EXTERMINATE! · EXTERMINATE!

Today's history tutorial inspired me to have a deep think about the one thing in history I had been relatively sure about. It also inspired me to automatically park in a side street off Elgar road every Tuesday, but that isn't the point.

As many of you will know, on the 6th and 9th of August respectively, 1945, America dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This brought about the end of the war in the pacific with Japan's unconditional surrender a few days later. The question is: Was America doing the right thing when it dropped those bomb's?

Morally it is inexcusable to needlessly slaughter civillians just to end a war. However, if America hadn't dropped the bomb and had gone ahead with the invasion of the Japanese home islands, thousands of American, Brittish and Australian troops (not to mention the numerous Japanese soldiers and civillians who would have fought to the death to save their homeland) would have died during the estimated year long invasion.

A few years ago I would have said America was wrong, that dropping the atom bomb on those two cities was about as bad as the Holocaust. But now that I know a little more about the situation at the end of the war and the atrocities the Japanese had committed (trust me these guys make the Nazi's look tame), and the possibility of an invasion that would most likely end in a bloodbath, I still think that it was wrong to drop the bomb. Wrong, but also necessary.

Killing throusands to save millions. Catch 22.

One of the girls in my tute group asked what we would do if we were faced with that same choice. Personally, I don't think I'd be able to make that choice. Either way I'd feel guilty as heck over whatever choice I made. And it scares me that someone might have to make that choice again...