Resolved: The Atomic Bombings of Japan were justified.

My opponent is correct in saying that the ferocity of the fighting between Japan and the USA was extreme, but the simple fact is that it is the politicians, not the soldiers, who dictate whether a country should surrender. Whilst it is true that a military coup was being planned, it was not supported by all of the Japanese generals. General Torashiro Kawabe said on August 13th (in the midst of the attempted coup): "The Army will act in accordance with the Imperial Decision to the last." (1) This suggests that the army did respect the Emperor's ruling and would not disobey him. The emperor wanted a surrender and so would have persuaded the army to do so with or without the use of the atom bomb. Whilst the Emperor did finally decide to take action after the bombing of Nagasaki, there is no proof that the bombings actually caused Japan to surrender before the execution of Operation Downfall. I argue that, due to the Emperor's wording, the general suffering of his people was the reason for his desire for surrender, not specifically the atom bomb. He says: 'I cannot bear to see my innocent people suffer any longer' (2) Which suggests that, as fire-bombs arguably caused more suffering, the use of an atomic bomb was unnecessary in ensuring Japanese surrender insofar as we accept that it was immense civilian suffering that was the cause of the surrender. I am aware that fire-bombs killed more people than the atomic bomb, and I am not saying that the fire-bombing raids were morally justified. I all I assert is that they achieved everything that an atomic bomb could, so there is no practical reason why Truman was justified in using an atomic bomb instead of a fire-bomb. Furthermore, whilst fire-bombing did kill more, its damage is instantaneous. What is morally abhorrent about nuclear weapons is that future children were born with horrific mutations; these babies were not even alive at the time of the war! My opponent goes on to suggest that the dropping of the atomic bomb was necessary because Japanese knowledge of Operation Trinity showed that they would only take seriously the use of the bomb on Japan itself. However, my opponent contradicts himself; earlier in the debate he mentioned that even when the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima the Generals dismissed it anyway. This suggests that the Generals would dismiss any use of the atomic bomb, they did not even support surrender after Nagasaki. It transpires that the Japanese top brass were dismissive of all nuclear weapons, so their use was unnecessary. 'I have already showed that the Emporer wouldn't have had useful effects upon ending it early as I've shown in my last contention so the impacts can be extended across the board.' Well, he did end it early, inasmuch as he ended it before Operation Downfall despite the military commanders desiring continuation of the war. He did not even cite the nuclear bomb as his main reason for wanting surrender. (2) My opponent has not explained why the leafleting of the atomic bomb serves as valid reason where the veracity of wartime propaganda was universally doubted. Whilst it was true that they carried out some leafleting between the time of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they did not leave any time for the government to respond as there was only a two day gap. The quote by Secretary Stinson, whilst being outside the duration of the war, was still in 1947 which was not enough time for all the pre-surrender Japanese politics to emerge to public knowledge. So not enough information would be available for Stinson to have made a fully informed assessment. My opponent's final point is about Japanese War Crimes and that the atomic bombs were just punishment for them. However, this is ethically fallacious. When exacting punishment, it should be towards the perpetrators of the action and punishing those who did not participate in the crime is unjust. Considering that the vast majority of the people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not commit any war-crimes, punishing them for the sins of another is considered barbaric. It's not even 'an eye for an eye', it's more of 'an eye for the eye of an innocent who happens to live in the same country as the criminal'. Let me end with a quote by Leo Szilard, a Hungarian-American physicist involved in the development of nuclear technology in the 1930s. "Let me say only this much to the moral issue involved: Suppose Germany had developed two bombs before we had any bombs. And suppose Germany had dropped one bomb, say, on Rochester and the other on Buffalo, and then having run out of bombs she would have lost the war. Can anyone doubt that we would then have defined the dropping of atomic bombs on cities as a war crime, and that we would have sentenced the Germans who were guilty of this crime to death at Nuremberg and hanged them?" (3) I would like to thank my opponent for being such a worthy opponent and creating a very interesting historical debate, the kind which we rarely find on DDO. (1)https://books.google.co.uk... (2)http://en.wikipedia.org... (3)http://members.peak.org...