Tens of millions of Americans and JAPANESE are alive today because we dropped those bombs. They are the sons and daughters, grandsons and grandaughters, and great-grandchildren of the millions of Americans and Japanese (especially Japanese civilians who were to be armed with bamboo staves and drafted into suicide attacks) that would have been killed in an invasion of Japan that would have happened otherwise. I’m possibly one, although my dad was serving as a meteorologist for the USAAF in Italy at the time. A lot of non-infantry would have been converted to footsoldiers to meet the demand that an invasion would have required. Indeed, my dad’s unit was awaiting orders for transfer to the Pacific Theater when they heard about the bombs.
In any case, no such benefit to humanity can be pointed to as a result of the random murder of 3,000 civilians on 9/11.
Count me as one. My Dad was a 1st Lt with the 21st Marines, recovering from his wounds on Iwo Jima when he got orders they were going to be in on the assault on Japan. At the time, the Marine Corps estimated they would have 1 million casualties with a full-scale invasion.
I am personally grateful that the atom bomb ended the war.