We dropped those bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during a war. A war that the Japanese drew us into when they attacked us on our soil at Pear Harbor. People equate September 11th to Pearl Harbor because both were surprise attacks and killed about the same number of people. The difference, in my mind, is that one was an attack on our military by the military of another nation, and the other was done by violent jihadists on civilian populations.

In WWII, All nations involved would carpet bomb cities indiscriminately, both in Europe and Asia. In the Pacific, the US forces had to invade and conquer/liberate each and every island from the Japanese. Every. Single. One. The Japanese did not surrender, they fought to the last man, and used suicide bombers and unconventional warfare tactics. The prospects of having to invade the Japanese mainland to win the war in the Pacific would have cost the lives of millions of Americans AND Japanese. Women and children would have been caught in the intensified bombing of the mainland (that was already going on). We dropped two atomic bombs onto Hiroshima and Nagasaki so that the Japanese would believe that we had more of these bombs to drop; if we dropped just one, they could have taken it as a once in a lifetime weapon. We dropped them on Hiroshima and Nagasaki also because those cities were relatively untouched by prior bombings, and we wanted to see the actual effects these bombs would have. Dropping them on Tokyo, a city which already had been bombed, would have muddied the 'scientific' results.

The results of dropping those two bombs on those cities was horrific, but by doing so, the Japanese military surrendered, sparing all of the lives who would have perished the otherwise inevitable invasion of Japan. The moral argument is that many died so that many x many more would live--also, it was fucking war, and you beat your enemy and spare your own troops. I understand how senseless it seems to bomb civilian populations, but that's what every country did in WWII, that was how you fought conventional warfare during that period.

I understand your impatience with America's seeming obsession with 9/11/2001, but please understand that is the greatest American tragedy of our time. It was a horribly bl;ow to our psyche, we are not like other countries that have had wars fought here, we are flanked by vast oceans on either side. The worst warfare we've ever seen on our own soil was the Revolution and the American Civil War. 9/11 was not a military attack during a time of war, it was a terrorist attack on innocent civilians. That's the difference between 9/11 and the attacks on Japan. What we did was to end a war that they started by attacking us while our guard was down; they sucker punched us in the balls. I know many people argue that 9/11/2001 is a 'retaliation' on America, but for what? We trained them and aided them in their war of liberation against the Soviets. We bought their goods and gave every single one of the muslim nations aid. They attacked us because they see us as "the Great Satan" now that the USSR is collapsed. Because we 'corrupt their women and their children with evil music, television, and McDonalds.' I hardly see that as a worthy argument for 'retaliation' in such a horrific form.

I understand your growing frustration for us to "get over it," but the pain and the wounds still feel fresh. The children of the people who died are still growing up without their parents. Our monuments, memorials, and buildings are still not yet finished. We still need just a little bit longer to heal. Already in America there is talk about how the children in our schools were not alive during 9/11, and how they view it as history. So, you will probably get your wish for us to shut up about it soon. We will, however, always look to it as a second "Day of Infamy." Nobody really looks back on the date of Pearl Harbor anymore and cries, because most everyone who remembers that is gone. In a generation or two, I believe it will sadly only be remembered as "Patriot Day," and be just another date on our American calendars.