One reason that LeMay targeted the civilian areas of Tokyo is that the Japanese had farmed their military production out, so to speak, to civilian areas. People had the machinery ... dies, jigs, etc. ... to build stuff for the war effort in their homes and did so. There are stories of recon flights who took pictures of the damage coming back with shots of scorched lathes, drill presses, etc., still standing amid the ashes. So while horrible in one sense ... IMHO, what happened in Tokyo on the night of May 9-10, 1945, was worse than Hiroshima ... I think it was perfectly justifiable and I feel not one iota of guilt about it.
I don't feel any guilt about it at all, since I was not responsible for either the decision or the actual dropping of bombs. What I mean to ask is, at what point do we as civilized people begin to believe we've gone too far, even in war? And that having answered that question for myself, I intended to begin a debate on the question. Instead, I've been bombarded by a lot of crap that seems to go along the lines of "if you don't believe it was justified, then you're a commie pinko, possibly a liberal and probably engaged in a propaganda campaign to smear the brave Americans who firebombed people who lived in paper houses", only not in so many words.
But I thank you for your reasonable response, at least.