I refer you to the following two passages:

1: Wing Commander T.D. Weldon, a tutor in Moral Philosophy at Magdalen College Oxford [lecturing on "The Ethics of Bombing"]:

" ... So therefore, it is not a question of ethics at all! War is not the opposite of peace, nor is it a corollary of it! War is a complete breakdown in civilization, so it shouldn't have "ethics" thrust upon it. Because that way lies danger; that way, war becomes acceptable! The means of death and destruction are immaterial, war was always war, the only difference today is the scale of it! So, when this war is finally over, the world should accept that there is no limit; there are no "Hague Rules of Combat" anymore! The worse war is, the more savage it becomes! When people understand this, and stop trying to limit it, then perhaps, we shall achieve lasting peace!"



2: International law did not protect civilians from bombardment from the sea, the ground, or the air:

The 1923 Hague Draft Rules of Aerial Warfare was the first authoritative attempt to clarify and formulate a comprehensive code of conduct, but they were never adopted in legally binding terms. Growing awareness of the military potential of aircraft throughout the 1920s and 1930s ultimately proved too serious an obstacle to reaching an agreement.

One of the main stumbling blocks was the inability to establish an acceptable definition of a legitimate military target under the new conditions of total war between industrialised states. Air Marshal Sir Robert Saundby summed up this conundrum nicely when he wrote:

"It is generally agreed, for example, that the man who loads or fires a field-gun is a military target. So is the gun itself, and the ammunition dump which supplies it. So is the truck-driver who transports ammunition from the base to the dump. So -- in the last two World Wars -- was the man who transported weapons, ammunition, raw materials, etc., by sea. But are the weapons and war-like stores on their way from the factories to the bases, and the men who transport them, not also military targets? And what about weapons under construction in the factories, and the men who make them? Are they not also military targets? And if they are not, where do you draw the line? If they are military targets, are not the industrial areas and the services -- gas, electricity -- that keep industry going, also military targets? Or is it permissible to starve these civilian workers by blockade, or shell them if you can get at them, but not to bomb them from the air? This is surely a `reductio ad absurdum'."

Factories making armaments and the transport bringing them to the battlefronts naturally were included in the category of legitimate targets once the means of attacking them were available. Consequently those civilians in them or dangerously close to them might just have to be equated with civilians in legitimately attacked places. Moreover, precedent was on the side of the air planners. Naval bombardment of ports and towns was an accepted act of war. It was even codified in Article 2 of the Convention on Naval Bombardment, signed at The Hague in 1907. Article 2 stipulated that a naval commander who used his ships' guns to destroy military objectives in an undefended port or town `incur[red] no responsibility for any unavoidable damage which may be caused by a bombardment under such circumstances'. The advent of air power merely increased the opportunity of reaching and destroying such targets.

As to the points raised:

"why pretend it it is not so for all sides"

Who is pretending that it is the same for all sides? Examples please.

"sign agreements limiting war time activities, and talk "the high ground" to other countries about killing civilians, when most countries (including your own) are prepared to use whatever advantage they possess in wartime?"

Agreements have in the past been signed and honoured - oddly enough the one that springs foremost to mind concerns chemical and biological agents. Principle reason they were not used in the Second World War was because Hitler had actually faced gas attacks during the First World War. Churchill on the otherhand hadn't and was quite prepared to use them if necessary. As to the killing civilians bit - recent examples - Afghanistan ever hear of the exercise of "courageous restraint" where if in contact with the enemy there was any danger of causing civilian casualties action was to be broken off? Of course in a "all-out" wartime scenario such restraint would be difficult if not impossible to implement.

"Why not just be honest and admit that any target, military or civilian, will be directly or indirectly targeted in any conflict, with whatever tool exists to serve a "wartime interest"

Attaboy GUEST you are now getting towards what the Wing Commander above stated as being the reality.

"All this talk about, " it will never happen again", rings hollow under that scenario-I find it strange that people repeat it, over and over without thinking, "of course it will happen again, if there is a wartine advantage".

Of course it will happen again GUEST and nobody I know has ever thought any different. And remember GUEST should YOU ever become involved in any "all-out" war there is only one thing that is important - YOU must WIN IT.