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That's why every effort has to be made to spare civilian lives and civilian values: all those churches, schools, museums, the treasures of centuries of art and culture; and the civilian infrastructure needed for survival: the air, the water, the soil, the livestock, the food crops, the water treatment system. (Think of the way Lee conducted war. Then, think of Sherman.)

I am not arguing in favor of a pacifist position. I think that just, strictly limited acts of war can be used to defend or rescue civilian lives and values. This can be not only permissible, but under certain circumstances, obligatory for those who have the duty to defend their people.

I am arguing that unrestrained slaughter is murder. Incinerating civilians is not what a good soldier does. It is not what a just warrior does. A person or nation who does this (and does not repent) is going over to the Dark Side.

Mother Teresa said that "the fruit of abortion is nuclear war." I fear she's right about that. But what I see is that it works both ways. A policy of city = target in war convinced the once Judeo-Christian West that killing the innocent was a useful, permissible thing, if you have a good enough reason. From that to megabortion in the USA (50,000,000 American children killed since 1973) was a short bloody slide indeed.

Is the loss of 50,000,000 American children our punishment for the firebombings of WWII? It could be its spiritual fruit.