Nasty Bible passages.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

In war everyone is a combatant.  The quickest way to end the war is to kill a lot of the other side's civilians since they are the ones who are supporting the armed troops with food and weapons.

Quick does not always mean best. Nuking a country would end a war quickly, but it's a horrible thing to do.

Why does it matter what method you use to kill people in a war?  One of our favorite methods during WWII was to burn people alive.  Personally I would rather be at ground zero instead of getting splattered with napalm.  Besides, from a practical matter it's better to kill off the enemy civilians than to try to control them after the war.  After all, they are the ones who helped instigate the war in the first place and kept it going.