Re:What Bikini Atoll Looks Like Today
by ghostcluster on Sunday November 26, 2017 @11:02PM
(#15784724)
Except they occured during an active war and achieved a military goal: to prevent a mainland assault which would have killed an order of magnitude more people.
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I can't find the link right now, but have read a fairly convincing argument that it was the conventional type of bombing, not nuclear, that caused the Japanese to surrender. Still a terrible thing for Japanese civilians though.
I think it would be wrong to characterise that as the consensus, though. My understanding is that historians haven't come to a conclusive assessment, but that the majority view is that it did cut the war short and save lives (net).
Re:What Bikini Atoll Looks Like Today
by manangatangy on Monday November 27, 2017 @06:19AM
(#15786524)
One of these could be the article you are referring to.
[0] https://www.thenation.com/article/why-the-us-really-bombed-h...
[1] http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/30/the-bomb-didnt-beat-japa...
Yes, thank you!
Re:What Bikini Atoll Looks Like Today
by ghostcluster on Monday November 27, 2017 @08:48AM
(#15787241)
The conventional bombing killed more people than Hiroshima and Nagasaki as well.
The Soviet invasion of Manchuria was another straw.
Dropping a nuclear bomb on a civilian population is an act of barbarism. Dropping 2 is an act of insanity and is going down in history as one of the most reckless odious crimes against humanity.