On the 70th anniversary of Hiroshima, the ABC summarises the talking points (possibly from inside the cafe at Trades Hall or some organic coffee joint on a campus nearby):
A land invasion by American forces resulting in a possible one million casualties was just the “official” American story (read – propaganda), the real purpose for dropping the bomb was, in fact, to impress the Russians. That the Japanese were shocked into submission, and ultimately surrendered by having two of their cities razed by this new weapon is a “simplistic” reading of history, according to “most historians” (the ones the ABC spoke to anyway).
One concrete fact can be gleaned from all of this however, the bombing of Hiroshima was “a criminal act under international law.” So that, of course, outweighs the prolonging of World War II and the continued loss of lives in combat then?
As is customary on the anniversary of these terrible events, the ABC can’t miss the opportunity to end the story by reminding its (small number of) readers that, by this act at Hiroshima, on this day in 1945, America became “the first and still the only nation to drop the atomic bomb in warfare.”