Having spent the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing in Hiroshima, visiting their Peace Memorial Museum, strolling through their Peace Memorial Park, and hanging out for some live music, beer, and okonomiyaki with the locals... I will hate all nukes forever. There is no justification for ever using nuclear power as a weapon. It's been over 60 years and they're still dealing with the consequences, and today's nukes are even worse.

Every president talks about non-proliferation and reducing our ridiculously huge nuclear stockpile, but only Obama has the giant balls to do it.

So RubangB -

How were we to resolve the war in the Pacific against Japan?

Not by mutating generations of children, including people born long after the war is resolved, and not by bombing a town with a huge immigrant Korean population that had nothing to do with the war.

But I don't buy into the idea that that war in particular needed drastic measures because they were fanatics.  Conventional weapons are always enough.  The bombing of Tokyo wiped out 100,000 non-combatants (almost as many as the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, and more than Nagasaki), and 25% of the city.  But the next generation was born without birth defects from radiation.

well its kind of hard for the Ruskies to take over the UK if they are an island nation and they along with the US had a much more powerful/superior Navy which would have repelled the advance of the Soviets. 

Wait, we lost it four times.

Scientifically there is no proof of genitic mutation beyond the first offspring. Even then, the biggest issue tends to be an increased risk for throat cancer, which doesn't tend to show up until late in like 60s-70s.

Additionally, you would of hate to have seen the other option.  It was a total blockade of Japan and bombing of their railines that would of destroyed their food population and caused mass famine that could of lead to a GIANT portion of the country dieing.


The three options were basically...

1) Dropping the bombs

2) Starving upwords to 70% of Japan to death.

3) Massive ground invasion causing massive casulties to both sides.

With 2 & 3 adding in the risk of russia splitting Japan up like Vietnam and Korea.

An interesting thing is the US actions in WW 2 were more horrific than ANY attack on the US in the past 100 years. It's a dangerous thing to say it's ok for us to do it and not another group. For instance 9/11 horrific as it was, was not nearly as cruel and destructive as what happened to the Japanese.

What I am saying is if you condem 9/11 then you must also condem the actions made by the US in WW 2.

Why? 

1) WW2 was a war.

2) Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren't even the biggest loss of civilian life in WW2.

The afore mentioned bombing of Tokyo killed more people... as did the Firebombing of Dresden.  Which unlike the other 3 bombings, the fire bombing of Dresden happened after Germany had lost, and was rapidly retreating.

3) Due to the military leader mindset... the Japanese were never going to surrender, even if we kept conventionally firebombing them... it would of took massive drastic measures that would of cost more human life.  Even after the first Nuclear attack, the leadership outside of the emperor didn't want to make peace... without concessions from the US and there was little the emperor could do about it.

Heck even then, the emperor had to actually avoid someone who wanted to kidnap him and lock him up so he couldn't surrender even after the two A-bombs proved we had more then 1.

Personally I think Nagasaki and Hiroshima were a better alternative then killing over half the population of Japan with a blockade. 

That's a double standard though, in their eyes(Al Qaeda) we are were and are at war with them. They know that if they fought our troops it wouldn't be nearly as effective , but if they kill ciivilians they can sway our thoughts. Killing civilians is NEVER justified. It's basically killing people who have no say in the end over the reasons they are fighting for. It's like killing an entire village of people because the mayor of town upset you.