[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Still rings true, today.

[Perdogg]

saved over a millions lives. Operation Downfall would have cost millions.

[Sans-Culotte]

Bump.

[BuffaloJack]

Right decision.

[Chainmail]

Excellent monograph by a combat veteran. My wife, who is young and beautiful, sees the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as hideous and unnecessary. She is the product of our liberal school system and its version of history.

I am, however, a combat veteran and I have suffered all my life from the physical and spiritual effects of killing and seeing friends killed. I know what war's really about and I know just what this authors means about all of those young men who knew that they would not leave this war alive if we continued our invasion plans for Japan.

The bombs did what all of the other horrors didn't: it caused the Japanese to quit and as a result, millions of worthwhile young Americans, Brits, Russians, and Japanese got to survive and to build a new world.

I'm giving this article to my sweet missus.

[DugwayDuke]

“Still rings true, today.”

True, as the author stated: “To call it (war) a crime against mankind is to miss at least half its significance; it is also the punishment of a crime.”

Consider now the Israeli operations in Gaza. Saying these are crimes against mankind is to miss the significance of the operation as a punishment of a crime.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

I saved the link to post on the 70th anniversary, when the inevitable anti-Hiroshima protests arise.

What is the essay's connection to New Republic? It is not something I would expect to read in that publication.

[februus]

I lost 8 of my Uncles in WWII in the Pacific Theater - all from a small Tennessee community from one family. They never knew adulthood or raised families of their own and their deaths were brutal - either incinerated on board a burning ship or fighting hand to hand. When the war started all of them were peaceful civilians, too.

[The Great RJ]

I knew some WW-II veterans who had fought in Europe. They feared that they after fighting in Europe for most of 1944 and 1945 they would soon be shipped to the Pacific to be part of the invasion of Japan

[MosesKnows]

In life, experience is the great teacher. In Scotch, Teacher’s is the great experience.

To address the ad only ...

In school, teachers teach you a lesson and then give you a test
In life, life gives you a test that teaches you a lesson

My opinion of bombing Japan to end the war is that it was clearly the correct decision to take.

Japan had more trained and equipped military in Japan at the end of the war than at the beginning of the war. The Allies destroyed Japan’s Navy and they had no way to move those troops and equipment to the forward battle areas.

The Japanese people had been indoctrinated that they would have to fight to their death if the Americans invaded.

The bombs ended the war with the least amount of casualties on either side with the added bonus of demonstrating to the entire war the enormous power available. I think that demonstration added mightily to the fact that the world has never used the bomb against populations since that time.

The next benefit is that other nations developed their own capability. The world today would be a far different world had but a single nation possessed that power.

[Mat_Helm]

A very well written paper from an honest perspective. You could substitute the idea of War in place of the atom bomb. They are one and the same. The choice to use the bomb is the same choice for going to war to begin with. The moral choice to kill one man defending yourself or others from a killer intent on taking you or your loved ones life is the same moral decision regardless if you are faced by one man or a nation of men. God created all men and all are equal in His eyes. The killing of one man is just as sinful as killing millions. But defending oneself is also the same as defending millions. It is a sin to take a life unjustly. It is not sin to defend oneself or others or lay down ones own life while protecting the innocent.War was let out of the bottle when Cain killed Able. The atom bomb was let out of the bottle the same day that Adam ate from the tree of knowledge. Sooner or later more nuclear weapons will be used. The answer is to end war and as long as evil exists in the world there will be no end to war. It therefore ends when God puts an end to it. Jesus accomplished that on the cross when He conquered death. So it is an individual choice to either except His love and salvation or not. In the end when He returns and restores the order of things your choice will have been sealed and goats will be separated from the sheep. That is the truth of life.

[trisham]

"Those who say that we're in a time when there are no heroes,
they just don't know where to look."

~Ronald Reagan

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[pallmallman]

AMEN to that!!!

[caveat emptor]

Apparently the Japanese were hoping for some sort of conditional surrender, brokered by the Soviets. Their unconditional surrender came not because of the A bombs, but on August 15, a week after the Soviets invaded Manchuria and overwhelmed the Japanese forces there. Soviet–Japanese War (1945)