If they'd understood spin in 1945

August, 1945 Speaking on behalf of the War Department, General G.I. Brasshat admitted today that "ongoing investigations" had revealed that there had, in fact, been civilian casualties in the recent atomic bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The War Department had been previously denying the allegation as "absurd, unfounded, and circulated to tarnish the reputation of our forces and thus hamper our war effort and give aid and comfort to the enemies of freedom".

"We had anticipated, and had every reason to expect, that there would be no civilians in the area of what were plain and legitimate military targets," said the general. "Clearly, the Japanese, who as you know have absolutely no respect for human life, not even their own, moved civilians into the target zones to serve as human shields. As a result, a certain amount of collateral damage occurred in the operation." Initially vague as to the scope of the "collateral damages", the general finally allowed that he had "heard there were seven, possibly eight people injured, with the unfortunate possibility of some loss of life."

When reminded that Hiroshima and Nagasaki are (or rather, were) cities, and thus already had thousands of civilians resident within them, General Brasshat shuffled some papers and said, "In that case, clearly the Japanese deliberately placed military targets in civilian zones in order to frustrate our ability to neutralize them. But I can assure you that the atomic bomb is a weapon of great tactical precision, and that unintentional effects were kept to a strict minimum in the pursuit of our military goals."

At this point, the general was sliced in half by an angel with a flaming sword.

Daniel 13:52-59 (Catholic Bible; Protestant Apocrypha)