andy wrote above:
"We did not specifically target residential civilian neighborhoods. Our bombers targeted rail lines, bridges, roadways, government buildings, power stations, troop and material transport vehicles. Many of these were co-located in civilian areas. But as a matter of historical record, America manifestly did not set about to indiscriminately bomb civilian targets, for example the way that Germany did to London and Coventry in 1940."
One word, one city:
Dresden.
I cited both Dresden and Tokyo in my previous post; perhaps you missed it.
We bombed the living crap out of both, but the purpose was not to terrorize and wantonly target civilians. There were numerous legitimate targets of vital military importance co-located within civilian population centers, with whose governments we happened to be at war. The Nazis, on the other hand, aimed bombers and V2 rockets directly at civilian targets in England because they, like ISIS, were indiscriminately evil bastards.
So, I am entirely in favor of doing whatever we have to do to kill as many
jihadis as possible, as quickly as possible. But the first step has to be the recognition on the part of our government that we are in fact at war with them. And that of course will never happen as long as Obama is President.