We didn’t need to drop the bomb — and even our WW II military icons knew it

[rlpincus]

37. The Bomb

I'm sorry but Leahy's excuses are laughable. We had been fire-bombing Japan's civilian population for over a year and really picked up the pace when we took the Marianas in November of 1944. btw, Japan had moved much of its manufacturing into neighborhoods prompting their targeting. Japan's leadership didn't care a whit for its people even though it knew it couldn't prevent the bombing runs. It stood by while close to a million of its citizens died in the raids and instead concentrated on psychologically steeling its soldiers to fight to the end.

Eisenhower OK'd the same fire-bombing tactics in Germany. His opinions were based on fighting a land war against a dispirited enemy who was surrendering faster than we could capture them. Fighting the Japanese in a succession of brutal island-hopping campaigns gave the Pacific leadership an entirely different take on what would end the war. Read a description of Okinawa and the effect this type of warfare was having on our GI's. Read about the Japanese use of children and civilians as front line troops. Read about the mass civilian suicides triggered by Japanese propaganda about Western brutality. 50,000 American cases of what they called "battle fatigue".

I admire the president for visiting Hiroshima. I think it's a good move. But I'm not going to sugarcoat the Japanese military's culpability in their own destruction.