earA Rhetorical look at Pearl Harbor Address to the Nation Given by Franklin Delano Roosevelt David Thayer English 112 This speech was in relations to the horrible and reprehensive attack on Midway. It was the start of the Unites States in World War II (WWII). The influence this speech had on the American people was of great importance to the acceptance of our entrance to the war. It showed that by allowing the people to know the gravity of this incident it would get their approval. President Roosevelt used Pathos and Logos to attract the nation to the idea that if we did not act swiftly with force we would get attacked again and many more innocent lives would be taken.
Gar Alperovitz, another revisionist, says that Truman’s main purpose in dropping the bombs was to demonstrate its power in order to intimidate the Russians (127). Even American generals, such as Dwight D. Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur and Curtis LeMay have stated that the A-bombs were unnecessary (Dower 92), arguing that Japan could have been forced to surrender by conventional means. If these charges are true, than Truman committed a war crime against Japan and its people. However, the historical record shows that in the summer of 1945 Truman was concerned only
My grandmother Sirkka was born in 1926 and immigrated to Canada in 1938. She later got married and had two sons whom she named after her brothers Paul (my father) and Eric (my uncle). The Nazi’s had already started rallying support for their cause in 1936 in Finland so my grandparents felt it was time to leave Finland for the safety of their family because of the imminent war going to happen in Europe. Their oldest son Paul was killed at the age of 18 in the Russian - Finland War as a soldier. Shortly after his son Paul died my great grandfather, Matti Norppa, came to Canada on an Ocean Liner to Montreal and took a train to Kirkland Lake Ontario to become a gold miner.
Reform Some of the most fundamental changes occurred immediately after the American occupation. War crime trials were conducted in Tokyo, the Japanese military was dismantled and efforts were undertaken to transform the economy into a free market capitalist system by introducing land reform and to break up large business conglomerates in an attempt to distribute resources and allocate wealth more evenly throughout the economy. (Kumano, 2007) The most substantial change came with the creation of a new constitution in 1947. This new constitution took away political power from the emperor leaving him in office only as a figurehead. The new constitution gave more power to the parliament system, took away the right to wage war, and promoted more privileges and better rights for women.
What in your opinion was the short term significance of the use of atomic weapons in 1945? (25) It would be simplistic to argue that the end of the war in the Pacific was the most important short term significance of the use of atomic bombs in 1945 against Japan. While the use of Little Boy prompted the Japanese Emperor’s ‘ordered surrender’ , and claimed the lives of thousands of Japanese civilians, it is my opinion that the bomb sparked the onset of the Cold War. As Eisenhower said ‘Before the atom bomb was used, I would have said, yes, I was sure we could keep the peace with Russia’. , highlighting that he believed without the use of atomic weapons, the Cold War was not an inevitability.
The United States reaction to the bombing on Pearl Harbor leads to the fall of the Japan Empire, due to the United States involvement with the Doolittle Raid, Iwo Jima and Okinawa, and the Atomic Bombs. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt told the Joint Chief of Staffs to bomb the Empire of Japan. He wanted the Japan Empire to be bombed as soon as possible to boost patriotism throughout the United States. Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle planned and led the attack. Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle’s plan to attack the Japan Empire was to use B-25 aircrafts to drop on Japan and then to land in China were there would be Chinese Aircrafts to help guide and refuel the B-25s to the Chongqing Chinese military base.
Besides stripping Japan of its military arms, soldiers who were posted at various locations in the large Asian empire during World War II were repatriated (8). The SDF became controversial because Article 9 banned the maintenance of a military yet Japan has one of the largest defense budgets (11). The new Constitution not only demilitarized the nation, it also aimed to democratize Japanese society. A new Constitution was written in 1946 and it brought about changes from the Meiji constitution that shifted Japan away from its prewar policies. An important pillar of the Constitution was the introduction of the idea that sovereignty comes from the people because it eliminated the higher privileges of the aristocracy (11).
While Japan wanted to expand in Asia-Pacific and build an Empire. America tried to get Japan out of China to maintain the balance of power. As WWII continued, Japan needed resources like oil, which the US imposed economic sanctions on to halt Japan. This meant Japan felt a war with America was inevitable if they were to achieve their goals in the Pacific. These factors led the Japanese to launch an attack on an American shore in the Pacific, Pearl Harbour.
American Expansionism and Imperialism Sparks of a daunting imperialistic period were galvanized in 1897 when Theodore Roosevelt wrote in a letter, " In strict confidence I should welcome almost any way, for I think this country needs one." In 1890, the year of massacre at Wounded Knee, the Bureau of Census declared the internal frontier closed. The profit system already started looking overseas for expansion. The severe depression beginning in 1893 stimulated the idea of overseas markets for the surplus of American goods. Expansion overseas was not a completely innovative idea seeing as the Monroe Doctrine considered Latin America in the United States' area of influence.
In fact, the debates behind using the atomic bombs against Japan began even before the decision was made. Many of the scientists such as Leo Szilard and Dr. James Franck, who made great contributions towards the creation of the bomb, campaigned against its use. President Truman said “We have used it in order to shorten the agony of war, in order to save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Amercicans”. It is completely understandable that President Truman’s aim was always to save the lives as many American people, but was it necessary to do it by dropping the atomic bombs on Japan? And was the reason behind the decision to drop the two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki purely to ‘save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Americans’?