these kind of tactics don't work against terrorism.  It will never work in the middle east and it's exactly why the US is having so many problems.  You can't nuke your way to defeating terrorism.  You can't even really bomb yourself out of terrorism, every bombing seems to only create more terrorists.  Even the most carefully planned anti-terrorist measures seem to backfire in the long run.  The US already did the go out all strategy in afghanistan and iraq and won the conventional war almost immediately, only to be sucked into something they only wish they could get out of.  Even defeating what seems like the most evil regimes seem to have negative consequences.

I think the firebombing was worse but both atomic bombs where terrible also.

War is hell: US forces killed civilians not much differently than Japanese soldiers. Some civilian deaths were more notorious and personal than others sure but deaths nonetheless. In remembering the victims of the atomic bombings, I always make it a habit to remember the 60+ million others who died during the whole of World War 2, not just those who died in the last months.

I find this question amusing: the US and Japan weren't exactly 'friends' when the atomic bombings occurred.

Recently declassified:

Nuclear bomb (report by embassy officials after visiting Hiroshima)

Nuclear bomb and destruction it has caused had a great effect on population of Japan. It has been mentioned in the imperial rescript and official statements of Japanese government as one of the reasons of surrender. Since it's mentioned as an immediate cause of the defeat, naturally mass media widely exagerates its destruction force and duration of the effects after the explosion. Rumors distorts said media statments and carry them to the point of a nonsense. One of the rumor suggests that even now the presense of people in the explosion area is dangerous for one's life. Many times we heard it from Americans and Japanese that women who visited the region exposed to nuclear explosion become incapable of childbirth and men turn impotent.

These kind of talks have been stirred up by the radio broadcast from San Francisco suggesting that no life could exist in the area of an explosion for 70 years.

Interesting that Japanese media along with providing specific and truthful evidences not only failed to debunk this information but instead popularized it, propably pursuing two aims: first of all, justify uncommitted surrender with inability to fight against such a horrible weapon, but also to prevent people from visiting Hiroshima and Nagasaki in search for relatives and friends they have lost.

+ 8 more pages I'm too lazy to translate. This have been written a whole month after the events, the report depicts situation of mass radiophobia stirred up by the media.

It was terrible but if it got us Metal Gear Sold, I have to believe it was worth it.

Very terrible event :/

Just to lighten the mood: Some say it transformed Japan from the land of honourable Samurais to the land of Anime.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWW

Sadly USA stopped caring about minimizing war casualties after WW II so they didn't use this wonderful strategy in the next wars they were involved

Things could have gone better, but they could well have gone worse too. What's done is done.

It's a lie we don't believe anymore.