Was The Dropping Of The Atomic Bomb Justified Analysis

Deciding to Drop the Bomb
Was the dropping of the atomic bomb justified?
Victory by the Allied troops in Europe was already achieved prior to the dropping of the Atomic Bomb by President Harry.S Truman. In fact, that year on May 8th, Germany had already surrendered and Hitler had committed suicide just a month before this victory due to the British, American and Soviet troops engulfing both sides of berlin. Despite this, Japan had refused to surrender and were adamant on fighting the war. Moreover, the total US casualties amassed to large 320,000 during this stage in the war. As a result, Truman felt it was imperative to end the war as soon as possible without any further US casualties.Moreover, the fact that Truman was newly elected, he faced

Specifically, for the bombing Pearl Harbor and cruelty towards prisoners of war from the US.). Prior to Pearl Harbor US were non­violent in their approach Japan only employing trade sanction as well as demanding they withdrew from China.(Shepard, Colin 199) .However, Japan could not be reasoned with and dropped a bomb on the US killing 3200 of her people. Secondly, during the war Japan broke the Geneva convention by committing crimes against humanity. Specifically, 4 out every 10 US’s POW’s died out of starvation, illness and or abuse and 40% of all 27,000 prisoners died in captivity. Such was the degradement of US soldiers by the cruelty of the Japanese using ghastly torture methods . Additionally, POW’s were used for experimented on dissected upon (e.g: lungs of two us soldiers) were removed for vivisection studies by the Japanese. This is a clear example of how Japan treated US soldiers worse than animals. This is why Truman had adopted an eye for eye belief system a clear example of this is his quote is “When you have to deal with a beast you have to treat him as a beast.”. This hate was in direct response towards Japan’s attack on pearl harbor and their malpractices and Truman felt the atomic bombs deployed would treat Japan as the beast he sought it to be. Another quote that exemplies this is “We have used it against those who attacked us without warning at Pearl Harbor, against those who have starved and beaten and

Truman decided to use the bomb because it was more cost­effective dollar wise and did not cost soldier’s lives. Thus, being more efficient than sending more troops and dragging the war. Moreover, it saved Japanese lives because if the conflict had continued Japanse deaths would come to tens of millions according to predictions by the allies. As a result, Truman realised it would save more lives on both sides rather than going an onslaught of aerial raids. Truman not only used the bomb for its efficiency he did so because it displayed the power of the US to USSR . Truman was anti­communist and feared the spread of communism and he used the bomb to scare the USSR .The usage of the bombs showed the Soviets the US was a more powerful nation as well as more technologically advanced . The usage of the atomic bomb also negated the Soviet union’s involvement by ending the war as they promised to invade Japan in august of 1945 but this never came into fruition due to the