Were the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki war crimes?
The justification for dropping the bombs was that it would have cost too many lives (American soldiers lives) conducting a land invasion, as was evident from previous land invasions of islands off the coast of Japan. The same rationale could have been used for Vietnam, but wasn’t. It seems obvious that between the two wars America had become somewhat P.R. conscious. Regardless of what crimes the Japanese leaders were or were not guilty of in WW2, the majority of the people who were rootlessly killed and injuried when the bombs were dropped were innocent civilians like you and me. They were innocent in the same as the majority of British people were innocent of atrocities the British army were involved in, in forgien countries in the past. Innocent people were knowingly killed so a crime was committed.
