Am I the only one bothered by the targeting of 'wooden houses' of Tokyo

Of course many people are bothered by it, yet some see it as unfortunate. I think that Khrushchev said it very well: War ends when it has rolled through cities...sowing death and destruction. In other words, don't fight a war because it means turning loose men like Gen LeMay. When McNamara asked if it is more moral to kill people in another fashion, he may have been speaking of civilians. But we also have rules for killing combatants. Ridiculous. Expanding bullets are outlawed by Geneva, yet we wouldn't expect our own police to use anything but. Which is right? Is a sniper humane? Is a Gatling gun or a cluster bomb any less a WMD than a nuke? Rules and war are diametrically opposed terms. If rules are not tossed out for the sake of winning, they will at least be be circumvented. Is it moral to be scattering depleted Uranium all over creation? No. And we know that deep down. But it is effective and there is no rule as of yet.

I'm not sure I agree with McNamara's definition of rational if it includes a man (Castro) who can recommend an action that he believed would, or could, result in the destruction of his own people. And I would not call LeMay rational - ever ready to make the pre-emptive strike or provoke an attack (not mentioned). But you can't have a war without men who have the stomach to do the ugly work.

I do agree that McNamara is a man in pain over having been involved in certain decisions. But I don't think he was expecting to make peace by confessing. I think he was trying to do it by teaching us how to prevent more of the same. And clearly we need teaching or we wouldn't be in a war today. There would not be genocide today. We would not be reading about events that will later be cited as the resurgence of the old cold war or the beginning of a second one. We arrived at these places in the same fog that existed in 1945 or 1964. That's the truly disgusting part - that so many decades after those horrendous events, too many are still ready to respond to the tough message and to enter a fight, knowing full well the means required and the probable outcome, but denying both.

No I'm not. If you knew of the atrocities commited by the Japs against the Chinese, Americans, Filipinos, etc. Then you would think that it was more than fair. War is hell get used to it.

Two things that annoy me:

1) Americans like to pretend they are #1, the best there is, but in cases like that they try to relativise their own horrible actions by mentioning other horrible acts commited by others. Yes, Japan killed more civilians than USA in WW2, still, that makes USA second-to-last, not #1.

2) About the extrapolated half a million american servicemen who would have died else; Why doesnt anyone ask why it was so necessary and urgent to invade Japan and get inconditional surrender? at this point, Japan had no nore navy or air force, almost no more army or logistic to support one. They were isolated and at war with USSR, USA, China, Australia, Canada, the British Empire.... all the major powers around. Furthermore, Japan is a barren land and has no natural ressources so a blocade on fuel and building materials would have been enough to stop their war production. What was the threat to counter then? Old japanese women swimming across the Pacific and invading California armed with wooden clubs? They werent a threat to anyone anymore. The allies were containing Japan and had the upper hand in peace talks - wich were already going on, the Japan emperor already offered surrender. The objective was no more to defend American peoples but to capture Japan as a plunder race against USSR.

USSR was getting ready to invade Japan in a matter of days when USA dropped the bomb. If a land invasion of Japan had occur, it would have been soviet troops fighting, not american ones. The USSR was just done doing 90% of the actual fighting in Europe against the Nazis all by themselves, an already defeated Japan would have been no match for them. But then, your Sony Walkmen would have been less pretty and play only the red army choir music.

The United States of America is the only empire in history that never took part in a massive conventional war - since their so-called civil war of course, the moment they became an Empire. They were in a support role in WW1, their many other wars were guerilla and colonial resistance. And yes, the Pacific theater was bloody and is likely why USA were so eager to use such disproportional measures against Japan. I say that not to troll around but to point out that an US land assault of Japan just wouldnt match their pattern. In the race to take possession of Japan instead of USSR, time was just against USA.

Of course you're not the only one. It's disgusting. It's similar to the fire-bombing of Dresden in WWII.

Do not write here

Of course I was bothered by it. I don't think anyone out there wasn't bothered by it. I think the whole point is to be bothered by it. That's what the world WAS in 1945. It's shattering to look at our recent history and see those things, but we mustn't turn away and pretend they never were. Nobody is offering excuses and the film itself does not judge. You, the viewer, are free to judge as you like. You are able to do that because the film presents what was and, lest we should forget, what still is.

Yeah it was terrible.

Another thing that was shocking was to see the amount of Japanese cities and the percentages of those cities that were destroyed. I didn't realize that that many cities were bombed and at such a large scale of destruction.

For what the Japanese did at NanKing (the largest mass rape ever documented) I have no sorrow.

Actually that was all documented previously. McNamara isn't the first to reveal it. He did try to spin it regardless I think.
My biggest problem with him was he asks the questions "is this moral?" and then goes on to answer the question with saying that there are no laws against doing that in wartime and that he would not order anything illegal.
Does this man know the difference between moral and legal? Perhaps not.
To me he is no different than the nazis. If you put up a nazi and interviewed them they would say the same thing "what i did was perfectly legal".