Poll

This is disappointing:

Six decades after President Truman decided in 1945 to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, on Aug. 6 and 9, respectively, a majority of Americans -- 57 percent -- say they approve of using the bombs, while 38 percent disapprove, according to a new Gallup poll.

:

Then there's always politics.

:

"Similarly, 73 percent of Republicans, 53 percent of independents and just 47 pecent of Democrats approve. An irony here is that it was a Democratic president who made the decision to drop the bombs, though now Democrats give the least support among the three partisan groups," Gallup dryly observed.

I don't think there is any question that dropping the bombs ultimately saved lives, and I have to think that anyone who opposes the decision to use nuclear weapons on Japan is just ignorant.

:

Update: Just noticed this interesting bit of info:

Nearly 500,000 Purple Heart medals were manufactured in anticipation of the casualties resulting from the invasion of Japan. As of 2005, all the American military casualties of the following sixty years—including the Korean and Vietnam Wars—have not exhausted that stockpile.