[Massachusetts Institute of Technology history professor] Dr. Dover goes on to explain how the United States and the League of Nations strongly condemned Japan’s bombing of Chinese cities in 1937 and the Spanish Civil War bombing of Guernica by the fascists (immortalized by Picasso’s famous mural), but that just a few years later, Britain and the United States were fire-bombing German cities and carpet-bombing Dresden, where more than 100,000 people were killed. When Italy bombed cities in the Ethiopian war and Germany bombed Rotterdam in Holland, Coventry in England, and a few other cities, Roosevelt described this as “inhuman barbarism that has profoundly shocked the conscience of humanity,” yet these were small compared to the large-scale British and American attacks on German cities. The United States continued to use this strategy against Japan with the carpet-bombings of Tokyo and sixty-three other Japanese cities.
Dr. Dover says, “The atomic bombings were simply a more efficient way of terrorizing enemies and destroying a newly legitimized target of war: civilian morale.”
Source:
Stephens, John Richard. “Alternative Views.” Weird History 101: Tales of Intrigue, Mayhem, and Outrageous Behavior. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2006. 63, 64. Print.
Further Reading:
La Société des Nations (SDN) / League of Nations (LN)
Guerra Civil Española (Spanish Civil War) / Guerra Civil (The Civil War) / La Guerra (The War)
Bombing of Guernica / Operation Rügen
[Guernica](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guernica_(Picasso)
Second Italo-Ethiopian War / Second Italo-Abyssinian War
東京大空襲 (Bombing of Tokyo) / Operation Meetinghouse / Night of the Black Snow
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