If directly intentionally killing innocent human beings isn't murder, how the blankety-blank would you define murder?
I'm looking for a definition.
Serious question.
To say the people of Dresden were totally innocent is not an accurate statement.
The thinking was if the civilians were working in the factories they were aiding the Nazi war effort.
Under the concept of total war the objective was to destroy your enemies ability to wage war. The civilians were making the planes, tanks, bullets, etc for the Nazi war machine.
Dresden was a major transportation hub. Part of the reason for the bombing was to impede German troop movements to the Eastern Front and to cause confusion among German civilians fleeing the Russians.
After the Battle of the Bulge the Allies realized it was going to be a tough road to Berlin. We have to recall a good number of the Nazis fought on till the very end. There was the rumor of a National Redoubt where fanatical Nazis were storing weapons, supplies, etc in a last ditch effort to hold out. Fortunately this did not transpire. What we did not know though was which house or which village would the Nazis fight for. If airpower could kill the enemy and Allied soldiers survive, I'm ok with that.
The Nazis used Dresden as propaganda against the bombing raids. Sadly, some of the Allied media ran with the story.
However, in the earlier raids against Berlin, Stuggart, Hamburg, and all of the other major German cities there was no such questioning in Allied media circles. There was a war to win.
Germany started the war by bombing civilian targets and continued throughout the war where possible.
The Allies finished the War in complete domination.
One key point to remember.
When Germany bombed cities in Poland, Denmark, etc...they did not help those countries rebuild. They exploited them.
When the US and UK bombed German, Italian and Japanese cities we DID help them rebuild.
It seems to me there is a big difference, between innocents killed in war, and innocents killed in a civilian crime action of some sort.
If we are saying that that we should not have bombed German cities, because of innocent civilians there, then would we have won World War II in the manner we won it? Perhaps the war would have been longer, with even more casualties on both sides?
Which leads me to bring up Hiroshima and Nagasaki. While many innocents died in those bombings, the war ended without us having to launch a conventional military invasion of Japan. Which in the long run may well have saved more lives on both sides, than died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.