Quote:
Originally Posted by Osmium Steele
should affect "those back home" in very real and visceral ways so as to minimize the tendency to wage it.
I think it was Robert E. Lee who said, "It is good that war is so terrible, lest we grow too fond of it."
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One problem here is it's not just the "people back home" who are affected. Civilians in the war zones are very much affected and they never waged it, asked for it or wanted it. It was thrown at them and they had to and still have to pay heavy prices they should never have had to pay. I don't think anyone in my neighbourhood can explain to me the horrors the way those living dab in the middle of it can.
In a war, civilians have always been "legit" targets. Reliable WW1 numbers are hard to come by but most agree that Russia and the Ottoman Empire saw horrendous losses of civilian lives due to the war directly or war crimes stemming from and committed during the war.
What makes WW2 so "special" is the sheer number of civilians lost (as well as the direct causes) but it was in no way the first war where civilians were targeted. Nor the last. Drug wars are no exceptions with massacres of civilians in recent decades.