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Recently I've been studying the bombing of Hiroshima. 140,000 innocent people lost their lives while many more were effected by the radiation until the end of their life. Babies who had been in the womb during the bombing suffered mutilations such as enlarged heads and mental retardation. Many people were unable to reproduce after the bomb went off. Is it really fair to sacrifice the lives of the innocent for soldiers? If the war had gone on many people would have been killed. The vast majority of them soldiers not children and other innocent civilians. Many people say that the bomb ended the war. It certainly did.

Did it have to end in such a crass way? Was the lives of the civilians worth the peace? Does peace have to be accomplished through war? Besides intimidation and weapons how can peace be achieved? Is the lives of 140,000 civilians worth that of who ever else might have dies in the war?

It's really hard to form a opinion on this kind of thing, but I wish so many civilians hadn't died. I got really mad yesterday, because in class We had this discussion about the most important and positive inventions that there have been, and one boy said the atomic bomb. I personally wish that it had never been invented, so I called him a warlord and the teacher got mad. But I was just like what the ********? People like that make me mad. I mean, what happened can't be changed, and it was unfortunate, but I can't belive that anyone could ever acknowledge it as a good thing. It makes me sick. That whole ordeal was a shame, but there nothing that can be done now I guess.

Yes, many innocents were killed..
But it showed that the U.S. meant buisness, and we still had to drop one more before Japan got the hint.
They bombed Pearl Harbor.
Plenty of innocent were killed then, also.
It's war.
I'm sure more lives were saved because it did help in the war.

Hmmmm, I've been to Hiroshima so I feel compelled to say something.

If you walk around Hiroshima in the summertime you will notice the heat. Now this of course is due to the extreme variance of climate that southern Japan feels during these warmer months, and not any sort of radiation. When I say hot I mean very very hot. It's generally muggy and polluted and crowded and like every other Japanese metropolitan area (I feel I can say this because I experienced Tokyo as well as Kyoto and spent a month in that country).

The only thing missing however, is the history.

Now this is quite a thing to say, but it's true. In Hiroshima there are no buildings older than 60ish years, everything was destroyed, all the ruins and temples and castles and cemetaries and wonderfully historic landmarks.

Hiroshima is a city of steel and glass, of skyscrapers and technology, but even in Tokyo, the city renound for such things, you will still find old houses and grave yards and things of that nature.

This happened for a reason, we gave Japan warning that we were bombing Hiroshima, we dropped leaflets on the city explaining to them in Japanese what was coming. All of these facts are in the museum at the Hiroshima monument. But for some reason they did not evacuate and in doing so were destroyed.

This however ended the war in the pacific and has since made us incredible allies with the japanese people.

you say that the ones dying would've been just soldiers, but, had we not used the bomb we would've had to invade japan and fight in their cities. so civilians would die either way. doesn't justify it, just thought i'd point that out.

i am a cynic. i don't believe world peace can be achieved. but i do think countries should focus on their own damn problems and not on conquering each other.

as for the ends justifying the means...i want to say no, but in some cases it may. for example: its bad to kill people. but if killing one man will save thirty men, women, and children from certain death, is it justifiable to kill that one man? i am tempted to say yes, but i really don't know.

well thats possible...but the military plans that were in discussion involved invading japan...or the bomb. not the surrounding islands.