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J. Andres Hannah-Suarez's avatar

"But when you find yourself arguing that civilians are fair game or that Hiroshima is a good model, it’s time to acknowledge that the good guys need red lines, too."

I've heard the Hiroshima excuse at least a dozen times from Israeli apologists.

But something that both Israeli apologists and left-wing commentators always neglect to mention is that a Hiroshima/Nagasaki nuke bombing is COMPLETELTY ILLEGAL under international law since 1948.

After the Nuremberg & Tokyo trials, the Geneva Conventions were updated to make these bombings that disproportionately kill civilians vis-a-vis the valid military objection.

So those who raise the Hiroshima "argument" are by extension saying, fuck international law.

As an interesting side-note, that also really means that every country that has nuclear weapons is essentially reserving the right to commit war crimes if faced with an existential threat. I mean, the unpredictable nuclear fallout alone makes any use of a nuclear weapon in real life circumstances, a war crime.

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Susan Linehan's avatar

There are some people actually saying that nuking Gaza (not just by analogy) would end this crisis. To which I saw: Don't take a weatherman to know which way the wind blows--undoubtedly from the sea to the river.

There are clearly a lot of people too young to remember fall out.

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