Terrorism by Any Reasonable Definition
...Yet as it so happens historical facts make the case for dropping the bombs in 1945 even weaker. For one thing, the supposed half-million or so American lives saved are a post-war fabrication. The government’s estimates before the bombings indicated that fewer than 50,000 Americans might die in an invasion. Second, the virtually unprecedented demand for unconditional surrender prolonged the war. Earlier in the year, the Japanese demonstrated a willingness to surrender but they did not want to give up their emperor. In the end, the U.S. let them keep their emperor anyway. Third, many of America’s top brass condemned the atomic bombings, including Admiral William Leahy, General Dwight Eisenhower, General Douglas MacArthur, and many others. Fourth, in 1946 the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey determined the atomic bombings were basically extraneous to winning the war. The Japanese were already defeated, blockaded, starving, and neutralized.

Even after the bombing of Nagasaki and the emperor said he would surrender, the U.S. firebombed Tokyo on August 14 with a thousand-plane bombing mission. Was this last mass killing necessary? We rarely hear about it at all, perhaps because it throws into question the entire morality of U.S. strategic bombing in the Pacific War....