They were horrific. The firebombings were responsible for more casualties and destruction than the atomic bombs. And neither made much difference to the course of the war. Given that these sorts of bombing campaigns serve very little military purpose i think it's clear that they should be classified as war crimes.
Every time you look in history at this sort of thing you see the exact same thing: massive civilian toll for little to no military benefit. The Nazi Luftwaffe's raids on London, Allied bombing raids on Germany, the firebombing of Japan, US bombing campaigns in Korea and Vietnam, now the Zionist bombing of Gaza...none of these broke the resolve or significantly degraded the military capabilities of the adversary. They are simply punitive campaigns against the civilian population.
They were horrific. The firebombings were responsible for more casualties and destruction than the atomic bombs. And neither made much difference to the course of the war. Given that these sorts of bombing campaigns serve very little military purpose i think it's clear that they should be classified as war crimes.
Every time you look in history at this sort of thing you see the exact same thing: massive civilian toll for little to no military benefit. The Nazi Luftwaffe's raids on London, Allied bombing raids on Germany, the firebombing of Japan, US bombing campaigns in Korea and Vietnam, now the Zionist bombing of Gaza...none of these broke the resolve or significantly degraded the military capabilities of the adversary. They are simply punitive campaigns against the civilian population.