America was justified in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Once again, my opponent did not understand my points. Before August of 1945, Japan did not know of our nuclear weapons. Its navy was destroyed in battle, as was it's air force. He clearly does not understand the idea that just because you had a large army at the beginning of the war does not mean that you have a large army at the end of it. Yes, in the treaties after the war, they lost any capabilities to attack another country as part of their UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER Yes, we offered the Japanese the option of UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER. This is the type of surrender NO HONORABLE JAPANESE EMPEROR COULD EVER TAKE. They never controlled the entire Pacific. If they had controlled the Eastern Pacific, they would have invaded California, Hawaii would have been under their control, as would Australia and many other places. This was simply not the case. I am not even going to comment on his graph. That graph is from 1945-2013. Seriously? In the 2 nuclear tests we did in 1945, they were kept as part of the TOP SECRET MANHATTAN PROJECT. THE JAPANESE DID NOT KNOW ABOUT THESE PROGRAMS! So how had we ever demonstrated our power to them? World War II? They put up one hell of a fight and took many of our islands including Guam, The Philippines and even an invasion in Alaska! I do not understand how our progress in World War II was any indication that we could wipe them off the map. Ugh... I won't go on in these rebuttals. My opponent clearly had no knowledge about World War 2 in this debate. He does not understand the problems with morality in war nor does he understand that unconditional surrender is humiliation. Maybe I should have said something about that. I believe my arguments were very straight forward and offered some very valid questions. Furthermore, he does not understand the Japanese culture at the time and why it took so much for them to surrender. If the voters have any knowledge about World War Two, they could never vote, and I will explain why. Richard Dawkins once listened to a woman Fervently defend creationism with excellent scientific points. He approached her after her lecture and, according to "The Blind Watchmaker", questioned why she had argued for Creationism when he knew for a fact that she was not a creationist. She responded that she had wanted to prove that she could argue for both Evolution and Creationism. Why do I bring this up? It is because I have done much the same here. I do not believe that the US or any other country under any circumstances could ever morally justify the use of such a weapon on any enemy. However, World War Two was fought with the ideology of Total War. This means that the only morality left in war was "The ends justifies the means". When the war in the Pacific was drawing to a close in the summer of 1945, the Allies were beginning to doubt that Russia should ever have been an ally. They saw the establishment of 'satellite nations' in Eastern Europe by the Soviet Union as a clear precedent of what was to become of Asia if the Russians completed their invasion of Manchuria, which was invaded under false pretenses by the Japanese Military against the will of the Civilian Emperor. They feared that Russia was going to set up more satellite countries and that Communism would make great gains if the war did not end immediately. Churchill and Truman discussed this at length with each other. They decided that the only way to end the war quickly enough to stop the Russians from spreading Communism any further was to use the Atomic bombs to force Japan's hand into an unconditional surrender that would make it give up all of its most precious things and come under occupation of the allies just as Germany had been. Another argument against my own was comparing the costs of an invasion, the next most plausible plan of action, to the use of Atomic bombs. The invasion of Okinawa and Iwo Jima proved to be a good example of what fighting on the Japanese homeland or attempting to secure after a conditional surrender would be like. Every step taken towards Japan cost more and more lives, paving our path in the blood of our soldiers. The estimated casualties of war in Japan were simply to great to be a good decision. Every man, woman, and child were going to be a combatant. Their zeal and patriotism were to be unending and a great problem for any occupation or invasion. We had to break their will to win the war. In order to do this, we had create fear in the hearts of even the most experienced Japanese general. Conventional war and even close to genocide of the Japanese people was not doing the trick. The fire bombing of Tokyo killed more people in one night than both of the Atomic Bombs combined. Why then, did Japan surrender after the bombs rather than the firebombings of Tokyo? The answer is one of fear and ideology. Throughout history, Japan had always been a nation to never surrender. It preferred suicidal banzai charges and Kamikaze attacks to surrender. Death was a better more honorable thing to embrace for sake of the honor of your family at home. When the first bomb dropped, it was pure determination that kept the Japanese people from surrenedering. When the second bomb dropped, it was clear that America had the power to wipe Japan off the face of the Earth. In a grand stroke of defeat, the Japanese government surrendered unconditionally. This was a momentous moment for the United States. Not only had the worlds worst war ended, not only had America come out as a superpower where we had once been in depression and isolation, we came out as the ONLY superpower. We also prevented the spread of Communism. These are many many points that my Opponent failed to utilize in his ignorance of world war two. I still stand by my belief that the use of any such weapon is morally unjustifiable. However, The first casualty of war is innocence. Morality does not have a place in Total War. In a nation as nationalist as Japan, every citizen should have been considered a combatant and any means necessary should have been used to end the war. It is also arguable that the demonstrative power of Hiroshima and Nagasaki prevented and shall continue to prevent World War 3. This is because the nature of war has changed and any nation that wishes the end of another nation has to consider the unified force of the world is watching and that if any nuclear powered nation uses its weapons, then they will be destroyed. This idea of Mutually Assured Destruction was only possible because of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The good political benefits outweighed the atrocity of the moral crime committed. In effect, Hiroshima and Nagasaki made Globalization possible. We realized that we had to be more responsible and more unified if we were to survive as a species. Thus, the creation of the UN. While ineffective today, it will someday be the symbol of peace and world unification. However, I do believe I should be voted in this debate for the following reasons. I was more civil than my adversary and he was quite hostile, especially towards the end. I knew what I was talking about and didn't need Wikipedia to give me some numbers that by August of 1945 were just plain inaccurate. I knew the maps of world war two, what was under Japanese control and what was not. I was working off the assumption that he had prior knowledge, but I was apparently wrong. He has worse than a High school level of understanding in the Pacific theater of World War 2. He truthfully does not know much about world war two. If he had, my arguments of morality in war would have been destroyed. He would have known to think as if we were in August of 1945 and not October of 2013. I knew there were other options that could have stopped the fighting in other ways that allowed for Japan to save face to its people. He clearly thinks that Unconditional surrender leads to peace. This is dis-proven by Germany's reaction to its punishment in the Unconditional surrender it gave at the end of World War 1, which was the ultimate cause of World War 2 along with Hitler's rise to power. I also had the best structured arguments and very points and analogies to back them up. What my opponent attempted to use against me was wording. This is a terrible way to debate. You should use facts, or, in this case, hypotheticals of what could have been done differently. Moreover, Pro claimed he would have more arguments for his case. He never presented these, but only attacked my wording with a small understanding of what time frame we were in. He did not understand the fact that Japan had essentially been defeated. They had no ability what so ever to produce a successful counter attack. It was only a matter of time that defined the decision of dropping the Atomic bomb. I am running out of space to finish and there are many points I would like to note, but I am down to 100 characters. I hope that your read the argument and vote well. Have a good day, Pro.