"The deliberate taking of an innocent life is one. "
Even so-called "collateral damage"?
The adjective "deliberate" makes a difference. If it's done as a means or as an end, OR if it's done in an indiscriminate way, it's deliberate.
As for the firebombings of Japanese civilians:
(1) Those who commanded it, said it was a means to an end. A way to psychologically stun the Japanese leadership so badly that they would surrender.
(2) The death of the civilians was part of the US intention. That is, if our bombing approach had, by some fluke or miracle, destroyed all the military targets in the city but left every single civilian unharmed, it would have been considered a disappointment and significant failure.
(3) I think some people saw it as a matter of proportionality (they would say the catastrophic loss of civilians lives was neither intended nor indiscriminate, but was just a collateral loss because the A-bomb was the only or the best way to take out the military targets) --- but I am convinced that this is incorrect.
A more discriminating method of bombing was already available. The purpose was not just hitting those military targets: it was to create such unthinkably massive civilian trauma as to cause psychological collapse and the abandonment of the war effort.
That's not the same as collateral damage.