The United States of America should never have bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Good luck to my opponent in the voting period. He has debated very well. I like Wikipedia, by the way. ============= The option of Peace: ============= "Before I begin, I would just like to extremely stress the option of "peace." My opponent has never clearly refuted why it was not and option and stated, confusingly, that it was a hypothetical option, which did not prove why he posed it in the first place. He stated that moral in war was to end the war with the fewest deaths. I don't believe that ending it the fastest is truly that moral. Anyway, he stated that the bombs were the best option for his definition of moral, compared to a mainland assault on Japan. True, but once again, peace outruns both of these options. Peace stops the war completely, and quickly to your definition, and there would no longer be casualties or deaths." Though my opponent pointed out that Peace would have been the best option, he could not provide any evidence to show that it was in fact an option. I believe this is because it wasn't at all an option. I only listed it in round one so that I could then state that it wasn't one, the same as 'giving up'. The grounds for surrender were given to the Japanese leaders, despite their resources being cut off; despite the fact they were faced with complete destruction and they were rejected. America did NOT just randomly drop bombs on Japan. It was the next logical step in the 1945 campaign. I conclude that because Japan & America could not reach an agreement that satisfied them both, peace was not an option. Because my opponent agrees with my that the atomic attacks were better than a mainland assault, I will not stress that argument any more. "...why didn't we drop the bombs on Kyushu? It seems like it makes complete sense to bomb a true militaristic island rather than Hiroshima and Nagasaki who had many more civilians." I can really only speculate. I imagine that the United States could not be sure that the Atomic explosions were going to make Japan surrender, so blowing up the area where they still planned on assaulting if all else failed wouldn't have made much tactical sense. The fallout would have made their own soldiers ill. "...I challenge this and say that the Soviet Union was the reason Japan gave up. Historian Tsuyoshi Hasegawa's research has led him to conclude that the atomic bombings themselves were not even the principal reason for capitulation. Instead, he contends, it was the swift and devastating Soviet victories in Manchuria that forced the Japanese surrender on August 15, 1945. So you see, it was clearly unimportant to bomb them, as they were already beaten by the Soviets." This is only a theory. We cannot be sure of anything that didn't happen, because it didn't happen. All we can be sure of is the sequence of events that have led us to today. This includes the atomic blasts. CONCLUSION: My opponent purposes that Hiroshima and Nagasaki should never have been bombed and bases his argument on the moral issues at hand. Apparently these two countries, who had been fighting each other tooth and nail for the previous 4 years should have set aside their differences and agreed to disagree. I don't believe it is as simple a matter as that. I don't like the fact that the United States dropped the atomic bombs on Japan, but I believe that at the time it was the better of their two remaining options. After Japan refused their offer of surrender, America were reviewing two options. The option they chose resulting in the war ending with minimal casualties to their own forces. My opponent says that the bombing of Japan caused the Cold War. He can hardly know that it wouldn't have been a lot worse if events had been different. Yes, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a horrible thing, but what in war ISN'T horrible? Thank you.