The Ethics of Bombing Civilians After World War II: The Persistence of Norms Against Targeting Civilians in the Korean War | Sciences Po Mass Violence and Resistance - Research Network
This article was adapted for The Asia-Pacific Journal (http://www.japanfocus.org) from a chapter in Matthew Evangelista and Henry Shue (eds.), The American Way of Bombing: How Ethical and Legal Norms Change, from Flying Fortresses to Drones (Cornell University Press, 2014) .www.sciencespo.fr
"On the eve of World War II, American leaders strongly condemned the bombing of civilians. "
"...the U.S. Senate issued its own “unqualified condemnation of the inhuman bombing of civilian populations” in 1938."
Politicians grandstand and make stupid statements. Your point?
"...in 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt urgently appealed to all sides in the hostilities to affirm publicly that their armed forces “shall in no event, and under no circumstances, undertake the bombardment from the air of civilian populations..."
That statement should have gotten him impeached and removed from office.
"...Roosevelt feared that hundreds of thousands of “innocent human beings” would be harmed if the belligerent nations sunk to “this form of inhuman barbarism ..."
I will note he said this two years AFTER the Japanese killed a quarter million civilians in Nanjing.
"... judged from the perspective of what American leaders said about the bombing of civilians, little changed during World War II, even at the height of the air campaigns against Germany and Japan. They continued to talk as if they were trying to uphold the prohibition against targeting civilians..."
The "leaders" are politicians, their words mean little.