I found some have had to come to the realization we had few good choices. The one BBC interviewer basically blew by why Hiroshima could be rationalized then went on to claim Nagasaki was not necessary. Of course they repeated over and over this was hindsight.

The options were thousands dead quickly and then end of the war quickly or thousands dead over months and possible escalation of the war into something else with Russia.

What would make all these reviews reasonable would be the acknowledgement that Hitler and Japan were working massive military research programs, including jet fighters and nucear weapons, with totally different intentions on their use. That would bring the picture back into focus

ajstrata , I feel the same way , I would love to have peace , but if we are attacked the only solution would be to fight back .

I would love peace. But I am not so desparate in my desire to want it to forget people like Hitler, Stalin, Hussein and Il Jong do not have other intentions, other values.

We have had lasting peace because we, the US, had the power to destroy all comers. When will this change? I don’t know. I never expected the iron curtain to fall.

But being realistic does not mean being against peace or for war.

But I couldn’t disagree more with you when it comes to the atomic bombs that were dropped on Japan.

The position you stated is the one I have heard all of my life. It’s the rosy, we had no other choice, kind of mindset. The fact is that we, meaning the country I so dearly love and have defended with a gun, killed over 200,000 innocent civilians in the attacks.

No amount of rationalizing will ever overcome what we did in Japan in the name of saving lives. We now have to live with the knowledge that the United States, our United States, committed the most horrific war crime in world history.

There has to be a better way. And a good start would be for people such as you to take a cold, hard look at the facts. Perhaps then we’ll finally start heading down the road toward lasting peace.