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Originally posted by twotimesadingo
I gather that the facts and stats were from the period directly before Little Boy and Fat Man were dropped.
It's all right to be snide, but intentional misrepresentation of someone's statements is never very kosher with me...
As Rogue mentioned, in the months prior to the decision to drop the bombs, the Japanese military units on the various Pacific Islands were displaying what we would call "fanatical adherence" to their superiors' commands to fight until their last breaths.
This convinced many American military officers that, should they invade the mainland, they could be ready for an even more extreme response; Rogue mentioned that the Japanese were training women and children to fight, should an invasion become imminent. This is true, and a google search should find you some information about it.
It's a proven fact that the casualty trend was dramatically escalating in the months before the bombs were dropped; from this information we can assume with a high degree of accuracy that to have invaded the mainland would have been to invite an immense increase in the number of deaths of both military personnel and civilians.
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And therefore dropping those two bombs was the best thing to do, right?
I think you guys are missing my point. All I'm trying to do is call into question this collective assurance that what the US did was the only thing it could do as the alternatives would have been so much worse. I've noticed that anyone who stops and asks, "Hey, maybe dropping nukes on civilians wasn't the best way the situation could have been handled" is simply written off. Many of you give the impression that it could have only happened two ways, and the way the US chose was the most humane.
Is it unfair to question this?
SLM3