so, was it fair to inflict a collective punishment on the japanese for what they did?

i think that there's a better argument for it than virtually any other place in history, including the nazis. the nazis targeted specific groups for extermination, and it was vicious. but, the japanese killed or enslaved the men and raped the women, leaving systemic levels of control and domination that are really, truly only rivaled by the mongols (and only eclipsed by them because the mongols won, and the japanese did not).

i understand that the reason that truman did it (and, a dying fdr likely had little knowledge of what was happening before the bomb dropped, although it's not clear if he'd have even wanted to stop it; i have the benefit of hindsight, and i'm not sure i'd have wanted to stop it) was to get to tokyo before stalin got there, which was the same reason that america went to germany the way it did (as a canadian, my history is a little different, as we declared war on the germans when they invaded poland, and fought in both theatres from the start). it was a race not just for territory and dominance, but for industrial capacity, for scientific know how, for engineering designs and for the scientists themselves - denazified, under project paperclip. it was nazi technology that got america to the moon first, and america doesn't seem to be as good at that, anymore, now that all of the nazis, save kissinger, knock on wood, are dead. they don't tell you that.

but, it doesn't even matter.

and, why?

that's the question.

because they fucking deserved it, for what they did.