Because, strangely enough, he was the least objectionable of all the Japanese leaders around. And it would have resulted in us being forced to bomb Japan to rubble. When the emperor died in 1989 there were a number of suicides by people who thought it was an honor to die with their emperor.
And.....why are there still Japanese who lived on the islands still alive? Why are the Japanese islands still there? Why were the Japanese islands not atom-bombed off of the planet so that they would be at worst a vast wasteland/pile-of-rubble or at best a shallow sea?
Because you do what you have to do in war and then you stop.
“Because you do what you have to do in war and then you stop.”
Please do not include me in those ‘yous’. That is not the way I would do it. I would win the war and obliterate the offensive ones off of the planet so that there would be no possible recurrence. ;-)