I suppose this question is a bit related to another: why do we agonize over the decision to drop the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but not the more deadly firebombings of Tokyo?
What I mean to ask is a bit different, though. Why have Dresden, and Hamburg to a lesser extent, become the poster children of supposed Allied war crimes? Why is there seemingly no similar outrage over the firebombings of Tokyo?
Some people do agonize over Tokyo. I think you have to address the "we" in this question specifically. There is plenty of material, both historical and polemical, out there on the firebombing of Tokyo.
It seems like the firebombing in tokyo gets overshadowed by the atomic bombs, but i've read claims that they were similarly destructive in scale. Can anyone comment on this?
I don't think this is true. Both my middle and high school history classes discussed Tokyo in detail, but neither brought up Hamburg