On Mon, 7 Feb 2005, Steve Simmons wrote: [some interesting stuff about history snipped] What's the latest thinking on the degree of justification of the fire bombing of Tokyo/the nuking of Hiroshima/ditto Nagasaki? Last I heard there were questions about whether the latter were in part a message to Stalin, and (switching to my speculation) that in fact a reason to finish off the Pacific war asap was to keep him out of Japan.