[pt] KEIOS wrote:
it doesn´t matter who kills civilians in war - it is always a crime - and never justifiable!
pearl harbour was a military operation with military targets. don´t mix it up.
OK, more than one country can be hit with that kind of accusation.
During WW2, it was commonplace to carpet bomb entire areas to take out a factory. Guess what-- cities tend to be near factories. There had to have been massive collateral damage caused anyone bombing anyone at that time in history. The technology for precision just wasn't there.
The Germans did it:
Gradually, in the face of heavy losses to fighters, the Luftwaffe resorted to night bombing. Targeting had been a problem in daylight; by night it was basically impossible, with accuracy being approximately "one city". British civilian casualties were heavy. The expected collapse in civilian morale, however, did not eventuate; indeed, it is widely believed the bombings had the opposite effect.
The British did it:
"Bomber" Harris, who ran the bombing campaign, said "for want of a rapier, a bludgeon was used". He felt that as much as it would be far more desirable to deliver effective pin-point attacks, as the capacity to do so simply did not exist, and since it was war, it was necessary to attack with whatever was at hand. He accepted area bombing, knowing it would kill civilians, because it was a choice of area bombing or no bombing at all, and area bombing would mean dropping large quantities of bombs into an area full of activities and industries being harnessed for the German war effort.
The US did it:
Conventionally the air forces designated as "the target area" a circle having a radius of 1000 feet around the aiming point of attack. While accuracy improved during the war, Survey studies show that, in the over-all, only about 20% of the bombs aimed at precision targets fell within this target area. In the fall of 1944, only seven per cent of all bombs dropped by the Eighth Air Force hit within 1,000 feet of their aim point.
Nevertheless, the sheer tonnage of explosive delivered by day and by night was eventually sufficient to cause widespread damage, and, more importantly from a military point of view, forced Germany to divert resources to counter it. This was to be the real significance of the Allied strategic bombing campaign—resource allocation.
The first raid of this type on Tokyo was on the night of February 23–24 when 174 B-29s destroyed around one square mile (3 km²) of the city. Following on that success 334 B-29s raided on the night of March 9–10, dropping around 1,700 tons of bombs. Around 16 square miles (41 km²) of the city was destroyed and over 100,000 people are estimated to have died in the fire storm. The destruction and damage was at its worst in the city sections east of the Imperial Palace. It was the most destructive conventional raid in all of history.
Source.And there is also Germany's 'proud' heritage of unrestricted submarine warfare, which actually did cause collateral damage.
Not a single country can pretend it's shit doesn't stink when it comes to acts of war, so get off your high horse buddy.