Solvet Saeclum in Favilla - On the Morality of the Dresden Bombings.

 "The Nazi Holocaust was among the most evil genocides in history. But the Allies’ firebombing of Dresden and nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were also war crimes..."    - Dr. Gregory H. Stanton, president of Genocide Watch.

       As technology and "progress" in the field of military technology continue to increase, one is constantly confronted with moral questions and dilemmas. In light of the recent Air-Strikes against Libya, I think that a brief discussion of the morality of certain means of aerial combat would be auspicious.
       The particular method which I would like to discuss is the so-called "Terror-Bombings", of which was made extensive use during the Second World War.
In the bombing of Dresden, for instance, the RAF and USAF utilized over 10 1/2 Million pounds of high-explosives, as well as almost 4 million pounds of incendiary bombs. These attacks killed anywhere from twenty-five thousand to two hundred and fifty thousand civilians. Although the military expediency of the attacks is still debated today, the issue which I would like to address is the moral ramifications of the actions.
   Many people seem to justify the bombings, on the basis of a point-for-point theory of wartime retribution. Though it is certainly true that the atrocities of the Nazi Party were unparalleled on the Allied side, I think that any attempt at justification based on this fact is odious. If we try to justify our own actions based off of the actions of our opponents, where do we stop? It is a slippery slope that no civilized nation will allow itself to set foot on. For verily, if we base our view of morality and justice on the conduct of our antagonists, we have the potential to become as bad, if not worse than the evil we are fighting.
   And so, if a perverted idea of justice is an insufficient pretext for such act, then where do we turn next?
 The other oft-repeated line is that military expediency outweighs the moral consideration of such bombings.
    I would once again deny the validity of this argument. Indeed it is an unavoidable fact of war that civilian lives will be lost, but that makes it no less reprehensible. There is a great gulf of difference between civilian deaths as an accidental aspect of warfare, and civilian deaths as an essential part of warfare. An example of the first case would be the bombing of a munitions factory, where civilians might be killed as collateral. This is a most regrettable happenstance, but is not sufficient to anathemize the use of explosive weapons. An example of the second case would be the previously mentioned Dresden, where the actual target of the attack a civilian city-center (Indeed, fifteen square miles, over ninety percent of the city-center was totally destroyed)
    In the former case, the death of civilians is an accidental (in the philosophical sense, i.e. something which goes with, but is not necessary or innate to the act) aspect, whereas in the latter the civilian casualties are an essential (i.e. premeditated and intrinsic) part of the operation. In this line, between cases one and two, we see also the line between justice and barbarity, between lamentable necessity and malign gratuitous slaughter. Here we find the difference between War and Genocide.