Medieval Europe was a much more civilized place than most 'modern' Muslim nations, especially the Arab 'cultural zones'. Americans should take that as a compliment, not a criticism.

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"The real question of life after death isn't whether or not it exists, but even if it does, what problems this really solves." - Ludwig Wittgenstein

"A day without sunshine is, you know, night."- Shannon

It was Hitler that first declared fair game on civilian targets in ww2. Dresden was primarily retaliation for London. Much like Hiroshima and Nagasaki were retaliatory for Pearl Harbor.

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The argument that bombing precision and accuracy in the 1940s were much less impressive than they are today, and that higher levels of collateral damage were inevitable, would be impressive except for the well-documented fact that deliberate slaughter of civilians was an intentional goal of the bombing campaign. While it may be the case that Dresden was a "legitimate military target," it is also the case that its civilian population was considered by the Allied bomber command to be a "legitimate military target" in itself, every bit as much so as a railway hub, a munitions plant, or a retreating German army.

It is that deliberate slaughter of civilians, that terror campaign, that is called into question here. Granted that the Nazi regime did things itself that were at least as bad, one must ask whether a moral equivalency with a historical abomination of such proportions as Nazi Germany is really something we should strive for.

I forgot - By Feb of 1945 I do believe word of Nazi atrocities was becoming widespread. With the liberation of camps like Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka and Auschwits evidencing civilian appeasement of these atrocities no doubt may have played a roll in the decision process.

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Oh, please. This is ridiculous.

So, you're saying we should be proud that we're more civilized than a typical Muslim nation?

Should we also be proud that we're healthier than the corpses in Dresden after the bombing?

aaahhh more balance......

again, you may want to examine that more closely, the bombing of Coventry or Rotterdam has no connection or context in the argument you are making regarding pearl harbor.

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We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile....

One does not always have the luxury of doing what’s right, one does, what is necessary. Churchill.

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We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile....

Cities were bombed for a reason, Germany was winning the Battle of Britain, by focusing it's attacks on British airfields and radar installations, it was destroying more airplanes than Britain could produce every month.
When British switched to attacking German cities, the Germans began bombing British cities in retaliation, which meant they weren't attacking airfields, and the destruction rate of British aircraft fell below the replacement rate, allowing the British to win the Battle of Britain.
Britain could not produce bombers fast enough to replace their losses from daylight raids, so they switched to nighttime raids to reduce the loss rate, cities were the only target that could be hit at night.

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“The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine.”

Senator Thad Cochran, Mississippi (R)
on McCain

“I decided I didn’t want this guy anywhere near a trigger.”
Senator Pete Domenici, New Mexico (R)
on McCain

“My anger did not help my campaign ... People don’t like angry candidates very much.”

McCain on McCain

reasons - right -wrong - necessary - and you can bet a touch of hate is factored in, balance?.... ok

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I'm not saying the hate wasn't there.
I'm saying there were numbers that made the case, cold hard unemotional facts.
Aircraft produced, aircraft lost, correlating with target selection in a way that didn't rely on emotion.
The hate was just piling on to a decision already made by the numbers.

The bombing of Japanese cities was based on a different calculus, but equally unemotional.
At a certain point in the war, the US could reach Japan with long range bombers. There was a short target list of war factories, well defended, and there were cities. Once the war factories had all been hit, there were just cities, and the alternative to bombing cities would have been to stand down the air corps. The city defenses were not as effective as the concentrated defenses around war production facilities, resulting in smaller losses, coupled with the increased production of long range bombers, it meant more and more demand for targets, and a target list that included fewer and fewer military targets, leaving cities as targets.

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“The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine.”

Senator Thad Cochran, Mississippi (R)
on McCain

“I decided I didn’t want this guy anywhere near a trigger.”
Senator Pete Domenici, New Mexico (R)
on McCain

“My anger did not help my campaign ... People don’t like angry candidates very much.”

McCain on McCain

I think the emotion aspect played a much greater role than that. In Europe your description may be applied best to U.S. strategies - but the Brits were hell bent on kicking German Ass with a mighty vengeance.

Same I believe to be true for the Bombing of Japan. The U.S. Air campaign against Japan was very different from that in Europe. Whole Cities were fire bombed at night like there was no tomorrow. A true hatred for the Japanese by Americans during WW2 had much to do with the relentless attacks, Not to mention peace talks that were ignored until we had an opportunity to unload the second atomic weapon on them was very much a statement of don't fuck with US.

Early on in Europe, Many American Troops on the ground had a respect for the German troops and the German people. I am sure this would not have been the case had the Germans managed to bomb New York for example.

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Hate may be present, and play some role in a decision, but the big decisions are made based on a kind of logic, at least the good decisions.

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“The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine.”

Senator Thad Cochran, Mississippi (R)
on McCain

“I decided I didn’t want this guy anywhere near a trigger.”
Senator Pete Domenici, New Mexico (R)
on McCain

“My anger did not help my campaign ... People don’t like angry candidates very much.”

McCain on McCain

I don't think the decision to target German civilians in the strategic bombing campaign was a good one. I also think that World War II was simply a horror, and that those of us who grew up in the victorious nations have an inadequate appreciation for that far too often. (Except possibly for Russians. They were the only victors that actually suffered more than the vanquished.)

World War II had the highest death toll of any war in history, over 50 million people killed.

World War II gave us the most ghastly slaughter of civilian population ever, not only the bombing of Axis cities but also the vicious Einsatzgruppen in Russia, the Holocaust, and events such as the Rape of Nanking.

World War II saw the first and only use of nuclear weapons in war, and (of course) they were used against civilian populations.

World War II saw completely callous treatment of military personnel, not just civilian personnel, from the extensive use of napalm by U.S. troops in the Pacific, to the practice by both German and Soviet authorities of working each others' P.O.W.s to death in huge numbers. The Germans also used Russian P.O.W.s to test the gas chambers at Auschwitz, if I'm not mistaken, and conducted medical experiments on them.

The war coarsened the world. It represented years of complete collective bloodthirst and lunacy. The idea that the evil was only on the other side is completely wrong. Worse evil was on the other side -- that's indeed arguable; the Holocaust alone argues that direction, and besides it was the Germans and Japanese who started the whole thing. But nobody remained unaffected. The whole world went nuts, and all those who took part in it found their hands stained with innocent blood.

They don't make'em like they used to.

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