[Endoperez]

1) Japan started it.

What the fact that 'Japan started it' has to do with Hiroshima being or not being a war crime? Even if Hitler would have been mugged by a jew that would not make what he did any less evil or wrong, or minor a crime against humanity.

2) Japan was prepared to defend the mainland to the Last man.

I don't believe US and Japan would have lost more soldiers together than what died in bombs, but I don't know how powerful the bombs were *supposed* to be by the leaders of US. Maybe they thought that the less people would die in the bombs that would if a full war started.

Given the choice of losing another god-knows-how-many americans (yeah france was gonna help, sure) in an invasion of Honshu, how can you blame them for doing what they did? It ended the war. A war the Japanese started. I'd be willing to listen to arguments that the second bomb wasn't really warranted... but give me a break. Nobody is gonna tell you war is pretty, but in the end, the responsibility for both atom bombs lies with the Japanese leaders who decided to commit their own war crime - Pearl Harbor.

Pearl Harbor for a surprise attack... I can see that being 'unfair', violating (unwritten?) rules of war, but I don't remember anything that would make it a 'war crime' in the same sense as the nuclear bombs. It was, after all, military equipment they destroyed, to which USA responded by bombing cities. There is difference between soldiers and civilians.