Lol, we just had a meme on this topic that sparked quite the controversy. I didn’t see all of it but I’m told it shaded into racism and genocide.
Personally, my grandparents both fought in the Pacific Theater and may have been ordered to invade Japan had they not surrendered. They may have perished and I may not be here today.
Or: They may have survived and I might have been here anyway.
I’m leery of the kind of justifications that say “a million (U.S. Soldiers/Japanese civilians/some combination of the two)” would have died in a ground invasion of Japan.
For comparison: Is that how many died in the invasion of Germany in the final stages of the war in Europe? (Not overall over the whole period 1939-1944, but just the last few weeks once Germany was all but defeated)?
No, not even close.
We have to be critical of historical propaganda that says the atomic bombs were “necessary” and “justified.”
Readily available and powerful? Sure. Inevitable that they would be used in this way, given the enormous sunk cost of the Manhattan Project? Probably.
But “available,” “powerful,” and “inevitable that they’d be used” are not the same as “necessary” and “justified.”
We have to recognize the moral gap that exists between the former words and the latter words. That moral gap equates, in the eyes of many, to a war crime.
If you consider yourself a patriot, sit with that for awhile.
