The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are potentially the most propagandized war crimes in US history.

It is imperative to the US empire to justify the mass incineration of civilians by some of the most horrifically destructive weapons ever used in the world.

Pointing out that this was an atrocity is invariably met with a multitude of justifications, typically able to be broken down into two general categories, moral & strategic.

The moral claim is that the Japanese killed in the bombings deserved it due to Nanking, Unit 731, Pearl Harbor, and other Japanese military actions during the war. This is collective guilt nonsense. Babies and schoolchildren vaporized in nuclear fire had zero involvement in any of Japan's war actions. It is not justified to murder civilians as retribution for the crimes of the government which rules over them.

Americans especially should take care not to go down this argumentation path, as this leads to justifying 9/11 and other terrorist acts done in retribution for US imperialism crimes.

The strategic claim is that the only alternative to mass incineration of civilians was a full invasion of Japan in which even more people would have died, especially US servicemen. This claim, assuming the asserted counterfactual numbers are accurate, is a false dichotomy based on false history which was refuted by many military & political leaders of the time.

It was known to Truman by May of 1945 that Japan was willing to surrender on the condition that Emperor Hirohito not be dethroned and prosecuted for war crimes. This condition became the reality after the war, and yet Truman refused to give said condition in negotiations during the war, opting to instead follow FDR in demanding unconditional surrender.