Very interesting. I wrote a paper in college that argued a very similar line of reasoning. I based this largely around the conversation that was had about aeria

Very interesting. I wrote a paper in college that argued a very similar line of reasoning. I based this largely around the conversation that was had about aerial bombing during the inter-war period. During WWI a biplane or two was able to fly over Paris and drop a grenade. It caused quite a scandal with some Navy high ups condemning the concept of aerial bombardment altogether. By the end of the inter-war period there was a strong stigma against it. The concept of using bombs on civilian centers was pretty much unthinkable. Until of course the war began and it wasn't. Throughout the war taboos were approach and broken one after another. When the U.S. joined the war, there was a major row between U.S. and British airforce commanders about using bombers at night. The U.S. thought it unethical, especially since they had invested in a supposedly superior bomb sight which was rendered essentially useless at night. The British, facing an existential threat were not so scrupulous. Of course the night raids soon began. So by war's end there was virtually no size of bomb nor target that was much unacceptable even though the idea of aerial bombing of even soldiers had been distasteful at its start. Give this, the only reason I could think that chemical weapons had not followed the same slippery slope was that they were far less useful. I got an A- on the paper, my teacher said it was good but too fringey. I couldn't dig up the paper but I found the bibliography. If you're interested in the subject give some of these sources a try. I especially enjoyed the biography of Doolittle, "I Could Never Be So Lucky Again". "The Bombing of Berlin in World War II." Wikipedia.org. Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia, 7 April 2012. Web. 10 April. 2012. "The Bombing of Germany." American Experience. Writ. Zvi Dor-ner. Dir. Zvi Dor-ner. PBS, 2010. Streaming. "Bombing of Tokyo." Wikipedia.org. Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia, 3 April 2012. Web. 6 April. 2012. Carlin, Dan. ”Logical Insanity.” Harcore History. dancarlin.com, 31 March 2012. Podcast. 6 April 2012. Cheek, Dennis W. "Hiroshima and Nagasaki." Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Ethics. Ed. Carl Mitcham. Vol. 2. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005. 921-924. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 16 Apr. 2012. Doolittle. Gen. James H. and Carroll V. Glines. I Could Never Be So Lucky Again. 1991. New York: Bantam Books, 2009. e-book. "Firestorm." Wikipedia.org. Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia, 13 April 2012. Web. 14 April. 2012. Hansen, Randall. Fire and Fury: The Allied Bombing of Germany 1942-1945. New York: New American Library, 2009. e-book. Truman, Harry S. "Harry S. Truman, Diary, July 25, 1945." Atomic Bomb: Decision. n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2012.