The difference, M E M, is that for all the venting of "bomb the muslims" here, myself included at times, it's with the confidence that we'd never do it, very likely not even in the event nukes were used on us.

As I've argued before, having those weapons, and having our enemies (specifically muslim governments and islamic radical groups, along with the Russians, Chinese and N.Koreans) know we won't use them is dangerous, and emboldens them to attack us with impunity, whereas if we had a willingness to use them, they would be respectful of that, and we would be a lot safer. We may be so "civilized" that we would willingly allow ourselves to be destroyed, rather than retaliate proportionately, or act with the force necessary to prevent it.




On the topic issue of whether bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the right decision, the cost of invading and conquering Japan's home islands (based on their fierce to-the-last-man fighting at Iwo Jima and Okinawa) was estimated would cost about 1 million U.S. lives, and at least 3 million Japanese lives, and would have extended the war as long as 10 more years.
Even after Hiroshima, the Japanese leadership was determined to fight on. I think we did what was necessary to end the war. Which minimized the devastation on both sides.
And Hiroshima, far from being an innocent civilian target, was the staging port for the invasions of Korea and Manchuria. Hiroshima at the time it was bombed housed 40,000 troops among its 160,000 total population. It was a legitimate military target, despite the liberal propaganda otherwise.


And far more humanely than Japan would have ever done for us, we completely rebuilt their infrastructure after the war. And Germany's as well. Making them our two largest economic rivals for more than 60 years.

I think liberal revisionists have a tendency overlook how humane we were to the Japanese, and to overlook how unthinkably cruel the Japanese were in World War II, to us, and every nation they invaded.
It's an endless cycle, of revisionism over the last few decades, blaming the United States and other Western nations for responding, while ignoring the aggression and cruelty of the true aggressors who began each conflict.


Or to put it another way: Taking America for granted