While I'm not against dropping the bombs, if that was the only way of bringing an end to the war, [although the Soviet attack in Manchuria may have been enough]

But I've always wondered why it was imperative to invade Japan at the cost of up to 1 million American casualties, [more then the total casualties the U.S. suffered in the entire war on both fronts] when they could be defeated by bombing and starvation for a mere fraction of those casualties.

Of course this is on the premise that the Japanese hadn't surrendered by then.