Re: David Webb
"Firstly, the firebombing of Tokyo killed more people in one night (100,000+ night of 9th/10th March 1945) than either the Hiroshima (60,000) or Nagasaki (90,000) bombs, so I suppose you're fine with people being fried just as long as it's by conventional weapons"
Actually, I think in the absence of evidence to the contrary, it's reasonable to guess that anyone opposed to killing tens of thousands of people by nuclear weapons is probably also opposed to them being killed by being burned to death.
"Secondly, seeing as the Japanese had sworn not to surrender (94% of Japanese soldiers on Okinawa fought to the death and 100,000+ civillians dies fighting the Allies or by committing suicide), and their "innocent civillians" were being organised to resist with both conventional and kiamikaze means, it is highly likely the invasion of Japan we would have to have launched would have killed millions of both "innocent civillians" and Allied soldiers. Much more than Nagasaki and Hiroshima combined, which means dropping the nukes SAVED lifes."
An argument that presupposes American was being forced to invade Japan - a country which at that point was not capable of threatening American interests for a long time thereafter and which we know had already signalled to the USA that it wished to negotiate. How come this argument about saving lives is always trotted out and we're expected to never question the assumption that without the bombs America would be forced to invade Japan in a sustained land-war. Forced by what or who?
"Thirdly, even the simple nukes the Iranians are trying to produce will be much more refined and deadly than Little Boy or Fat Man, and will used on civillian targets simply because the Iranians don't have the tech to make targeted strikes"
If you suppose that American nuclear weapons are all programmed with targetting data to avoid civillian casualties, you have a rather limited grasp of nuclear weapons.