Compair 3 journal articals about WWII - Essay Example

rld War II” by Susan Smith in 2008, “Ethics and Airpower in WWII” by Phillip Mellinger in 1994, and “Moral Ambiguities of the Bombing of Monte Cassino” by Uwe Steenhoff in 2005. During World War II, 60,000 American soldiers were part of the Mustard Gas experiments performed by American Scientists (Smith, 2008).The reason was to prepare America’s troops for chemical warfare. One of the questions during the experimentation was whether or not there was a difference in reaction to mustard gas by different races.

These scientists were every day ethical people, but they slipped into this method of experimentation. They felt that it was important in the service of their country. Soldiers felt it was their patriotic duty to participate though most were harassed into volunteering. The United States felt it needed the information to know how to react should the enemy use mustard gas and how to assure that the enemy died, should they have to use it (Smith, 2008). Veterans describe this as a horrible experience and felt that they were never warned about the level of suffering that could occur from this exposure (Smith, 2008).

Mustard gas causes severe pain and these men suffered immediate eye and skin injury with blisters all over their bodies. The long term effects for many turned out to be cancer, asthma, emphysema, and blindness. Was this testing ethical? The British bombed many civilian sectors of Germany during World War II. Many great cities were bombed. There are those that believe that this bombing was unethical and immoral. There are those that would argue that any bombing at the time of civilian areas or any other was not only moral but ethical (Garrett, 1994).

Garrett, (1994) believes that it was an immoral act. He also believes our own bombing of the Japanese cities with the A-bomb during the same war was immoral and unethical. Was it? Why do we struggle with the ethical viewpoint in this type of case? Monte Cassino was a monastery in World War II.