the Romans, Allies, and war crimes

We shudder with horror when we read of Roman conquests, the legions burning and massacring their way up through Europe. Whole towns and villages were brutally wiped out, including men, women, and children. The Germans did the same when they invaded Russia. Surely the Allies had a far more civilised vision. Alas, they didn't. Around 1943 the Allies decided to stop bombing specific industrial and military targets and targeted whole areas of towns and cities instead. As the technology improved maximum force was used to ensure that these areas were completely destroyed and, concomitantly, much of the population with them. This policy culminated in massive raids on Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo, the nuclear bombs dropped on Japan, and countless others. The men who sat down and planned these raids drew circles around areas that included thousands of people, their schools, hospitals, churches, shops, houses, etc. These men must have known that similar attacks on Coventry and London had made little difference to the war effort in England; in many ways they had stiffened people's resolve to fight on. The result of this policy was the massacre of hundreds of thousands of civilians, the destruction of irreplaceable cultural artefacts, and years of suffering and hardship for the often innocent victims of war (people are still dying as a direct result of these attacks). As we reflect on this brutality, which was later continued by America in Vietnam and elsewhere, are we really entitled to think of ourselves as any more civilised than the ancient Romans? (the image shows Tokyo in March 1945)