You might be right and make good points. Morally there were many questionable decisions on both sides, but by and large it is very difficult in my mind to compare our sins against those of the Axis powers who initiated the conflict.
It is an interesting argument and one that hopefully we never have to consider in the future.
The “strategic bombing campaign” as they called it in Europe did serve a useful military purpose. It pulled significant resources from the Eastern front allowing Russia a bit more breathing space (especially their air force) as most of the German fighter planes were occupied attacking the bombers. Once the P51’s were able to escort bombers all the way to Berlin they pulled even more fighter aircraft from the Eastern front and we were able to destroy the Luftwaffe on both fronts. As Herman Goering said, he knew the war was over when he saw the P51’s over Berlin.
The performance of the Russian Air Force improved dramatically and relatively consistently with the increase in the bombing campaign in the West and in the last year of the war they were quite successful against the Wehrmacht. It is difficult to gauge what impact the thousands of diverted fighter planes had to the Eastern Front but it certainly made a difference as Russian air attacks continued to grow in effectiveness against the Germans.
People forget how much pressure the Russians were under because the US and the Brits took a very long time to invade France and open up the second front. Italy and North Africa were effective but still paled in comparison to the war in the East, but every little bit helped.
While the bombing campaign against cities raises moral questions it undoubtedly took some pressure off of the Russian forces in the East. It consumed huge resources for Germany to try and defend herself not just in men and material (primarily fuel) but as the war proceeded and less fighter opposition was encountered our escort aircraft did major damage to the German’s supply chains by destroying trains, trucks, and other movements.
It can be argued that had it NOT been for the bombing campaign in the West the Luftwaffe might have potentially turned the tide on the Eastern front. The Germans would have also had a lot more artillery on the Eastern front as well being used as flak guns to defend cities and industry. The impact of the bombing campaigns did cause major disruptions to German logistics and it caused a large loss (and commitment) of resources that Germany could ill afford. The Red Army took the brunt of the fighting in the European theater. We delayed D-Day for a very long time - some would say too long as the Russians bled so the main contribution we made up until D-Day was the bombing campaign.
The entire war was brutal. However, considering the behavior of Germany (or Japan) during the war we had little sympathy. Even the much disputed raid on Dresden did significant damage to essential factories and transportation. Too many forget that the Germans initiated the Blitz before abandoning the Battle of Britain because they did not have good bombers. They even continued with V1 and V2 rockets that were best described as terror weapons.
It was total war demanding unconditional surrender. The bombing campaign turned the conflicts in both theaters into a war of attrition and materials that the Axis powers could not win. The bombing was inaccurate so carpet bombing was the only way to strike targets and we missed more often than we hit. I don’t deny that.
Had either Germany or Japan been able to bomb American cities and industry they would have hammered us. Had they gotten the bomb first they would have certainly used it much as we did.
History is full of questions, but the men of WWII made the decisions they thought were best at the time without the benefit of hindsight. We now have that luxury.
Predictably, higher education in both America and Europe focus heavily on our strategic bombing campaign as a moral question on our part to criticize our nations with very little attention given to the behavior of Axis forces.
The Germans were brutal. To become a POW on the Eastern Front meant a brutal death not to mention the ethnic cleansing campaign of the holocaust to include other groups as well. The Japanese were inhumane to most everyone they encountered including our POW’s.
The only way to truly defeat them was what we did.... right or wrong. It was really the last war that we “won” and it was ugly by necessity.
Just my .02. My Army training was certainly focused to avoid civilian casualties but it was not possible with inaccurate dumb bombs of WWII and those cities did contain factories and materials for the war effort in both Germany and Japan.
The effectiveness and moral costs of it will be debated forever.
Wasting our airmen to give the USSR a break is idiocy: they would have better served the war and in the long run, the Soviets by concentrating on direct attacks on German formations and their staging areas, their fixed fortifications - and just killed German combatants without wasting millions of tons of bombs and countless aircraft missing important targets and killing old people, women and children.
The Air Force has always despised the ground troops and any whisper of direct support ("aerial artillery") is dismissed as useless, yet well-directed and coordinated CAS kills the enemy, shortens the war, and save our ground-pounder lives in the process. The Soviets stuck to direct support as their primary offensive air power and they were right to do so.
That lack of concentration on CAS killed a lot our people too - look at what happened when the Air Force "supported" the drive out of the Normandy bocage using high and medium altitude bombers. They missed for a large part and killed hundreds of our troops because of inherent inaccuracy, no air to ground communication, and no common doctrine.
I served for over 23 years and I had a close look at the way our different service do things - the enormous wastes of men and moral authority of WWII should be learning experiences.