Remember people who got upset when we bombed someplace in South Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan? Yes, it is extremely unfortunate to all those thousands of innocent civilians killed. Those were tentatively friendly or allies.

We all remember how historically important the Allied bombing was in defeating the German forces in World War II. We seldom bombed Germany until 1944. Before that time we bombed the conquered countries of France, Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg. In 1944, before D-Day, we bombed French cities and towns to prevent their use by the Wehermacht in getting to the beachhead. That bombing program alone may have killed over 60,000 French men, women and children. Thousands more died from tactical bombing and artillery. We don’t think about that so we gloss over that part of history.

After the Italians surrendered and the Germans kept going we bombed Italian towns and cities killing innocent people. We didn’t care.

We leveled German cities, killing hundreds of thousands in their homes. We learned how to create a firestorm when the British and we bombed Dresden with incendiaries. The updraft from the fires suffocated people in their cellars. It sucked people off their feet and into the inferno from blocks away. That lesson was the basis for our firebombing of Japan’s cities. The deaths in some cities were greater than Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Oddly the bad guys killed a much smaller percentage of civilians by bombing than we did. When people really dig into history instead of glossing over and seeing what we want go see, it becomes almost worthless. Motivations for actions are a sign of the times. Think slavery and owners.