The bombs saved lives. Keep saying it. Tell it to the civilians at ground zero. Oh, thats right, you can't since they are dead. Truman had other options besides invasion or war crime, after all the Pacific theater was not FDRs main concern in WWII. We could have closed down that effort or negotiated on some other grounds than the unconditional surrender relic of Grant.
As I read it, we mostly fried those human beings to make a point to our Russian "allies" about our capacity and because Truman was a weak new President who was not intellectually or emotionally prepared to say "No, I won't use those devices no matter how much effort went into their construction." Thats why I don't buy the "if we only knew all the facts" argument, Truman was afraid to choose not to use the bombs, I wonder what Bush is afraid of?.
As the generation who fought the World War fades away, just maybe we can start to discuss this stuff without all the bowing and scraping, to false premises and recognize that these were regular flawed people making these decisions and now and then they screwed up. As always, I could be way off target here, but that bombs saved lives business always rubs me the wrong way.
P.S. if I'm sounding a little twed here I apologise in advance.
