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Oh, and I'm pretty sure the official justification was the dropping the bomb saved American lives.... not American AND Japanese lives. I think the attitude at the time was 'f*** the Japanese, they started it'.
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Oh, no doubt that was the justification at the time, but in hindsight, I think we can objectively state that a military invasion of Japan would have caused a tremendous number of casualties, which almost certainly would have exceeded the number killed by the two atomic bombs.
Whether or not an invasion was the only viable alternative to the bombs is, as you stated, a valid point of contention amongst historians.