Re:Conversations among German Nuclear Physicists at Farm Hal...
by porpoisely on Friday February 08, 2019 @07:22PM
(#19119850)
Just because I focused on hiroshima and nagasaki doesn't mean I don't think the firebombings were any better. They were war crimes and crimes against humanity also.
Re:Conversations among German Nuclear Physicists at Farm Hal...
by dboreham on Friday February 08, 2019 @03:25PM
(#19118304)
>The bombing of Tokyo, Dresden, Hamburg, London, Coventry, etc. were all attacks on civilians.
And at the time it appears the military leaders saw the atomic bomb as primary an optimization measure for carrying out this kind of city-wide attack.
Re:Conversations among German Nuclear Physicists at Farm Hal...
by theptip on Friday February 08, 2019 @03:59PM
(#19118613)
It's worth mentioning that more civilians died in the firebombing of Tokyo than in either of Hiroshima or Nagasaki (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo). That was a conventional bombing raid (essentially covering the city in napalm).
However the psychological impact of the nuclear attacks being a single bomb is important to consider as well.
That may well be the case but it is not remotely clear that the people making that decision knew it for a fact which is what actually has bearing on the morality.
Also - why focus so much on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? The bombing of Tokyo, Dresden, Hamburg, London, Coventry, etc. were all attacks on civilians. We tend to judge atomic bombing as being special because of the thermonuclear age that followed but if it wasn't for that, we'd think of them as "strategic" bombing of population centres exactly the same as all the other such bombing done by all sides in WW2.