You&#x27;re making a values judgement on how hard a nation and people should fight to defend themselves. And whatever Japan&#x27;s stance at the start of the war, they were certainly defending their homeland at the end of it. I&#x27;m not saying that the calculation of lives was incorrect. All I&#x27;m saying is that the &quot;evil culture&quot; reasoning is designed to rationalize to the masses, and it&#x27;s a distortion of reality. I don&#x27;t disagree that cultural values can be problematic. I just think it was a bullshit excuse in this particular case.