The US certainly adopted a propaganda policy of dehumanisation of their Japanese opponents. This, no matter how you want to describe it, was a policy of racism designed to make it easy for their troops to destroy the enemy.

Whether the bombing of cities in Japan is therefore a rascist attack is more difficuly to reconcile. Personally I dont think it was. While the propagnada was rascist in tone the actions of the air force had a distinct military objective to destroy the enemies will to resist and destroy the civilian infrasturcture.

The same is true of British attacks in Germany. They were aimed at destroying the German will to resist and place further strain on the German economy and cripple the German workforce by destruction.

Sadly it is a fact of 'Total War' that the civilian no longer has the protection that they may have once enjoyed, although even that is open to debate. Civilian deaths are an unavoidable fact in war. It always has been.

As for Dresden, it was seen at the time as a legitimate miltary act and in my mind was merely yet another attack on the German nation in a time of war, albeit one that cost a great deal of lives, but again one that struck at the German workforce and placed strain on the German will to resist.

I once had the good fortune to meet a pilot who dropped the markers Dresden for the bombers. After the war he became a monk in Ireland as he was unable to cope with the deaths he had caused to the civilians. I asked him if he felt his actions were wrong. He stated that although he felt a great deal of guilt at having taken so many lives, he felt that at the time it was right. I asked him if he would do anything differently with hindsight and he said no. It was to him the right thing to do to punish a nation that had started a horrific war, but he has had to live with the knowledge that his actions killed large numbers of people.

In my mind, attacks on civilian centres can be seen as a legitimate target in war. Perhaps not the most politically correct thing to say, but when fighting a regime such as the Third Reich, I believe the ends justify the means.

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"The Americans will always do the right thing ... After they've exhausted all the alternatives."

Winston Churchill