i think also what some people are missing are the fact that the whole endeavor was heavily researched by our military. we had an entire "contingency" plan of sorts to invade the country. in fact, most of the world didn't know of our plans, even the military. it took them weeks just to figure out what cities to unleash this upon. everyone thought that we were to invade. i think the main error was the gross underestimate of the real power of these weapons... of which everyone was truly shocked of.
the other thing that should be taken of consideration, is D-Day. could we really afford another one, of greater loss? a d-day of sorts on japan would have been much worse, it appeared to our forces as well. and who knows how it would have progressed, had it failed? what about the countless lives of _our_ people. if you live in this country, you should appreciate what has been done fo us over the years, what has been done to protect our way of life and our society. not that it was truly threatened at the time, but that it could have been, if things were allowed to rage on. they struck us directly once, what if they had been left to do it again? do you think they would have said "wait, we can't hit that target, those are civilians". obiously that was not their concern the first time. what if an invasion failed, killed possibly even hundreds of thousands of our forces, what would have been left to protect us then?
in the end, this was not some "indiscrimanent" decision, nor was it decided in the same manner as "what should i have for lunch?" or even "should i buy that car?". there was much more involved, and although we are not without mistakes, we do our best to protect our interests as well. if not, who knows what today would be?
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