International law - that is the UN right? The US is currently ignoring every international law possible. I guess the rules only apply when the US gov't benefits, am I right? You might want to Google "double standards". There was no imminent threat to the US (read the statements by the generals who were in the situation, not some politician who had very little real information) when the genocide in Nagasaki/Hiroshima happened.
Look if a person is not naive he/she will realize FDR did everything he could to make Japan attack US. US was far from innocent in that regard. Do you think it was a coincidence that all the aircraft carriers of the pacific fleet were conveniently away at a time of Pearl Harbor? NO it was not. Truman nuked Japan to impress/intimidate Stalin. He even casually mentioned NUKES at the POTSDAM conference. Trouble for Truman was that Stalin already knew about the Manhattan project and infiltrated it with spies.
even if all the above was true - it does not change the fact that they attacked us at peace wiped out our fleet - left us vulnerable to an attack on our west coast and fought like hell every step of the way taking a tremendous amount of lives - and energy. We had every right to bomb them with a really large bomb - if it could save our troops lives. You pull a knife on a guy and stab him with it, maybe repeatedly - he pulls out a large gun and kills you. Was it his fault because he had just been showing off his new gun to his friends. Come on let us all start thinking logically. I heard the same liberal revisionist history when I was in college also. It does not mean we have to go through life thinking like fairies. Japan started the fricken war by bombing and killing our navy on our homeland. There were people on those ships. They killed 10s of thousands if not hundreds of thousands more during a war they started. I think they should apologize again - not us.
There is no liberal revisionist history there is something called a "pretext" and not being naive. Now read this and grow a brain: "The Tripartite Pact, war with China, increasing militarization and Japan's withdrawal from the League of Nations eventually led the U.S. to embargo scrap metal and gasoline shipments to Japan and to constrain its foreign policy actions and close the Panama Canal to Japanese shipping. In 1941, Japan moved into northern IndoChina.[3] The U.S. responded by freezing Japan's assets in the U.S. and embargoing all oil exports to Japan.[4] Oil was Japan's most crucial imported resource; more than 80 percent of Japan's oil imports at the time came from the United States[5] To secure oil supplies, and other resources, Japanese planners had long been looking south, especially the Dutch East Indies. The Navy was certain any attempt to seize this region would bring the U.S. into the war and was reluctant to agree with other factions' plans for invasion. The complete US oil embargo changed to the Naval view to support of expansion toward support for an invasion of the Dutch East Indies and seizure of its oil fields. In August 1941, Japanese Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe proposed a summit with President Roosevelt to discuss differences. Roosevelt replied Japan must leave China before a summit meeting could be held" Key points: US FROZE ALL Japanese assets in US (that is a belligerent act in and of itself) stopped all shipments of OIL to Japan, and started demanding that Japan leave China. Plus Roosevelt positioned the fleet in hawaii to act as a "restraint" on Japan. As a general rule - if something has a lot of patriotism attached to it, take it with a grain of salt. It is so cool to think of the "dastardly" attack on Pearl Harbor but fact of the matter is Roosevelt knew full well what he was doing when he put US on a collision course with Japan.
and your point would have to be this justifies pearl harbor... is that what you think.... if so then you should have no problem with us dropping a nuke. either way you are wrong. This argument is like saying that we should excuse the guy who stabbed you in the alley because his mom was drank when he was a kid.
So killing civilians is okay to save soldiers lives? wow, let's return to the middle ages while we're at it. The military importance of the two cities was low so it can only be concluded it was directed against the people. A nuclear bomb isn't anything like a "large bomb" just FYI, I guess the 30something civilian in Hiroshima deserves to die from cancer caused by the radiation in 2008 because of a war maneuver in 1945 (30 years before being born). PS. While I'm liberal on most issues I'm generally not anti-US. Anyway, people resort to designating group names "left-wing", "right-wing", "liberal" etc. when the arguments fail.
The answer to your question is yes. We were justified in doing what it took to end the killing of our troops and the threat to the west coast of the U.S. There is nothing wrong about placing labels on people's schoola of thought if the labels are accurate. In fact it is liberals who frequently make the argument it is not fair to call someone a modern liberal. More than a few of the t.a.s working for my professors were hard core socialists. (this was back in the 80s in D.C.) You propose I can't call someone a socialist who advocated the take over of private industry? Your argument has a little more traction now because of all the fake conservatives that infected the republican party - but humans communicate and think by creating associations. I will not let my associations be questioned by someone saying hah you are labeling. If you dispute my labels use fact not cheap devices. The fact of the matter is you are advocating an apology is necessary for ending a war with two bombs. Your arguments were weak and based on revisionist history which lack support. In end I doubt you even believe it would have been better to let or even chance a continued deadly conflict. How many more dead troops would you have tolerated. If the west coast of the u.s. was attacked would that have been sufficient to merit an atomic bombing. Why should we have had to risk our troops and civilians lives to satisfy you . Basically you have no real argument. Just about of feelings based on conjecture.