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Kamala Harris makes an official statement in support of political assassinations
(www.whitehouse.gov)
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this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2024
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In the mouths of western politicians, the word "diplomacy" is synonymous with unconditional surrender. They would rather burn the world to the ground than accept that they can't get all of their maximalist demands and engage in actual good faith negotiations with their adversaries, trying to work out a compromise.
As seen in Nagasaki and Hiroshima
IIRC the damage inflicted by the atomic bombings weren't especially noteworthy compared to the rest of the bombing campaign, and it was more a way to test out their new toys. If the nukes hadn't been used but conventional bombing had continued, it would likely have had a similar result. This video by Shaun lays out a pretty compelling case that the Japanese surrender was due to the Soviet declaration of war and invasion of Manchuria.
This is all ignoring of course that despite the insistence of unconditional surrender, the Americans accepted surrender with conditions and allowed the emperor to continue to hold his titles anyway. There's definitely something to be said about taking maximalist positions just to make a point even when they don't actually care about several of the goals that make up those positions.
And as a demonstration for any would-be challengers (one in particular, and we all know who) to the emerging US hegemonic dominance, a demonstration not just of the destructive capacity of nukes but of their willingness to use it.
Are you saying that using nukes against civilian populations was equivalent to conventional bombing because of "the damage"? What point are you trying to make here?
The point is that Nagasaki and Hiroshima weren't exceptional, but rather typical of US bombing strategies against civilian populations that the US has continued to use into the modern day.
I would say that by the very nature of it being nukes it was exceptional. Like, the very definition of exceptional. Yes, the USA often bombs instead of negotiating, that is not exceptional.
The fire bombing of civilians were terrible and shouldn't be forgotten in the shade of the mushroom cloud.
It should also be of note that it would terrify the people of NK, the atom bomb dropping on Japan was a cultural milestone for them.