{"id":1990836,"date":"2023-08-04T11:29:02","date_gmt":"2023-08-04T15:29:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/why-truman-made-the-right-decision-in-dropping-the-atomic-bomb\/"},"modified":"2023-08-04T11:34:49","modified_gmt":"2023-08-04T15:34:49","slug":"why-truman-made-the-right-decision-in-dropping-the-atomic-bomb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/why-truman-made-the-right-decision-in-dropping-the-atomic-bomb\/","title":{"rendered":"Truman&#8217;s Atomic Bomb Decision: The Right Call"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">14<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fwhy-truman-made-the-right-decision-in-dropping-the-atomic-bomb%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1990836&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><h2>The Legacy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki:\u200c A Contemplation<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sunday, August 6th, marks the 78th \u2063anniversary of the use of an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/blinken-no-new-deal-before-iran-ends-nuclear-buildup\/\" title=\"Blinken: No New Deal Before Iran Ends Nuclear Buildup\">atomic weapon<\/a> on the\u200c Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three\u200c days hence we will commemorate \u200dthe\u200d obliteration of Nagasaki in the same manner. The success of the film \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/oppenheimer-review-the-amazing-christopher-nolan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Oppenheimer<\/a>,\u201d \u200dabout the mercurial physicist who headed up the Manhattan\u200c Project that \u2062brought forth the nuclear age,\u200d has prompted rethinking on the subject. This \u200dis a good thing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Much time\u200d has\u2064 passed since these two \u2064seminal \u2064events not\u200d just in \u200dWorld War II, but the history of the human race.\u200c It\u200c marks the moment when the world saw the \u200dpower our scientists at Los Alamos had unleashed upon an\u2064 unsuspecting world. \u200dThe power to\u200b destroy an\u200c entire city with one bomb was inconceivable before 1945. Now, nuclear weapons are glibly\u2062 accepted as just another arrow in the \u2062quiver\u200d of \u2062our and other nations\u2019 national defense. And yet, such a sublime anniversary and\u200d how it has shaped the \u2063post-war world, should be contemplated more than it is, regardless of how much time passes.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>The Key Question: Was it Necessary?<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Of course, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/rush-to-judgement-three-crucial-questions-remain-unanswered-about-capitol-siege\/\" title=\"Rush to judgement? Three crucial questions remain unanswered about Capitol siege\">key question<\/a> \u200dremains: Was the use of\u200c nuclear weapons on Japan \u2064necessary?\u2063 It is a question that haunts us to this day.\u200c For me, I must answer this by\u200b placing myself in the position of\u2063 then-President Harry Truman, who \u200dmade the decision to go forward with the missions. And as such, I must ask myself:\u200c what other choices did he have?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">To \u200danswer this, let us first remember\u200c the situation in which \u200dTruman found himself \u200din the summer of 1945.\u2062 It\u2064 is\u200d easy\u200c for us today, comfortable \u2063in the eighth\u200b decade of our <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Pax Americana<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, to forget just how devastating \u2063and\u2063 violent the\u2063 war had been. By July 16, 1945, when the Trinity \u2064test in the New Mexico desert detonated the first atomic bomb, Germany had surrendered and Europe lay in quiet \u2062ruins. But on \u2062the other side of the world in the Pacific, Japan, \u200bthough battered and bloodied and \u200dwith its\u200b empire\u2063 greatly reduced, appeared far from\u200c willing to capitulate.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> On the contrary, the closer the U.S. armed forces got to the home islands, the more ferociously the Japanese resisted. From September 1944 to June 1945, \u200bthe U.S. Marines, \u200dNavy,\u200c and Army had \u200bfought a series of battles that were\u200d bleeding \u2062them dry: Peleliu, Leyte, \u200cLuzon, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. Each battle had been weeks-long slugfests that saw U.S. casualties steadily mounting\u200c at an alarming rate. Indeed, Okinawa, the final and largest battle of the Pacific War, had also been\u2063 the bloodiest. \u2063Some\u200b 12,500 US soldiers, sailors, airmen,\u2062 and Marines had been killed with four times that wounded. \u2062And tellingly, the highest number of \u201cbattle fatigue\u201d diagnoses (what we now call PTSD)\u200b were reported on top of the physical wounds from seemingly endless and exhausting combat with a foe who was determined to sell\u2064 his life dearly for his god emperor. Reports from Okinawa also showed \u200bmorale\u2062 was\u2063 crumbling,\u2062 and the replacements fed \u2063into the meat grinder were often poorly trained and bewildered. Many didn\u2019t even survive long enough to \u2062have\u200c their names included in the unit rolls. To be sure, Okinawa was a victory, as the island was \u200ceventually secured after 72 days of \u200dcombat, but at a horrific cost;\u2064 even the U.S. commander, Lt. Gen. Simon B. Buckner, Jr.,\u200b was KIA.\u200d And as \u2064bloody as it was for the U.S. and Allies, it was worse for the Japanese. Figures are hard to verify, but over 110,000 Japanese troops and probably an\u2064 equal number of Okinawan civilians if not more perished in what one\u200c Marine described as \u201cHell\u2019s cesspool.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So\u2064 the agonizing dilemma that Okinawa \u200band other ferocious fights prompted in the White House when considering the use of\u200c the atomic\u200c bomb was this: If the Japanese would fight so fiercely for these tiny dots of land in the\u2064 Pacific, what would be the price to take Japan\u2062 itself? Planners grimly predicted anywhere from 250,000 to one million U.S. and Allied\u2063 losses. These would be stacked on top of the\u200c already 400,000 plus \u2063American\u2062 dead the war \u200chad cost\u2062 us. And who knew how many Japanese would eventually perish as every\u200c man,\u200b woman, and child would have been turned into\u200b warriors steeled to defend Dai Nippon from the Western barbarians? In fact, \u2062one U.S. <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=BVXxPmpfhcU&#038;t=1765s\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Marine\u2063 veteran offered<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">: \u201cI would hate to have been involved in the landing on the mainland of Japan. I\u200c doubt we could have pulled it off. \u200dWe didn\u2019t\u2062 have the personnel.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So\u2064 it was while contemplating this disquieting prognostication that \u2063Truman was presented with \u2064a means to hopefully convince\u2062 Tokyo that further resistance was futile. One \u2062must imagine, as were Truman\u2019s advisors, how the American people would \u2062have reacted\u200b if, after burying anywhere from a quarter million to\u200d a million \u2062more of their sons, husbands, and fathers, they learned that Truman had had in\u200c his possession a potential\u200d war-ending weapon, but declined to use it. \u200bIndeed, impeachment would have been the least of his\u200d problems.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">For Truman, therefore,\u2064 there really was no choice. Some \u200dhistorians today \u2014 as \u200ddid some of the more militant Japanese leaders\u200c at the time \u2014 argue that \u200bthe losses at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were no worse than those of the firebombings \u2063of cities like Tokyo, in which 14 square miles of the capital had been burned out and\u2063 some 100,000 \u2063Japanese civilians\u2064 with it \u2014 making March 10, 1945, the deadliest one<a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/why-truman-made-the-right-decision-in-dropping-the-atomic-bomb\/\" title=\"Truman's Atomic Bomb Decision: The Right Call\">-day wartime\u200b death toll<\/a> in history. And what finally\u200c tipped the balance was the U.S. backing away from its demand for \u2063\u201cunconditional surrender\u201d as that would have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/california-democrats-fail-to-pass-single-payer-health-care-bill\/\" title=\"California Democrats Fail to Pass Single-payer Health Care Bill\">meant ending<\/a> the imperial reign, and\u2064 perhaps trying Hirohito for war\u200d crimes. Although Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who would \u2062be Japan\u2019s de \u200cfacto ruler during the occupation, understood that as the\u200d Japanese viewed Hirohito as a \u2064god\u2062 and\u2064 would obey any imperial edict, his survival and assent to an orderly\u200b occupation was indispensable to transitioning Japan into a peaceful and productive nation. We can never know.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Still, there was something awesome and sinister about the idea of\u200c just one B-29\u2062 with\u200c one bomb \u2063being able to inflict\u200c the same carnage upon a nation as one \u200cthought\u2064 required hundreds. Hirohito and others who \u200dsaw the handwriting on the wall \u2062understood \u200bthat the war had\u200b entered a new, apocalyptic \u200bphase never \u2063before seen\u200c in human history. Hiroshima, they thought, may have been a fluke. A one-off \u2062to\u2063 be endured and ignored. Indeed,\u200d no response to Truman\u2019s\u2062 ultimatum for surrender was forthcoming in the days after August 6th. But \u200bwhen\u200b on\u200c August 9th, the B-29 \u201cBock\u2019s Car\u201d<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">dropped\u2063 a second bomb on Nagasaki, it became clear to the Japanese that Truman\u2019s promised \u201crain \u200dof ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen\u2064 on this earth\u201d was not just bravado.\u2063 True, we had no more bombs at the ready yet, \u2063but,\u200d of\u200d course, Tokyo didn\u2019t know this. So \u200bthey finally \u2062yielded to reason and\u200c agreed to \u201cendure\u200c the unendurable\u201d as Hirohito instructed his subjects.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">As for \u2063the world the \u2063bombings ushered in, it is still too early in the new age of the \u201cafter\u201d\u200c in the historical timeline to tell whether setting loose the nuclear genie meant the end of such global cataclysms given Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) or, more\u200c ominously, simply began the denouement of the human race as the Damoclean sword of annihilation \u2063hangs \u2063above \u200cus, just waiting for a moment of global instability, or an empowered \u200cmadman with \u2062access to\u2062 a \u200cnuclear arsenal, to \u200cend us all. What we can say, however, is that if one\u200b were to graph the escalation of global war dead and suffering\u200d from ancient times \u2063until \u200cthe \u2064end of 1945, the line \u200dmoves inexorably from\u2064 the lower left to\u200d the upper right. After 1945, though there is \u2064still war, the \u200cline drops precipitously. Perhaps, as Truman had intended, the use of atomic weapons as a deterrent to continued and future aggression has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/house-republicans-warn-biden-against-aid-cuts-to-israel\/\" title=\"House Republicans Warn Biden Against Aid Cuts to Israel\">saved countless lives<\/a> over\u200c the years. Whether\u200c this is just a \u2062breather before the final \u200cmass extinction of \u2064the human race, or an ushering of a less deadly epoch,\u200b only time will tell.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But in 1945, Truman made the right \u2014 indeed the only \u2014 choice available to him. And as the only nation to ever use nuclear weapons in combat (so far)\u2064 it gives us\u2063 much to think on \u2026 but \u2062nothing to be \u2064ashamed \u200bof.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Brad Schaeffer is a \u200ccommodities trader,\u200d author of\u200b two novels, and columnist. His writings have appeared \u200cin the <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wall Street Journal, NY Daily News, National Review, The Federalist, The \u200bHill, \u2064Zerohedge, <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">and \u2062 <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Daily Wire<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. His newest book, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/posthillpress.com\/book\/life-in-the-pits-my-time-as-a-trader-on-the-rough-and-tumble-exchange-floors\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">LIFE IN THE PITS: My Time As A Trader In \u2062The Rough-And-Tumble Exchange Floors<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">  \u2062comes out in December and is available for preorder. <\/span><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The views expressed in this piece are those of the \u200bauthor and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sunday, August 6th, commemorates 78 years since an atomic weapon was used on Hiroshima. Soon after, Nagasaki faced a similar fate. The film &#8220;Oppenheimer,&#8221; depicting the enigmatic physicist leading the Manhattan Project, which birthed nuclear weapons, has gained significant acclaim.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":366,"featured_media":1990837,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[541],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1990836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-daily-wire"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1990836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/366"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1990836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1990836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1990837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1990836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1990836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1990836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}