I can't believe someone hasn't brought up the notion of the bomb as a show of force to the Soviets. In recent years, most historians are starting to put their two cents in the bucket claiming the bombs were dropped to show the Soviet Union that the U.S. was ahead of them. The Russians didn't get their own bomb til...wanna say 48? 49?...little rusty here.
Anyway, there are three aspects of U.S. history regarding WWII that are starting to become more mainstream, all of which I agree with and have for years ( old 78 is ahead of his time with his conspiracies...LOL)
1. The U.S. provoked the Japanese to attack an American entity ( I'm still on the fringe group claiming FDR not only provoked, but encouraged and ALLOWED the attack).
2. The U.S. dropped the A-bombs first as a show of force and secondly, to save American lives in an invasion of Japanese mainland.
3. The Soviets were CLEARLY the ones who won this war for the allies, if you want to give credit or put up percentages. Their contributions have long been overlooked due to communism, but now are getting some more credit due to the collapse over there.
It's hard to argue with the fact that saving lives wasn't the main cause for the use of the bombs though, I'll admit that. I believe estimates had U.S. fatalities at around 225,000 by goverment officials. Those numbers vary a little depending on who and when you ask them.
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