bombing of Hiroshima raises some significant ethical issues. From a military perspective, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki served as the catalyst for bringing about Japanese surrender, thereby ending the war in the Pacific. However, these attacks on civilian targets were among the most horrific in the history of wartime. Such attacks would be outlawed today under the Fourth Geneva Convention, which was enacted in 1949 partly as a response to the bombings and other atrocities committed against civilians and prisoners of war during the Second World War. It is my view that the bombing of Hiroshima, while violating any reasonable code of ethics, resulted in a net sparing of human life and was therefore a necessary act to bring about the end of the war.
The Bombings
On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped the first atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Approximately 80,000 people were...
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