Strategic Bombing Controversy

World War II was a time when humans waged war against each other in the hopes of winning dominion over one another. Whether it was evil, territory, people, or racial tendencies, the fabric of war covered the world in a bloody scarf of destruction. After the United States entered the war, it proposed a way to execute strategic pinpoint bombing on high value military targets. These raids become the source of reflection and controversy. Some concluded that the bombing of civilians was deplorable and intentional, while others seen it as an involuntary action with tactical means. American strategic bombing was a fact of WWII and it requires looking at the works of authors that were for and against it, in all its creation. Ronald Schaffer from California State University at Northridge in Los Angles wrote an essay on the moral state of Strategic Bombing in World War II. He claimed, the Army Air Forces (AAF) stood behind their strategy of only bombing military targets in German, than they switch strategies and change over to area bombing in Europe. He contends …show more content…
The aide said, “This doesn’t mean that we are making civilians or civilian institutions a war objective, but we cannot ‘pull our punches’ because some of them may get killed.” Shaffer is implying that the moral objectivity of this statement is used to justify the death of civilians or even the AAF’s lack of moral objection toward civilian bombing. The statement is again, vague. While it is said to be General H.H. Arnold, AAF Chief of Staff’s aid informing Air Staff, the aids name is left out and there is no context to what he is informing them about except the authors assertion that it is about strategic bombing. It also needs to be looked at as, not a way to justify the moral ramifications of strategic bombings, but the cold hard facts of war. Civilians were getting killed during day light