Can there really be civilians in all out war?
It is the "civilians" that manufacture the goods that empower the war machine to continue on.
Some of it yes, but not all. The bombing of Dresden and the fire bombing of Tokyo and both nuclear detonations should have been war crimes. All targeted civilians rather then military targets. its one thing to aim for a military target, or what you think is a military target, then miss and kill civilians. Quite another thing to aim from the start to kill civilians.
Do you want my blunt reply?
The Germans burned ten million people to death in their gas chambers (Jews, Gypsies, etc.)
The Japanese murdered millions in China (anybody hear about Nanking? And that was only for starters). Add in another million in the Philipines.
Whatever they got, they deserved it. (And I think God probably thinks the same thing.)
That is exactly what Muslims say to themselves when they fly passenger jets into buildings here in the U.S.
Plus, occasionally the killing of those civilians can end a war with less people getting killed than would have happened without those civilians getting killed.
That is the rationale for knocking down the World Trade Center Towers.
"Can there really be civilians in all out war?
It is the "civilians" that manufacture the goods that empower the war machine to continue on."
That's Osama's argument as well.
"Can there really be civilians in all out war?"
Nope. People want war to be a police action where soldiers arrest each other instead of kill them. Declarations of war don't say "against the army of the other country."