It is noteworthy that Admiral Leahy strongly condemned the use of atomic weapons against the civilians of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

He wrote in his memoirs that:

“It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons… My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make wars in that fashion, and that wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.”

US-led forces accused of dropping white phosphorous on Raqqa

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/06/11/us-led-forces-accused-dropping-white-phosphorous-raqqa/

“US-led forces in Syria have been accused of dropping white phosphorous on districts in eastern Raqqa…Raqqa is Being Saughtered Silently,  an anti-Isil campaign group,  has also released similar images on social media.

The use of white phosphorous in densely populated areas is banned under international law, though military forces are allowed to use it to create smoke screens.

Similar to napalm, white phosphorus causes agonising and potentially deadly chemical burns which have been known to melt skin off the bone.”

U.S.-led forces appear to be using white phosphorus in populated areas in Iraq and Syria

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/06/09/u-s-led-forces-appear-to-be-using-white-phosphorous-in-populated-areas-in-iraq-and-syria/?utm_term=.8f6c859d60ee

“The U.S.-led coalition in Iraq and Syria appears to have used white phosphorus-loaded munitions on at least two occasions in densely populated areas of Mosul and in the Islamic State’s de facto capital of Raqqa, according to videos posted online and human rights groups.

The often-controversial munitions are common in western militaries and are used primarily to create smoke screens, though they can also be dropped as an incendiary weapon. When a white phosphorus shell explodes, the chemical inside reacts with the air, creating a thick white cloud. When it comes in contact with flesh, it can maim and kill by burning to the bone.

While international humanitarian law stipulates that civilians must be protected from all military operations, it also says that countries must take even more care when using white phosphorus. Additionally, because of the weapon’s ability to cause grievous and inhumane injuries, rights groups caution against using white phosphorus to kill enemy troops if other weapons are available.”

U.S.-Led Forces Said to Have Used White Phosphorus in Syria

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/10/world/middleeast/raqqa-syria-white-phosphorus.html

“Images and reports from witnesses in the northern Syrian city of Raqqa suggest that the United States-led coalition battling the Islamic State there has used munitions loaded with white phosphorus, the use of which in populated areas is prohibited under international law.

Photographs and video clips posted online showed blinding spots of light spreading outward on Thursday night over what residents said was eastern Raqqa. By day, the images showed low white puffs trailing tentacles of white smoke. Both are typical visual signatures of white phosphorus, which can be loaded into artillery shells.

Residents reached by text message reported similar bombardments on Friday.

Tens of thousands of civilians are believed to still be in Raqqa, even as many Islamic State leaders have fled south to Mayadeen in Deir al-Zour Province. Unicef, the United Nations Children’s Fund, warned that 40,000 children are believed to be trapped in the city.

Residents said that most of the Islamic State fighters left in Raqqa were local recruits, along with some foreign fighters, and that the most experienced commanders and fighters having decamped.

Abdullah, a Raqqa resident living in Beirut, said his relatives had seen what they believed was white phosphorus being used in the city. He also said that an internet cafe had recently been hit by missiles, killing around 20 people who were trying to reach relatives for possibly the last time after the Islamic State threatened to shut down all internet providers.

One of those killed in the cafe was an activist sending a report to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, according to the group’s founder, Rami Abdulrahman.”

The rogue state’s love affair with infernal weapons, such as napalm, white phosphorus, and hell-fire missiles, not to mention atomic bombs, to bring about the mass incineration or  auto-da-fé  of those it condemns as heretics, i.e., those who oppose its criminal policies and actions, those who want to pursue an independent path, and those it deems their sympathizers, including bystanders and neighbors, has a distinguished history.

Noteworthy are the chapters of this sordid romance of the rogue state with the instruments of mass auto-da-fé in Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki in Japan, in Korea during the Korean war, Vietnam, Iraq, and now in Raqqa, Syria.

Wikipedia entry on this terror campaign of mass incineration of Japanese civilians states:

“On the night of 9–10 March (“Operation Meetinghouse”),^[12] 334 B-29s took off to raid with 279 of them dropping 1,665 tons of bombs on Tokyo. The bombs were mostly the 500-pound (230 kg) E-46 cluster bomb which released 38 napalm-carrying M-69 incendiary bomblets at an altitude of 2,000–2,500 ft (610–760 m). The M-69s punched through thin roofing material or landed on the ground; in either case they ignited 3–5 seconds later, throwing out a jet of flaming napalm globs. A lesser number of M-47 incendiaries was also dropped: the M-47 was a 100-pound (45 kg) jelled-gasoline and white phosphorus bomb which ignited upon impact. In the first two hours of the raid, 226 of the attacking aircraft unloaded their bombs to overwhelm the city’s fire defenses.^[13] The first B-29s to arrive dropped bombs in a large X pattern centered in Tokyo’s densely populated working class district near the docks in both Koto and Chuo city wards on the water; later aircraft simply aimed near this flaming X. The individual fires caused by the bombs joined to create a general conflagration, which would have been classified as a firestorm but for prevailing winds gusting at 17 to 28 mph (27 to 45 km/h).^[14] Approximately 15.8 square miles (4,090 ha) of the city were destroyed and some 100,000 people are estimated to have died.^{[15][16] “}

Here is a glimpse of the mass auto-da-fé of Japanese civilians (at least 100,000 Japanese civilians were incinerated in one night of terror firebombing) carried out by the rogue state in its terror firebombing campaign (“Operation Meetinghouse”)  against Tokyo on the night of March 9-10, 1945.

Any human being, not bereft of an elementary capacity for empathy (“human being” is a dubious designation in the case of those bereft of this elementary capacity of empathy) ought to be able to imagine what the civilians (the victims of ISIS!) in Raqqa, Syria, are now undergoing in the face of the rogue state’s latest assault against them with outlawed weapons of mass incineration.