And since you’re asking me what should have been, I can set the dials of the TARDIS to whatever date I want.

And there’s David Irving! Buddy, if you were looking for a better way to demonstrate that you are fundamentally historically ignorant, and think that cutting and pasting the results of a Google search are the same thing as actually knowing what you’re talking about, I don’t think you could have done a better job.

Stripped of the loaded bits what should have been done in the past is what you asked. I told you what should have been done.

Japan had no reasonable chance of winning the war after Midway, but that doesn’t mean the war was “won” any more than the war with Germany was “won” after Stalingrad or Kursk.

The historical record demonstrates quite the opposite—leadership of the Imperial Army showed absolutely no inclination to accept a surrender, and there was significant opposition to surrender even after the use of the bombs. Our Magic decrypts made it abundantly clear to us at the time that the Army was not on the…

That’s quite a nifty non-answer. And the reason the question is loaded is because there were only horrible options available in August of 1945 (barring the use of a time machine to effect your solution, of course). Not choosing to drop the bombs meant having to choose something else, and your inability to pick another…

Unlike Doug Long, I do not believe quote-mining is the most useful form of history, particularly when quote-mining from people years, even decades after the fact who often were not involved in the event in question, and have very good reasons for distancing themselves from the horror of these weapons.

It always makes me wonder if the people who think we should have negotiated an armistice with Japan also think we should have negotiated a peace with Germany that allowed them to retain the Low Countries, Austria, and the Sudetenland, and left National Socialist leadership intact.

Ah, yes, the cherry-picked, cut and pasted quotes from Doug Long. Can’t wait for David Irving to make his appearance.

No, that is patently false. Japan had not “signaled it intent to surrender on all the allied terms” at all. Elements in the foreign office had put out peace feelers, but there were a few problems: what they wanted was an armistice, not a surrender, and they lacked any authority at all over the military to institute…

There is no one reason we used the bombs. We dropped them for any number of reasons, some of which are much less defensible than others.

Jimmy, that’s a myth perpetuated by historical revisionists. Japan was seeking an armistice, not a surrender (that’s not just a semantic difference). And the elements of Japan seeking that armistice had no authority to implement it, even if we agreed.

The Japanese military wasn’t able to fight any more in August 1945? Somebody definitely forgot to tell the several million Japanese soldiers who were continuing to fight, huh?

The myth that the Japanese were trying to surrender is just that. First of all, the elements seeking to end the war were in the Japanese Foreign Office, and had absolutely no control over the Imperial Navy or Army. Hell, significant elements of the Army attempted a coup even after the bombs fell and surrender was…

Fuck you, hippie! Japan had it coming!

Soylent is “food” for people who hate food.

If you think that the vast majority of meat consumed in this country qualifies as “natural,” I’ve got some really bad news for you.

What “moral downside”?

You’re absolutely right. “Artificial” was a sloppy choice of words by me.

And when they can grow that shank for a couple of pennies without any environmental or moral downsides, so much the better.