Did you actually read this book? It might be the best full-length novel King ever wrote. He's actually been on something of a high for the last five or six years (Mr. Mercedes excluded) after that period of shit between the mid '90's and mid '00's.

Apparently there's a timeline where Jake Epping's ex-wife was a character in that novel rather than somebody mentioned in passing maybe twice.

The entire war was a shocking failure of civilization. Everything about it, in every aspect.

YOU SHUT YOUR WHORE MOUTH THAT MOVIE WAS FANTASTIC.

Um, no. That fairy tale concept that Japan was about to surrender anyway as long as the U.S. didn't destroy the Imperial Regalia is just that — a fairytale. The army conducted a coup the night before the surrender was announced where they planned to arrest the emperor because they didn't want the country to surrender.…

Um… no, dude. Sorry, I agree with you that it's entirely unknowable what would have happened if things were different, and that we can't be sure how things would have turned out. But there's absolutely no "shame" in having used strategic bombing to end that war. Sorry. There are lots of things that Americans have to…

Yeah, I'm thinking I missed the gist of the reviews because I didn't really pick up on that last part there. Like, I saw that there were some references to faith and God in the Spoiler Space review but before that I didn't realize that this was a religiously-oriented movie.

That is completely and unequivocally untrue. The invasion was never "rejected"; it was actively being implemented up until the day that the Japanese surrendered. Actually, it was accelerated, because of the impending invasion of Hakkaido by the Soviets. You're just wrong here.

And the shit of is that he's right. All war is immoral, but thinking about it too hard does make you a bad soldier. And in the context of World War II, it was impossible for the soldiers to really internalize what they were doing because they'd all end up curled up in a heap in the ground, and winning that war was…

Erm, no, I don't really think so. He could say "Killing Germans" just as easily as "Killing Japanese" and the quote would still fit.

It's possible I'm misinterpreting Dowd here, but the part I was referencing was this:

Have you seen Rocky IV?

I completely agree with that. It's disgusting to celebrate any death.

^^^ This. Yes, it sucks that so many civilians were killed in the atomic bombings. But lots and lots and lots of more civilians were killed in firebombings, and everybody just sort of shrugs their shoulders at it, or else they think it was made up for Slaughterhouse Five.

Well, I mean, God is a pretty fucking terrifying character in the Bible, calling down plagues on his enemies and destroying entire cities with rains of fire, so I guess if you're the type of Biblical literalist who believes that shit, you might celebrate the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people through the power…

I'm not hawkish at all. As I said somewhere else in this thread, I'm a pacifist. I don't think anybody ever anywhere could consider a nuclear weapon, or any kind of death and destruction, to be "heartwarming."

Well, I mean, there's an easy response to that — it's not a war crime. The atomic bombings were not a violation of any section of the Geneva conventions.

Well, yes, of course. As I said, war is always awful. It's an awful thing to shoot at another person and try to kill him, no matter the circumstances. It's also a necessary thing under certain circumstances.

That's a nice story and all, but at the time of the atomic bombings the Japanese military had 14 ground divisions on Kyushu to counter Operation Olympic (the first prong of Operation Downfall), was transporting at least 10 divisions to Hokkaido to defend against the imminent Soviet invasion there, and was mobilizing …

One time my cousin Walter got a cat stuck up his ass…