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It's also awfully convenient, and quite the coincidence that the Japanese state went from absolutely unwilling to surrender and still preparing for a fight until the end to willing to surrender on the Allies terms right when the nukes were dropped... but would've done so anyways?
Do you also think the russians shouldn't have bombed berlin when they were engaged in the extremely intense battle there? Or that the US shouldn't have bombed Germany at all? I guess you might say yes but that's also because you don't have to then send your own troops to a certain death.
The Soviet Union invaded Manchuria hours before the second bomb dropped. The goal of the bombings was clearly to posture against the Soviets and reduce their role in the peace process, not to reduce Japanese civilian casualties. The U.S. disregard for civilian deaths is well-documented by the various bombing campaigns they undertook in Japan throughout the war, such as the fire-bombing of Tokyo.
For example, the U.S. could have continued conventional bombing, or installed a blockade around the home islands, or negotiated a treaty, or any number of military and diplomatic actions not involving the irradiation of two large cities. Japan was at the mercy of the Allies at that point, not the other way around.
You can argue that it was the best option available (I strongly disagree), but the atomic bombings or a large scale invasion of the home islands were definitely not the only two options, as frequently claimed by apologists.
Also, it is not historically accurate to claim that Japan was not showing interest in surrendering after the first bombing. Even before the first bombing, the cabinet was split between civilian officials who wanted a treaty and hardliners who wanted to continue the war. As I said earlier, Japan was sending out diplomatic feelers to try and negotiate a peace, even if their leadership was divided.
Asking for a victor of a war to apologize is such a Western concept that I doubt the Japanese would appreciate it.
Yes obviously the reason nobody in the US was punished is because the US won the war. That doesn’t stop it from being regrettable that the people involved in blowing up two cities (the second one apparently by mistake), and we therefore have to hear from sanctimonious Americans claiming that the whole thing was no big deal!
And prosecuting them in Germany was delayed so long that eventually they were declared unfit to stand trial. It's ridiculous.
Of course it wasn't. International law, or even modern international law, didn't start in 1945. The Geneva and Hague conventions predate wwii.
In fact i think the US did it with Saddam.
Some comments here are nuts. Equating what the US and the Allies did during the war to Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan is insane, and as a Jew just fucking disgraceful. People really need to get a history book.
The link posted is interesting from a historical perspective, but the comments here just ragging on the US for the bombs and treating Japan like an innocent is just crazy to me. I guess thats what happens when you let war-crime denying Japan rewrite the history books. People here really don't grasp how truly _evil_ Imperial Japan was.