Taymi Herrera-Pujols
Professor Stewart
Rhetoric 103
19 February 2016
720 Words
The Risks of Thanking the Atom Bomb In discussions of the end of World War II, one controversial issue has been whether the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki should have been dropped. On the one hand, In his polemic essay, Thank God for the Atom, Paul Fussell argues that the atomic bombs were a necessary evil to end the war quickly. On the other hand, Michael Walzer in his response to Fussell's essay, contends that the bombs were an act of terrorism and immoral. I agree that the war needed to come to an end somehow but the means were inhumane. Thousands of people died in mere minutes, two cities were virtually wiped off the face of the earth in the span…show more content… I understand that I may never know what it feels like to be part of an army that's about to go into war and but I as an American citizen should have some sort of authority too since it is part of my history too, it is part of what makes us a society, is part of something that we should all care about. Walzer's opinion should not be attacked or discredited just because he was 10 years old when the bombs were dropped. This is not to say that Fussell's opinion is invalid and as he described it on his essay and I can only imagine the relief that he felt knowing that he would not have to go into war…show more content… Many have said that the Japanese did not surrender even after the first bomb, but there was only a three day frame between the bombs, Japan should have been given more time to fully absorb the event. Perhaps another reason as to why the atom bomb should not have been used is that the United States opened the door to a nuclear age and now multiple countries have or are developing the technology. One of the biggest threats to world peace in the 21st century are nuclear weapons. If there is ever another large-scale world conflict it might mean nuclear war. A nuclear war could mean the end of humanity as we know it. America should have thought twice before opening the age of nuclear warfare for now there is a cloud of destruction that looms over