A young coworker of mine and I had a friendly debate on the nuking of those two Japanese cities.
In college he took a philosophy course that dwelled on those bombings and how the US should have avoided them,
In contrast I took two history courses in college decades earlier : WWII and American Diplomatic History,
Plus my father and his three siblings were all in the military service during WWII,
I tried to explain how barbaric the Japanese were at that time and how dropping those two bombs was the most humane solution across all involved: the US, the Chinese and even Japan.
There was only one option: Drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki or prepare for a full-fledged invasion of Japan, which would’ve resulted in (at minimum) a million America servicemen dying and an equal number, if not double, that in Japanese civilians. An unimaginable horror with repercussions that would’ve led to the Soviets occupying a good chunk of Japan (which they were badly hoping to do), just for starters, and perpetual bitterness and hatred between our two nations in the aftermath. It would’ve weakened us both and massively empowered the Soviets and the Communist cause.
My old man was WWII Airborne.
His brothers and cousins, and on Mom’s side as well, were Pacific Marines, and Army.
I can guarantee you all that to a man, they ALL were “in favor” of bombimg the living bat crap out of Germany and Japan, with any and all means available, to end the war.
If you go to war, you go to win it with the least amount of damage to YOUR people as possible, and the greatest possible carnage inflicted on the other side.
And then the war ends.
Islam understands that. Our idiots in charge understand it too. But they’re too afraid to win.