TOBY'S CORNER

Date:        October 9, 1998

Re: Hiroshima, by

A question of ethic

Can anyone say that the United States was justified or was not justified in using nuclear weapons against Japan in 1945? From the point of view of the American President it was the right decision. He ended in only a few days a war in that perhaps a million more people could have died. But what about all the innocent civilians who died in Hiroshima? Making a judgement is hard because of the choices facing the people involved: the awful effects on the innocent Japanese and the possibility of continuing war.

For many Japanese the atomic bomb was the most torturous event in their lives. They lost their families, they saw their friends burning. The bomb destroyed not only their present, but also their future. Women had handicapped children, they had no houses to live in, and they had no work with which to earn money. The question is: why must always innocent people pay for such a stupid war? Another ethical question arises: why was the bomb dropped in the center of a civilian area and not on a military base? Yes, Hiroshima was a strategically important city, but fact is the bomb hit civilians and not the military.

Why then did the bomb fall on a civilian city? Obviously, this was an evil for which there is not an excuse. But perhaps we cannot blame any of the people alive in that time. Perhaps the world leaders making the decision to bomb a civilian city were losing their mental powers due to the stress of the war. Or maybe they made this decision because they felt that Japan would never give up unless the civilians stopped supporting the war. Maybe one of the biggest problems was that nobody really knew the awesome power of an atomic bomb and its effects on the environment. Nobody could really knew that people still had to suffer under the effects of the atomic bomb some years later.

My personal opinion is that although there were so many innocent victims the dropping of the atomic bomb was right. I have two reasons for supporting the American attack. By dropping the bomb the Americans saved thousands of lives and ended in a few days a terrible war. After the bomb, the Japanese government recognized that war could not continue. Secondly, the Americans had the right to react to the Japanese attack of Pearl Harbor where many Americans lost their lives.