Madam, - I am stupefied by Mark O'Leary's bald dismissal (August 23rd) of the 46,000 casualties the US would have suffered from an invasion of Japan in 1945 had it not dropped the atom bombs, though it indeed is less than the much-maligned official estimates.
I would put it to him, why should a single American soldier lose his life to protect those of the Japanese citizens who so maliciously and aggressively began the war in the first place? Is not the American president's first duty to protect the lives of each and every one of his people?
Those unfortunates in Hiroshima and Nagasaki reaped the rewards of the actions of a government which they allowed to exist almost four years after it brutally crippled the US navy and destroyed the harmony of the Pacific and American life in general.
Yes, the dropping of the bombs was unfortunate, indeed even unnecessary, but it irrefutably hastened the end of a horrific conflict through which the citizens of the US had to suffer due to no fault of their own.
It is this which Truman accomplished. - Yours, etc,
MICHAEL KEARY, Limerick.