We have pretty much had this topic
before.
History can rarely be so simply judged as in terms of right or wrong and moralist debates on the rights and wrongs in many cases just deteriorate into opinion based arguments which is why I hadn't responded in this thread so far.
There are valid points to support the view that the use of the nuclear bomb(s) (putting the s in brackets because personally I find it rather questionable whether this claim can be upheld about the second bomb on Nagasaki as well as on the first on Hiroshima) may have prevent a higher death toll in a possible invasion of Japan or even in the continuation of the conventional bomb warfare.
However, statements such as this one:
I'm sorry but after reading some of the crap the Japanese did to the people of countries they occupied, as well as the human experiments they conducted, I find it difficult to have sympathy. People complain about how we dropped a couple of A bombs on two cities, but how many millions of civilian deaths were the Japanese responsible for? Funny how nobody ever complains about that. dry.gif They were every bit as bad, if not worse, than the Nazis. They started the mess and we finished it.
confirm my view that not much is to come from this debate here. In this statement revenge (rather than the wish to end the war soon) is accepted as a valid point in favor of the use of the bomb. It doesn't matter here who is hit by the bomb so long it is just Japanese because they (collective guilt?) had it coming
The huge majority of the population of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not involved in any war crimes. Bombs do not pick the "guilty" only. Korean forced laborers as well as American POWs were among the victims of the atomic bombs, but the worth attached to individual lives decreases a lot in a war in which human lives have been sacrificed at an inflationary rate.
The claim that nobody was complaining about Japanese crimes of war is just untrue and they are dealt with both in scientific as well as public discourse (the movie "John Rabe" being a recent example). It is true that it would be desirable if that discourse was as active in Japan where indeed dealing with Japanese crimes of war is still much of a taboo while some Japanese war criminals are still honored for example at the Yasukuni Shrine.
However, I am not much into a debate that so far seems to be primarily filled by a moral question of right and wrong and further fueled by the need of vindicating actions by the own nation. This debate had been there before and it is too emotionally heated and the posts so far already show that historical examination and debate is not likely to get the better of it which is why I am not too keen to join.