Hindsight is 2020. This isn't rewriting history but learning from it so we don't commit the same crimes and avoid the evils of the past.
We needed to respond, but we also needed to have avoided evil acts, and attacking innocents is one of the worst crimes. If we instead attacked a military compound, the blood of the innocents would be on the hands of the Japanese military because they put them in harm's way.
It’s rewriting history.
What’s done is done.
Is it helpful to study history? Certainly.
But to go back and say “should never have done this.” Without the context of the day is revisionist nonsense.
"Study history, but don't ever pass judgement over a moral decision!"
We study history so we can make observations and learn from it, especially moral lessons.
Rewriting history would be denying facts. That's literally the opposite of what I'm doing.
This is one of the cases where being an expert actually matters.
Have you studied WWII extensively? Do you have all of the context?
Are you 100% positive the Japanese would have surrendered if we had used the bomb elsewhere?
100%. Not 98 or 99 but 100%.
