Using the A-bomb

[Sethomas]

I find the argument that the bombs saved more lives than they ended to be utter bullshit. A land invasion was never necessary because the Japanese power structure had been collapsing for some years when the decision was made to use the nukes. We should have used Fabius' strategy of the Second Punic War: keep your eye on the enemy but never engage them. A study was done in 1945 that concluded that the Japanese empire would have collapsed within another six months of sustaining all their forces in their territorial holdings. Absolutely no blood was necessary; they were spread out too thin to last for much longer.

Kurt Vonnegut made the point that while the bombing of Hiroshima is a highly contestable point, the bombing of Nagasaki was a deafening proclamation "Fuck you, dirty yellow bastards!" and nothing more. What I find interesting is that while around 200,000 civilians died in the nuclear bomb droppings, it's estimated that over a million civilians died in the constant fire storms we unleashed upon Tokyo.