Reply #329: The 'what if'-scenario is simply not relevant to this discussion.

[DutchLiberal]

The debate was over whether or not the dropping of the A-bomb was a war crime. The 'alternative' is not relevant to that discussion, because 'the alternative' is not known. We can guess about it, speculate about it, we can have historians and military experts voice their predictions, but the fact of the matter is: we don't know what would have happened, because it never *did* happen. What *did* happen, though, was the dropping of the A-bomb and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians, the total destruction of an entire city, and thousands of deaths in the generations that came after them because of the radiation. If that *isn't* a war crime, I would like to know what *is*.