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Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not military targets, unless you define every urban center a military target, by virtue of its productive capacity. Once you do that
by DiogenesKynikos 3y ago
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not military targets, unless you define every urban center a military target, by virtue of its productive capacity. Once you do that, the entire idea of separating civilian and military targets becomes an absurdity, and you might as well admit that you consider "enemy" civilians to be fair targets.
Historically, the major reason why the US targeted Hiroshima and Nagasaki was that the US military wanted to test its two bomb designs on large, pristine urban centers. Attacking pristine targets made measuring the effects of the bombs easier. If Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been significant military targets, they likely would have been bombed much earlier. In a perverse way, they were chosen because they weren't military targets.
- Robotbeat 3y agoThe claim was "purely civilian," which was false. End of.
- hef19898 3y agoBy that time, 1945, no city, or town, of any of the beligerents was "purely" civilian anymore. Doesn't excuse the deliberate killong of hundreds of thousands of non-combatants so.
- Robotbeat 3y agoI’m not. One of the criteria was that it had to have at least SOME military significance.
- DiogenesKynikos 3y agoIt was as close to "purely civilian" as anything could get. A large city with no particular military value, whose urban center was explicitly targeted (rather than any particular industrial site).