The idea of strategic bombing began around the era of World War I, and Suzanne Collins applies it to the idea of a rebellion by the oppressed.  But is there really a difference between the bombings in Suzanne Collins' series and the many bombings that have been executed throughout world history?  Is it really possible to distinguish any discernible difference between the race of people in her series that commit such a heartless, callous, almost simple act and the race of people that the world has become today?  When thinking about how The Capitol uses strategic bombing to oppress its citizens we can see how Suzanne Collins paints humans as people who are no better than The Capitol; this is important because The Capitol is tenacious enough to throw children into an arena to fight to the death, and most people would not picture our race as a species who would do something similarly devastating and tragic.
	
Strategic bombing serves a multitude of purposes, one of which is the simplest of all; a retaliation towards opposing forces.   Suzzane Collins uses strategic bombing as a sort of retaliation from The Capitol towards the rebel forces of District 12.  "A month ago, the Capitol's firebombs obliterated the poor coal miners' houses in the Seam, the shops in town, even the Justice building" (Collins 3).  There is no difference whatsoever between the race of people that Suzzane Collins created and humanity.  Both The Capitol's forces and human forces alike have used strategic, planned out bombings as a source of pain and suffering for the rivals.  One instance in American and German history occurred when the United States drenched the city of Dresden in "2,000 gallons of petrol" (Addison 30) and then proceeded to set this gasoline on fire with a parade of bombs, essentially causing a "Firestorm", as the attack was later entitled (Addison).  The impending, days long fires left a line of charred corpses and wounded citizens that, all in all, the city could no longer take care of due to the lack of resources ("Firebombing of Dresden").  The American troops thought that they were retaliating against a major source of industry and war-production, though they later learned different ("Firebombing of Dresden").  Just as The Capitol can so willingly demolish a city, so can humans, telling us that there is no boundary between morality and immorality when it comes to strategies in either The Hunger Games or real life.
	
Another connection to be made between what The Capitol and humans did was the futility of their efforts in serving their purpose.  To reiterate, the purpose of these bombings was to retaliate against the enemy or rebels. In fact, The Capitol's efforts were purposeless because in their effort to retain the rebellion in District 12, they burgeoned an ever-growing blaze of hatred set forth by Gale who saves hundreds in the attacks.  And what purpose did the attacks on Dresden serve?  Well, Project  Thunderclap' (Addison 18) was also a futile effort in that the Germans were " already on the verge of surrender" when the attacks occurred ("Firebombing of Dresden").  The attacks were more or less just a mean of consolidating, hastening, and controlling the victory ensured by other means (Addison 18).  What the American troops did not know, however, is that Dresden was not home to war-production or major industry ("Firebombing of Dresden"), as previously thought, but instead it was home to wounded soldiers, women, and children, most of whom perished in the impending fires.  So not only were the attacks by The Capitol on District 12 and the attacks by allied forces on Dresden similar in the area of purpose, but they were similar in their futility of said purpose.  This paints humans as somewhat ignorant and horrific creatures, a species no different than The Capitol in The Hunger Games.
	
The almost simplistic manner with which the bombings are described in both The Hunger Games and in real life portrays the planning and execution of these bombings as easy and achievable, displaying the heartlessness that both cultures display when it comes to using strategic bombing as a war tactic.  In Mockingjay, the bombings are instantaneous and almost game-like in their execution.  The opposing forces come in, do what they came to do, and leave as if it's easy for them to bomb thousands of people and doom the masses to demise.  What is so different between The Capitol or Coin's execution of bombings from the human race's method of execution of strategic bombing?  The atomic bombing of Hiroshima " seems in many ways an event characterized by clarity and even simplicity" (Rotter 1)There was a single plane, piloted by one person, carrying a single bomb.  And this bomb was dropped, and the city was destroyed (Rotter 1).  Simple, right?  Describing events such as these as "simplistic" dehumanizes both cultures in a way that only war can bring about in humans.  It's spooky how Suzanne Collins describes the simplicity of the bombings in her series, and it paints an eerily similar picture to how humans go about executing strategic bombing.
	
The sheer amount of hatred that a group of people would have to possess in order to commit such a heinous crime is not to be overlooked.  It is a clear matter of hatred towards The Capitol by the districts in The Hunger Games, and it is a hatred that most would feel to be justifiable.  So when Coin retaliates with a bombing of The Capitol, it should be a matter of one's own opinion as to whether or not that's a justifiable act.  What about in the cases of the Dresden and Hiroshima bombings?  This is where one single difference between our races lies.  Dresden was, unarguably, one of the most unjustified acts of assumption in history, in which allied forces essentially assumed that the city was a major center of war-production that could hinder the allied forces' victory.  There was no proof to be had of such a claim, yet the bombings still occurred.  And when taking into consideration the fact that the German forces were on the verge of surrendering, one can see the complete audacity that the allied troops had to perform such an inexcusable act of cruelty.  Hiroshima, however, was a case of exact retaliation in which Americans retaliated with, essentially, the exact attack that they received from Japanese troops.  It is eerily similar to Coin's attack on The Capitol in The Hunger Games.  When asking if this is justifiable or not, one's own opinion comes into play.  Some will say that the sheer act of a bombing is in justifiable in itself, considering the horror and tragedy that ensues.  But it is also quite possible to say that if one is bombed, the opposing forces are just asking to be bombed back.  
	
The connections made between The Hunger Games and world history on the topic of strategic bombing paint the human race as a group of people who are eerily similar to The Capitol; this is important because it shows the heartlessness with which Suzanne Collins is comparing the two races, portraying humans as people who commit heinous crimes just as The Capitol does.  It is in our nature to disagree and have opinions.  It is also in our nature to fight about such things, often creating wars.  But is it really all that natural to invent methods of horror and suffering as tragic as strategic bombing?  Can we really say that we are an evolved race because we bomb each other and commit crimes no different than The Capitol?  The Capitol may throw children into an arena to face their ultimate demise and bomb cities to control rebellion, but there is no difference between the execution of The Captiol's bombings and our bombings.  This proves that in the end, the human race is just as in excusable as The Capitol.  If one is to get mad about the atrocities committed in The Hunger Games, then why should that same person not be provoked to hate the same atrocities that humans commit?

