a day ago
- Politics
- Wall Street Journal
The Case for the Atom Bomb Doesn't Persuade
Andrew Roberts argues that the U.S. was justified in bombing Japan because doing so ended the war more quickly and with fewer casualties than if the war had been fought to a conclusion by conventional weaponry ('The Case for the Atom Bomb, 80 Years Later,' Houses of Worship, Aug. 8). Yet the legitimate moral objective of ending the war says nothing about the morality of the means chosen to achieve that end.
The bombing of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, and Nagasaki three days later, was, on any application of just-war principles, immoral. That is partially because the civilian deaths and casualties were significantly out of proportion to military casualties, but principally because the means used were deliberately intended to cause the death and injury of tens of thousands of civilians.
