I beg you to look for the definition of "rational", and I take issue in you calling me an "apologist" without knowing anything about my ideas or positions.

I find it atrocious, and possibly should have been avoided, but it's easy and convenient for us to sit in front of our laptops and pass judgement 70 years after the fact, without having first-hand experience of the situation at the time.

Personally, I think that any nation involved in the war, if they had been in the same position of the US, would have taken the same decision, but again it's easy to judge and theorize now.

We can't do a lot about 70 years ago but hey, we can be against the irrational drone attacks and mass murderer of today that we are going to contest 70 years from now.

Hey "rational gentleman", do you realize that most of the victims of these US state sponsored terrorist attacks on Japan were poor civilians not even military personnel?

Do you think that it's acceptable or "rational" as you put it to have people fried alive in furnaces or dissolved in acid?

Would you like to face a similar "rational" fate for you or your loved ones?

Hadn't been for the US and its allies emerged as victors in WWII, all of their political and military leadership would have been had their own Nuremberg trials a decades ago but they got it away with it for the simple fact that they prevailed over their enemies.

Like they say 'History is written by the victors'.

I'm from a country defeated in the war, Romania, so I should be somewhat objective as "I" didn't "write" any history. Japanese atrocities are well documented, so it's not like the US was the only one doing awful things.

I, for one, am glad that the Allies won the war. The lesser of two evils.

As long as we're talking about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it's worth pointing out that humanity's experience with the insidious effects of nuclear radiation had not yet been formed -- they began that day -- and that leaves the trade-off of "frying people with nukes" versus "shooting and/or exploding with regular bombs" look a lot more humane. (In either case assuming peace is not yet secured, obviously.)

Or we could light their cities on fire with bat bombs. War is hell.

AFAIK those birth deformities have been greatly exaggerated, and are mostly (so-called urban) legends. For reference, see http://www.rerf.jp/radefx/genetics_e/birthdef.html