“Is anything in war ever truly justifiable? There will always be downsides to what may seem to be the “right decision.” (Debate) In the summer of 1945, President Truman focused on two choices to end the war with Japan by invading or using the atomic bomb. Truman ordered the bomb to be dropped on two cities and his decision created a controversy that remains today. On August 6th, 1945, a B-29 bomber named Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. Hiroshima had almost been eradicated with an estimated 70 to 80 thousand people killed. Three days later, a second, more powerful bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki, killing over 100,000 people. The United States decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was poorly made. The use of this barbarous weapon killed millions of innocent people and stopped the spread of communism. Despite the fact that dropping the bomb ended the war quicker, the Japanese were already defeated and it aggravated the Soviet Union and led to an nuclear arms race.
When President Truman sent the order to drop the bomb on Japan it killed thousands of civilians. President Truman’s Chief of staff Admiral William E. Leahy stated, “In being the first to use it, we….adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.” (Document 2) Killing innocent people is not war. Wars cannot be won by slaughtering innocent women and children. The bombing has caused people to call the United States barbarians that belong in the “Dark Ages.” And not only did the United States kill these innocent women and children, they made them suffer.. The bombs cannot be called a bomb or an explosive. It was a poison that spread its radioactive toxin across a city. This caused innocent women and children to die of cancer and other terrible things years after. From doing research a debate team implied, “The eyebrows of some were burned off and skin hung from their faces and hands. Others, because of pain, held their arms up as if carrying something in both hands.” (Debate) Dropping the bomb made innocent people suffer harshly, “some were burned off and skin hung from their face and hands,” this act was very unjust.
The United States was trying to stop the spread of communism. “The Interim Committee additionally concluded that using the atomic bomb to end the war would make the Soviet Union “more manageable” in the postwar world (Choices). Communism was a big issue for the United States, they did not want to see the spread of it at all but it was not worth killing thousand of life’s for our own selfish wants. The Interim Committee thought that the Soviet Union would be “more manageable” during the time when the war would be at an end. Installing fear into the Soviet Union by killings others did not put them under the U.S control, it only showed how low we would stoop in order to gain the fear and power we felt we deserved. This action was not clearly thought through leading to the nuclear arms race