Washington, DC, July 10 – The government of the last country to use saturation bombing in combat is admonishing Israel to exercise restraint in its handling of the current offensive in the Gaza Strip.

In 1965, the Unites States Air Force commenced a carpet-bombing campaign against North Vietnamese targets, adapting a WWII strategy of saturating a small area with bombs to the point that no person or structure would survive. Through the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, American B-52 Stratofortress bombers over Vietnam dropped tens of thousands of tons of high explosive bombs on each mission, which often consisted of dozens of such aircraft. The commander-in-chief of those armed forces is now counseling Israel to act “responsibly” in its attempt to remove the menace of rockets fired from the neighboring Gaza Strip.

Each B-52 payload, exceeding 50,000 tons of bombs, has been compared in potency to a tactical nuclear weapon. The American fleet of such aircraft repeatedly released such payloads over Communist targets in Southeast Asia. The Israel Air Force, in the absence of strategic bombers, employs precision-bombing aimed at minimizing civilian casualties. American President Barack Obama and other world leaders who support Israel’s right to defend itself have nevertheless demanded or requested that Israel not engage in military moves that might make the situation more destructive.

Carpet-bombing was first employed by the Luftwaffe during the Spanish Civil War, but its first battlefield success came in 1940 when 90 German tactical bombers dropped bombs on the Rotterdam city center, killing 900 and rendering tens of thousands homeless. A threat to repeat the move on the city of Utrecht prompted the Dutch to surrender. Heavy bomber aircraft were thus proved not necessary for carpet-bombing, meaning that Israel is capable of conducting such operations but chooses not to. However, that level of restraint appears insufficient to international leaders, who call for a level of Israeli retaliation short of effective.

Allied forces adopted carpet-bombing as both a strategy and battlefield tactic during WWII, leveling German cities and killing hundreds of thousands. The US was not the only county to use saturation bombing, and other leaders whose forces used the murderous strategy, such as Britain, have similarly called on Israel to exercise restraint.