Quote:
| Bob-Dobbs: japan had been trying to surrender for months beforehand. it was little more than retribution and senseless |
Now THAT's quite a statement. Where did you here that? In right-wing Tokyo circles perhaps?
On the contrary, while there were certainly some Japanese who saw the insanity of continuing the war, they weren't in control. Koichi Kido, one of Emperor Hirohito's closest aides, said after the war that "we of the peace faction were assisted by the atomic bomb in our endeavour to end the war". That's pretty well the horse's mouth, I'd say.
The fact is that the Japanese military, who were really running things, were determined to keep going even if that meant sacrificing millions of Japanese lives, which is what would have happened if a full-scale invasion of Japan had been necessary. This was made unnecessary by the Bomb.
The US should probably have dropped it elsewhere than on a city full of people (something the Japanese wouldn't have hesitated to do for an instant if THEY'D had it). But the Americans had two (count 'em) of the things, and were determined to achieve maximum effect.
Let's be clear: Nuclear weapons are enormous and absolutely indiscriminate weapons of mass destruction that many jurists agree violate the modern law of war. But it's way too easy to say that there was an acceptable alternative in August '45.