It's "could have" not "could of"

argh, I hate that typo. "Have" doesn't even look remotely like "of". And most people doing it are native speakers. It drives me insane!

its the internet, nobody cares.

But it's wong! WROOOOOONG! *Starts to hyperventilate*

You read wrong. Do you have any ideea how much 3/4 of the population of Japan meant at the time? It would've been about 70 million people. Essentially, that's more than all the other WWII casualties put together. The only way the death toll could've been so large was if you guys nuked the whole country. It would've meant genocide.

Where did you read this? If you actually did read THIS somewhere, it must've been some revisioned history text by right wind nationalists. Though honestly, this is too much of an exaggeration for even the far right, unless the book you read it was something like The New and Improved History of WWII: America's Glorious Display of Heroism by Sarah Palin. Did it also say that you guys single-handedly defeated the Nazis and won Vietnam (this part mentioned in the sequel: The New and Improved History of the Cold War: In America Red Is Out)?

As for the moral aspects, I agree with Rath. You were also probably more interested in your own casualties, rather than innocent Japanese civilians.

You guys act as if japan was the same back then as today.  They raped and murdered large parts of Asia and carried out horrific expierments on the local populations.  They beat and murdered PoW's on a regular basis.  Using the nuke was the most peaceful solution.  Japan killed around 15-25million people during WW2.  And you need to only look at the battles of the small islands the US hit making their way to japan to know that any invasion of japan would of killed ten fold what the bombs killed. 

Are you actually saying that the Japanese should've been "punished"? And do you actually think the actions of the Japanese military were in any way the fault of the civilians? During the war, things like the Manchurian massacre weren't even mentioned in Japan. The general population had no ideea what their army was doing .

The general thought was, Japan wasn't going to surrender.  Which they weren't... they weren't going to surrender even after the first bomb.

Their food was centralized, blowing up the roads would of made sure that basically the entire population would of starved until they surrendered... and surrender was very unlikely to happen early considering japans nationlism at the time... and even if they did surrender... it would be extremly hard to get food to people in time... these people had already been starving for 2 years.

Heck... more people died of starvation and starvation related diseases after the war then they did from the nuclear bombs!   This was after the US set up a food distribution network and spent tons of money on aid.  Japan itself was in a VERY perilous position.  The US weren't the ones who were committing the systematic genocide... it was the japanese themselves due to starvation, a refusal to surrender and a culture that made uprisings unthinkable.

Also, the cities themselves weren't targetted... but the military instalations in the cities.

Come up with something that you think would of caused less casualties... though yeah... their foodlines would of been cut.  Any idea how many people starve when they can't access any food for months?

Heck, look at the death tolls that happened after the war due to starvation.  It would of been thousands of times worse... because even the amount people received weekly wouldn't be able to arrive... heck the very first thing the allies did when they took over japan was to greatly enhance the Japanese food distribution network... cause the people had already been starving for 2 years and refused to surrender.  This isn't even counting the inevitable deaths by bombing.

10 Million people were estimated to die AFTER they surrendered due to starvation... an estimate made by Japanese historians.

So... yeah... 70 million not as unheard of as you'd think.  Except it wouldn't of been 70 million since that was about the population of japan at the time.  So more like 52 million. 

1/5th that was already in severe risk of starvation.

Though lets just stick with this 10 million number.  Which would of been worse?  10 million starving?  Or the two nuclear bombs?

Of course... this is getting off the topic that you were wrong and made half cocked allegations based on an article.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were important military towns, their destruction was one of military importance.  They were not just normal citizens.  Japan refused to surrender just one week before the first bomb was dropped, they were told they would be destroyed. 

Japan was training its self as a nation to attack and hate the US for when the potential invasion took place.  You can bet that every man woman and child would have gone to war to protect japan.   They would have either fought or took their lives out of fear of the US soldiers.

It's not a typo. Many people legitimately confuse "have" and "of", presumably because of the way that contractions like "should've" sound kind of like "should of". These people sicken me.