While you are correct in saying "...there is absolutely no reason to accept anything the government says at face value...", as so many men and their families knew from hard experience in war and painful loss at home, accepting that the Japanese would fight to the last man, woman, and child was borne out by firsthand experience, not by "anything the government says".
My father, IAGeezer912's father, wildbill22's father and Bill Whittle's father (as he explicity describes in his excellent video I linked to in my post earlier in the thread at #53. which had were all men who had either fought firsthand in the Pacific and seen the ferocious tenacity of the Japanese in every battle they fought them in or seen the Japanese civilians on Saipan throwing themselves off the cliffs rather than be taken capitive (actually given safe refuge) by the American forces, or were in the forces being marshalled for the upcoming "Operation Downfall", and they knew full well that any one of them might never make it home.
You are welcome to your personal opinion that using the bombs was "morally bankrupt and completely unneccessary", and if you oppose the decision for religous, moral, or personal reasons, I fully accept that it is your opinion even if I disagree, and you have many people who agree with you.
But your use of government veracity in ANY way is not the way you should buttress your position.
All those men listed above, and perhaps millions of others on the slate to take part in "Operation Downfall" carry far more weight, and do not constitute the "word of the government".
If you haven't seen the linked video, I suggest you give it a view.
I don't even accept that as a necessary condition at all. I have long said that it's impossible to have a rational discussion about the matter until sufficient time has passed that nobody is alive who even knows anyone who was involved in a potential invasion of Japan. You can't have an objective conversation when everything you read about it is so heavily personalized.