I respectfully disagree that it's indefensible. It was either 100,000 Japanese civilians in those 2 cities OR million or more American casualties. AND if the invasion had taken place, millions and millions of Japanese civilians would've died also.
I agree, with proper PR language, anything can be made look half decent and therefore tolerable.
Also that it didn't need to be dropped on a populated city first, and that previous bombing of cities in the war proved that the tactic was relatively ineffective. And that the US had a conflict of interest; they wanted to end the war before the Russians were involved. As well as demonstrate the capability of the bomb to them.
Everything I said is debatable, and I don't blame Truman for making the decision he did. But Orwell's comment, that the arguments involved are "too brutal to bear" is definitely true. Most people can't answer the trolley problem, a hypothetical situation where you have to kill one innocent person to save 5.
Now imagine instead of 1 person it's thousands, and they aren't all just killed instantly but some horribly maimed or irradiated. And that whether it will work wasn't certain, or that the horrible alternative wasn't certain, and that there are all sorts of possible third options, etc. And so whatever you think the best choice is, the arguments involved are extremely brutal.
I respectfully disagree that it's indefensible. It was either 100,000 Japanese
civilians in those 2 cities OR million or more American casualties.
AND if the invasion had taken place, millions and millions of Japanese
civilians would've died also.
## EDIT I don't mean to be dismissive but anyone with even remote knowledge of what went on to recapture all the Japanese held islands in the Pacific during the WW2 will say the nukes were needed.
On all the islands that US Marines/soldiers fought on to recapture from Japan, Japanese units were usually wiped to the last man. And this kind of resistance to the last man was repeated on every single island.
Example, Saipan island. Out of 31,000 Japanese soldiers, only 921 were captured. 24000 were killed and 5000 committed suicide. 22000 Japanese civilians died, mostly from suicides.
US suffered 3426 killed and 10364 wounded.
For an island of 44 square miles.
## end EDIT
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall#Estimated_ca...
That is not the same thing as saying that they are indefensible.
As in death of millions of Japanese civilians. A million or so US casualty was projected.
Please check out: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8908197
And a great book on the topic: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674022416/ref=oh_aui_detai...
Do you know how hard it was for US marines to retake the Japanese held islands?
And what if it was going to take half a million American casualties? And it still would've killed lots and lots of Japanese civilians and soldiers. Far more than 100,000 Japanese would've died.
Have you read anything about any of the campaigns by US Marines? Not accusing you of ignorance or anything. Just wondering if you know some history.