Absolutely correct, Bikerman. Clearly, there can be no denying that the Japanese launched a brutal and unprovoked war upon their neighbors, resulting in tremendous bloodshed and suffering. Additionally, no one would deny that even by the summer of 1945, the Hawk segment of the Japanese political and military establishments were quite vocal, and that there remained a willingness to fight among much of the population.
It's these two nasty facts which permitted one of the most bizzarely effective smoothing-over efforts of the modern era: even today, it seems the majority of the US's population doesn't question the logic behind the official justification for the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks.
The
facts are that by August 1945, the war against Japan had been reduced to a seige situation, and the enemy was extraordinarily debilitated foe. Firebombings intended to "wipe [Tokyo] of the map" had killed thousands in days, wounded more, and rendered roughly a million homeless and jobless.
A full naval blockade had been in place, and industrially, Japan had ground to a halt.
As early as late 1944, the formation of a new Japanese cabinet, headed by Baron Suzuki and featuring Shegenori Togo, had engaged Japan in a major debate to move towards peace negotiations.
Famously, a July 1945 entry in President Truman's handwritten diary refers to at least one telegram from Emporer Hirohito requesting peace. From Truman's diary, 7/18/45, recalling a dinner with Winston Churchill:
"Discussed Manhattan (it is a success). Decided to tell Stalin about it. Stalin had told P.M. of telegram from Jap Emperor asking for peace." A 8/3/45 entry in the journal of Walter Brown, an aide to Secretary of State James F. Byrnes, states that Truman and his aides "agreed Japs looking for peace." (sources below)
Again, this hardly indicates that an uncontested peace offer was being plainly and publically laid on the table -- there certainly was a fiercly defiant Hawk contingent of Japanese officials insisting upon a fight to the end, but the suggestion that Japan, as a whole, was a nation singularly committed to mass murder-suicide -- in the face of vanished resources and complete tactical defeat -- and was therefore only subdued by instant
mass genocide, remains one of the biggest fish stories of all time. The leadership of the Japanese government was fighting to overcome dissenters and promote a peace plan, and ultimately, an acceptance of Potsdam.
The bombings, like most major military operations before and after it, served a
number of purposes. One was ending combat with Japan. Another, clearly, was flexing our considerable technological and destructive muscle on the eve of the Cold War, and at the expense of hundreds of thousands of civilian lives.
I've always found the self-righteous mythology of the scenario devastatingly sad.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-bird17dec17,1,2302127.story
http://www.doug-long.com/hst.htm