The Pros And Cons Of Atomic Bombing

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In a similar manner, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are highly controversial, due to the fact that two extremely different viewpoints arose as the result of the nuclear bombings. For example, Hiroshima survivor Kurihara Sadako, in response to her personal experience and reactions to the bombing, created the poem “Let Us Be Midwives!” This untold story of the atomic bombings addresses the question what price did Japanese citizens have to pay for America’s demonstration of power and ability through American exceptionalism? Sadako finds herself locked in the basement of a building with a group of people, attempting to survive the nuclear blast. The line “And so new life was born in the dark of that pit of hell.” depicts that during …show more content…

Total war, defined as a war unrestricted in its utilization of weapons, the territory involved, or the objectives and enemies targeted. Due to the fact that the United States intentionally targeted Hiroshima and Nagasaki for both their essentially unharmed civilian populations and involvement with war production, the laws of war were fundamentally disregarded. Meaning, a type of shift occurred in either the United State’s morality or mindset, when the bombing of innocent civilians was considered “conventional.” During World War II, extreme cases of bombing and murdering of civilian populations were occurring across Europe and Asia, an occurrence that affected the entire world. Specifically, the quote “As might be expected, the primary reason of the populace to the bombing was fear, uncontrolled terror, strengthened by the sheer horror of the destruction, and suffering witnessed and experienced by the survivors” from the “United States Strategic Bomb Survey, Summary Report” illustrates the civilian response to the global power and exceptionalism of the United States. In addition to purposefully targeting the civilian population of Japan to gain an upper hand in the war against the Axis powers, the United States was repaying the Japanese for bombing Pearl Harbor. And by the time these two atomic bombs were dropped on Japan, 50 million people had already died in WWII. Thus, the United States, along with other world powers, shattered the idea of leaving civilian cities and populations out of crossfire. The two bombings succeeded in establishing the superior, dominant, destructive power of the United States. Above all, the United States fell victim to the central lack of morality World War II provoked. The United States after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki crossed the line of morality and into an area of total war, that left no

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