the atomic bombings of japan were morally justifiable

Sources for claims about Japan's bad military situation America had beaten Germany and could concentrate our entire military strength on Japan. Russia also won and was attacking the Japanese holdings in China. The US surrounded Japan with Submarines, mines, and ships. Japan had few natural resources and depended on other nations for their metals and oil. Their merchant fleet was destroyed and their major cities were fire bombed with hundreds of millions of casualties(1). The Japanese Imperial Fleet was no longer an effective fighting force. They had 6 aircraft carriers, 24 war ships, and 38 submarines but their use was limited because of lack of fuel (1). Their forces in China and the islands were running out of supplies. The US had plenty of oil, 99 aircraft carriers, 471 war ships, and over 232 submarines. We had Japan under a military blockade for some years using these vessels (3). Pro: do you at least concede another Okinawa was possible? Yes, perhaps much worse. Pro: they may have just kept fighting cause they would have thought they had a chance, even if small, at least fighting more on principle. We cracked their military codes (4) and knew that their military leaders were not blind fanatics and they knew their difficult situation and held out for strategic reasons. They hoped to hold out long enough to talk Stalin into talking the Americans into a settlement. When we dropped the bomb they were highly concerned by did not want to surrender (2). It was only when Stalin declared war that they lost all hope. When the communists started invading, they realized that it was better to surrender to the US than Stalin. The bombs were not as special as you think because our fire bombings killed similar numbers of people (2). Since they cared about Japan's fate, I think they did not see Japan fighting itself to complete ruin as a good way to go and was complete disaster for Japan and its greatness would never return. If it surrendered, or got a deal with the US at least they had a chance of getting their national greatness back. Pro: that we dropped one and they didn't give in shows it was necessary. That was before the Russians declared war. Russia declaring war was a major motivator for surrender. Pro: war isn't pretty. sometimes bad things need to happen to get it finished. the following illustrates that while talking about alteantive methods proposed. I follow moral rules and our wonderful way of life is what makes us so great. The fact that we have all these freedoms and respect human life and dignity, even for non-Americans is what I am proud of. We have not been perfect in the past with Slavery, racism, Indian abuse, and city bombings during war, but the world in general had a lot of problems at those times too. Over time we have gotten better at being an example for the world. If you have a gun and you kill a civilian who is begging for his life, you are a coward no matter how horrible his government, and you are doing something deeply horrific. The same goes if you drop a bomb on a city with the intent to murder families with men, women, and children. Killing someone who is unarmed and is not attacking your soldiers and civilians is an act of murder. To determine the morality of killing terrorists, what would you think in the Mexican-American War if hypothetically the Mexicans had targeted and slaughtered hundreds of thousands of American men, women, and children, and were exterminating our cities full of civilians? Would we be justified in condemning them if we were doing the exact same thing? Killing civilians is wrong and that is why the terrorist attacks on 9/11 wasn't simply a military maneuver by an enemy, it was an atrocity, a violation of human rights. That is why Bin Laden deserved to die and Al Qaeda wiped from the face of the Earth. The fact that fighting ethically would be militarily inconvenient for Al Qaeda because they would lose is no excuse. If you slaughter civilians, you don't deserve to win any war. The military inconvenience to the US for being ethical was much less since we were going to win anyway without civilian killing and Al Qaeda did not have a chance. In truth everyone in WWII was bombing cities and it was a vicious and desperate war in a much less civilized time. We have gotten past this behavior. When we bombed Baghdad, we focused on military targets and we did not slaughter civilians. Even during the bloodly Iraqi resistance which very possibly could have resulted in a military defeat for us we did not slaughter civilians. I am proud my country has gotten past such behavior. 1: http://en.wikipedia.org... 2: http://www.boston.com... 3: http://en.wikipedia.org... 4:http://www.slate.com...