[Emperor Palpatine]

"OTOH, the Allied bombing campaigns against Germany were intentionally designed to kill as many civilians as possible, so we didn’t have great justification for getting up on a moral high horse over the issue."


Not necessarily. The whole USAAF campaign as conducted by the Eighth Air Force was precision daylight bombing of German industrial plants using the Norden bombsight. They had to fight their way to the target in broad daylight, often without fighter escort, in heavily armed and rugged B-17's and B-24's.

Unfortunately there would always be some spill-over from the factory site that was hit. Then again, why in Hades would the Germans put the Schweinfurt Hochschule right next to a ball-bearing factory?

The Brits indulged themselves in area bombing, but for valid reasons. Their bombers, while able to haul fantastic bombloads like the Lancaster, were very lightly armed and when the Brits did try daylight bombing they got slaughtered. Its almost impossible to hit a precision target at night, so they adopted RAF Bomber Command chieftain Sir Arthur Harris' plan of "de-housing" the German workforce. They got very good at it and their raids caused huge firestorms that disrupted everything, including industry in those cities that were hit. After the massive Hamburg raid of 1943, Minister of Armaments and War Production Albert Speer told Hitler that "..six more raids like that and we've lost the war."

There was probably some payback there as well. Observing a heavy Luftwaffe raid on London, "Bomber" Harris said "Well, they're sowing the wind, I shall make them reap the whirlwind." Churchill was also an enthusiast of area bombing. He said "If you asked any Londoner if we should halt our bombing campaign they would tell you no. They would tell you we should mete out to them the measure - nay more than the measure of what they have meted out to us!"

The casualty figures for both the Eighth and RAF Bomber Command were horrific. These men were heroes.

[Sherman Logan]

The USA largely abandoned its daylight "precision" bombing campaign after horrific casualties, up to the point that fighters became available to accompany the bombers.

In the interim, it conducted area attacks, which were aimed quite intentionally at "civilian morale," or IOW the civilians themselves.

The morality or immorality of an action is not impacted by whether it is dangerous. It it were, the greatest heroes of WWII would be the U-boaters, who suffered by far the highest casualties.

Using your same logic, the terrorists who use women and children as human shields when attacking our troops are justified, since if they come out in the open they will suffer excessive casualties.

Here's a link to commentary on the subject by a relatively objective analyst of "democide," or the intentional killing of civilians by governments, in wartime or peacetime.

http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COMM.10.5.03.HTM