Well, isn't this deeply disturbing?

[Kevin]

While in WW II, massive firebombing of civilian regions was considered a valid military tactic to cause the bombed country to lose the "will to fight".  The fact that that never worked didn't deter anyone on either side.  Now that policy would be considered "barbaric".

I should be careful of the nits I pick because my knowledge isn't always as sound as it should be, but I seem to recall that both sides tried desperately to keep bombs out of civilian areas early on. I recall reading that it was a bomber off course mistaking a target and hitting a civilian aread that dominoed to the rockets and firebombing. Certianly there were early manufacturing targets in civilian areas but it was still attempted to keep the civilain hits as low as possible. Leaders on both sides knew that it would be ineffective to and possibly counter productive to hit civilian areas. There were fears that it could snowball out of control if it did start. When it did start, they were right, and it carried too much inertia to stop.

I could be mistaken on some of this, but that is what I seem to recall learning, and it seems to stack up with the facts that I have checked. I'm not sure it was ever considered valid until after it was too late to do anything about it, which is something in itself to ponder.

Other than that, I agree with the rest of what you said (especially the end of it), but that was a large enough point in my mind to warrant bringing it up, even on shaky grounds. It makes a difference that the leaders of the war efforts didn't want to have the practices that ended in the war start. The failure to prevent it and keep it controlled are also lessons that should be heeded as well if you are going to try and wield the tool of war.


I think many people are thinking of the Geneva convention and the rules and military laws that came out of that in this discussion as well. There are several sources out there, but this one seems to have the whole text it was just one of the early hits on a google for it.