While most Americans are quite familiar with the fact that the United States of America dropped two devastating atomic bombs on Japan in August of 1945, they are far less familiar with the firebombing of Tokyo, accomplished five months previously, in March of 1945, of which it is estimated that there were 100,00 deaths, upon this major city filled not with military officers or armaments, but with civilians.
To believe, somehow that the deliberate and premeditated killing of civilians at an industrial scale is somehow acceptable and therefore not a clearcut war crime is not to understand that warfare necessitates some degree of rules that are abided by all parties, and the wanton killing of unarmed civilians for no greater purpose other than to put the “fear of the wrath of God” into them is a chilling type of inhumane mindset. Remember this well, military officers have a definite chain of command which necessitates that several of the highest officers in this land, in addition to the Commander in Chief, somehow saw fit to permit this air bombing with incendiary cluster bombs, with the sure knowledge that this would create an incredible conflagration, which it duly did, and subsequently killed 100,000 people, along with a significant amount of property damage.
So too, it’s easier to commit this type of action, when the propaganda so being disseminated at that time, made it seem as if Japanese were subhuman, and by virtue of designating the Japanese as being lesser than, it thus made it far easier to kill that which wasn’t considered to be fully human, though, of course, Japanese are just as human as any other race within this world.
The one thing that can be said about bombing, precision or not, is that the destructive power of bombs is often quite impressive. To the degree that bombing is a necessary act to destroy enemy military infrastructure and/or military troops has its place, but it should not be used on civilians, or in areas in which civilians are prominent, because, quite frankly, war is supposed to be about military forces engaging one another, and not about unnecessary and unwarranted taking of lives of civilians, especially when we consider that the firepower of modern day’s armaments has never been exceeded in the history of humankind, which signifies that there is an inherent responsibility to demonstrate restraint, for those that do not, winners or losers, should be held to account for wrong and unnecessary acts, for the sake of the good and future of humanity.
Instead, what we so find is that it is the victors that do all the judging after a war, in which their crimes aren’t even typically recognized as crimes, but rather, the losing side is the one to suffer the general opprobrium and penalties which are duly imposed upon them, seemingly saying to the general public, that it’s okay to commit war crimes as long as you win, because the only thing that really matters is winning, no matter the ethical and moral cost that will have to be paid at some future date, somehow and somewhere.