[Mack the knife]

If you want to talk numbers, remember this from "Why Truman Dropped the Bomb", Weekly Standard, http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/894mnyyl.asp?pg=1


" This brings us to another aspect of history that now very belatedly has entered the controversy. Several American historians led by Robert Newman have insisted vigorously that any assessment of the end of the Pacific war must include the horrifying consequences of each continued day of the war for the Asian populations trapped within Japan's conquests. Newman calculates that between a quarter million and 400,000 Asians, overwhelmingly noncombatants, were dying each month the war continued. Newman et al. challenge whether an assessment of Truman's decision can highlight only the deaths of noncombatant civilians in the aggressor nation while ignoring much larger death tolls among noncombatant civilians in the victim nations."

[Mr. Silverback]

One of the things I found in the Downfall book was that Truman was told around 100,000 Asian civilians were dying each month, and that was enough for him, though American lives were his priority. If Newman's totals are correct, we avoided somewhere between 750,000 and 1.2 million civilian deaths in August, September and October, before the deaths from the invasion.

I respect the Japanese people greatly on many counts, but consider the level of self-delusion it requires to think that Hiroshima and Nagasaki was an unjustified attack on an innnocent population. No wonder they ban books about their atrocities.

[Mr. Silverback]

Oh, forgot to say thanks for the info and link.

[Mr. Silverback]

Oh, forgot to say thanks for the info and link.