Bombings of hiroshima nagasaki was an unnecessary war crime Essay Example

align="justify">Historians such as Bernstein, Heehaws, and Newman have criticized Unite for drawing a conclusion they say went far beyond what the available evidence warranted, in order to promote the reputation of the Air Force at the expense of the Army and Navy. Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote in his memoir The Unite House Years: In 1945 Secretary of War Stemson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan.

I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act.

During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, iris on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. Other U. S. Military officers who disagreed with the necessity of the bombings include General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Fleet Admiral William D.

Alley (the Chief of Staff to the President), Brigadier General Carter Clarke (the military intelligence officer who prepared intercepted Japanese cables for U. S. Officials), and Fleet Admiral Chester W. Intuit, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet. The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace. The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military point of view, in the defeat of Japan.

" Fleet Admiral Chester W. Intuit, Commander in Chief of the U. S. Pacific Fleet. The use of [the atomic

bombs] at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan.

The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons.

.. The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the iris to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages.

I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children. " Fleet Admiral William D. Alley, Chief of Staff to President Truman. Historian Toshiba Heehaws wrote the atomic bombings themselves were not the principal reason for Japan's capitulation. Instead, he contends, it was the Soviet entry in the war on 8 August, allowed by the Potsdam Declaration signed by the other Allies. The fact the Soviet Union did not sign this declaration gave Japan reason to believe the Soviets could be kept out of the war.

As late as 25 July, the day before the declaration was issued, Japan had asked for a diplomatic envoy led by Keno to come to Moscow hoping to mediate peace in the Pacific.

Keno was supposed to bring a letter from the Emperor stating: His Majesty the Emperor, mindful of the fact that the present war daily brings greater evil and sacrifice of the peoples of all the belligerent powers, desires from his heart that it may be quickly terminated. But as long as England and the United States insist upon unconditional surrender the Japanese Empire has no alternative to fight on with all its

strength for the honor and existence of the Motherland...

T is the Emperor's private intention to send Prince Keno to Moscow as a Special Envoy...

Hogwash's view is, when the Soviet Union declared war on 8 August, it crushed all hope in lapin's leading circles the Soviets could be kept out of the war, and/or allow reinforcement from Asia to the Japanese islands for the expected invasion. Heehaws "rote: On the basis of available evidence, however, it is clear that the two atomic bombs.

.. Alone were not decisive in inducing Japan to surrender. Despite their destructive power, the atomic bombs were not sufficient to change the direction of panels diplomacy.

The Soviet invasion was.

Without the Soviet entry in the war, the Lebanese would have continued to fight until numerous atomic bombs, a successful allied invasion of the home islands, or continued aerial bombardments, combined Ninth a naval blockade, rendered them incapable of doing so. Truman argued that the effects of Japan witnessing a failed test would be too great of a risk to arrange such a demonstration. State terrorism Historical accounts indicate the decision to use the atomic bombs was made in order to provoke a surrender of Japan by use of an awe-inspiring power.

These terrorism: the effort to kill civilians in such large numbers that their government is forced to surrender.

Hiroshima seems to me the classic case. " This type of claim eventually prompted historian Robert P. Newman, a supporter of the bombings, to say "there can be Justified terror, as there can be Just wars. " Certain scholars and historians have characterized the atomic bombings of Japan as a form

of "state terrorism".

This interpretation is based on a definition of terrorism as "the targeting of innocents to achieve a political goal".

As Frances V. Harbor points out, the dieting of the Target Committee in Los Alamos on 10 and 11 May 1945 suggested targeting the large population centers of Kyoto or Hiroshima for a "psychological effect" and to make "the initial use sufficiently spectacular for the importance of the Neap to be internationally recognized. " As such, Professor Harbor suggests the goal was to create terror for political ends both in and beyond lapin. However, Burbling Taylor Wilkins believes it stretches the meaning of 'terrorism" to include wartime acts.

Historian Howard Zion wrote that the bombings Nerve terrorism.

Zion cites the sociologist Aka Erikson who said that the bombings loud not be called "combat" because they targeted civilians. Just Near theorist Michael Waller said that while taking the lives of civilians can be stifled under conditions of 'supreme emergency', the war situation at that time did not constitute such an emergency. Tony Cody, Frances V. Harbor, and Kamala Nassau also view the targeting of civilians during the bombings as a form of terrorism.

Nassau classifies the atomic bombings as terrorism in the same vein as the firebombing of Tokyo, the firebombing of Dressed, and the Holocaust. Richard A.

Fall, professor Emeritus of International Law and Practice at Princeton University has Mitten in detail about Hiroshima and Nagasaki as instances of state terrorism. He said that "the explicit function of the attacks was to terrorize the population through mass slaughter and to confront its leaders with the prospect of national annihilation. " Author Steven Poole

said that the "people killed by terrorism" are not the targets of the intended terror effect.

He said that the atomic bombings were 'designed as an awful demonstration" aimed at Stalin and the government of Japan.

Lebanese nuclear weapons program During the war, and 1945 in particular, due to state secrecy, very little was known outside of Japan about the slow progress of the Japanese nuclear weapons program. rhea US knew that Japan had requested materials from their German allies, and 560 keg (1,230 lb) of unprocessed uranium oxide was dispatched to Japan in April 1945 aboard the submarine U-234, which however surrendered to US forces in the Atlantic following Germany's surrender.

The uranium oxide was reportedly labeled as 'U-235", which may have been a mishandling of the submarine's name; its exact characteristics remain unknown. Some sources believe that it was not weapons- grade material and was intended for use as a catalyst in the production of homiletic methanol to be used for aviation fuel. If post-war analysis had found that Lebanese nuclear weapons development was near completion, this discovery might have served in a revisionist sense to Justify the atomic attack on Japan.

However, it is known that the poorly coordinated Japanese project was considerably behind the US developments in 1945, and also behind the unsuccessful German nuclear energy had already created a nuclear weapon, by Department of Energy employee Roger M. Enders, appeared in the Journal Military Affairs: Journalist Willow's book describes he Japanese wartime atomic energy projects. This is laudable, in that it illuminates a little-known episode; nevertheless, the work is marred by Willow's seeming eagerness to show that Japan created an

atomic bomb.

Tales of Japanese atomic explosions, one fictional attack on Los Angels, the other an unsubstantiated account of a post- Hiroshima test, begin the book.

(Wilcox accepts the test story because the author [Snell], "was a distinguished Journalist"). The tales, combined with Willow's failure to discuss the difficulty of translating scientific theory into a workable bomb, obscure he actual story of the Japanese effort: uncoordinated laboratory-scale projects which took paths least likely to produce a bomb.

Nagasaki bombing unnecessary rhea second atomic bombing, on Nagasaki, came only three days after the bombing of Hiroshima, when the devastation at Hiroshima had yet to be fully comprehended by the Japanese. The lack of time between the bombings has led some historians to state that the second bombing was "certainly unnecessary", "gratuitous at best and genocidal at worst", and not Jus in bellow In response to the claim that the atomic mobbing of Nagasaki was unnecessary, Maddox wrote: Some historians have argued that while the first bomb might have been required to achieve Japanese surrender, dropping the second constituted a needless barbarism.

However, the record shows otherwise. American officials believed more than one bomb would be necessary because they assumed Japanese hard-liners would minimize the first explosion or attempt to explain it away as some sort of natural catastrophe, which is precisely Nat they did. In the three days between the bombings, the Japanese minister of war, for instance, refused even to admit that the Hiroshima bomb was atomic. A few hours after Nagasaki, he told the cabinet that "the Americans appeared to have one hundred atomic bombs they could drop three per day.

The next target

might well be Tokyo. Jerome Hagen indicates that War Minister Manama's revised briefing was partly based on interrogating captured American 8-29 pilot Marcus McMillan. Under torture, McMillan reported that the Americans had 100 atomic bombs, and that Tokyo and Kyoto would be the next atomic bomb targets. Both were lies; McMillan was not Involved or briefed on the Manhattan Project and simply told the Japanese what he thought they wanted to hear. One day before the bombing of Nagasaki, the Emperor notified Foreign Minister Seignior T¶g¶ of his desire to "insure a prompt ending of hostilities".

Togo wrote in his memoir that the Emperor "warned [him] that since we could no longer continue the struggle, now that a weapon of this devastating power Nas used against us, we should not let slip the opportunity [to end the war] by engaging in attempts to gain more favorable conditions. " The Emperor then requested Togo to communicate his wishes to the Prime Minister. Racism and demutualization Historian James J. Winegrower sees a connection between the American mutilation of panels war dead and the bombings.

According to Winegrower both were partially the result of a demutualization of the enemy. The widespread image of the Japanese as sub-human constituted an emotional context which provided another Justification day after the Nagasaki bomb, President Truman had stated: "The only language they seem to understand is the one we have been using to bombard them. When you have to deal with a beast you have to treat him like a beast. It is most regrettable but nevertheless true". International law At the time of the atomic bombings, there was no international treaty

or instrument retention a civilian population specifically from attack by aircraft.

Many critics of the atomic bombings point to the Hogue Conventions of 1899 and 1907 as setting rules in place regarding the attack of civilian populations.

The Hogue Conventions contained no specific air warfare provisions but it prohibited the targeting of undefended civilians by naval artillery, field artillery, or siege engines, all of which were classified as "bombardment". However, the Conventions allowed the targeting of military establishments in cities, including military depots, industrial plants, and workshops Inch could be used for war.

This set of rules was not followed during World War which saw bombs dropped indiscriminately on cities by Zeppelins and multi-engine bombers. Afterward, another series of meetings were held at The Hogue in 1922-23, but no binding agreement was reached regarding air warfare. During the sass and sass, the aerial bombing of cities was resumed, notably by the German Condor Legion against the cities of Guerrilla and Durango in Spain in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War.

This led to an escalation of various cities bombed, including Cocooning, Warsaw, Rotterdam, London, Coventry, Hamburg, Dressed, ND Tokyo.

All of the major belligerents in World War II dropped bombs on civilians in cities. Modern debate over the applicability of the Hogue Conventions to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki revolves around whether the Conventions can be assumed to cover modes of warfare that were at the time unknown; whether rules for artillery bombardment can be applied to rules for aerial bombing. As well, the debate hinges on to what degree the Hogue Conventions was being followed by the Marring countries. If the Hogue

Conventions is admitted as applicable, the critical question becomes whether the bombed cities met the definition of "undefended".

Some observers consider Hiroshima and Nagasaki undefended, some say that both cities were legitimate military targets, and others say that Hiroshima could be considered a military target while Nagasaki was comparatively undefended. Hiroshima has been argued as not a legitimate target because the major industrial plants were Just outside of the target area. It has also been argued as a legitimate target because Hiroshima was the headquarters of the regional Second General Army and Fifth Division with 40,000 military personnel stationed in the city.