Kowabunga

Usually I would stay away from controversy when it comes to history, (exeption: continued refernces to Vietnam by politicians), however there is a quote in the following that needs to be addressed: From FoxNews:

Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma said the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan by the United States during World War II was an inevitable way to end the war, a news report said Saturday.

"I understand that the bombing ended the war, and I think that it couldn't be helped," Kyodo News agency quoted Kyuma as saying in a speech at a university in Chiba, just east of Tokyo.

Kyuma's remarks drew immediate criticism from Japanese atomic bomb survivors.

"The U.S. justifies the bombings saying they saved many American lives," said Nobuo Miyake, 78, director-general of a group of victims living in Tokyo. "It's outrageous for a Japanese politician to voice such thinking. Japan is a victim."

It is the last paragraph in the above excerpt that I feel a need to address. Miyake is half-right. Yes, the use of two atomic bombs against Japan ended the war and saved American lives. I have read that the estimates of American lives saved to be about 500,000 (this may be total casualties, not just those killed). It was estimated that the invasion of Japan would have a casualty rate, for both sides, many times that of the Battle of Okinawa. It also shortened the war by at least a year, perhaps more. This would put a Japanese casualty rate somewhere around 2,000,000. That was actually figured into the reasoning for using the atomic bomb on Japan.

As for the final part of Miyake's statement, "Japan is a victim," let us remember that it was Japan that started the war with the United States, not the other way around, by bombing Pearl Harbor. It was also Japan that routinely executed prisoners of wars as well as civilian prisoners, such as took place on Wake Island prior to it's being retaken and in the Philippines where prisoners of war were executed by burning as well as during the Bataan and Sandakan Death Marches.