What is Reddit's opinion of Prompt and Utter Destruction, Third Edition: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs against Japan?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

> To end a world war America dropped atomic bombs killing men, women and children. Was this evil? Or, was the bombing an act that ended a war (we were forced into) eventually saving many more lives?

It was evil. Massacring non-combatants is evil, as President Truman recognised. Henry Wallace wrote in his diary that Truman told him he had ordered a stop on atomic bombings after the second because "the thought of wiping out another 100,000 people was too horrible. He didn’t like the idea of killing, as he said, 'all those kids.'" (Quoted in <em>Prompt and Utter Destruction</em>, p. 86)

America's generals at the time, unlike the politicians and bureaucrats, did not think the atomic bomb was necessary. As Admiral Leahy wrote bitterly in his memoirs, America had "adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children."

> You can't just judge from one act of one day - you must take into consideration the big picture: the butterfly effect of the American lives saved from that day, their affect on descendants and all affects on people around the world right now today.

It is impossible to judge an act by a limitless number of unknown future ramifications.