Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Living in the shadow of nuclear atrocity

[webfact]

EDITORIAL
Living in the shadow of nuclear atrocity
The Nation

Why we must keep alive the memory of events in Hiroshima and Nagasaki 70 years ago

BANGKOK: -- Seventy years ago this month, atomic bombs were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in what turned out to be the final days of World War II.

The world's first - and only - nuclear attacks, in August 1945, were credited with forcing Japan's stubborn wartime government to surrender. But the bombs killed more than 200,000 innocent civilians, many of whom only succumbed after the prolonged agony of radiation sickness.

Survivors of the attack continue to suffer, carrying permanent scars and chronic illnesses in addition to nightmare memories that will haunt them to the end.

The United States Air Force dropped the bomb on Hiroshima on August 6 and then targeted Nagasaki three days later. Less than a week after that, on August 15, Japan surrendered, bringing an end to the global war.

Some historians hold that the twin nuclear attack helped prevent an even greater death toll that would have resulted from a planned land invasion of Imperial Japan. Others argue that the atomic bombing was unnecessary because Japan was already facing imminent defeat. The decision to unleash atomic weapons and their role in Japan's surrender remain a fierce point of contention.

One unexpected impact of the bombings was that they became an important deterrent against the future use of nuclear weapons. Global public opinion has been awakened to a terrifying power that has the potential to wipe out humanity.

The United States reportedly considered using nuclear weapons again during its wars in Korea and Vietnam, but concern over a global backlash seemingly outweighed the imperatives of military strategy.

"You have got to understand that this isn't a military weapon," US president Harry Truman said in the early 1950s, though he had earlier sanctioned the use of nuclear weapons against Japan. "It is used to wipe out women and children and unarmed people, and not for military uses. So we have got to treat this differently from rifles and cannon and ordinary things like that."

Truman's view of nuclear weapons seemed to shift after he witnessed the aftermath of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings - and possibly also growing public opposition to nukes.

At a memorial ceremony in Hiroshima last week, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Japan would submit a fresh resolution at the United Nations General Assembly later this year to abolish nuclear weapons. "As the only country ever attacked by an atomic bomb, we have a mission to create a world without nuclear arms," he said. "We have been tasked with conveying the inhumanity of nuclear weapons, across generations and borders."

Wars are often started by a handful of leaders seeking victory at any cost, but it is innocent civilians who usually suffer most in the bloody chaos that follows.

In the wake of Hiroshima and Nagasaki's horror, nuclear weapons have proliferated but have never since been used. The global abhorrence at their effects stands as a powerful deterrent to leaders of nuclear-armed nations. The true way to honour and commemorate the victims of the attacks in August seven decades ago would be to strengthen this taboo as a guard against any future nuclear atrocity.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/opinion/Living-in-the-shadow-of-nuclear-atrocity-30266474.html

-- The Nation 2015-08-13

[SpokaneAl]

Atrocity is defined as an extremely wicked or cruel act.

What would have been more wicked and cruel was a house to house, street to street battle involving thousands of GIs as Japan girded its loins for its citizens to fight to the end.

But then I suppose as time passes all history is susceptible to revision.

[shirtless]

Its is not as bad as fukushima which is seldom reported and is slowly killing us all

[BuaBS]

If only the Chinese had nukes in 1945 , they would have used a lot more of them as vengence for the unbelievable attrocities the Japanese army did in China.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki was about the last thing the US did right. But then again they should have nuked Tokyo , not 2 relative small towns.

[patekatek]

China, not to mention the Philippines, Malaysia, Burma, etc. all suffered atrocities from the Japanese army. The Japanese war machine was a huge atrocity in itself and the innocent civilians slaughtered by these animals got their just revenge. Hitler's war machine was no better. People bemoan the bombing of the German cities but the same population that was bombed did nothing to stop the carnage inflicted on millions of British, French, Jews, Poles, and Russians by their 1,000 year Reich leader.

Ok! Rant over. Sorry for the slight deviation from the Nagasaki and Hiroshima topic.

[freebyrd]

Atrocity is defined as an extremely wicked or cruel act.

What would have been more wicked and cruel was a house to house, street to street battle involving thousands of GIs as Japan girded its loins for its citizens to fight to the end.

But then I suppose as time passes all history is susceptible to revision.

It seems the bombing of Pearl Harbour is conveniently forgotten whenever this subject is raised. It was the Japanese that started the aggression. What about their acts of evil? The Rape of Nanking, The Death Railway and many others.

I served with the Gurkhas when I was in the army, they hate the Japanese with a passion. An old soldier from WWII recounted how when Gurkhas were captured, the Japs would often tie them to a tree and use them for bayonet practice.

No sympathy from me.

[IAMHERE]

I've read about the cannibalism of the Japanese soldiers, cutting out parts of live prisoners and going off to cook their human meat while the prisoner was left to die in a ditch. I've read about Japanese UNIT 731 medical experiments on prisoners of war, their everyday treatment of conquered peoples, the rape of Nanking, the comfort women, etc...

No sympathy from me, more Japanese should of been hanged as war criminals.

[samthefish]

Atrocity is defined as an extremely wicked or cruel act.

What would have been more wicked and cruel was a house to house, street to street battle involving thousands of GIs as Japan girded its loins for its citizens to fight to the end.

But then I suppose as time passes all history is susceptible to revision.

Yeah,right.

[Fullstop]

Meanwhile ... on the other side of the coin...

Millions of Pacific WW2 veterans, Korean and Chinese women and children, families and villages living in the shadow of Japanese atrocities.

[samthefish]

If only the Chinese had nukes in 1945 , they would have used a lot more of them as vengence for the unbelievable attrocities the Japanese army did in China.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki was about the last thing the US did right. But then again they should have nuked Tokyo , not 2 relative small towns.

The war was practically over.Super human tested new toys on subhuman. At least for Nagasaki people should hang.Winners write history.

[samthefish]

Atrocity is defined as an extremely wicked or cruel act.

What would have been more wicked and cruel was a house to house, street to street battle involving thousands of GIs as Japan girded its loins for its citizens to fight to the end.

But then I suppose as time passes all history is susceptible to revision.

It seems the bombing of Pearl Harbour is conveniently forgotten whenever this subject is raised. It was the Japanese that started the aggression. What about their acts of evil? The Rape of Nanking, The Death Railway and many others.

I served with the Gurkhas when I was in the army, they hate the Japanese with a passion. An old soldier from WWII recounted how when Gurkhas were captured, the Japs would often tie them to a tree and use them for bayonet practice.

No sympathy from me.

You have any idea about circumstances prior Pearl?Americans cut Japans fuel supply,aggression? Japanese did terrible things that is for sure.That gives license to eliminate women and children in mass murders? Japanese put in camps in US and their properties gone?

[lvr181]

Atrocity is defined as an extremely wicked or cruel act.

What would have been more wicked and cruel was a house to house, street to street battle involving thousands of GIs as Japan girded its loins for its citizens to fight to the end.

But then I suppose as time passes all history is susceptible to revision.

It seems the bombing of Pearl Harbour is conveniently forgotten whenever this subject is raised. It was the Japanese that started the aggression. What about their acts of evil? The Rape of Nanking, The Death Railway and many others.

I served with the Gurkhas when I was in the army, they hate the Japanese with a passion. An old soldier from WWII recounted how when Gurkhas were captured, the Japs would often tie them to a tree and use them for bayonet practice.

No sympathy from me.

You have any idea about circumstances prior Pearl?Americans cut Japans fuel supply,aggression? Japanese did terrible things that is for sure.That gives license to eliminate women and children in mass murders? Japanese put in camps in US and their properties gone?

Are you Neville Chamberlain re-incarnated?

One of the tragedies of history is that no one seems to learn from it.

But I guess you are one of those who would say, if a member of your family was willfully killed, "naughty person, do not do that again - off you go now"??

[tigermoth]

Atrocity is defined as an extremely wicked or cruel act.

What would have been more wicked and cruel was a house to house, street to street battle involving thousands of GIs as Japan girded its loins for its citizens to fight to the end.

But then I suppose as time passes all history is susceptible to revision.

It seems the bombing of Pearl Harbour is conveniently forgotten whenever this subject is raised. It was the Japanese that started the aggression. What about their acts of evil? The Rape of Nanking, The Death Railway and many others.

I served with the Gurkhas when I was in the army, they hate the Japanese with a passion. An old soldier from WWII recounted how when Gurkhas were captured, the Japs would often tie them to a tree and use them for bayonet practice.

No sympathy from me.

You have any idea about circumstances prior Pearl?Americans cut Japans fuel supply,aggression? Japanese did terrible things that is for sure.That gives license to eliminate women and children in mass murders? Japanese put in camps in US and their properties gone?

What a stupid statement. Sure usa cut the japanese oil supply. The Japs were currently performing their atrocities in China, why not?

Mass murder??? You are laughable. My father and his friends saw what the Japanese did, he fought them and saw the horrors that their prisoners suffered as well as the natives of the islands of new guinea and the solomons. The japs deserved everything they got and more.

[hawker9000]

The war was practically over.Super human tested new toys on subhuman. At least for Nagasaki people should hang.Winners write history.

You need to get the facts before you bloviate like this. Yes, winners wrote most of the history (except for what you'd read in a Japanese schoolbook), but you better believe the "winners" sacrificed heavily for the privilege! You obviously have NO awareness of the anticipated cost of an invasion of the Japanese home islands, and I'll wager you'd have a whole different opinion on the matter if YOU had been one of the GIs, who had already survived the hellishness of places like Saipan, Iwo, and Okinawa, only to find yourself slated for Operation Downfall. But you weren't, were you? SOOOOO easy to pile on when it comes to uninformed discussion of the nukes on Hiroshima & Nagasaki. Talk is SOOOO cheap when you're not the president who would've had to tell hundreds of thousands of parents, wives and children why their GI had to die rather than use the nukes that could have ended it quickly. Those nukes SAVED many lives. On BOTH sides. As you'll see below.

Such gall for any Japanese to dare use the word "atrocity" in describing the use of those nukes, after all they were themselves responsible for across so much of Asia. So ignorant that any Japanese would bemoan their use given any knowledge of the lengths Japan was prepared to go to in resisting an invasion. No mystery though to the GIs that were witness to and managed to survive the savagery of Japanese defenders on those South Pacific islands, a savagery that INCREASED the closer those landings got to Japan. They knew what they could expect if they were going to have to invade Japan; an awareness you totally lack.

Citations excerpted from a Wikipedia article: (<the footnotes you see below can be found there)

<quote

• In a letter sent to General Curtis LeMay from General Lauris Norstad, when LeMay assumed command of the B-29 force on Guam, Norstad told LeMay that if an invasion took place, it would cost the US "half a million" dead.^[52]
• In a study done by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in April, the figures of 7.45 casualties/1,000 man-days and 1.78 fatalities/1,000 man-days were developed. This implied that a 90-day Olympic campaign would cost 456,000 casualties, including 109,000 dead or missing. If Coronet took another 90 days, the combined cost would be 1,200,000 casualties, with 267,000 fatalities.^[53]
• A study done by Admiral Nimitz's staff in May estimated 49,000 U.S casualties in the first 30 days, including 5,000 at sea.^[54] A study done by General MacArthur's staff in June estimated 23,000 US casualties in the first 30 days and 125,000 after 120 days.^[55] When these figures were questioned by General Marshall, MacArthur submitted a revised estimate of 105,000, in part by deducting wounded men able to return to duty.^[56]
• In a conference with President Truman on June 18, Marshall, taking the Battle of Luzon as the best model for Olympic, thought the Americans would suffer 31,000 casualties in the first 30 days (and ultimately 20% of Japanese casualties, which implied a total of 70,000 casualties).^[57] Admiral Leahy, more impressed by the Battle of Okinawa, thought the American forces would suffer a 35% casualty rate (implying an ultimate toll of 268,000).^[58] Admiral King thought that casualties in the first 30 days would fall between Luzon and Okinawa, i.e., between 31,000 and 41,000.^[58] Of these estimates, only Nimitz's included losses of the forces at sea, though kamikazes had inflicted 1.78 fatalities per kamikaze pilot in the Battle of Okinawa,^[59] and troop transports off Kyūshū would have been much more exposed.
• A study done for Secretary of War Henry Stimson's staff by William Shockley estimated that conquering Japan would cost 1.7–4 million American casualties, including 400,000–800,000 fatalities, and five to ten million Japanese fatalities. The key assumption was large-scale participation by civilians in the defense of Japan.^[3]

/endquote>

Check that last bullet, which unlike all the previous items forecasts total casualties, not just the first 30 days (for reference, Okinawa all by itself lasted 82 days...). 1.7 to 4 MILLION expected U.S. casualties, including 400K-800K fatalities! That would have more than DOUBLED total U.S. KIA from the entire war (407,300)! DOUBLED!!! The ENTIRE WAR (Europe AND the Pacifc)!!! And 5-10 million Japanese fatalities. The high-side estimate for total fatalities from both Hiroshima and Nagasaki is under 250,000. 250,000 vs 5-10 MILLION!!! I won't even go into the manpower and material resources Japan had stockpiled for the specific purpose of resisting that invasion (but the information is easily found online).

The decision to use the atomic bomb must have truly been an agonizing one for Truman, but objectively speaking, in terms of human lives, it was a no-brainer. The war was ANYTHING but "practically over", as you so casually and ignorantly put it, and the Japanese were certainly not about to surrender. (Many senior officers resisted the idea of surrender, some even to the point of an attempted coup against the emperor, even AFTER the 2nd bomb!)

[freebyrd]

Atrocity is defined as an extremely wicked or cruel act.

What would have been more wicked and cruel was a house to house, street to street battle involving thousands of GIs as Japan girded its loins for its citizens to fight to the end.

But then I suppose as time passes all history is susceptible to revision.

It seems the bombing of Pearl Harbour is conveniently forgotten whenever this subject is raised. It was the Japanese that started the aggression. What about their acts of evil? The Rape of Nanking, The Death Railway and many others.

I served with the Gurkhas when I was in the army, they hate the Japanese with a passion. An old soldier from WWII recounted how when Gurkhas were captured, the Japs would often tie them to a tree and use them for bayonet practice.

No sympathy from me.

You have any idea about circumstances prior Pearl?Americans cut Japans fuel supply,aggression? Japanese did terrible things that is for sure.That gives license to eliminate women and children in mass murders? Japanese put in camps in US and their properties gone?

Indeed I do, or do you have exclusive rights to being the only educated member on this site?

I would offer that Japanese Americans were put in camps because of what happened at Pearl Harbour - prevention is better than cure in the world I live in. So the Japanese didn't rape, murder and violate women and children - is that a fact? The Filipinos might have something to say about that. And what constitutes mass murder? 1, 2, 10 or 70,000 dead? All war is awful and any killing is abhorrent, but war isn't a video game and when you've been in one, as I have, you come away knowing that in reality there really are no rules. As sad as it may be, killing and death are part and parcel of what's required to achieve a result. The Allies did at least make an effort to abide by the Geneva Convention, can the same be said of the Japanese?

I repeat, no sympathy because as a soldier, if someone was trying to kill me, I would get there first. To conclude, the Japanese were prepared to turn ot every man woman and child if there had been an all out invasion, but I guess that's ok if they sacrifice their own right? Hypocrisy at its worst.

[AlexRRR]

Atrocity is defined as an extremely wicked or cruel act.

What would have been more wicked and cruel was a house to house, street to street battle involving thousands of GIs as Japan girded its loins for its citizens to fight to the end.

But then I suppose as time passes all history is susceptible to revision.

It seems the bombing of Pearl Harbour is conveniently forgotten whenever this subject is raised. It was the Japanese that started the aggression. What about their acts of evil? The Rape of Nanking, The Death Railway and many others.

I served with the Gurkhas when I was in the army, they hate the Japanese with a passion. An old soldier from WWII recounted how when Gurkhas were captured, the Japs would often tie them to a tree and use them for bayonet practice.

No sympathy from me.

You have any idea about circumstances prior Pearl?Americans cut Japans fuel supply,aggression? Japanese did terrible things that is for sure.That gives license to eliminate women and children in mass murders? Japanese put in camps in US and their properties gone?

What a stupid statement. Sure usa cut the japanese oil supply. The Japs were currently performing their atrocities in China, why not?

Mass murder??? You are laughable. My father and his friends saw what the Japanese did, he fought them and saw the horrors that their prisoners suffered as well as the natives of the islands of new guinea and the solomons. The japs deserved everything they got and more.

You really should read up on your history, not a stupid stament at all, winners write the history books, only the axis powers committed atrocities? What do you think dropping 2 nukes on japan is called?

Sure the japs would have fought to the death the allies didnt need to land in Japan they could have just pulverised them with battleships sailing up and down the coast...

The US government prior to joining the second world war were active in arming the allies and pretty much telling nations what they couldn't do, the attack on Perl Harbour was the Japanese getting in first, they expected the US to join the fight and why wouldn't they? with the US insisting Dutch Indonesia not to sell oil to the Japanese and pretty much meddling in everything thing else.

Napalm, flame throwers, agent orange, were developed and or used by who? Lets not get to mighty shall we, both sides have a lot to answer for.

[Usernames]

It seems the bombing of Pearl Harbour is conveniently forgotten whenever this subject is raised. It was the Japanese that started the aggression. What about their acts of evil? The Rape of Nanking, The Death Railway and many others.

I served with the Gurkhas when I was in the army, they hate the Japanese with a passion. An old soldier from WWII recounted how when Gurkhas were captured, the Japs would often tie them to a tree and use them for bayonet practice.

No sympathy from me.

You have any idea about circumstances prior Pearl?Americans cut Japans fuel supply,aggression? Japanese did terrible things that is for sure.That gives license to eliminate women and children in mass murders? Japanese put in camps in US and their properties gone?

What a stupid statement. Sure usa cut the japanese oil supply. The Japs were currently performing their atrocities in China, why not?

Mass murder??? You are laughable. My father and his friends saw what the Japanese did, he fought them and saw the horrors that their prisoners suffered as well as the natives of the islands of new guinea and the solomons. The japs deserved everything they got and more.

You really should read up on your history, not a stupid stament at all, winners write the history books, only the axis powers committed atrocities? What do you think dropping 2 nukes on japan is called?

Sure the japs would have fought to the death the allies didnt need to land in Japan they could have just pulverised them with battleships sailing up and down the coast...

The US government prior to joining the second world war were active in arming the allies and pretty much telling nations what they couldn't do, the attack on Perl Harbour was the Japanese getting in first, they expected the US to join the fight and why wouldn't they? with the US insisting Dutch Indonesia not to sell oil to the Japanese and pretty much meddling in everything thing else.

Napalm, flame throwers, agent orange, were developed and or used by who? Lets not get to mighty shall we, both sides have a lot to answer for.

Calm down. Agent Orange was not used in World War II. And it was the Germans who developed the flamethrower.

[millwall_fan]

The Japanese committed some horrific atrocities before and during WW2. The atomic bombs, were a sad but necessary means of halting a monster in its tracks. Sure up to two hundred thousand Japanese women, elderly people and children suffered appallingly, but to no worse an extent than Chinese, other Asian and Allied personnel including the aforesaid women, elderly people and children suffered at the hands of an unbelievably brutal Japanese aggressor.

I was at Changi museum a couple of weeks ago and have previously visited Kanchanaburi the way the Japs treated prisoners of war, including non-combatants was disgraceful and scandalous. That they have never apologised or shown much in the way of remorse (unlike the Germans), means that one should react very cautiously to their protestations about the 2 nuclear bombs. Sorry: but they had to be nuked and as a whole they deserved it.

I am delighted that the modern, democratic, peace loving Japanese nation that we know today, grew out of the mushroom cloud.

'At The Going Down of the Sun, and in the Morning, We WILL Remember them'....(Kohima Epitaph).

[chuckd]

You really should read up on your history, not a stupid stament at all, winners write the history books, only the axis powers committed atrocities? What do you think dropping 2 nukes on japan is called?

Sure the japs would have fought to the death the allies didnt need to land in Japan they could have just pulverised them with battleships sailing up and down the coast...

The US government prior to joining the second world war were active in arming the allies and pretty much telling nations what they couldn't do, the attack on Perl Harbour was the Japanese getting in first, they expected the US to join the fight and why wouldn't they? with the US insisting Dutch Indonesia not to sell oil to the Japanese and pretty much meddling in everything thing else.

Napalm, flame throwers, agent orange, were developed and or used by who? Lets not get to mighty shall we, both sides have a lot to answer for.

Calm down. Agent Orange was not used in World War II. And it was the Germans who developed the flamethrower.

" What do you think dropping 2 nukes on japan is called?"

Winning the war.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

"the allies didnt need to land in Japan they could have just pulverised them with battleships sailing up and down the coast..."

​WWII battleships were equipped with the Mark 7 16 Inch gun which had an effective range of 38 kilometers. After the USN "pulverized" Japan for the first 38 kilometers inland, what were they going to do for the remaining territory where all the Japanese citizens, to avoid being pulverized, had moved?

Edited August 13, 2015 by chuckd

[pattayasnowman]

To keep things in perspective should not forget the Firebombing of Tokyo and Dresden that had occurred earlier in 1945

Firebombing of Tokyo on the night of 9–10 March 1945
80,000 and 130,000 Japanese civilians were killed in the worst single firestorm in recorded history.

On the evening of February 13, 1945, a series of Allied firebombing raids begins against the German city of Dresden, and killing as many as 135,000 people. It was the single most destructive bombing of the war—including Hiroshima and Nagasaki

[slerickson]

If only the Chinese had nukes in 1945 , they would have used a lot more of them as vengence for the unbelievable attrocities the Japanese army did in China.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki was about the last thing the US did right. But then again they should have nuked Tokyo , not 2 relative small towns.

Tokyo, really? Kill them twice. Or maybe you hadn't heard of the burning of Tokyo :

From the June 4, 1945 issue of Newsweek, a report on the firebombing:

"Six weeks ago Tokyo had a population of nearly 7,000,000. Last week the Japs cried that Tokyo no longer existed as a city. Using new techniques and new bombs, the largest fleets of B-29s ever to take the air and turned most of the Japanese capital into ashes in two great strikes on May 24 and 26....For 105 minutes the Superfortresses filed over and dropped 700,000 incendiary bombs. ... Two nights later a force of more than 500 B-29s struck the Marunouchi district, the business heart of the Japanese Empire. ... On a target area of approximately 9 square miles the B-29s dropped 4,000 tons in one hour. The wind did the rest."

From the June 11, 1945 issue of Newsweek, another summary of results:

"On the morning of May 28, more than 450 B-29s, escorted by about 150 P-51s from Iwo Jima, roared in on he familiar trail over Tokyo Bay. Reconnaissance photos showed that 51.3 square miles of Tokyo had been burned out. ... the B-29's smothered Yokohama with 3,200 tons of incendiaries."

[lvr181]

To keep things in perspective should not forget the Firebombing of Tokyo and Dresden that had occurred earlier in 1945

Firebombing of Tokyo on the night of 9–10 March 1945

80,000 and 130,000 Japanese civilians were killed in the worst single firestorm in recorded history.

On the evening of February 13, 1945, a series of Allied firebombing raids begins against the German city of Dresden, and killing as many as 135,000 people. It was the single most destructive bombing of the war—including Hiroshima and Nagasaki

OMG - how "short-sighted can you be? Get a grip on reality. None of those civilians would have been killed/injured had the Germans and Japanese not commenced military actions against others!! Of course it was horrendous for the civilian population of Dresden and Tokyo.

Do you not realise that the Germans bombed much of their neighbouring countries and their civilian population BEFORE the bombing of Dresden? And the Japanese war lords committed huge atrocities against civilians in other countries BEFORE the bombing of Tokyo? That is the perspective!

Live by the sword, die by the sword.

Edited August 14, 2015 by lvr181

[hawker9000]

To keep things in perspective should not forget the Firebombing of Tokyo and Dresden that had occurred earlier in 1945

Firebombing of Tokyo on the night of 9–10 March 1945

80,000 and 130,000 Japanese civilians were killed in the worst single firestorm in recorded history.

On the evening of February 13, 1945, a series of Allied firebombing raids begins against the German city of Dresden, and killing as many as 135,000 people. It was the single most destructive bombing of the war—including Hiroshima and Nagasaki

OMG - how "short-sighted can you be? Get a grip on reality. None of those civilians would have been killed/injured had the Germans and Japanese not commenced military actions against others!! Of course it was horrendous for the civilian population of Dresden and Tokyo.

Do you not realise that the Germans bombed much of their neighbouring countries and their civilian population BEFORE the bombing of Dresden? And the Japanese war lords committed huge atrocities against civilians in other countries BEFORE the bombing of Tokyo? That is the perspective!

Live by the sword, die by the sword.

...and in the case of Japan, those depredations go all the way back to 1931! (In that year, the Japanese invaded Manchuria subsequent to the Mukden Incident, which was staged by the Japanese as a pretext. Subsequent to the invasion, they set up a puppet state called Manchukuo.) The nonsense you see the know-nothings posting about the U.S. embargo on oil was of course a direct response to Japanese aggression in Asia. That embargo began in August, 1941 and put a no-kidding hurt on Japan, which badly needed American petroleum to fuel its huge war machine then overrunning & brutalizing mainland Asia.

Up until 1937, Japan had been almost entirely dependent on American oil (80%). There was oil in the Dutch East Indies, but Japan realized that the U.S. Pacific Fleet was a direct threat to any Japanese plans to acquire those possessions. And so we got Pearl Harbor on December 7th.

Purely a matter of being a total aggressor, needing oil to do that, and having to go to war when the principal supplier - quite justifiably - cut them off. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were merely the final chapter in a book Japan began writing in 1931. Modern-day residents of Hiroshima & Nagasaki, and others who love to moan about American use of the atom bomb as if they know what they're talking about, really should read up a little. They have no cause for complaint. Not only did Japan reap what it sowed, but an invasion of Japan in late 1945 would have been far more punishing for them. FAR worse.