Hiroshima justified? (was Enola Gay: Burnt flesh and other magnificent technological achievements)

(was Enola Gay: Burnt flesh and other magnificent technological
achievements)
From:
Date: 12/22/2003 5:48 PM Central Standard Time
Message-id:

"Linda Terrell" wrote in message

l3.net...
The horror of Hiroshima is the sheer indiscrimate nature of the
destruction. If atom bomb had been dropped on a Japanese military
target it might have been justified. But, to kill like that in
Hiroshima and Nagasaki was blind and savage overkill.

Hiroshima was a military target -- it was a port wity with several
railroad lines running in and out of it. That means supplies going
to the Army.

So does that make entire cities like San Diego "military targets" as
well? If al-Qaeda or North Korea nuked Arlington or DC, would you
chalk it up as a respectable act of war?


If there are valid targets distributed throughout San Diego and the enemy has
precision guided munitions then the entire city is not a target. But that is
not the point. No one had any PGMs in WW2. In Hiroshima the targets were
distributed througout the city. With no PGMs how would YOU target a rail head
in a heavily populated and defended area in 1945?

Al-Qaeda is a terrorist organitation not recognized as a state. Therefore an
act such as you describe would be a criminal act.

We are not at war with North Korea. If we were and it went nuclear they would
be militarily correct to strike D.C. as it contains many legitimate targets.

I ask again, how would YOU have taken out the legitimate targets in Nagasaki
and Hiroshima using only weapons available in WW2? How many civilian casualties
would there be with your method?

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired