War is not fine. Dropping bombs is not fine. But they would have. They had plans to build bombs for exactly that, to drop on US cities. they also had plans to engage in biological warfare on US soil. So, yes, they would have. Japan was indiscriminate when they attacked China. If they had had the ability to reach US soil, they would have waged the same here, no doubt about it at all.

Germany would have done the same too. I mean, those guys were not fooling around. Do you think the US, the UK and the SU should have taken it easy with Germany because eventually we would have won a "kinder" (no pun intended) war?

We can use phrases like "neutralise the enemy", but the reality is, hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed in order to defeat the enemy.

In the end, would have the Japanese population suffered more with a conventional ground war vs firebombings or atomic bombings? I believe the consensus is stopping the war as quickly as possible spared the population the worst of it.

In great wars like this the distinction between military and civilian is tenuous. Japan, like Germany, was thoroughly a martial economy.

If you start a fire, don't complain later you got burnt.