I am not going to defend the nuclear bombimg of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In my mind, those acts are indefensible, and were probably my country's greatest transgression of the 20th century. I understand that the power of the bomb needed to be illustrated in order to force the Japanese into surrender and prevent an invasion of Japan that could have resulted in even more loss of life, but the bomb could have been dropped once, on a remote area of Japan. It was clearly used as a weapon that would have massive, indiscriminate, and devastating results against a heavy concentration of population.

I disagree that the bombing of Iraq and Kuwait had the same intent. The shock and awe bombing in 1991 had as its focus communication facilities, airports and transportation hubs, military installations and other targets bearing directly on Iraq's ability to coordinate resistance, and was not directed at inflicting casualties in the general population. The concept of shock and awe as a military tactic is focussed on decapitating the military forces, cutting them off from one another, and by dent of demonstration of massive firepower superiority, to encourage loss of morale and eventual surrender. Estimates of 6600 civilian casualties in the massive and lengthy bombardment are generally disputed as grossly overstated.