[GoNative]

But during WWII that was the norm. Carpet bombing of cities occurred in Europe too. You never hear that much about the terrible crimes of the British and US forces bombing the crap out of German cities and killing 100's of thousands of civilians do you? We rarely hear that much about the 100 thousand or so people in Tokyo who were killed from fire bombing of the city. The Japanese killed millions of civilians in the countries they invaded. Killing civilians was still pretty much a normal part of war back then.

Anyway point is why is the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki any more horrendous? Purely because so much destruction could be done from just one bomb instead of thousands?

I don't disagree with you that it was terrible and thankfully war has changed somewhat since those days in that they at least now attempt to minimise civilian casualties.