Hiroshima Essay: Unjustified
“As the bomb fell over Hiroshima and exploded, we saw an entire city disappear. I wrote in my log the words: ‘My God, what have we done?”.
That was Captain Robert Lewis, co-pilot of the Enola Gay (“Enola Gay,” 2017, November 07), the bomber airplane which dropped the atomic bomb Little Boy on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6 August, 1945.
Imagine being a pilot, steering your bomber airplane over a city full of children. Imagine opening up your airplane’s fuselage and dropping a bomb. Then imagine a child; someone's son or daughter, burning underneath.
The bombing of Hiroshima is, at first glance, a controversy about morals, ethics, and justice. That is a big part of it. But another largely ignored part…show more content… Had the public found that their money went toward the bomb just for it to not be used, they’d be outraged. The government needed a way to use the bomb quickly to a) prevent spending more on its maintenance and b) to ensure news of the bomb came from them first, and not a leak that would cause a media frenzy.
Also, when the US nuked Hiroshima, the majority of Americans didn’t view it as a massacre. I believe that at this point they were heavily desensitized due to anti-Japanese propaganda. An example of desensitization due to propaganda can be how Adolf Hitler desensitized Germany toward the Jesuit community by calling them Untermensch, or subhuman (“Untermensch,” 2017, October 27).
I think that a few reasons why Little Boy was dropped were a) large sums of taxpayer money was invested in the bomb and b) the perfect opportunity was presented to drop Little Boy, as it would be seen as a positive war development by the American public due to anti Japanese sentiment.
I also deduce that the atomic bomb was dropped mostly to prevent the Soviets from affecting the Japanese…show more content… This is also supported by the Geneva convention (“War crime,” 2017, November 06). From a judicial perspective, Hiroshima was an unjustifiable war crime then, and now.
But the most puzzling evidence to attempt to justify: why Nagasaki? Why couldn’t the US wait a week, much less 3 days for Japan to surrender? Why did the US drop bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki if they knew Japan were in the middle of negotiating surrender terms?
I believe there’s one clear answer: Hiroshima was the US’s way of showing they had Nuclear weapons, and Nagasaki was their way of showing they had quantity.
In my opinion, Hiroshima was a perversion of justice because a) by international law, Hiroshima was a war crime and b) the only agenda for Hiroshima that measures after considering Nagasaki is that the 2 bombs were dropped to deride the Soviets.
My mom was from the Philippines, a former American colony. She told me that in her textbooks, Hiroshima was a necessity, and that Hiroshima was