The man was responsible for vaporizing hundreds of thousands of innocent people. In my opinion, he is one of the biggest war criminals in history. Can you imagine if one of America's enemies did what he did? They'd be remembered right along with Hitler as a mass murderer.
If you want a reply you need to re-phrase your query without using a leading question. Then you need to be specific about any possible misdeeds and cite specific proofs of your claim. Please re-phrase your original post.
There is no doubt that the targeting of Hiroshima and Nagasaki constitutes a war crime. That said, it was a moral war crime. Total casualties for the invasion of mainland Japan would have been in the millions. While it is wrong to deliberately target civilians in order to put pressure on their political leadership, it is more wrong to kill even more civilians in order to avoid the label of war criminal.
Harry gets a pass because he won. The reasons for using those bombs, tho, get a little thin. I think Harry's bottom line reason for using them had to do with the Russian advance. On the other hand, the bombs ended the war without an invasion and MAYBE saved hundreds of thousands of GIs and Japanese. The same result could have been achieved by blockading and starving Japan, but who knows how many Japanese that would have killed? Blockade SHOULD have been tried, along with a demonstration of the bomb.
Most presidents meet the current definition of war criminal, including Obama, but I do not believe the concept really applied when Truman dropped the bomb. Whether or not he should have has been the subject of much debate so I am not sure he gets a pass.
The reason for giving him a pass is for ending WW2. Many historians believe today that the atomic bomb shortened the war significantly. The loss of life could be greater without the bombs because Japan didn't need to surrender otherwise. The atomic bomb also showed Russia that America would win and they declared war on Japan as well. 10 days after the Russian declaration of war I think Japan surrendered. It is questionable if Russia would have joined a cause in the Pacific otherwise being through the gruesome war against Germany. There are also some historians who believe that Truman made a mistake by not using the atomic weapon in the Korean war. It could have ended the war several years earlier with several million casualties less. Truman supposedly said: "but all those children."
Modern History maintains Harry Truman did not know of the Atomic bomb until he became President. Senator Truman chaired a war appropriations committee that prosecuted war profiteering and investigated over spending. Well, Senator Truman came across lots and lots of spending covered by an ill described "Manhattan Project". Some believe he refused to be waved off for "National Security", and found out the facts. Japanese I know believe the first bomb was a good idea, maybe the second could have been avoided. The Japanese people were ready to fight to the death ala "Churchill". The Japanese people were in a state of famine, epidemic T.B. It took the shock value of the Atomic Bomb to bring them to their senses. A million allied dead on Japanese beaches would not have had the same startling effect on the Japanese and would have cost more Japanese lives to secure the peace. Allied lives too. Truman made the correct decision. Moi r > g No
Harry Truman knew all about war crimes. He had hundreds of his enemies placed on numberous tribunals. Truman and FDR could have spared cities like Hiroshima, Dresden, Hamburg and Nagasaki---but they didn't, and wanted every living thing in these cities killed. But Truman's worst legacy is allowing all of East Europe to be taken over by Communists. The Communists won WW2.
