It's not hard to make a case that relative to other realistic options in 1945, the use of an atomic weapon on Hiroshima cost the fewest lives (140,000, including future deaths attributible to radiation). For comparison, conquering Okinawa by conventional warfare cost upwards of 250,000 lives. Single days of firebombing during the war cost ~100,000 lives in Dresden (Germany) and Tokyo. Had Operations Coronet and Olympic (the Allied plan for invading Japan itself) gone forward, the casualty totals would have been in the seven digits. Pre-Hiroshima, the Japanese imperial command structure had shown no signs of cracking.

(Nagasaki is less defensible, IMHO, as a single demonstration already had the Japanese command structure in turmoil. At the very least, the military could have given Japan a little more time to surrender. Considerable evidence exists that the Japanese had no idea what caused the destruction of Hiroshima until the White House broadcast describing it, so this was certainly an unexpected turn of events.)

If you object to the use of atomic weapons on Hiroshima, you should provide an alternative, relevant to 1945. It's flippant at best to just say "testing nukes on citizens" without context.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com