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Originally Posted by FloridaDragon
Is the focus of this discussion the morality of using the atom bomb to kill "civilians" or the morality of killing civilians to begin with? Don't forget we were already bombing the hell out of their cities by the time the a-bombs fell. Take for example the fire bombing of Tokyo on March 9-10th 1945, which resulted in 16 square miles of Tokyo being destroyed and over 100,000 dead. Just about the same effect of an atomic bomb but it took a lot more planes and a lot more bombs.
It is hard to ever justify the killing of civilian populations but it was a standard all the major powers of WWII commonly practiced. If the a-bombs had not been dropped more Japanese would probably have died from the bombing of the cities BEFORE any invasion anyway. Doesn't make it right but, being an American through and through, better them then a million of our troops to invade.
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To take this in order:
1. The annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are worse than that of Tokyo not because they were atomic, but because they were undertaken when peace was at hand, meaning those who lost their lives there lost them even more senselessly than those lost up to that point. But I will readily grant that the whole war was a senseless bloodbath the U.S. should've abstained from entering.
2. Yes, it was the policy of all sides in WW2 to roast civilians alive by the thousands. One conclusion that might be drawn from this fact is that describing WW2 as a "good war" in which we, on a white horse, faced down fascist evil, on a black horse, is essentially bullshit. Oddly that conclusion, intuitive though it is, is not a popular one.
3. "Our" troops? They were Roosevelt's troops. The idea that the
government protects any of
us via war is kneejerk imbecility. The truth is exactly the other way around; we save their bacon from their enemies--at least those of us gullible enough to follow their cynical call to arms.