Sign Up Now
Get instant access to over 1 million+ study documents
OR
Already registered? click here to login
By creating your account, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and student honor code.
Hiroshima Bombing
The Manhattan Project
When I was asked to work on the Manhattan project during the late 1930's, I was delighted to be included in work of such magnitude. Not only would I work with the most prominent scientists in the world; I would also make a substantial contribution to the United States Government and its effort to keep the country safe.
Recently however I have begun experiencing considerable ambivalence regarding the work we were doing. Nuclear technology is extremely volatile and dangerous. The Government is also under pressure to end the war quickly, and plans are being made to use the atomic bomb for this purpose. Although the atomic bomb would effectively accomplish this, I am having serious misgivings about using it on human targets. My colleagues have voiced similar misgivings. For this reason I was asked to draw up a petition voicing our concerns about using the bomb in populated areas. In order to make a clear decision regarding the contents of this petition, and indeed whether or not such a petition is necessary, I have examined all the factors involved in this issue.
International Law
The most important consideration is international law. Several preventative laws have been implemented in order to prevent unnecessary brutality in events of war. I believe that these should enjoy careful scrutiny before proceeding with the plans for the atomic bomb.
Article XXII of the Hague convention with respect to the laws and customs of war on land for example states that the right to injure the enemy is not unlimited. Surely if a bomb as potent as the one we are developing is used against a nation, unlimited rights to harm the enemy are assumed. It has been shown that the effects of nuclear energy can be more devastating than is required by an act merely to end a war. Many civilians, including women and children, may be harmed if such measures are taken. It was found that plutonium is accompanied by two by-product effects.
The first is that an enormous amount of energy is produced by the chain reaction...
In fact, a report by Dr. Smyth, one of the first working on such projects, suggests that a relative of the uranium pile may be sufficient to drive the machines of the entire world. Furthermore the Doctor found that the amount of daily radioactive poisons could cause large areas of land to become uninhabitable.
Article XXIII of the Hague Convention furthermore states that the use of poison or poisoned arms is especially prohibited, together with the use of material that would cause superfluous harm to the enemy. Surely rendering large areas of enemy land uninhabitable for long periods of time is harming the inhabitants superfluously. The atomic bomb is also poisonous, as seen above, which also makes it prohibited under the two Articles mentioned above.
Article XXIV, paragraph 1 of the Hague Rules for Aerial Warfare states that Aerial bombardment is only legitimate with the object of a military advantage for the belligerent. Paragraph 2 goes on to clarify specific objectives for aerial bombardment. These include military forces, military works, military establishments or depots, factories constituting important and well-known centers engaged in the manufacture of arms, etc. Paragraph 3 prohibits bombarding civilian areas such as cities or buildings not in the vicinity of military activity.
The bomb we developed will violate the above prohibitions if it is used. The poisonous gases released by the bomb will be harmful not only to the target areas, but also to distant civilian areas. The powerful effects of the bomb will reach farther than other explosives used in the past. Using the bomb in any area of Japan is tantamount to bombarding civilian areas, since the harm will be as great as for the military areas themselves. Can we in good conscience allow this? When considering the humanitarian and political factors involved, the answer has to be no.
Humanitarian and Political Considerations
Ralph A. Bard (June 27, 1945) has created a memorandum on the use of S-1 Bomb, stating that Japan should have preliminary warning two or…
bombing of Hiroshima raises some significant ethical issues. From a military perspective, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki served as the catalyst for bringing about Japanese surrender, thereby ending the war in the Pacific. However, these attacks on civilian targets were among the most horrific in the history of wartime. Such attacks would be outlawed today under the Fourth Geneva Convention, which was enacted in 1949 partly as a
The reverend did hard work during the after math of the bombing and was dedicated to help the survivors. He later on became a peace activist and traveled to the U.S. To give speeches and have TV appearances and raised money for the surviving victim's treatments. Mr. Tanimoto is a more complex and complicated person in this novel and shows that he has ties to the U.S. He is acting
Atomic bomb in Japan [...] President Truman's decision to use the atomic bomb in Japan, and discuss why Truman's decision was the proper decision for the time. Choosing to use the atomic bomb to end the war with Japan was not an easy decision, or one that President Truman chose lightly. It was a necessary decision to keep the war from continuing, and ultimately save thousands of soldiers' and
Indeed, there is no moral argument to justify the use of weapons against possible civilians. The nuclear bomb lacks any precision in targeting solely military targets without causing casualties. Although its use cannot be justified from a moral perspective, it can be seen as a means to put an end to a war that had taken millions of lives up to 1945. The impact the attacks had on Japan
Dropping the Atom Bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki During World War II, a mid-20th-century conflict that involved several nations, the United States military dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Wikipedia, 2005). The first atomic bomb was exploded over Hiroshima on August 5, 1945; the second was detonated over Nagasaki four days later. The bombs killed more than 120,000 people immediately and about twice as many over
feared terrorist acts in the history of United States where Oklahoma City was targeted as the place for criminal act. The intention of this paper is to give a brief overview of the event that took place in 1995 and the conspirators behind this criminal act. Their plot and details of attack have been elaborated in a well form, which discuss every aspect of the activity from plotting of