[Mumitroll]

@Lathdrinor: good post, I agree with most of that.

Not necessarily. It is true that the US had dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki has a threat to flex its military muscle to the Soviet Union, as well as their will to use their nukes. However, it is also true that the attack was directed at Japan for at least 2 reasons: 1) as a method of vengeance over Pearl Harbor (an issue that many Americans seem to be concerned about even now), and 2) due to racist ideals during the early era of the 20th century, the US had totally used the victims of Nagasaki and Hiroshima as atomic bomb test results. An actual war crime! It is evident when they dropped a second atomic bomb after making modifications of their first one that it is merely a test of atomic bomb using living human beings as test subjects. Talking about cruelty!

those were secondary goals. yes, some people were interested in the actual effects of a nuclear explosion with so many test subjects. and yes surely there was a certain sentiment of taking "revenge" - especially in the yellow press. however, on the top level - Truman and military lead - that was of lesser importance. the predominant goal, confirmed by many different sources quite clearly, was a power demonstration to Stalin/claiming Japan before the USSR would get there.

I'm hoping to dispel an illusion you seem to have about the education of history in this country. You seem to think that Americans are all indoctrinated by the same viewpoints and misrepresentations of events that you accuse us of.

not all Americans, but the vast majority. sometimes including even PhD+ level people. you forget that I've been to the US, and that I have talked and argued with many Americans on politics and history. by and large, Americans are rather historically illiterate/misinformed. thats not to say that, e.g., Russians are very historically literate in regard to, say, pre-20th century US history. but the average level is much higher - perhaps because the country has experienced so much of that very history during the invasions of various people - be it Napoleon or Germans in WWI and WWII, so maybe the interest is higher, or the distrust towards official propaganda is higher, or something...

This is clearly not the case, and at least in my AP US history class we never approached history from the type of standpoint you think we have. What we covered were the motives and reasons, not the morals of such stories. My teacher never went off and said the "Germans were evil" or that the "Japanese deserved this," or anything of such a matter. He also did not go on talking about things like Iraq and Iran. If certain facts were unclear, he would tell us about them. Please do not put sweeping generalizations on not just the US, but anyone.

I only make generalizations when I'm sure that they're rather accurate. regarding your classes, I doubt that, for example, either of these 3 - all historically essential - things were mentioned, and conclusions from them clearly explained:

1) The largest WWII battle with US/UK participation - Ardennes - barely makes the top 10 of the largest battles of WWII. All the larger ones were at the Eastern front, and all of them except Berlin and Vistula were earlier.
2) The US bombing in Vietnam was primarily directed against South Vietnam.
3) The US has deliberately started to provide Afghan islamic fundamentalists - commonly called terrorists nowadays - with weapons and military training 6 months before the USSR invaded Afghanistan, with the outspoken goal of luring the USSR into "a Vietnam war of its own" (quote Zbigniew Brzezinski).

mumitroll, by definition bombing cities and military targets through military means is a military act

bombing military targets is one, yes. bombing cities - i.e. deliberately targeting civilians - is not. it is prohibited by the Geneva conventions and considered terrorism.

By your pathetic definition, every military act is an act of genocide, put down the crack pipe.

it wasnt me who wrote the Geneva conventions. if you think those people were on crack when they were doing it.. well.. not much I can say to that.

The nuking of japan was to act as a detente and shock to japanese militarism which it itself declared it would fight to the death anyways.

no. read up on history. i quoted many sources above.

looks like we didn't do a good enough job with germany 60 years ago...missed a few that slipped through the cracks

is that supposed to insult me?