Lower Tier Finials: Resolved: The Hiroshima and Nagasaki Atomic Bombings were justified.

Thanks to my opponent for instigating. In this round, I will provide only contentions and reserve any and all rebuttals for the consecutive round. Since Pro has the bulk of the BOP, I will keep my contentions more minimalist than my rebuttals.Good luck!===========C1. The bombings targeted Japanese civilians rather than martial forcesModern estimates place the number of Japanese citizens killed as a result of the bombings as being anywhere between 129,000 - 246,000; the former generally accepted as only encompassing direct deaths whilst the latter encompasses deaths as a result of factors like radiation poisoning.Of the hundreds of thousands killed, fewer than 5% were individuals associated with the Japanese Military or Administrative Regime. [1] In most cases involving civilian casualties in war, the death of the civilians are collateral damage and unintentional. In this case, however, the United States government made the active choice to bomb Japanese cities rather than military bases. Specifically targeting civilians when other options are available is near very generally accepted as being an international taboo on moral grounds.Rather than choosing to bomb a military base or crucial interval for communication amongst Japanese Military Forces that could have just as equally prompted a Japanese Surrender, the US government chose to bomb cities filled with women, children, and civilians - civilians who vastly did not have the Democratic Right to challenge the actions of the Japanese Government at the time.Why would an American government motivated only by the idea of conserving life and insuring peace choose to target civilians, rather than even crucial infrastructure that could render the Japanese equally or more incompetent? The only possible answer to this paradox is that the motivations of the American government consisted of an agenda that included making political statements to the Russians.All in all, alternative targets were available that could have lessened civilian losses. Unless my opponent is prepared to contest that intentionally choosing to kill civilians rather than military targets is justifiable, these factors render the bombings equally unjustifiable.C2. Using the bomb was inhumane and immoralOf the hundreds of thousands living in Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the time of the bombing, some were lucky enough to be painlessly vaporized by the deathly force of the Atomic Bomb - other innocent civilians were not so. Of the as many as 246,000 killed (this is a conservative estimate, as it only accounts for the immediate dead), as few as 1/4 of the deaths were imminent (60,000) [2] - by four days after the bombing, fewer than 1/3 of the total casualties had yet to perish [3], and the vast majority of those who did perish before day 4 were alive to experience amounts of pain. The rest of those lost in the bombings are widely attributed as having suffered through the consequences of radiation and burning associated with dropping the bomb. Survivors describe the scene as having been chaotic and filled with misery, with the goriest of the deaths occurring in the 24-48 hours after the bombing. [4] (pictured: Top - An orphaned Japanese Child crying; Bottom - A dying Japanese child suffering from the effects of Nuclear Warfare)In addition to causing painful deaths for civilians - whom again were innocent, non-combatants and persons unable to officially contest the actions of their government - the bombings also cause permanent and painful defects amongst survivors. Defects still exist in Japanese children being born today [5]. Due to inherited radiation poisoning from ancestors, influxes in Japanese infants being born with unseen defects are occurring in the thousands. This equivalates to hundreds of thousands forced to cope with crippling and painful defects as a result of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.The United States government and the Chemical Weapons Convention currently register the usage of Chemical Weapons in warfare as being outlawed on humanitarian grounds. The usage of these weapons are not permitted as they can be proven as causing excessive and unnecessary suffering, alongside having an almost inevitable potential of affecting civilians.By the same logic that the usage of these weapons are not permitted, why is the usage of Atomics bombs that cause equal if not greater extents of suffering morally permissible? Much like other targets existed as per arguments in C1, other methods of bombing the Japanese that did not include horrendous and extremely painful medical consequences associated with radiation were available. The inhumanity in forcing not only innocent people, but generations of Japanese to undergo suffering for better economic capacity and as punishment for the actions of their superiors is unjustified.C3. The decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not made by the right people, supported by the majority of American military experts even at the time, or done for the right reasonsWhilst the majority of American Military experts in 1944 supported the use of the Atomic Bomb to scare Japan into surrendering quicker, an extremely minimalist portion of scientific and martial experts supported dropping it on Hiroshima or Nagasaki. [7]".. my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of ‘face’"- Dwight Eisenhower, then Supreme Commander of Allied forces [8]"It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons."- Admiral William Leahy, Chief and highest ranking member of the U.S. military from 1942 until retiring in 1949 [9]"…. When I asked General MacArthur about the decision to drop the bomb, I was surprised to learn he had not even been consulted. What, I asked, would his advice have been? He replied that he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb."- General Douglas MacArthur of the US Military [10]"The war would have been over in two weeks. . . . The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at all."- General Curtis LeMay [11]Experts from foreign nations agreed with the sentiment of American Generals, as General Sir Hasting Ismay of the United Kingdom advised Prime Minister Winston Churchill at the time, [11]“when Russia came into the war against Japan, the Japanese would probably wish to get out on almost any terms short of the dethronement of the Emperor.”As the above illustrates, and countless more quotes too vast to fit into this argument (yet still made visible via my source), most members of the US military who had intimate dealings within operations against and negotiations (prior to the cutoff of communication) with Japan dissented the opinion that the bombings were justified. Who could know the mental state of the Japanese from an American perspective better than the people who had been tasked with combating them?Sir Hasting Ismay was accurate in his summarization that the Japanese wished to surrender. Many, if not most, historians attribute Japan's reluctance to surrender as being associated with the US's forcing the dethronement of the Emperor upon the people - this indicates an unwillingness to compromise for peace on the behalf of the US.Those who were responsible for making key decisions concerning the bombings proved incompetent, and the reasoning that played with the lives of civilians concerned factors as irrelevant as whether or not senior US military officials would be able to vacation in Kyoto if it was to be bombed over Hiroshima. [12]======** Note - Due to time constraints that I have clarified with Lannan, formal arguments concerning whether or not Japan was close to surrender prior to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki will be provided in the next round in the form of a rebuttal. This does not mean that I do not contest that Japan was not on the brink of surrender, as they were.Thanks Lannan, on to you!Sources[1] - (http://tinyurl.com...) [2] - (http://tinyurl.com...) [3] - (http://tinyurl.com...)[4] - The account of Sumiteru Taniguchi[5] - (http://tinyurl.com...)[6] - (http://tinyurl.com...)[7] - (http://tinyurl.com...) [8] - Eisenhower, Dwight. Mandate for Change, 1953-1956: The White House Years, A Personal Account; Page 380[9] - D. Leahy, William. I Was There. (Page 441)[10] - Cousins, Norman. The Pathology of Power (Page 65; 70-71)[11] - (http://tinyurl.com...) [12] - In next round