Okay but they didn't punish Hirohito, he lived on as a nominal emperor until 1989. They wanted to humiliate the Japanese people, not punish a war criminal. In fact, I'd absolutely give legal amnesty to a war criminal if it meant a peaceful surrender without nuking two cities.
the early japanese peace attempts also wanted to have self-supervised disarmament and war crime prosecution. if there was a plain choice between emperor and nuking keeping hirohito would be the correct choice, but it was really closer to 'maintain the japanese empire pre-1936' or continuing hostilities.
Okay but they didn't punish Hirohito, he lived on as a nominal emperor until 1989. They wanted to humiliate the Japanese people, not punish a war criminal. In fact, I'd absolutely give legal amnesty to a war criminal if it meant a peaceful surrender without nuking two cities.
the early japanese peace attempts also wanted to have self-supervised disarmament and war crime prosecution. if there was a plain choice between emperor and nuking keeping hirohito would be the correct choice, but it was really closer to 'maintain the japanese empire pre-1936' or continuing hostilities.