The United States and the Atomic Bomb

On August 6th of 1945 the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. This bomb killed tens of thousands of innocent people. I don't think we realized how serious the bomb was because if scientists honestly understood the amount of damage the bombs could do, they wouldn't have dropped them. We should have never tried to make a weapon so deadly. Also, the United States has every right to keep other countries from having nuclear weapons. Having nuclear weapons at all after seeing what happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki is not only dangerous, but ignorant.

First of all, I don't think we realized how powerful the atomic bomb could be. Out of a population of 255,000 people, 66,000 were killed at Hiroshima. 45,000 died on the first day, and 19,000 during the next four months. Several hundred survivors were expected to die from cancers and lukemia due to radiation over the next thirty years.

This image was selected as a picture of the week o...

Early weapons models, such as the "Fat Man" bomb, ...

Ground Zero marker in Nagasaki, Japan

Exact figures are are difficult to estimate, but together the bombings killed somewhere in the number of 110,000 Japanese instantly, mostly civilian, and injured another 130,000. Within five years, radiation claimed another 230,000 Japanese lives, again mostly civilian. These were innocent people that shouldn't have been killed. The United States viewed these bombs almost as toys. They just wanted to drop them somewhere to see what would happen. That was really irresponsible. We never should have even made these atomic bombs. I think the fact that United States is a very powerful county leaves some temptation to use that power.

Also, if we have every right to stop other countries from obtaining nuclear weapons. The saying has always gone, "You learn from your mistakes." Learning from our mistake on those days would include not only never dropping another bomb, but also making sure another bomb...