Our bombing of Japan was terror-bombing, and probably illegal, insofar as such niceties matter in total war. Over Germany, a stronger case could be made for our "moral" approach to warfare, although even there US bombers had orders to not return to base with bombs. Each bomber attack was given this targeting priority: 1) main objective 2) secondary objective, in the event that weather precluded attacking the first and 3) targets of opportunity, including cities.
I don't think of it as terrorism in the contextual sense: the fact that there was a general war on meant that both sides were going to commit atrocities -- and both sides did. It's a semantic distinction, and definitely unsatisfying. Terrorism in the sense we use today does not denote the types of atrocities we committed in WWII; but these attacks, be they WTC or Hiroshima, satisfy the definition of terrorism: "the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims".
To the person on the ground, such distinctions are obviously ones which can only be made by some asshole drinking his coffee at his kitchen table, typing merrily away.
I don't think of it as terrorism in the contextual sense: the fact that there was a general war on meant that both sides were going to commit atrocities -- and both sides did. It's a semantic distinction, and definitely unsatisfying. Terrorism in the sense we use today does not denote the types of atrocities we committed in WWII; but these attacks, be they WTC or Hiroshima, satisfy the definition of terrorism: "the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims".
To the person on the ground, such distinctions are obviously ones which can only be made by some asshole drinking his coffee at his kitchen table, typing merrily away.
