(February 6, 2016 at 1:23 pm)abaris Wrote:(February 6, 2016 at 1:18 pm)CapnAwesome Wrote: Honestly I don't know why WWII gets invoked other then our enemy. The US committed far more war crimes in WWII then in Vietnam.
I wouldn't think so. Apart from shooting POWs, which every side did, the only thing coming to mind would be the bomb. Their bombing raids, as opposed to the british, were at least aimed at the industry. The outspoken british strategy was to bomb the workers.
So, no, I wouldn't think the US did worse than in Vietnam.
That American firebombing of Japan, while ostensibly aimed at industry, had the same goal of damaging Japanese morale and dehousing Japanese workers as the RAF's European campaign. The fact that XX Bomber Command was dropping unfinned M69s into a target area defined as a 1.5 mile square speaks to the desired level of accuracy in the raids once LeMay assumed command of that unit.
And even the 8th AF's operations over Europe in some instances could be argued as war crimes -- the combined attacks on both Hamburg and Dresden, while having nominal military justification, were also specifically designed to ignite firestorms -- which by their very nature are indiscriminate.