[defrost]

The history on this is pretty sound ... a major bombing campaign was started much earlier to avoid any invasion or boots on the ground.

Seventy two Japanese cities, including Tokyo, were already completely destroyed before the two atomic bombs were dropped. The two cities destroyed by atomic bombs were on a list to be destroyed regardless.

To the people killed, injured, or left in the shell of a city with no food or water it made very little real difference whether the cause was HE+incendiaries OR high burst shockwave from atomic bomb - the M&M statistics (death and injury, both immediate and following) were similar in either case.

The greatest military imperative to drop the atomic bombs were pragmatic .. they were developed at vast expanse for use on Germany but were not ready until after Germany surrended .. to close off an R&D program without a live target test on targets already targetted for destruction just seemed ... wasteful.

After the bombs were dropped, everything changed. Public awareness and perception. The need for post war PR. The start of the Cold War race with soviets over atomics. The pressing need for auto biographies and centre staging from actors late to the story, etc.

Much of the "justification" for dropping atomic bombs was retconned after the fact.

[ericmay]

If the war wasn't over the justification doesn't matter. I think that's the point you are broadly missing.

Were we at war with Japan? Yes. Therefore any action we take to end that war was justified, including continuing to bomb Japanese cities, industrial areas, and civilian centers until the war is concluded and they surrendered. Testing weapons even would be acceptable. Japan was still fighting us. Nations test weapons during war all the time which is partially how weapons development occurs.

[defrost]

During wartime justifications for carpet bombing do matter .. see Geneva Conventions et al.

Not that these things are enforced, of course, see bombings throughout SE Asia during Vietnam and the international punishment dealt out to Kissinger.

> I think that's the point you are broadly missing.

Did I?

Let me be clearer. There was no particular examination of the justifications for killing civilains specifically in the cases of the two cities destroyed by atomic weapons.

Why?

Because any such moral examination had already taken place many many months before; broadly in the case of heavy bombing campaigns in Europe and more specifically at the start of the Japanese bombing campaign that most appear to have forgotten.

Before H & N were bombed with the first atomic weapons 72 other cities had already been destroyed, including Tokyo. H & N were 'just' two targets on a list more than a hundred cities in length.

> Therefore any action we take to end that war was justified

Yeah, maybe take some moral and ethics classes, look into why there's pushback over actions in Gaza, etc.

There's no simple 'therefore' here.

[ericmay]

> Yeah, maybe take some moral and ethics classes, look into why there's pushback over actions in Gaza, etc.

Gaza (what a bizarre thing to bring up anyway) has nothing to do with actions taken by any nation during World War II. It's not even a war between nations. Unless you count Iran since they're the ones causing so much pain for everyone by inciting terrorist organizations in the region and ensure there can be no peace.

> During wartime justifications for carpet bombing do matter .. see Geneva Conventions et al.

Not all wars are created equal, and not all actions taking during one war can be justified during another. For example, the United States using an atomic bomb on Iraq (regardless if the invasion was justified or not, but for the sake of argument here we can assume it's justified) would be morally wrong in any context.

Why is that the case?

Because the United States unofficially (if memory serves) declared war on Iraq, invaded Iraq, and did so with overwhelming military, economic, and political superiority. Iraq posed no existential threat to the United States. Just because it's a war doesn't mean you get to use everything in your arsenal.

When you compare that with the war against Japan, you find a very different picture.

World War II as a whole, including the war against Japan was an existential war requiring the full participation of all of society, civilian or otherwise. This was the same case on the eastern front of the war. The Nazis were exterminating people. The Soviets (and anyone else for that matter) were justified in bombing Nazi population centers, including carpet bombing, or even dropping their own atomic bomb on Berlin if that brought an end to the war.

Concepts and ideas around things like the Geneva conventions fail in these existential total war scenarios for two reasons:

  1. They are arbitrary, and applied and justified post-hoc. Specifically the Geneva conventions weren't agreed upon prior to 1949 IIRC and so applying their moral and legal justification to actions prior to that as though one group broke a treaty or acted immorally doesn't make a lot of sense except of course as a way to criticize western powers. If you want to argue about how some countries violated what were later the Geneva conventions by their military activities, the only thing you're really telling me here is that all countries were very bad because the Japanese sure as hell violated the Geneva Conventions, and you know very well the Soviets did too, as did the Nazis. So if you want to criticize the US for dropping the atomic bomb, I criticize the other countries involved in the war equally, and I'd also criticize countries who stayed neutral during the war and did not fight to liberate Europe and Asia. 

  2. They don't map correctly to wars where one or more of the participants is intent on committing genocide or otherwise exterminating the actual population of the other. And in total war scenarios the civilian population is building and funding the war efforts and thus become legitimate targets. Otherwise it would be illegal and immoral to bomb a tank factory because you kill civilians. It's not. You know that, and I know that. 

> Not that these things are enforced, of course, see bombings throughout SE Asia during Vietnam and the international punishment dealt out to Kissinger.

See bombings by the Soviets and mass starvation of civilians by them and the Chinese. See any number of things done by other countries not named the United States. Let's talk about those as examples going forward instead. We're well aware of all the criticisms of the United States but I don't care about those, I'm interested only in criticisms of the actions of non-western countries and how they have acted in morally bankrupt ways with the usage of their weapons.