In schools it is taught that we committed a brutal act of mass murder as an act of revenge when we dropped the bombs. What is not taught is the fact that it actually saved thousands of lives.
Rick Moran at PJ Media observes:
For those who have moral objections to dropping the bomb, none of these points matter. Even an invasion by the U.S. in 1946 that might have killed half a million GIs and twice that number of Japanese would have been preferable to incinerating 150,000 Japanese in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Would that really have been less cruel?
The decision to drop the bomb will always be controversial because the answer to that question is yes, there were other ways we could have ended the war with Japan. Some would almost certainly have cost more lives than were lost at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Army Air Force Commander of Strategic Forces in the Pacific Curtis LeMay believed that, given six months and freedom to target whatever he wished, he could have brought Japan to its knees by completely destroying its ability to feed itself. Victory assured — at the cost of several million starved Japanese.
The navy thought a blockade would do the trick. Starving the Japanese war machine of raw materials and the people of food they were importing from occupied China would have the Japanese government begging for peace in a matter of six months to a year. Again, visions of millions of deaths from starvation came with the plan.
The primary argument today for not using the bomb rests on some newly discovered cables that seem to show Japan ready to capitulate as early as July 1945. It was then clear to the Japanese that the Soviet Union would invade in a matter of weeks. Again, while provocative, the United States could not afford to let Japan up off the mat without guarantees that Japan would be unable to build up its military again. As it was, it took a provision in the new Japanese Constitution, written by General McArthur, that kept the Japanese military small and totally dependent on the U.S. for its defense.
Most sane people wish that the use of the atomic bomb had not been necessary. But no matter where you come down on the question, the undeniable truth is that dropping the bomb ended the war. And if there’s nothing moral about war to begin with — except its quick and decisive ending in victory — that might be the best argument for using it to this day.
No need to get intellectual about the this. Those people are crazy. There was no turning them around to see the light. Island countries are like that. They saw the outside world as barbarian-think China and what they did there.
A negotiated end to hostilities might have saved face but it would only be a no-fault lull in the fighting before starting up again.
Crazy. What does a westerner think if told to fly their plane into the side of an enemy’s warship? We’re the barbarians? Just look at how they treated POW’s or even shipwrecked sailors before Commodore Perry arrived.
The Japanese have a real sense of duty and it exists in the mindset today.
The bombs saved many hundreds of thousands of lives, perhaps even millions, most of them Japanese.
The Japanese were about to start starving to death en mass.
Those bombs made it possible for him to come home, meet my late mother-in-law, get married and have four daughters. One of whom today is my wife.
As far as the Japs and anyone else going on about “The US committing a ‘’war crime''? Tough shit. If the Japanese of the Germans had possessed such a weapon they wouldn't have hesitated a moment to use it. The Japs chose war against The United States of America. They choose poorly.