Kelly Shaver AMH 2030 Week 7 Individual Work What factors likely motivated President Truman to authorize the use of atomic bombs against Japan in August 1945? President Truman did not trust the Soviets. The Potsdam Declaration – July 26 listed U.S. policy also giving Japan a chance to surrender without guaranteeing that Emperor Hirohito would not be tried for war crimes committed by Japan. Japan was so cautious about their response that is was seen as a refusal on their part. The Japanese were seen as bloodthirsty savages willing to die rather than give up.
Japan was near defeat, but many question how close Japan was to surrender (Jennings). Although some do not agree with the actions of the United States, the bombs were dropped, altering the history of World War II, our country, and the rest of the world. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and war is definitely no exception to this
Moreover, other countries claimed the right of nuclear weapons to defend their citizens. Consequently, the tragic bombings became the example of an arm’s race instead of peace. Furthermore, since Japan was already on the brink of collapse the bombing was unnecessary, and peace talks would have taken place within a decent time frame (even after the cancelled Hawaii summit). The millions of deaths calculated by Operation Downfall [the codename for the Allied plan for the invasion of Japan near the end of the Second World War, which was abandoned when Japan surrendered following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki] actually show that only desperation and honour stood between Japan and unconditional
That is what a lot of people asked themselves and still ask themselves until this day. To put it briefly, Fussel’s argument states that war was savage for invasion forces and killing civilians of Japan was the only way to avoid a Japanese invasion. In complete disregard to civilian lives, he believes the atomic bomb may have killed many but that it saved many more. Walzer believes that dropping the atomic bomb was inhumane and that war is all about the choices that you make. Walzer makes many valid points that forced me to change
• Even though they were going to use the bomb the government kept recruiting people into the army. • Many people argued that if the government were going to use this amazing weapon why not just stop investing so much money into the military. E. Conclusion • The United States cannot be fully responsible for the bombing for Hiroshima but they do play a major role of the bombing. • Japan was warned that they would be bombed if they did not comply to American terms but because of this Japan refused to accept the terms and in return an atomic bomb was dropped over Hiroshima • President Truman had many other options that bombing Japan in order for them to surrender but since America is such a nationalistic country they wanted to prove to Russia their enemy before and after WWII that they were the stronger country. • Even though the bomb was dropped and Japan refused to surrender.
Slaughterhouse Five was banned on political grounds for showing the American firebombing of Dresden in World War II. The destruction of 135,000 people (almost twice as destructive as the atomic bombing of Hiroshima) is something that I had never even heard of. Obviously, the US Army has done a good job in keeping it quiet. Teachers and administration claimed that the book displayed "un-Godliness, bathroom language, and an unpatriotic portrayal of war." I believe that the unpatriotic aspects of the war is the main reason the book was banned.
The Big Bang During the course of the war in Japan, we, the Americans, had a very important decision to make. One of the options was to drop a newly tested bomb on the Japanese hoping to get them to finally surrender. The other option was to have a mass land invasion on Japan and hope to overthrow with sheer force. We knew that no matter which option we took, there would be a significant amount of casualties. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuclear attacks near the end of World War II against the Empire of Japan by the United States at the executive order of U.S. President Harry S. Truman on August 6 and 9, 1945; these attacks prevented the death of many Japanese and American lives, while preventing the destruction
Truman declared to drop the bomb onto Japan mainly because he didn’t want any more of his men to be slaughtered and because Japan was not agreeing to negotiate anything. Although the atomic bomb was dropped onto the two cities of Japan, it was still an unnecessary attack because many innocent civilians were killed. Since Japan was still continuing the war (before the bomb dropped), many deaths would have been sacrificed on both sides, the Japanese and the Americans and that is to say that’ll be millions of sacrifices if the war continued between both countries. The total death of the bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima are approximately around 300,000 lives. The nuke drop on Japan is a devastating event but there are also beneficial outcomes that come out of it for example: learning how the radioactive dust kicked up into the atmosphere by large-yield weaponry, was economically cheaper than to do a full scale invasion on Japan, and it shows how much power the country has in terms of
The Civil liberties of the Japanese on the west-coast were more important than the common good because there was no valid evidence that the Japanese were planning an attack with their homeland. The Government illegally took away the Japanese’ civil rights, and it was unnecessary to remove the Japanese from their homes. First of all, there was no valid evidence that the Japanese were planning an attack on the United States with their homeland. During the world war, a man by the name of John Lesesne DeWitt, accused the Japanese people to have
Guy Fawkes 10/21/10 Was the dropping of the bomb a war crime? What do different national histories of the bombing signify? As J. Samuel Walker (quoted by Giamo) indicates, this is a very complicated question that can’t be answered by a simple yes or no. When analyzing the ethics of the dropping of the bombs, as with any single historical event, one must consider context: in this case, that includes Japanese imperialism and war crimes, the increasing acceptability of targeting noncombatants throughout the war, potential American, Japanese, and other Asian lives saved by the dropping of the bomb, the targeting of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in particular for their civilian populations, the forced militarization, loyalty, and sometimes persecution of Japanese citizens themselves by the Japanese government, and a plethora of other factors. Ideally, any public history that addresses the dropping of the bombs should take these factors into consideration, and as a result, most should come to a similar yes-and-no conclusion to Walker’s.