President Truman's Ethical Decision To Drop The Atomic Bomb

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In August 1945 one of the most important decisions in history was made, to use atomic weapons on the island of japan. President Truman had to make a decision that would have a massive impact on the war. This decision was not taking lightly. Truman looked for other ways to end the war, but this was the fastest way to end the war ("The Decision to Drop the Bomb," 2014). Making these choices, he had to factor in Pearl Harbor, and lives lost in battle. I believe his choice was an ethical choice and was the best choice to end the war quickly. On December 7, 1941, Japan brought the United States into World War II (Maranzani, 2011). Japan bombed our harbor in Hawaii, which was Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor was a devastating event that will always be remembered in history. That day 2400 brave soldiers were killed in the bombings; also, there were over 1000 crewman injured, and some people were never found (Maranzani, 2011). Over twenty American ships were destroyed or heavily damaged, and they bombed our air bases destroying over 300 planes (Maranzani, 2011). Over half of the casualties came from the USS Arizona. Many crewman on the ships that sunk had sailors trapped in them. This bombing brought us in the war, and we would continue to fight the Japanese until August 1945 (Maranzani, …show more content…

The United States had to justify the cost of the Manhattan Project, which cost the U.S. 1,889,604,000 dollars. We had to impress the soviets to show them that “we mean business” because they had taken control over almost all of Eastern Europe (Donohue, 2012). As Yale Professor Gaddis Smith said, “It has been demonstrated that the decision to bomb Japan was centrally connected to Truman's confrontational approach to the Soviet Union.” (Donohue, 2012, para. 7). This idea was understood as an added benefit of dropping the bomb but not as its only

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