[minipol]

Originally posted by narf poit chez BOOM:
aside from the invasion arguement, i hadn't heard most of that...but only the arguement that less lives, and less civilian lives would be lost, is important to me. i'm not suggesting that military lives are less important than military lives, but there's no children in the military. in addition, i have to wonder if the bombs had to be dropped on a city. weren't there any isolated military bases?

Well, if they wouldn't have dropped the bomb, IMO more children would have suffered. An invasion is preceded by areal bombardments (dumb bombs), shore bombardements, city being shot it ruins and eventually lead to big populations seeking refuge. I think this would have affected more children than what happened with the bombs.
Off course this would have all depended on how long the Japanese would have defended their country before they would have surrendered. If they ever would surrender...
And being the proud people that they are, i think it could have been a LOOOOONG war.

Edit: i just saw that Erax also referred to the German Cities bombardements. People shouldn't really forget those.
About the aerial bombings taking more toll than the A-bombs in the long run:
Quote from http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/ww2/A1138385:
"...With the city's population swollen with refugees from the east, the death toll from fire and suffocation is unknown, but probably lies between 40,000 and 100,000. ... "
And that's just 1 city: Dresden. Not to mention people will have died later because of sustained wounds that where not properly looked after, hunger, drinking contaminated water of bodies floating in it and so on.

[ December 11, 2003, 15:40: Message edited by: minipol ]