
Why Aren’t Hiroshima and Nagasaki War Crimes? - monort
http://fff.org/2016/05/12/arent-hiroshima-nagasaki-war-crimes/
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sfifs
Winners of wars have historically written history and decided how wartime
actions are viewed. Hence Allied forces as the victors got to choose who would
stand trial for war crimes.

In modern wars (practically starting with the Vietnam war), the growing power
of media and plummeting costs of acquiring and transmitting photos and videos
have given even the losers the power to subvert narratives put out by victors,
hence the necessity of even powerful forces to take additional precautions.

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krapp
The comments in this Quora article on this very subject[0] make a good case
that the atomic bombings weren't war crimes. As much as I disagree with the
atomic bombings on moral and humanitarian grounds, and have a general knee-
jerk bias against American militarism in general, it seems the US didn't
violate the rules of war which were understood at the time and that Hiroshima
and Nagasaki were legitimate military targets. The atomic bombings were acts
of warfare, but not war crimes.

Of course, it's worth mentioning that the #1 answer in that article is
"Because the US won," which is also true. Even if the atomic bombings had been
war crimes, who's going to put the world's only (at the time) nuclear
superpower on trial for them?

[0][https://www.quora.com/Why-didnt-the-US-face-a-human-
rights-t...](https://www.quora.com/Why-didnt-the-US-face-a-human-rights-trial-
for-dropping-the-bombs-at-Hiroshima-and-Nagasaki)

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okket
> On the one hand, we’re told that the intentional targeting of civilians in
> wartime is a war crime.

It is not that simple, consider the WWII bombing of Dresden (which is
defendable IMHO), for example...

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fallinghawks
Wikipedia: "researchers have asserted that not all of the communications
infrastructure, such as the bridges, was targeted, nor were the extensive
industrial areas outside the city centre. Critics of the bombing argue that
Dresden was a cultural landmark of little or no military significance, and
that the attacks were indiscriminate area bombing and not proportionate to the
commensurate military gains."

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Tiquor
Simply becauase the sensibilities and perspective that would make it one came
into being after WWII.

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meira
Because it wasn't done by Russians

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DrScump
The incendiary bombings of Tokyo killed more.

