 was dropped, they caved and surrendered, and so ended World War 2. To all you bleeding hearts.. imagine US Soldiers trying to storm Japans mainland.. it would have been impossible.. to you bleeding hearts.. imagine the torture and killing that the Japanese did to lands they conquered without a care in the world.. to all you bleeding hearts.. imagine what would have happened if they brought war to the US mainland.. aside from scattered small bombs that hit off the Oregon coast. The Japanese people didn't deserve it, but that nation asked for it.. and it was in the best interest of the Allied powers and the US that the whole conflict was ended right there. Don't blame FDR and Truman.. blame Hirohito and the invaders that gave us any reason at all to do what we did. War is war, it isn't a game.. it is just killing in the name of your nation as an offense or defense. I shed a tear for the lives that were lost, but I will never in my life second guess that decision.. in fact I'd make the same decision myself if I had to.

    Yes Anonymous

  • US was justified.

    Dropping the bomb on the two Japanese cities were justified, because the Japanese refused all warnings given by the Allies to end the war. In order to finish the war quickly, US had to resort to the last means of using the atomic bomb. In other words, the Japanese themselves led to the destruction of the two cities by not following the requests of the Allies. The dropping of the atomic bomb was beneficial for Korea in that it helped the Koreans gain independence from 36 years of occupation by Japan.

    Yes Anonymous

  • Yes the US was justified

    in dropping the Atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagaski. I'm not sure many people know this but the Japanese killed well over 12 million Chinese during World War II. The number is somewhere between 12 - 19 million. So at the most deaths it would be more then the Holocaust. The Japanese did this, and not many people know that they did. I say I would have dropped the bombs surrender or not. It's war, war isn't fair. They bombed Pearl Harbor, they screwed themselves.

    Yes Anonymous

  • The US was justified in dropping bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

    The US was justified in dropping bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki because that action ended the war. The Battle for Okinawa represented the Japanese attitude of fighting to the last man. Invading the main Japanese islands would have cost millions of lives. World War II Japan can not be judged by today's standards. In World War II Japan it was socially acceptable for the Japanese to invade Nanking, China and kill all the men and turn the women into sex slaves for Japanese soldiers.

    Yes JamieM

  • The US was indeed justified in dropping the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

    The Truman eventually put it was that he simply had to choose what would save the most American people, and they beleived the solution was the Atomic bomb. What would not have been justified would have been to simply hit the mainland of Japan with dirty bombs and sit back as Japan slowly turned to cancer. While I do not beleive that it convinced the Japanese, I beleive their fear of Russia caused that, I beleive they were justified in attempting to save lives.

    Yes Anonymous

  • Pearl Harbor was OK but the Bomb was Bad?

    These idiots always frame war as a moral issue. The ONLY moral issue of war is survival of your social paradigm. As a practical matter, the bomb wasn't neccesary. As a means of allowing the Japanese to have an excuse to surrender it was priceless. People got hurt? That's what war is, fool.

    Yes Anonymous

  • While the nuclear bombs were a dreadful, murderous invention, they were the lesser of the 2 evils to end World War II.

    The atomic bombs claimed thousands of lives, but most experts agree not dropping them would have caused even more deaths in the following conventional warfare. Japan was a proud nation that seemed committed to fighting until the bitter end. Previous land engagements and kamikaze attacks had showed the Japanese resolve to 'dig in' and fight until the death as opposed to surrendering. A conventional landing and invasion of the Japanese homeland would have met even stiffer resistance and bloodshed.

    Yes jabreland

  • The use of the atomic bomb was probably the only way to prevent multiple of millions dying through conventional war.

    Harry Truman stated that the atomic bomb was as much a psychological weapon as a physical one. Once people understood how terrible it could be, the leaders decided to surrender. If surrender had not occurred, it is possible the war would have dragged on for years, with millions and millions dying. I'm not insensitive to the horror of the bomb and the suffering that it incurred, but the question for me seems to be who should do the suffering? The leaders of the Japanese alliance were unwilling to negotiate. They were warned, yet displayed arrogance and committed terror of their own. The best argument I know of for supporting the dropping of the bombs, is that it worked. The war ended after that.

    Yes C3II0Friend

  • Ended a long and very deadly war.

    I think the U.S. needed retribution for Pearl Harbor and also needed to show the world who`s the boss. It definitely worked, and we all knew then who the most powerful country in the world was and the consequences off challenging that position. The loss of life was inconsequential, compared to millions to already die on all sides.

    Yes TheLoveGuy94

  • Revenge is a technical of war.

    It is a most important incident for America. If they hadn't drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they failed to prevent their citizens. America always control the world countries, so we may call America is a guidance country to other countries. I strongly Agree with the statement. Thank you!!!

    Yes K3lvHappy
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No
50% of users

  • Dropping the atomic bombs on Japan sacrificed too many innocent lives.

    The fact that the U.S. government would attack innocent civilians on an enormous scale, due to the fact that American soldiers were killed, is ridiculous. Constituents should not be harmed for the work of their government, no matter where they live. This showed that Americans think that their lives are more precious than those of other nations, which is very tragic. The after-effects lasted for decades, and the action of dropping atomic bombs on huge Japanese cities was inexcusable.

    No NineLester37

  • Never do revenge.

    I'm sure alot of people have heard this sentence before. Yes, I belive the Japanese were in-human, but some did not even want to start the war! Many commoners lived in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and *they* wanted peace. *They* wanted everyone to stop...but they had no say! It has indeed ended WW2, but the many people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki suffered because of the destruction and the radiation from the bombs. It wasn't the Japanese's fault that the majority of the British was not well trained and was coward in the fight in Singapore.

    No Anonymous

  • there were over 200000 japanes deths

    the japeniese were going to give up soon most of the millitary officals didnt support their leader. the japanes just didnt want to agree to an unconditional surrender if we hadnt been so hard headed there would have been a more peaceful resolve.

    No Anonymous

  • America should think more of what they should do rather than what they could do.

    ARGUMENTS: DWIGHT ESINHOWER: was against the bomb. He knew Japan was already defeated and dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary. He also said our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was his belief that Japan was at the moment seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss. He say in an interview "...the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing” HERBERT HOOVER:: “The use of the atomic bomb, with its indiscriminate killing of women and children, revolts my soul." "...the Japanese were prepared to negotiate all the way from February 1945...up to and before the time the atomic bombs were dropped; ...if such leads had been followed up, there would have been no occasion to drop the [atomic] bombs." ALBERT EINSTEIN:: Albert Einstein said that he was sure that President Roosevelt would have forbidden the atomic bombing of Hiroshima had he been alive and that it was probably carried out to end the Pacific war before Russia could participate. Japanese people were living under the rule of an emperor, they had nothing to do with the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Dropping a bomb on the city park s very different than dropping one on the battle field. America was grieving Hitlers atrocious Holocaust when what we did was no better. Success in the Pacific front was not critical. Maybe if America had tried harder show Japan what they would do without a surrender or made the surrender conditional Japan would have been more lenient on giving up. It is a common argument that it would have saved more lives in the end but the Japanese were wiling to negotiate an end to conflict before the bomb was dropped. Japan was not necessarily willing to surrender unconditionally because of their culture but there might have been room to achieve a compromise and one should have been attempted before even considering the use of the Atom bomb. If the U.S. is to become respected in other cultures and thus safer, it must begin questioning it answers to moral questions about it choices. War is without a doubt an evil but letting men fight for their country rather than killing thousands of innocent's is the lesser of two evils. But we are all part of one united race, the human race. Opened a completely new avenue for nucular weapons. It can be argued that the dropping of the atomic bomb started the Cold War. If Americans don’t have a problem dropping an atom bomb what reserves should rest of the world have?

    No Anonymous

  • Targeting civilians is unnecessary - they do not choose the ways of their government, and despite radiation being a small problem (see Physics for Future Presidents, a great book) there was still unnecessary damage.

    See argument below.

    No Anonymous

  • The targeting of civilians in war is wrong; the use of nuclear weapons set a terrible precedent, and contrary to popular belief, this decision did not save more lives than it took.

    Japan was willing to negotiate an end to conflict before the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, which undercuts at its root the much-repeated argument that the bomb prevented a bloody invasion that would have cost thousands of American lives; Japan was not necessarily willing to surrender unconditionally, but there might have been room to achieve a reasonable accommodation, and one should have been sought before so much as considering the use of an awful new weapon on civilian population centers. Bombing Nagasaki was even more unjust, since the devastation of Hiroshima was plainly evident. The slow deaths from radiation poisoning these acts inflicted upon innocent civilians were horrific, possibly even more so than the initial blasts. If the U.S. is to become respected in other cultures, and thus safer, it must begin questioning its facile answers to moral questions about its choices. This issue is a case in point.

    No M4I4cFeIine

  • This was an unfortunate choice that felt right at the time, but was a devastating way to end a war.

    This is a tough question to answer. There are many ways that you can look at the issue, you can say that dropping those bombs saved lives by ending the war. You can say that dropping the bomb saved more lives than it cost, but I don't believe that to be the case. So many people were killed or scarred for life by those bombs that I think it would have been better to find another way to end the war. Sure some more lives might have been lost in the process, but probably fewer than were lost by those bombs, and fewer people would have been physically scarred by the process as well.

    No MariaR

  • I oppose the U.S. dropping bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki as it led to deaths of thousands of innocent people.

    I believe the U.S. was not justified in dropping nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki as it caused massive amounts of destruction and deaths. Thousands of innocent people, including women and children lost their lives and families. The after effects of those bombings are felt even today. Further, it has opened up a completely new avenue for fighting nuclear wars.

    No ReIIIyf3

  • It Was a War Crime

    No, the use of atomic bombs, plus the firebombing of Tokyo, was one of the low points in human history. While we bemoan Hitler's actions in Nazi Germany, ours were just as bad. Success in the Pacific front was not critical, Pearl Harbor was no 9/11 and the victims were the Japanese population itself who had no control over the government's military decisions. It was simply a holocaust - it was a war crime.

    No Anonymous

  • No, the use of atomic bombs in Japanese was wrong.

    Japan was ready to surrender and had begun negotiations to end the war prior to the dropping of the bombs. Russia was entering the war, which was equally devastating to the Japanese. They were ready to end the war. The purpose of dropping the bomb appears to be as much as impressing the Russians as it was to getting the Japanese to stop fighting. It must also be understood that Japan's economy was completely destroyed with imports completely shut off and thus, had no capacity to continue fighting.

    No R43Shep

  • I would never second America?\'s action of dropping those killer bombs on the Japanese cities. There are over a thousand reasons that I detest the same; but the top reason may be that war is never a way to try to dominate over another country.

    The atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki has changed Japan for ever perhaps. The amount of destruction and death that the bombs had caused is perhaps unparalleled in any other human induced destruction. Not only thousands of people died; millions were maimed for life, rendered homeless, suffered mental shocks and remained traumatized all their lives even decades afterwards. The bombs destroyed the twin cities to a mere heap of rubble and charred corpses. I guess no body of a sound mental condition will ever second this ghastly act by the Americans.

    No SmarterTabby

  • Nuclear war is never the proper action.

    Killing people in mass numbers without even giving them a chance to defend themselves is wrong. Killing thousands of innocent men, women, and children is never acceptable.

    No FithBoosh
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Was the U.S. justified in dropping bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
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