that among Japanese soldiers and civilians. The thousands who have .
died in the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were far less .
than would have died in an allied invasion, and their sudden deaths.
convinced the Japanese military to surrender. .
Every nation has an interest in being at peace with other .
nations, but there has never been a time when the world was free of.
the scourge of war. Hence, peaceful nations must always have adequate .
military force at their disposal in order to deter or defeat the .
aggressive designs of rogue nations. The United States was therefore .
right in using whatever means were necessary to defeat the Japanese .
empire in the war which the latter began, including the use of .
superior or more powerful weaponry-not only to defeat Japan but to .
remain able following the war to maintain peace sufficiently to .
guarantee its own existence. A long, costly and bloody conflict is a .
wasteful use of a nation's resources when quicker, more decisive means .
are available. Japan was not then-or later-the only nation America had .
to restrain, and an all-out U.S. invasion of Japan would have risked .
the victory already gained in Europe in the face of the palpable .
thereat of Soviet domination. .
Finally, we can never forget the maxim of Edmund Burke: "The .
only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do.
nothing." The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought us into a war .
which we had vainly hoped to avoid. We could no longer "do nothing" .
but were compelled to "do something" to roll back the Japanese .
militarists. Victims of aggression have every right both to end the .
aggression and to prevent the perpetrator of it from continuing or .
renewing it. Our natural right of self defense as well as our moral .
duty to defeat tyranny justified our decision to wage the war and, .
ultimately, to drop the atomic bomb. We should expect political .
leaders to be guided by moral principles but this does not mean they .