Hiroshima and Nagasaki

With the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the U.S. DIRECTLY targeted civilians.  They also directly targeted civilians with the firebombing of Tokyo and Dresden.  The Japanese and German GOVERNMENTS committed many atrocities, but that in no way makes it moral or right for the U.S. to murder civilians in those countries.

You can make all the arguments you want about how murdering these civilians brought an early end to the war.  This does not change the fact that civilian men, women, and children were murdered.  When other people do this, we call them terrorists.  That label applies equally here.

>>11
It's not a question of being proud of killing people. Like >>8 said, there were two options to take, both involve deaths and it's impossible to say if waiting longer for a Jap surrender would cause more or less misery. I'm just glad we took the bold decision and got a clear victory for the better men.

Dropping the bomb has also put the Western countries off warring with one another for the last 60 years. I mean, would the Soviets and US have been hesitant to start a war if they hadn't already seen the destruction inflicted upon Japan first hand? Thank God the first bomb was dropped on Japan and not Russia, or we might not be here right now.