>>114105939>>114106264>I'm sure that's why the decision to completely absolve him of any responsibility is among the most criticized of the WW2 aftermathIf America hadn't agreed to let Hirohito off the hook, there was a real chance that Japan would have refused to surrender after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. America would have been faced with two choices:
1. Nuke Japan into oblivion, drop nukes on every rail line/farm, mine the harbors to end fishing until the state broke down and Japan was "bombed back to the stone age" which is what one of our generals, Curtis LeMay, recommended
2. A full-scale ground invasion by US soldiers
Given the mood of the time we almost certainly would have chosen option #1. Letting Hirohito off scot-free literally saved millions, if not tens of millions, of lives. People who criticize our leniency towards Hirohito are fucking idiots. In 1945, 30% of the US population said that they would be willing to accept the total genocide of all Japanese people. We had multiple high-level military officials willing to nuke and/or starve the entire place into oblivion. Not absolving Hirohito would have unironically led to one of the worst genocides in human history.