It wasn’t necessary for Japan to bomb Pearl Harbor. How does Buchanan rationalize that?
I’ve never read a Buchanan-penned book. He is a strange man with even stranger historical notions.
This is correct. Buchanan is a clown. The real question is, if it was a exigence to trow a 2nd nuclear warhead on Nagasaki after the successful blast of Hiroshima. Nobody in the former enemy countries like Japan or Germany believes that and it is taken there by some people as a evidence that the principal ethic of the US forces and their former president was not much better than the one of their colleagues in Japan or Germany at that time.
Although this is complete BS of course, the fact of the second, practically needless strike damaged the image of America quite effective and has still its impact. I.e. in the discussion around the recent Iraq-war and whether European countries should be engaged or not the ethical integrity of the US and its way to wage a war was indeed crucial.
BTW - there is a quite similar discussion around the bombing night of Dresden in 1945 although this was in the first instance a British action. Interestingly the US forces -in sharp difference to their British allies- usually avoided needless destruction during their bombing raids over Germany. The USAF conduct in aerial warfare over the Pacific was much harder than in the European theater.
Regards from Europe!
Andreas