I realise that, mhaze.

That’s exactly how the number got inflated - by retroactively combining every imaginable category of hypothetical death into one tidy, moral-sounding total.

But there’s no contemporaneous source from 1945 - or even shortly after - that credibly adds up to “2 million lives saved.” The 500,000 American figure (already generous) was popularised by Truman after the fact. The rest - POWs, Japanese civilians, Southeast Asians - were gradually folded in as public discomfort with the bombings grew.

This wasn’t new evidence. It was post-war mythmaking - one “well, what about...” at a time.

That’s not historical accuracy. It’s retroactive moral maths.

Has anyone thought of the children?

It's interesting that apparently it was "A Democrat" Harry S Truman that gave the order to drop the bomb.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_S._Truman

Obviously it seems that the Democratic Party has moved far to the left since WWII at this point the US is seemingly incapable to rise to defending itself. But perhaps putting Marxist/ Woke/ Democratic university professors in the first wave will change their opinion. Taking a lesson ironically from Marxist military tactics.

http://fcpp.org/2020/11/27/how-marxists-take-over-and-what-to-do-about-it/

"Yuri Bezmenov, an ex-KGB agent who defected from Russia to Canada in 1970, told us so more than 35 years ago. Even while the USSR was a strong empire, Bezmenov said it was “the world Communist system,” and not the USSR leader “Comrade Andropov” that waged an “undeclared, total war against the basic principles and foundations of American ideals”. He knew first-hand how operatives trained and educated abroad could be brought to power in other lands. He also believed that leftist education and the advancement of the welfare state softened the West for overthrow."

http://soviethistory.msu.edu/1943-2/the-nazi-tide-stops/no-one-steps-back/

From Uncle Joseph Stalin...

"From now on the iron law of discipline for every officer, soldier, political officer should be – not a single step back without order from higher command. Company, battalion, regiment and division commanders, as well as the commissars and political officers of corresponding ranks who retreat without order from above, are traitors of the Motherland. They should be treated as traitors of the Motherland. This is the call of our Motherland.

To fulfill this order means to defend our country, to save our Motherland, to destroy and overcome the hated enemy."

'a bomb that killed people saved lives' is backwards logic.
It can't be both at the same time.

It's like a terrorist saying his suicide vest will save lives.

The bomb killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people.
The war ending saved further loss of life but was close to ending anyway, they could've simply blockaded the country at that point, taken out critical infrastructure or demonstrated the bomb without using it on cities.
They could've just detonated one in Tokyo Bay, and it would've had the same effect.
'We have more of these, this is the small one'.

Looking at the huge masses of idiots & other useless the West has produced in these past eighty years makes that bombing an incredibly sad waste of Japanese lives.
Just like the other wars the West has been involved in for the wrong reasons & even more wrong outcomes.
Australians have allowed the a proliferation of disproportionate number of mindless & useless ever since the Goat sold National Service for votes from them.
What the incumbent PM will end up doing does not have a light at the end of that tunnel either.
If people of all denominations & ethnicity don't wake up before the next election, England today will look like a picnic in comparison to what can very easily become an Australia not worth defending.

Indy,

So you were happy to see young Australian men at the age of 20 conscripted, and then shipped off to Vietnam to be cannon fodder for American Imperialism, WHERE WERE YOU!. Its a Pity you didn't volunteer to be a bit of that cannon fodder yourself, when you had the chance. Don't go Whitlam for putting an end to Australia's involvement in that disgusting war!

Canem Malum,

Marxism isn’t a thing anymore. Using it as a catch-all insult for progressives is as lazy as calling every conservative a Nazi.