The use of nuclear weapons is a horrific thing; this should never be forgotten. I pray they are never, ever used to harm human beings again.
Saying that, and borrowing on Targan's comment on WMDs, need I point out the CBW branch of the Imperial Army, Special Unit 731 and its long run in China and Manchuria? Or the specialized ceramic "bomb" developed to keep bacteriologic weapons viable until dropped? Bubonic plague-infested rats set loose in China, such that the disease kept resurfacing for years thereafter? Then there is the Uranium-235 shipped to Japan from Germany, with which the Japanese were to manufacture a dirty bomb: any doubt as to whether they would have hesitated for humanitarian reasons?
Consideration for the civilian population was not a strong point in Japanese military culture, and hadn't been for over a decade--problems were evident in China in the '20s.
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"Let's roll." Todd Beamer, aboard United Flight 93 over western Pennsylvania, September 11, 2001.
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