Atomic Bomb Dbq Essay

Who has the right to decide who lives and who dies? It has always been a moral debate for centuries. In order to save oneself is it worth the lives of others? Is it better to be a martyr or a murderer. For every soldier saved from the atomic bombs in Japan, how many civilians were lost? Throughout history the atomic bomb has been looked at in amazement or horror. The atomic bomb has earned a gaze of horror for all the lives lost. The atomic bomb was an extremist act highly that should not have happened for many reasons. The atomic bomb was created in order to have a counterattack against Germany if they used such a device on the Allied powers. Germany had surrendered and this threat was null and void. Since the war with Japan raged on many

The Secretary of War Stimson approved this attack. He saw war as the face of death nothing more and nothing less. THe bomb “brought death to over a hundred thousand Japanese... but this deliberate premeditated destruction was our least abhorrent alternative” (Document 3). Stimson viewed the bomb as a quick way to the end. He believed that it further shows war is death and that nothing else should be brought of it. It was his idea of the best option instead of fighting a long war. Soldiers who had fought in the war in Europe were tired of fighting. They wanted to go home so when the bomb dropped they saw it as a way of being free of a war (Document 5). Which in their case is true they can go home to their families and loved ones, but what about those in Hiroshima or Nagasaki? They do not have anything anymore and some do not have life anymore. Those who did not sign up to put their lives on the line those who did not wish to fight were lost in the attack. There is a fair counterargument that the Japanese did bomb Pearl Harbor and so they brought the war to the United States. Many claim they had it coming because they killed about 2,500 people but dropping the bombs killed hundreds of thousands not to mention the wounded or those with radiation poisoning. A counterattack is fair but the difference in casualties if far too great to consider it revenge. It was a malicious and barbaric attack no matter how they try to justify