There were over 200,000 casualties (100k Japanese military, 50k American, at least 50k civilian) combined in taking Okinawa. If it took that many to take one little island, image what the mainland would have required.
There is no reason we would have needed to invade Japan. That's just a BS excuse that most of the sheep in this country will accept, because it makes us feel better. Nothing much has changed... we are still accepting the BS that our government feeds us as excuses for things like invading Iraq and meddling in Libya.
