My understanding is that those fires were not even on the level of Dresden.. The Dresden fire storm happened because several weather factors being present not just the dropping of incendiaries as i remember.. But, No I am not completely aware of those fire storms.. maybe you were correct in the motive of it.. or we both were correct at different levels of hindsight.. or some other motive or motives have dropped off a really accurate Motive'ometer looking at this 60 years later.. Hindsight appears to be 20/20 but hindsight don't include the smell of the dogs of war.. nasty creatures dogs of war.. They don't smell good.. maybe thats a good thing..
I read that Dresden was not a critical military target, not so with the other citys maybe.. Even so, payback is a b!tch.. Lucky the Germans fought such a christian country that generated the Marshall plan.. any other country (like England, France) would have let them stew in their juices.. OR raped them during recovery..
The error of the Marshall Plan only became evident 40 to 60 years later.. No good deed goes unpunished.. Most of the country's the United States has "helped" over the years only ended up hating us.. Germany, France, a good part of England.. Canada.. Russia for sure.. for many reasons.. Still the U.S. has not learned that lesson.. Now, the Iraqis will end up hating us.. even more than they do already.. us being infidels like we are..
Germany and France and England too are black holes of Christian love. There may be a little gratitude there but the black hole won't let it get out.. The "HOLE" absorbs all effects of residual decency and gratitude to any benefactor.. Must be the socialist brain washing and didactic materialism.. that pervades those places.. Socialism is defacto slavery by government, we'll probably have to go save their asses from THAT too.. The work is never done for a "Doo gooder" nation... pity..
The real historical lession is that it is much better to be an American enemy than American friend. America cares about enemies and lets friends down the river.
Until the unification with East German basket case, Germany was much better off than England and France, U.S. allies.
During the Balkan civil wars, U.S. assisted ALL WWII foes in the Balkans (Croatians, Muslims, Albanians) and destroyed the only ally (Serbs) diplomatically, economically and finally through military action.
Croatia who downed more than 120 U.S. planes in WWII got military assistance (including USAF) to complete the ethnic cleansing of Serbs. Serbia, who saved more than 500 U.S. airmen in WWII got bombed for 78 days by USAF under false accusations of ethnic cleansing.
Balkans is not the only blind spot. Ask any Hmong or Cambodian of value of being an American friend. ( Prince Sirik Matak's letter to Ambassador Dean may do)
To be cynical, the wisest thing any country can do is to declare war on America and her future will be secured. The rest should study history and learn from other nations mistakes.