Dresden was as legitimate a target as any other city. Its factories made, among other things, precision optics for bomb sights.
Dresden being a purely civilian target is a myth.
Dresden being a purely civilian target is a myth.
Note that I have no love for Nazi Germany, my family suffered tremendously at their hands and the results of that are still felt today. At the same time: I am categorically against indiscriminate firebombing of cities leading to 20K+ civilian deaths and if you feel that those civilians were a legitimate target because they happened to be in the city then you and I are probably not going to have a very productive discussion.
What I'm saying Jacques, is that the issue is nuanced. I encourage you to read Frederick Taylor's excellent book on the subject.
It also informed my stance on how I perceive war and my own possible role in it: I would definitely find myself mobilized (financially, personally) to help defend countries that are overrun by obvious aggressors, including my own but I would under no circumstance allow myself to be roped into a war of aggression up to the point where I would be happy to go to prison or worse if it came to it. This is not trivial stuff and I have so far been fortunate enough not to have seen this put to the test in a practical sense.
I know Dresden was not a purely civilian target, but civilians were fairly explicitly targeted, either that or you'd have to chalk that all up to extreme sloppiness, which is not a case that anybody credible has ever made.
I feel like we're pretty much on the same page, then.
Welcome to the fundamental ethical dilemma underlying the debate around the Total War concept.
I don't claim to have all the answers.
Total war stopped being a thing once it became certain the next one would lead to global nuclear annihilation.
As Mcnamara himself says in the documentary interview Fog of War, proportionality is a concept in warfare.