Nagasaki Aftermath Made Lawrence Ferlinghetti an "Instant Pacifist"

I think he's right that they wouldn't have done the bombings on Europe, but felt justified to nuke Japan in part due to the incredible anti-Japanese racism of the time.

It really sickens me that people are still making the argument that the atomic bombings saved lives.

It is an indefensible argument.

For starters, visitors would have learned that some of America’s best-known World War II military commanders opposed using atomic weaponry. In fact, six of the seven five-star generals and admirals of that time believed that there was no reason to use them, that the Japanese were already defeated, knew it, and were likely to surrender before any American invasion could be launched. Several, like Admiral William Leahy and General Dwight Eisenhower, also had moral objections to the weapon. Leahy considered the atomic bombing of Japan “barbarous” and a violation of “every Christian ethic I have ever heard of and all of the known laws of war.”