[Vision2020] Why the Nagasaki Bombing and Why So Soon After?

[Ralph Nielsen]

When I was in Nagasaki last May we were told that the Americans had  
originally intended to drop the second bomb on another largely  
industrial city, whose name I don't remember. But the clouds were so  
thick over that city that they dropped the bomb on Nagasaki instead,  
where the clouds had just cleared for a little while. Nagasaki is a  
very hilly city, so not nearly as many people were killed as in flat  
Hiroshima (which I also visited).

Ralph



[Vision2020] Why the Nagasaki Bombing and Why So Soon After?

nickgier at adelphia.net nickgier at adelphia.net
Wed Nov 15 14:38:38 PST 2006

There is credible evidence that the main reason for the Nagasaki  
bombing was to test a different type of bomb.  I don't have the  
details or references at my finger tips, but they are available.

Furthermore, when I have time I want to lecture the list about the  
moral failings of utilitarianism, the only "moral" theory that can  
conclude that the ends justify the means, and theory that has been  
used quite a bit by at least two on this list.

I believe that the atomic bombing of Japan, just as any conventional  
bombing of populated centers, can have no moral justification at  
all.  It can be justified as only an expedients means to a desired  
end and nothing more than that.

Nick Gier