[Erax]

The two A-bomb attacks... you cannot really understand them unless you get into the mindset of the times. I can provide some related facts which you will weigh and judge to reach your conclusion, as I have reached mine.

First, the two bombs that were dropped on Japan were not the modern megalopolis-busting nukes. I believe they were in the 40-80 kiloton range (too lazy to do a web search right now). This is actually less than the destructive power that was being delivered to German cities (via conventional bombs) on a routine basis just a few months before... and the loss of life from the initial bLasts may also have been less than in some conventional attacks over Germany.

Second, no one who lived in those times was acting rationally any more. After six years of continous fighting (eight, in the case of Japan) the level of hatred for 'the enemy' was... hard to describe, except by example. I have a friend whose mother was a child in Japan during the war. One day, she was standing alone in a field, got shot at by a passing American plane, ran for cover and survived. What made this fighter pilot want to kill an six-year-old girl ?

Third, no one knew about fallout and the aftereffects of the bLast. Some people may have suspected them, but no one knew exactly what was going to happen.

Fourth, and perhaps most important, Japanese behavior was completely alien to Americans and on a certain level it terrified them. During the island hopping campaign - Tarawa, Iwo Jima and so on - the Japanese military on those remote bases had fought to the Last man, and the civilians (yes, the civilians) had committed suicide rather than face capture. Invading mainland Japan was a nightmare for the US military, because they did not know what to expect, and therefore expected the very worst.

Which leads to my conclusion... yes, the A-bombs may have been a bad decision judged by today's standards, but at the time they seemed like a reasonable one. We cannot judge the past by today's standards, instead we should be glad that those standards have evolved.