Re:Stay the fuck where you are! (Score 3, Informative)

I agree that WWII was general not a model case of avoiding noncombatant casualties, but I will point out a few facts:

1. When the USAAC and RAF firebombed Dresden, they caused more casualties than in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

2. The Japanese used WMDs (as currently defined as Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical weapons) first; estimates of casualties from their attacks on Chinese cities using plague are in the 50k to 100k range.

3. The U.S. previously avoided using WMD on Iwo Jima, which it was not necessary to cancel (the Navy's plans to gas it and bypass were vetoed by the President).

4. Invading Japan would've made Iraq (and Iran) look like a picnic; estimated U.S. casualties to establish an initial beachhead on the Home Islands were in excess of a quarter million; Japanese civilian and military casualty figures were estimated at several times higher. The persistent effects of nuclear weapons were not well understood for decades after - the U.S. was still doing "training exercises" with troops in close proximity to nuclear weapons into the 1960s.

So yes, the U.S. is only nation to use nuclear weapons in combat, but the use in WWII is still "permissible" under current U.S. and international (including French) WMD policy (which considers all NBC weapons to be equal, as we "official" don't have any of those).

Just my $0.02.

P.S.: Yes, I'm going to vote for Obama.