You should really brush up on your history before you go trying to lecture people about it. The Japanese were not on the verge of surrender. Not even close. They didn’t even surrender after Hiroshima; it took a second nuke to finally get them to give up. If you do even the slightest research on traditional Japanese culture, you’ll find that surrender is one of the most dishonorable actions a person can commit, and honor is paramount. This is why they DIDN’T surrender until they realized that we could nuke them to death.

Then you say “If you think millions of people would have died without it then you’re just daft.” Ridiculous. For your information, Jam5ter is entirely right. Firebombing a city destroys it and its population quite as thoroughly as nuking it, and firebombing Japanese cities was common practice in WWII. The reason nukes are so intimidating is how quickly and efficiently they destroy cities. The all-out invasion of the Japanese mainland that would have happened if they hadn’t surrendered would have led to much more death than the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

So the bottom line, Facedesk, is that you should really educate yourself on a topic before you presume to lecture others on it. Okay? Good boy.

“Do you believe Americans are valued higher than everyone else?” I’m sorry… were we supposed to value the enemy country’s people more highly than our own?

“Exactly how many people would have died if Hiroshima had NOT been nuked?” Well, it’s impossible to say for certain, as you well know, but the full-scale invasion of Japan that would have happened if the bombs had not been dropped would have resulted in the destruction of *several* cities, the deaths of millions of civilians, and very heavy military casualties on both sides. It’s fairly safe to say that the bombs lessened the number of lives lost.

And as for Jam5ster having *NO RIGHT* to state his opinion… what part of the whole freedom of speech thing did you miss?

YES, because I know it’s a quote.

NO, because I CAN’T FIGURE OUT WHERE THE QUOTE IS FROM.

That would cause untold damage to us as a people that we would have never given the people of Japan their country back. Nor would we have given any territory back we took in the war, from the great cost we paid with the blood of our youth for it.

(Look at European war history or any great power losing a generation, ie what Rome did to the Carthaginians after their defeat by sowing the fields with salt and yes putting them in bondage as slaves. The fields to this day can not yield any crops.)

We would be more warlike and I don’t think we would have gotten out of the last century with out a nuclear war or two.

So think when President Truman (remember democrat) said it was the easiest decision of his presidency, it was and yes he had all the facts of what this weapon would do. It saved tens of thousands of American lives (your grandfather(s) most likely) and millions of Japanese lives as well.

They were not going to surrender when and if we sent a invasion force. They stopped because we showed them this fact; one bomber plane, one bomb, one city destroyed.

Then we did it again.

They didn’t know we only had enough materials to make 3 bombs, one to test it in New Mexico, one hydrogen bomb, and one plutonium bomb. Yes Hiroshima was a civilian target (it was a “virgin city” the whole war for best possible effect), but Nagasaki was a military naval port city.

Also after the war we found out that the lead German physicist knew how to build a atomic device the whole time and gave a lecture on it 2 weeks after the surrender to the allies.

We look back thinking our victory was inevitable, in reality we were so close to losing the whole time.

These things stated are not opinions but facts, all listed in the library of congress. I am sorry if this inconvenient truth is in the way of revisionist historical thinking.