Truman as War Criminal

As I sit down to write my final exam, my 8 to 10 page final is about the influence of the Atomic Bomb on Japanese Film, using the movie Hiroshima Mon Amour. It is yet another classroom setting where I get beat up for disagreeing with the American party line of it being acceptable under the circumstance which the United States were faced with a that time in history. I disagree with that being the case but I have never perceived Truman as a war criminal for making the decisions (although I strongly disagree with it).
John Stewart did go on record for saying something to the effect.


JON STEWART: I try and draw the line where our country has drawn it for 200 years.
CLIFFORD MAY: Do you think in World War II we did not inflict pain and suffering on suspects in the war in Japan?
STEWART: I would hope we didn't water board people. I would hope we didn't...
MAY: We did do Hiroshima. Do you think, do you think Truman is a war criminal for that?
STEWART: Yeah.
MAY: You do?
STEWART: Yeah.
MAY: Okay. This is a, this is a...
STEWART: Here's what I think of the atom bombs. I think if you dropped an atom bomb fifteen miles offshore and you said, "The next one's coming and hitting you," then I would think it's okay. To drop it on a city, and kill a hundred thousand people. Yeah. I think that's criminal.

I agree with Jon Stewart's idea of having given the Japanese people a demonstration of the destructive force of the bomb without having nuked them!
Last Thursday, Jon Stewart did retract his statements though. I am glad that he did speak from his heart about his views and I would guess that some suit working for Comedy Central had a sit down with him and had him to the retraction of his statements below.

The other night we had on Cliff May. He was on, we were discussing torture, back and forth, very spirited discussion, very enjoyable. And I may have mentioned during the discussion we were having that Harry Truman was a war criminal. And right after saying it, I thought to myself that was dumb. And it was dumb. Stupid in fact. So I shouldn't have said that, and I did. So I say right now, no, I don't believe that to be the case. The atomic bomb, a very complicated decision in the context of a horrific war, and I walk that back because it was in my estimation a stupid thing to say.

Although I wouldn't concider President Truman a war criminal, I think if America had lost the war and a clip like this one above was viewed by the world, I have no doubt that he would go down in history as just that.