> They don't know who Perry was or what we did to Japan before this happened.

This was taught in history when I was a boy; regardless Japan was a western ally up to and including WW1. It was Japan's aggressive expansionism that led to conflict with the USA (The greater east Asia co-prosperity sphere, an ironic name if ever there was one). The direct action leading to war was the US oil embargo against Japan. At the time the US was the primary oil producer so cutting off supply essentially guaranteed the Japanese war machine would be unable to continue conquest.

The underlying premise of the strike was not to defeat the USA; Japanese leaders knew that was impossible. The goal was to consolidate their position before the USA could respond then sue for peace.

> I have also heard people say, time and time again, that they believe the atomic bomb "saved lives," ... They don't know American generals were begging to not use the bomb, or to at least not use on a civilian target.

That was some of the scientists involved in the project, not the military.

> They have no idea of the history, of Japan's confusion, of our unwillingness to compromise despite they were saying they would surrender.

When the Emperor broke the stalemate in favor of surrender he recorded his famous address to the Japanese people to be broadcast later. A faction of nationalist soldiers broke into the Royal Household and attempted to seize the recording to prevent it from being broadcast. When that failed they attempted to seize the radio station before the coup was put down.

I would be very careful about arm-chair general-ing 80 years after the fact. As the recent election as proven: sometimes events take strange and unexpected turns. No one knows what would have happened absent the bombs. Maybe the Emperor votes the other way. Maybe a lot more of the military joins the coup. Or maybe Japan surrenders regardless. No one has any clue, not even the people involved.

> I think most Americans know that Germany committed horrible mass murder against races of people, but not that their economy was destroyed by through financial schemes (even Keynes, mainstream macroecon's hero, told of this).

This was also addressed as part of history class here in the USA. In fact we discussed it as a class and came to the conclusion that you only had two options: kill everyone or remove some of the leadership help your enemy rebuild. Trying to punish Germany with crippling reparations was known to be a bad idea at the time, but was pursued because leaders in the UK and France couldn't face up to their own part in causing the war and wanted to be able to say they got <i>something</i> for all the dead.

The same attitude nearly derailed West Germany after WW2. Some idiots in the US Treasury department came over and started tearing down factories with an aim toward converting Germany into an "agrarian society". Smarter people relatively quickly realized how stupid that was and rolled out the Marshall plan instead.

> It takes very strong character to be able to stand up and say that you made a mistake, and make good on it and make sure it doesn't happen again. I think one of the best ways this will never happen is just erase those mistakes from history, and declaring history written by the losers would be a good way to argue for that.

If you want to talk about something in US history that is actually hand-waved away talk about post Civil War reconstruction. The Confederate leaders should have been hanged. The war was about slavery, period. The Articles of Secession explicitly call out that the confederate states are seceding because of slavery... so why does the myth of "state's rights" persist? Because we never punished the leaders and they white-washed history.

In fact you could say that one element of Germany launching WW2 was the same thing: Ludendorff spent his time claiming Germany wasn't really defeated, they were all stabbed in the back and it was all the new democratically-elected government's fault. Emperor Wilhelm ceded power to Reichstag right before the shit hit the fan. It was nonsense - they were in an unwinnable position and knew it. Ludendorff tried to play the Europeans by appealing to US President Woodrow Wilson. He knew the US was on the rise and controlled the purse strings and thought he could brow-beat Wilson into accepting a more favorable peace. When Wilson told him to get stuffed he knew he was fucked.

So if anything there are two cases where letting the losers write a history has proven to have disastrous consequences. That also sets the stage for the Allies attitude in WW2: There was zero chance for the Axis powers to set any terms. The Allies intended to make absolutely certain that no one could ever claim the Axis weren't really defeated, or they were stabbed in the back, or other such nonsense.