I am proud of that fact that at the onset of the US involvement in WWII, the USAF did sited daytime bombing against military targets.
They were as precise as you could be in the early 40's. We know that often looks like laying swathes of useless destruction today, but that was NOT a war crime: they were as precise as they COULD be. More than that, being physically impossible, would not have been morally obligatory.
I am not making an anti-war argument here, or even an anti-bombing argument. I am making the fundamental distinction that the difference between an good soldier/sailor/airman/marine and a Nazi, is that the good guys have moral limits. They do not indiscriminately slaughter, or intentionally target and massacre, noncombatants.
Is that your measure of the threshold for a war crime? Then may we expect your retreat from the charge against Sherman and the union soldiers. Because they did none of that.
I am making the fundamental distinction that the difference between an good soldier/sailor/airman/marine and a Nazi, is that the good guys have moral limits. They do not indiscriminately slaughter, or intentionally target and massacre, noncombatants.
<><><><><><
How do Hiroshima and Nagasaki fit into the calculus above?
You should look into it a bit more. The firebombing of Dresden was done by both the RAF and US bombers in February 1945. Over a three day period both forces bombarded the city as a whole, targeting civilians and not just military or industrial targets. And the firebombing of Japanese cities, not to mention Hiroshima and Nagasaki, were both indiscriminate and designed to kill as many civilians as possible. But that is war, and war is hard. So where were they any worse than Sherman was?