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Originally Posted by Rochard
World War II during the 1940s was a vastly different time. The logic was "this city has multiple plants that builds tanks and ball bearings and tank shells, and thus the entire town is a viable military target". The local population was considered a legitimate military target because they were working in the plants and factories that supported the war effort.
Most people fail to understand what really happened during WWII and the bloodshed involved. It was brutal. Look at it this way - some estimates place deaths at over sixty million people during WWII... Which is like everyone in France dead.
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Something to consider. We were never able to kill civilians on such a grand scale before. Planes and bombing were new. We always look back and think they were making reasoned decisions. Think about how no one had ever done it before, and they were trying out new weapons in real time. In hindsight they were war criminals but since it was us no one wants to say that. Almost no one had targeted civilians to such an extent.
Through out history the civilian casualty rate was about 1 to 1 with soldiers. It started to sky rocket in the 20th century and is now more like 4 to 1.