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In all fairness, the Germans have a point. No, I'm not calling Churchill a war criminal. But the fact is that the allied bombing campaign was deliberately intended to kill women and kids, and strike terror in the civilian population. Was it justified, given the horrible regime we were fighting? I personally wrestle with the answer to that one. We simply couldn't let the Nazis win, and I don't see how we could have prevented it without leveling entire cities in Germany and Japan. But that doesn't make the actual doing of it any the less horrific.

Some of our recent war technique has been to shut down the power grid. Everyone in America was afraid that the grid here would go down because of Y2K. I'm sure that there is extensive monitoring for any suspicious activity around power plants and relay stations but can we really prevent dedicated suicide bombers from achieving their goal?

Our enemy this time around has shown a willingness to specifically target women and children. That's what this article is all about, should the New Allies be bombing in civilian areas (knowing that collateral damage may include women and children) or targeting the power grid (which plunges a developing nation into the stone age and hurts innocent civilians).

As Rush says, the purpose of war is to kill people and break things. We don't specifically target day care centers, elementry schools, mosques, hostpitals, and universities so we do show some restraint but people die in war. Are we willing to let the opposition continue to mount armorments (of increasing casualty yield), knowing that they hold no such restraints on civilians (knowing that Saddam has attacked Iraqi citizens himself)?

Your sentiments are closest to mine. While understanding the need for the a-bomb blasts, it still doesn't make me jump up and shout with glee that whoopee, half a million Japanese were vaporized. The killing of civilians (justified or not even against a monstrous, savage foe like Imperial Japan) is always horrible. But it's easy to sit back an criticize our leaders who at the time were in a fight for actual survival.

Incidentally, who here on this forum wouldn't approve of an a-bomb blast on Berlin if possible early in the war knowing the millions that Hitler and his minions had slaughtered and would continue to? This was not a gentleman's war if there was ever such a thing.