re: #240 Nyet

What does that make the US?

We bombed civilian targets to achieve the political ends of making the population turn against the war. There’s a word for that, but because we won, we never use it in that context.

But I would add that whenever the topic of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki comes up, several things come to my mind:

1) Anyone who hadn’t seen the Trinity blast probably did not really grasp just how different the A-bomb was from every other bomb. You can’t see Truman’s decision in the light of the 7 decades that followed. You can only see it in terms of history to that point.

2) Japan did not surrender until after Nagasaki.

3) Okinawa.