Today in 1945, the US government dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. Combined with the detonation of another atomic bomb three days later in Nagasaki, Japan, the decision resulted in the death of 225,000 people—most of which were innocent civilians. It's a sad reminder that most of what we have been taught about the atomic bombs, and the reasons behind their usage, is the product of lies and the US propaganda machine. According to the standard narrative, Japan refused to surrender in WW2 even after long and bloody battles in the Pacific, and an allied invasion of the Japanese mainland would have caused the deaths of 1 million+ allied soldiers as well as 10 million+ Japanese. Slaughtering hundreds of thousands of innocents in the two cities, by this argument, saved millions of lives and convinced Japan to surrender. In reality, Japan had made overtures as early as late May, 1945 to surrender to the United States in a virtually unconditional manner, save for some basic legal protections for Emperor Hirohito. Furthermore, Japan was in no position to continue the war for long, for the US oil embargo had completely starved the country of fuel and basic resources. By the end of July, 1945, Japan’s navy had completely stopped major naval operations. Some of the highest-ranking and most respected US generals reflected on the bombings and expressed moral outrage and strategic doubts about their usage. Others made this clear at the time, and strongly urged their civil superiors not to use them. Supreme Allied Commander in Europe Dwight Eisenhower, for instance, pleaded with Secretary of War Henry Stimson to reconsider the plan, expressing his belief “that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary,” and also because he “thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was,” Eisenhower wrote, “at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of ‘face.’” Admiral William Leahy, the highest-ranking US military officer on active duty in the war, wrote similarly: “It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons.” Chester Nimitz, the commander-in-chief of the US Pacific Fleet, insisted that the atomic bombs were “of no material assistance in our war against Japan” for similar reasons. General Douglas MacArthur, the supreme allied commander of the Southwest Pacific, saw “no military justification for the dropping of the bomb” whatsoever, and also professed that “Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped.” Admiral William “Bull” Halsey stated emphatically that “atomic bombing—of civilians, is morally indefensible.” Because the US government decided otherwise, 225,000+ innocent civilians died in atrocities the scale of which the world had never seen. Instead of saving American lives, the chief purpose of the two atomic bombs seems to have been to flex the might of the American war machine in front of Soviet eyes. The detonations led to a costly arms race, the birth of the military industrial complex, and the Cold War itself. Americans are still paying the price for all of it. I do not accept that the atomic bombs saved millions of lives (they didn’t), that Japan would never have surrendered otherwise (they would have, and tried to do so before the bombings), or that they were morally justified in any way (they weren’t). These are all myths to justify the mass extermination of civilians in an overt act of terrorism by the US government. The catastrophes in Hiroshima and Nagasaki demonstrate that it is never moral to target civilians for mass death. I sincerely hope the horrors of that day can still persuade some that atrocities of this kind must never transpire again. For humanity to thrive, there can be no brinksmanship with Russia, China, or any other nuclear power. For humanity to thrive, there can be no nuclear winter. For humanity to thrive, there can never be any more tragedies like Hiroshima and Nagasaki ever again.