[Ryzorian]

The Death star was a self contained city with over a million people on board. Yes, it was a death machine but it also had large numbers of civilians on board who ran day to day functions. The point is simple..you have to kill the civilians if you want to stop the evil death star from killing another planet. Those civilians chose to side with Palpatine and his storm trooper brigades so they aren't completely innocent.

The same is true in any city, civilians run basic operations of a country, they are also the foundation of industry wich builds the tanks, bombers, ships, bullets and guns of the military, they also provide the raw resource for future troops. They are as much a part of "total war" as any thing on the primary battle field.

If a nation went to war with the US, primary targets would have to include major cities because those are cites of manaerfactureing. Detroit, Silicon Vally, Dallas, Miami...New York just to name a few. They are important stratigic locations because of what they provide. Hell, my own town of 30,000 is a old cold war Nuke target because we have a major weapons depot right next to us. The plants there made all sorts of tank rounds and asorted missle parts..includeing nukes and the workers who made them, were housed in my town.

War crimes to me have always kinda been a joke. War is about winning and looseing. Just like a bar fight, their aint no rules, this isn't a boxng match it's a life or death struggle of one national identity against another. Sure people have tried to make it "humane" with geneva conventions and whatever, but really that's stupid...when it comes to brass tacks, nobody is going to follow that anyway, not if it means thier country looses because of them.