It's all armchair
quarterback talk at this point nearly 60 years later.

Gotta agree here. While I believe wholeheartedly that the original post on this
thread was a troll lookin' for noise, I've seen some interesting points and
mostly decent discussion on the issue.
We might want to remember that not only were we trying to impress upon the
Japanese the power of the weapon, but also impress it upon the Soviets... the
Cold War started a lot earlier than many think, and one of the reasons for
outright use on a civilian target with no hesitation after decision was to show
the Russians that we weren't in the mood for nitpicking negotiations and land
grabbing deals when the war was over. Of course, that's exactly what DID happen
afterwards, but that was what many in the U.S. 'up-top' were thinking at the
time.
I sure wish we hadn't used it quite so indiscriminately, and I wish it had
never happened... but I also wish the Battan Death March hadn't happened. I
wish Pearl Harbor hadn't happened. Hell, I wish the whole fiasco from Hitler to
Stalin to Hirohito, Churchill and Roosevelt/Truman, had simply never happened.
If we could have avoided Archduke Ferdinand's assassination, we may well would
have avoided the whole of the 20th Century's biggest problems.
But like you said, this far down the road, it hardly matters. Try to understand
the mindset, the emotions, of an earlier, more desperate time, and then move
on. Learn from their mistakes, grow from their accomplishments, make their
world your own.
They put the status quo into place, got some of it hugely wrong, but when has
human kind ever done everything right all the time?
Except me of course. :-)
Linus