I love when people try to rewrite history =) A simple study of history, and the facts, and you understand really fast the bombs were dropped to save american lives. The numbers hold true. Place that number in front of the commander and chief, and tell him a war that wasn’t started by America, and could be ended sooner, and save at the top end millions of american lives, by dropping at that time a very powerful, and not well understood atomic bomb, or to go the invasion rout and lose at the low end 200,000 american lives. Yeah it isn’t a hard choice at all.

Here’s another fun fact. America had planned to drop more then just two bombs. A total of seven bombs were planned to follow. Japan had around 900,000 troops (that is about nine times the amount that died in the two atomic bomb drops.) at the beach head America had planned their invasion around, with a total of up to three times that number by the time the americans were ready to invade. The beach would have been bombed before american troops would land. Funny part to that, like I said earlier, at the time no one understood fully the effects of dropping the atomic bombs at the time. So they said after dropping the bombs they should wait two days and then send in our troops. They thought at the time it would be safe, because they didn’t understand how bad the after affects would be. The fall out would be just as bad, and the 200,000 (with another 500,000 to come the following days) troops that would likely land on the first day would have been just as affected as the Japanese.

I’m not apologizing for dropping the bombs, why should I. At the time they did what they thought was right to save allot of american lives. And didn’t know about all the problems that come after a bomb drop, and they also didn’t think there would be arm chair revisionists in the future, who were not there at the time, and don’t understand what it means to make a choice that could end the lives of millions of people, or save millions of lives.

Now lets talk about “considerable human cost.”

Losses from both sides if an invasion had occurred. Taking into account how fiercely Japanese troops fought on Okinawa, and Iwo Jima (to the last man) And also take into account that the civilian, many of them committed suicide. Now on the mainland everyone was preparing to fight for the invasion.

American losses: est in the range of 500,000 (if the war lasted only for three months longer) to 2,000,000 (if the forces would be forced to to push pasted Tokyo.) Likely the number would have been in the high end no matter what. With the beach head manned by almost 3 million troops, and American’s invasion force consisting a little over 700,000 troops, American losses to a manned invasion would have been staggering. But nothing close to the japanese losses.

Japans losses: est in the range of 200,000 to 1,000,000 from just the beach landing. This is just soldiers. Total troops losses would be around 3,000,000 on the high end. Not counting the civilian deaths, which would number between 100,000 to 1,000,000. This is still the low end, assuming that Japan would have surrendered by the time we reached Tokyo. The numbers could have reached as far as 65% or more of the total populace of Japan. And the horrible thing is that is a low ball number. Japanese people were very fierce fighters who did not surrender. They would rather die then face dishonor. It showed to be true ever island Americans took back from them. American soldiers lost 35% of their invasion force when taking Okinawa. The Americans outnumbered the Japanese more then 2:1. Even outnumbered they killed more then a third of the troops sent against them.

So total losses from a non nuclear invasion would be between, from both sides, 800,000 to 6,000,000. Remember those are the numbers only if the war had ended in Tokyo. The possible numbers for a last man standing end would have been the most devastating anyone in modern history would have seen. It would have left nothing but a broken people, and a broken land for the few survivors who had chose to hide. Japan would not be the wonderful place it is today. It would have resembled 1920’s germany. America would not have been so willing to jump in and help rebuild the country either. Likely Japan would have become a heavily occupied country, with many reparations being forced upon its people to pay for the damage the war had caused America, and China for that matter. Today likely Japan would be a third world country.

Total number of dead from the nuclear bombs.

America: 0
Japan: Hiroshima 66,000. Nagasaki 39,000.

Total dead from the Nuclear bombs 105,000.

That is allot less then even the low number of 800,000. It doesn’t take much to see that and understand the out come. It only takes a open mind to look at the data, and understand the effect of what each choice would give you. To ignore the numbers, and ignore the that amount of lives that were in the balance. To Ignore what a waste land Japan would be today had things been different. Is to ignore all the data in favor of holding on to a belief that doesn’t stand up when held up to the facts as they were known then.

If you don’t believe me, then take a trip to your university. Find and talk to the history teacher there. Ask him what he thinks. If you don’t trust him either, go to the library. Do the information diffing yourself. Look up all the old invasion plans. Read the diaries of the people involved. In short educate yourself, with facts. Too often today, people hear someone speaking about how wrong something was. They listen and go yeah that is wrong. The information they are receiving is out of context. Twisted to be used as a weapon to further that persons own beliefs. Speech is a weapon. It can be wielded to slice through lies, by those who wish to spread truth. Or it can be used to prune away the parts of an issue, so as to hide important facts for selfish purposes. Rarely believed is the person who tries to spread truth. The reason being is truth is a bitter thing. Many do not want to hear the true. Lies are always filled with honey. There would be no reason to lie if the truth didn’t sound so bitter. The only way to fight this kind of brain washing is to educate yourself on every issue yourself. I have always lived by the rule. Believe only half of what you see for yourself, and none of what you are told. So that being said I encourage you to fully explore the issue yourself, if you don’t want to take my information at face value. I know I wouldn’t. I would go out and dig up all the facts, and read both sides of the issue. Hell if the people were still alive, I’d try to contact them to find out from them in person what they thought about the issue at the time. But then again that is just me.

One last point though I did touch upon it up top some. Lex Parsimoniae. Translated Occam’s razor. The simplest solution more times then not is the correct solution. If you have to make assumptions about unknown possibilities, say Truman’s choosing to blow up the atomic bomb for instance, to impress the russians, in light of a few known facts, some I mentioned above, and some I didn’t (that one would be that Truman told Stalin in person before hand that America had made a nuclear bomb). Then you would have to assume more then a few unknown, and unrecorded facts, also put into place many cover ups from all the people in charge, and ignore the facts of the looming invasion and the possible deaths of millions of american soldiers weighing on Truman’s mind. Put simply. If you have to make allot of unprovable assumptions, to support your belief, its more then likely the belief is wrong. Occam’s razor.

Good god I’ve typed way to much, and I doubt many will actually read any of it, but I can’t be faulted for not presenting my points on the issue in a detailed way. =)