[elbucko]

I notice that many of you can only reply to my post with expletives.

I believe that was your intent

I'm sure you find it unbelievable that a conservative......

You're the only one claiming that you are conservative.

You can't understand how someone can disagree...

No, it's the issue in the time, place and context that you have chosen.

But I challenge you to consider that committing a regional genocide against civilians is a crime against humanity.

In the time, place and context, just the opposite is true. If you want villains, look to the Japanese High Command. You seem to have excused their complicity in this, "crime against humanity".

I challenge you to look past a blind faith about the bomb and apply some critical thinking here..

That has been done for 60 years. When all the options and their consequences are considered, dropping the bomb is the best of many bad options.

Did God fearing civilian Christians in Nagasaki deserve to die?

No.

Did small children deserve to die?

No.

Is it true justice to intentionally kill people who aren't in the military?

"Justice" has little to do with war and I doubt if you can even define it. However, when civilians are involved in their country's war efforts, as the Japanese were, they become, by default, legitimate targets.

Would I think it be ok for this to happen had I lived in one those cities at the time?

WWII was not all about YOU. (though I suspect that you have a personal, rather than moral or intellectual agenda, regarding your opinion).

Folks, it's time to put the thinking cap on and take the dogma cap off.

I see that you did and arrived at the wrong answer. Put it on again and see what other revisionism that you can come up with to enrage the troops. That's your intent, isn't it? I thought so. In the end, it's "all about you". In effect, you decided to drop a bomb of your own. You're an intellectual hypocrite.

[A Jovial Cad]

You know, I had to walk away from this thread yesterday; the faux bonhomme piety and in-your-face garbage about "war crimes" and "genocide" attributed to our Armed Services--and, by implication, the millions of brave men & women who served in them--during World War II by moral pygmies such as "1stFreedom" and "Mrs. Don-o" simply wasn't worth the suspension from this fine forum I'd surely have earned had I stated what I really felt like saying in response to such swinish, anti-American dreck as they were posting.

So, I backed off, signed out, and went on. It was the right thing to do: such anonymous know-nothings, which they are, on the other side of a computer screen should never be allowed to ruin even one hour of an otherwise excellent life.

After reading through the thread again it occurs to me that your post here nails it, from stem to stern: "1stFreedom" is constantly probing here, poking there, disappearing for long stretches in thread, yet always needling back ugliness and distorted half-truths just enough at certain moments to keep the outrage swirling. Always looking for the maximum amount of anger he/she/it can stir up among legitimate FReepers with any given post. An accomplished liar and troll extraordinaire, indeed ("Mrs. Don-o," in contrast, simply seems to be as stupid as the day is long, and proud of it).

At the end of the day, "1stFreedom" is, no doubt, just another pathetic intellectual eunuch of the sort one often encounters among the ranks of the slick, too-clever-by-half denizens of DUmmyland; and your post here puts he/she/it's pitiful offerings in perspective and context.

Your analysis is quite correct. Thanks for posting it.