[BikerNYC]

Population centers were targets all throughout the second World War for both the Allied and the Axis forces.

Indeed. That's why I said it was the final act of that war that made such targeting acceptable.

Aside from that, the bombs weren't meant to (as a reason for the bombs) destroy the population of two cities. Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were important manufacturing centers for the Japanese war effort. If the US wanted to simply annihilate Japanese people, they could have selected better targets.

One could find a rationalization to drop the bombs on any city other than to destroy the people living therein - manufacturing, food supply, energy production, whatever. To follow your argument, if we did not want to "annihilate" civilians, we could have found better targets.

[APFel]

To follow your argument, if we did not want to "annihilate" civilians, we could have found better targets.

For example...?

APf