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but even so, how on earth does it follow from this self-evident claim that therefore all ways of killing are equivalent and that therefore anything, at all, goes?
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The obvious answer is that at the end of the process everyone is equally dead. The only difference is how drawn out the process was and who the person was prior to being dead. Morality has little to do with warfare.
The fact that poison gas was not used as a weapon between c. 1918 and c. 1985 shows that there are some weapons that require restraint. Even at the height of the most total war this planet has ever seen, gas weapons were not used by any side.
Was Nagasaki payback for Pearl Harbor? Maybe. I agree that it seemed to be overkill, but who can say that the current global political landscape would have been different without it? Again, that's a question for novelists, not us.
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Originally Posted by Willravel
Their one condition was to not harm the Emperor.
One thing that cannot be disputed is that Japan had lost it's ability to wage war long before either bomb was dropped. They were no longer a threat to anyone, let alone the US. So dropping the bombs could not have been done in order to prevent the loss of more lives or to stop Japanese aggressions.
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No and no. One of the overtures made was that the Emporer would remain the head of state. There were several others that included the Japanese disarming themselves and that no war criminals would be prosecuted.
Japan had not yet lost it's ability to wage modern war when the bombs were dropped. It was right around the corner and would have happened by September or so, but the US had a valid concern that an invasion would have been very costly given that Japanese civilians were expected to resist as heartily as they did at Okinawa.