Hindsight is a wonderful thing but this article needs some historical perspective.
First of all while Germany had all but surrendered by the beginning of 1945 the Japanese were putting up a ferocious fight. This was first demonstrated at the battle of Iwo Jima which began on 19 February and finished on 26 March. Of the 21,000 Japanese soldiers present at the beginning of the battle, over 20,000 were killed and only 1,083 taken prisoner. American casualties were 26,000 including 6.800 dead.
Roosevelt died April 15, 1945. The battle of Okinawa has just started and lasted till mid-June. The battle resulted in the highest number of casualties in the Pacific Theatre during World War II. Japan lost over 100,000 soldiers, who were either killed, captured or committed suicide, and the Allies suffered more than 65,000 casualties of all kinds.
After these two clear demonstrations of military fanaticism, estimates of Allied casualties for an invasion of Japan ran as high as 2 million. Ask any person serving in the military at the time (my father was one) and the last posting they wanted was to be part of the invasion force of Japan. If you were a military leader and you had a weapon at your disposal that could prevent the probable death of 2 million of your men you would be neglectful not to use it. Indeed you should be a subject of a class action by the deceased's survivors. Also remember that World War II was a total war and Roosevelt had declared at Casablanca that the objective of the war against the Axis Powers of Germany, Italy, and Japan was unconditional surrender.
What we do know was that the dropping of the two Atomic bombs on Japan on the 6th and 8th August was followed one week later by Emperor Hirohito’s announcement of the surrender of the Empire of Japan to the Allies. The tactic had succeeded brilliantly. And every Allied military man thanked his lucky stars that he did have to participate in an invasion of Japan.

Linley, take a bex and have a lie down.
Hard to know where to start with this sort of hysterical nonsense. I am well and truly over it. Just have a look at the real world, Hiroshima 2015. Big bustling modern metropolis, oh that would get you going too I suppose.
Put that against the whole of Tasmania with horrendous unemployment and disadvantage due to the Greens misrule of the last twenty years or so. You would prefer a nation of serfs eating grass seeds and living in caves ruled over by the greens. At last, sense in Tasmania, although if they were dopey enough to vote you in once, well look out next time.

"we could all feel that we, who are living now, had done something worthwhile in our time on earth to rid it of the fear which was created seventy years ago"

To say that fear is only seventy years old is similar to saying that the universe is only 5775 years old. Fear has always been man's close companion, following us like a shadow. I for example would much more fear dying slowly of Parkinson disease than of a nuclear bomb.

Death of the body is inevitable. The only way to conquer fear is to realise (in practice, not just in theory) that we are not that body which will perish.

The Chinese should stage protests on "Hiroshima Day".

With a far higher death and injury count, where are the protests over the Rape of Nanking (between 20,000 and 80,000 women were sexually assaulted) and a probable hundreds of thousands murdered.

Nucs are minor in the scheme of things.

Using Hiroshima as an objection to all things nuclear is merely opportunism. There is no connection between a terrible, but necessary end to a war which would would have dragged on to kill many more and the peaceful use of uranium. After all, the Japanese themselves have been using nuclear power for many years. They have no options.

Meanwhile, this essay confirms and extends the content and intentions of Linley's essay:
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176031