You open your eyes, coming out of a dream, waking up to the fact that your country is at war. Forget that, not just your country, the entire world. A war that had been going on for years, but little did you know it would be ending soon, at a very large price. On August 6, 1945, the entire Japanese culture and country was changed in a matter of seconds. The Atomic Bomb dropped by the Americans on Hiroshima was an injustice to the people of Japan, and an embarrassment to the U.S..
When we look back at this tragedy, we tend to think “why on earth did we do this”, but the U.S. officials had reasons. The Japanese had attacked that U.S. on their own soil, think had never happened before, so President Roosevelt felt he needed to do something. After the bombing, Albert Einstein, one of the greatest minds in history, had contacted President Roosevelt, and told him to create the Atom bomb. He did this because Hitler was still on the rise and killing more jews by the hour, and he knew that the Germans were trying to develop the Atom Bomb as well. President Roosevelt approved the Manhattan Project, and gave some of the greatest minds, including J. Robert Oppenheimer known as the father of the Atomic Bomb, funding to build the most diabolical weapon of all time. Einstein was later quoted saying, “I made one great mistake in my life-when I signed that letter to President Roosevelt recommending that the Atom Bombs be made; but there was some justification-the danger that the Germans would make the bombs!”
Many people ask why the United States didn’t face a human rights trial for dropping the bombs. Well, in a very simple way, the U.S. won. The Japanese were crippled, they had no chance to push for a punishing. No one ever said that what the U.S. did was honorable, but even if the Japanese had pushed for prosecution, the U.S. and allied powers would’ve just sued for all of the war crimes that they had committed. Later, some significant people were asked if they could’ve been tried for war crimes. Curtis LeMay, the general who organized the bombing, said, “I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal.”
There were many reasons that the U.S. dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. First to cripple the Japanese and bring them to their knees, and to end the war. The war in Europe had officially ended on May 8, 1945, with Germanys surrender, but Japan was still in the war mindset. It wasn’t until the bomb was dropped on August 6 and August 9 that Japan surrendered. They called it V-J Day (victory in Japan day). WWII officially ended on September 2, 1945, with the official unconditional surrender of the Japanese.
The dropping of these bombs has effected hundreds of thousands of peoples lives thorough out the past generations. Many kids were cursed with birth defects that crippled them and the rest of their families. After the bomb had dropped, the effects on people came in stages. Stage 1 was the first two weeks and they were mainly burns from the rays and flames of the bomb. Stage 2 was from the 3rd week to he 8th week, and it consisted of loss of hair, bleeding and diarrhea. The 3rd stage are the 3rd and 4th months and were considered as some improvement, with some scars and disfiguration. Finally the 4th stage was from the 4th month to decades later. People are still effected by it. People are getting leukemia, A-bomb cataracts, and many kinds of cancer including thyroid, breast, and lung cancer.
The effects of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have long reaching effects, way beyond the places where it happened. Although there is no actual law prohibiting the use of nuclear weapons, however “in 1996 the International Court of Justice concluded that the use of nuclear weapons would be generally contrary to the principles and rules of International Humanitarian Law (IHL)”-International Committee of the Red Cross. There is no ban on nuclear weapons. The entire world just views them as very unethical, and that is for the better.
Even though the nuclear bomb is very frowned upon, the entire world, mainly the super powers think that it is very necessary to have a large amount of them in their arsenal for protection. The nuclear movement really came along during the cold war between the U.S. and Russia. That’s why those two countries have an unbelievable amount more. However, there is much support to ban the nuclear bomb. The United Nations has been holding many meetings on the topic of “nuclear disarmament”. Two main stances remain on the subject. Those who want to keep the status as it is, and those who want to change the status completely. ICAN (International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons) is really looking to change the world’s view on nuclear weapons. Their thoughts are very progressive in eliminating the Nuke.