OTOH, it’s perfectly okay to firebomb Tokyo and kill even more people than with the atomic weapons.
400 plane bombing raid killing 100,000+, just fine.
1 plane bombing raid killing 70,000+, evil war crime.
Militarily speaking, the nukes used on Japan didn’t really accomplish much of anything that we weren’t already doing quite effectively using other means. They ended the war due to shock and awe, not because of the actual damage they caused.
A few years later the H-bomb and ICBM took warfare to a different level, potentially involving the extermination of the human race. We have projected the unease this causes into the past and onto the nuclear attacks of 1945.
The 1945 nukes were important as harbingers of the future, not due to their actual effects, which weren’t all that big an advance on existing destructive technology.
Excellent post. If only we could skywrite it over Jon’s home. No way he’s going to see this.
You hit the nail on the head. There is no moral difference between a hand grenade and an H-Bomb. Thinking that there is, only leads to ridiculous conclusions such as Stewart's....
You are far too logical and knowledgeable about history to be commenting on these things - for the Left. For those of us on the Right, you are spot on.