Today is the 58th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. Here is an interesting article refuting recent historical revisionism.
CNN.com - Blood on Our Hands? - Aug. 5, 2003
The traditional American position has been that America dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end the war early and save lives. Recently, historians have been refuting this, arguing that the U.S. government believed that the atomic bombing was militarily unnecessary -- Japan was on the brink of surrender already.

But this article points out that "Japanese wartime leaders who favored surrender saw their salvation in the atomic bombing. The Japanese military was steadfastly refusing to give up, so the peace faction seized upon the bombiing as a new argument to force surrender."

In any case, at 8:15 this morning, all over Japan, people will pause and reflect....