World War II was a war of unprecedented death and destruction, much of it focused on civilians. Why?

Question

Or should the United States have waged the bombing campaign against enemy cities that culminated in dropping the atomic bombs?

Answer 1

It wasn't just the U.S.  Other countries bombed indiscrimantely in heavily populated areas to lower morale as a means to bring the war to an end.  Germany did this with the Blitz in England (1940), the Japanese did this in Port Moseby and other parts of SE Asia and China, and the English did it in turn to the Germans.  They assumed that the civilian population would force the leadership of their respective countries to surrender rather than endure more heavy bombing.

Answer 2

WWI WAS AN ATTEMPT TO END ALL WARS. IT WAS BRUTAL, INHUMANE, FUTILE, AND SET THE PRECEDENTS FOR WWII. THE FIRST WAS A TOTAL DISREGARD FOR THE SANCTITY OF ALL LIFE. THE SECOND WAS THAT INCIDENTS, LIKE THE LUSITANIA , WERE NEVER TOTALLY EXPLAINED NOR ACCOUNTED FOR. THIRDLY, UNFORTUNATELY, THE ORIENTAL HAS HAD AN UNUSUAL ATTITUDE TOWARD HUMAN LIFE. THEIR DISREGARD CAN BE ILLUSTRATED BY OUR INVOLVEMENT IN KOREA AND NAM.

AS A SIDEBAR, STALIN DID A PRETTY JOB BY HIMSELF ETHNIC CLEANSING HIS OWN PERCEIVED ENEMIES. HOW MANY MILLIONS ALONE DID HE EXTERMINATE?

Answer 3

Up until Liberals took over, that's how wars where fought. Total war. One country against another. That is also how you win a war. You make the other country, civilians and all, lose the will to fight.

I guarantee you if we waged the same war against Iraq that we did against Germany, this c**p would have been over a long time ago.

Support a terrorist or hide them? Bomb the village to the ground. I bet after one or two of those, they would fear us more than the insurgents. That's how you win a war.

In WW2, we only won after the people themselves where demoralized and beat. The people (civilians) are the country.

Also, we never bombed solely civilian targets. Every target, even though it involved civilians, was a military target. Whether it was a rail junction, base, manufacturing, army command etc.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki where both HQ of the Army as well as major military manufacturing centers.

The war wasn't focused on civilians, they got caught up in it.

Please don't try and second guess decisions made 60 plus years ago, esp when you probably have a limited grasp of the events and history of ww2. Most people alive today do not have the type of courage and stones it took to make the tough choices of WW2. No modern President can come close to the choices FDR and Truman made. Those where men, not these man boys we have trying to run  the show today. McCain is probably the only one left who understands tough choices.

Answer 4

Every theater of war was commited and sanction off of a fraud campaign for bankers.

Answer 5

In the second world war there was very little difference between military and civilians.

The dropping of the atomic bombs saved countless lives by ending the war in short order.