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Politics : America Under Siege: The End of Innocence -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Elmer Flugum who wrote (11967)	12/19/2001 2:52:10 PM
From: aladin	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 27666

Len, What was ok about bombing Dresden and wrong about Hiroshima? Now as to the 'civilians' comment. More died in Tokyo from conventional 'moral' bombs. Why were Hiroshima and Nagasaki targeted? They were military targets with large bases or specific industries (particularly the naval station at Nagasaki). They were also close enough to population centers to make a 'statement'. Apart from the bombing, find a reference to them anywhere that predates the war. Any military target in densely populated Japan would result in civilian deaths. Look at the Londoners killed by the blitz or the Germans killed by Allied bombing. Study your history and look at the invasion plans for mainland Japan. Estimated US casualties over 100,000 during the first month. Estimated Japanese dead at over 1 million for the 1st 6 months. Facing this analysis (and remember at the time there was no stigma applied to nuclear weapons), I think President Truman made the moral decision. As to the justification thing, violence is only justified by a democracy in self-defence. We did not start WW2 and in fact (that all my Canadian relatives and British friends point out) stayed neutral for over 2 years while they stood and fought and died against evil. The greatest evil we committed in WW2 was not starting sooner - millions would have been saved. John