Revisionist history of WWII. Now dropping the atomic bombs on Japan is in these loonies' view an act of terrorism. I am going to assume that the authors are unable to recall the horrors of the Japanese war, the Rape of Nanking, the comfort women, the Bataan death march etc. I also believe these authors have no idea of the cost in Japanese and American lives that was expected if the US had to invade the Japanese Homeland to bring the war to a conclusion. No these people live in a fantasy world in which the perfect is alway to be preferred over the achievable.

This is an opinion(ated) hit piece purporting to be a news piece. The truth is that Truman and the military didn't want to risk one million American lives, plus many millions of Japanese, both civilian and military. Japanese historians recently confirmed that their leadership was looking for a excuse to stop the war. And that Hirohito had to survive a coup attempt to broadcast his radio address. WW2 was the bloodiest war ever, and the belief that whacking an isolated would impress the warlords is irritatingly naive. Q: Does Mr. Scheer believe that Hitler or Stalin would've had any qualms about using a nuke on London?

A provocative opinion piece that considers the US nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a kind of terrorism. In making a comparison to the Al Qaeda 9/11 attacks, however, the very different circumstances of WWII are not made explicit.

The big picture presented here is a definition of terrorism. The big picture is the 62 plus years of the threat of nuclear annihilation. We can already kill every human on the planet ten times and we're going for killing them even more times. The Bush administration is also pressuring Japan to change its Peace Constitution so that Japan begins a military build up. Scheer's opinion opens the door to a dialogue on nuclear proliferation.

Asking the question "Just exactly what distinguishes the United States' use of the ever-so-cutely-named "Fat Man" and "Little Boy" atomic bombs on cities in Japan from the car bombs of Baghdad or the planes that smashed into the World Trade Center? " is certainly provocative -- but also certainly not 'left-wing' as other reviewers have complained. After all, as this thoughtful piece notes, President Truman "defended his decision to drop the atomic bombs on civilians over the objection of leading atomic scientists... He insisted even though "top military figures, including Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, contended that the war would end quickly without dropping the bomb." The author concludes, "Of course, we had our justifications, as ... More »

It is always difficult to puncture foundational myths. Scheer asks a question about moral equivalency and adduces some evidence to point to the fact that the bomb need not have been dropped on a largely civilian population; he does not much get into the subsequent bombing of Nagasaki, but he shows that the targets were chosen for shock value and ease, that the intelligence was clear that Japan was on the verge of collapse, and that the scientific community and military commanders including Eisenhower counseled against targeting these largely unimportant cities. Tokyo wa not targeted because it was too high profile a city, I imagine, and droppng the bomb let the Soviets know that the US was serious about the next war. What is ... More »

Come on now! The attacks were preceded by tons of leaflets to vacate the two cities that were suppliers of war materials. It would have been no trick to bomb Tokyo, but we did not and choose smaller industrial cities with lots of warning. You also carefully ignore the potential loss of American luves if a ground invasion was launched. What left wing rock have you been under?

ah yes, the sweet smell of moral equivalency...this opinion is worth nothing, and history has shown that such efforts as Scheer's are as false and misleading now as they have been for 60 years...

I found this to be a moving and informative opinion piece on the US bombing of Japan. There has clearly been a reluctance in this country to examine critically Truman's decision to use nuclear bombs on innocent civilians. We have all heard the rationale; this article presents the other side of the argument.