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Mr. Luddite

On 4/15/2017 11:40 AM, wrote:
On Sat, 15 Apr 2017 10:20:03 -0400, Keyser Soze
wrote:

That's not the point. We also kill lots of innocent civilians.

War in general tends to affect the innocents the most. The Union army
was one of the first to use that tactic in our history. WWII was the
first war where all sides intentionally targeted civilians although it
started in the Spanish Civil war with the bombing of cities. I suppose
all civil wars involve killing civilians when you get down to it.
WWII was the real turning point though. The first bombing of London is
widely believed to be an accident but after that, it was on. Terror
attacks on cities became the norm. The US put a sharp point on it when
we nuked two with minimal military value but the die was cast before
that.

My younger son and I were talking just this morning about the use of the
atomic bomb in WWII. He's a 35 year old college grad and I was really
surprised at how little he knew of some of the details of what led up to
and what was done in WWII. For his generation, this is all ancient
history. The conversation started because he told me he didn't think we
should have used the bomb on Japan.

He knew very little about what led up to Pearl Harbor. He didn't know
about oil embargos placed on the Japanese due to the horrific things
done to the Chinese by Japan. Nor was he aware of the torture done to
our own POW's during the war. The Japanese engaged in horrible war crimes.

He also didn't realize that until Roosevelt died, Truman didn't even
know of the Manhattan Project or the fact that we had developed the
bomb. He didn't know that we were only a few months ahead of Germany in
it's development.

To get an accurate and clear answer as to the use of the A-bomb on
Japan, go ask a surviving WWII vet .... or even a senior civilian who
was an adult at the time.