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.

Who do you think was in the millitary, killing all those civilians?  robots?  Hello Kitty?  Astro Boy?  The Japanese were a monolithic racist culture, they saw EVERYONE who wasn't them as worthless.  That sort of culture is a threat to everyone else.  Kinda like the wahabbist muslims today (the flavor that did 9/11).

It's (total) war, and in war, lots of people die.  WWII is the closest mankind has ever come to total war - the civilians actually were valid targets, since they built the machinery of war.  Kill the folks making the bombs/bullets/guns, etc and you stop the material from reaching the soldiers - therefore valid targets.  Kill them in their homes so they can't go to the factory, and they can't make the war material.  Bomb the shit out of the city so that those who survive cannot go to work in the factory to make the weapons to kill us.  Demoralize them enough and they might force the gov't to surrender (see 1917 Russia)  Also, had we invaded, those "civilians" would have been trying to kill us.  Again, valid targets. 

In short, morality has no place in war.  War is win or die, and I prefer to win...

So, in summary:  WWII was essentially total war, and in total war everyone/everything is a valid military target, because EVERYONE is contributing to the war effort.  That means that EVERYONE in Japan was doing their part to kill more Americans. 

Welcome to real life.

btw, so it's better to shoot them dead than to nuke them dead?  seriously, that's what you're saying...