Reply #15: Truman was right to drop the bomb:

[mdguss]

Hiroshima's bombing was justified. Tragic result yes, but the Japanese were not about to surrender prior to Hiroshima. They were willing to fight on. Millions of Japanese were starving/dying because of a lack of supplies. The faster the war ended, the less people would die. Truman demanded immediate surrender after the first bomb; he announced that we would drop another bomb; he gave Japan time to surrender. They didn't; he carried through on his threat. He dropped the bomb on Nagasaki...you could argue that the second bomb could've been dropped off the coast, and forced the Japanese to surrender. But that is in hindsight.

Stalin had just decided to enter the pacific war. Russian involvement in China and Japan would've been a total mess, and would've destablized the world. A Russian occupation of northern Japan might well have killed hundreds of thousands more.

Truman knew this. He saw through Stalin, and knew he was dealing with a mass murderer. He had a weapon that would kill tens of thousands of innocent people, but would end the war and protect hundreds of thousands of people from a tyranical Stalin. It had to be one of the most gut wrentching decisions every made by an American President. Truman made the right choice. Fascism, and fascio-communism are largely gone (with outposts in Cuba and China) from the world. We still have problems. Ultimately, the bombs probably save millions of people from gulags, firing squads, and political oppression.