Okinawa should tell us a thing or two about the causalities that we could have expected in getting to mainland Japan. If 66 miles by 7 miles wide cost  95,000 Imperial Japanese Army troops and 20,195 Americans that were killed, then just dare to calculate what mainland Japan would have been like.

So the arguments against the American use of the Atom Bomb I think ignore the situation. Plus the arguments also ignore the issue of self defense. America was attacked --therefore it fought back as is the most basic human right of all--life.

And the demonstration is not a good argument since Japan was given a demonstration. That did not change anything. Then a second demonstration and that also changed nothing. Then the Russians invaded. And that is when the war cabinet assembled to discuss surrender. And even then there were not enough votes for a surrender until the emperor himself intervened and said that, "We are surrendering." [The military thought they still had a few aces up their sleeves--which is true. They had advanced airplanes in development. ] 

[The larger perspective here is this: The people entering this argument have a different purpose in mind. It is this. That whatever the USA does (or has done, or will do) is (was, and will be always) wrong. Their purpose is to disparage the USA at all costs. It does not matter what the subject is. It could be the American Indians or the Civil War or the Middle East. The one major principle of Leftist is always to disparage the USA.