EV, it's not lost on me. Harris certainly believed in what he was doing, how else could he go on sending his crews out night after night not doing so? What alternative was there? The bombing accuracy was of the order of miles, though techniques and technical advances tightened it up gradually. Practically speaking though, night bombing meant area bombing which meant bombing cities. So Harris made a virtue of a necessity and made the blood curdling statements as quoted, even invoking the old testament to that effect. He was Bomber Command's Commander in Chief and had to put fire into the bellies of his old lags night after night despite their losses, because night after night they were laying waste to Germany's cities and killing the inhabitants in their tens of thousands. What was he supposed to say, "I deeply regret that so many civilians are dying as a result of our bombing but we will go on bombing anyway"?
That is the dilemma of war, the technology determines how it is fought. Invent the machine gun and accurate artillery, and you get the carnage of the Western Front. Invent the 4-engined bomber and you get cities reduced to rubble. That had to be countered by Germany, resulting in massive demands on man-power and munitions that were badly needed on the Eastern Front. Speer (if you believe that persuasive individual) thought the night bombing more damaging than the day, and that both combined to create a second front. Are you saying that all that should have been abandoned to avoid civilian deaths? To do what exactly? The idea was to win the war before Germany did. Some would say it was a close enough run thing as it was. Without Bomber Command my money would be on the latter outcome. The fact that Harris said that bombing alone could do it was sheer hyperbole. Did he really believe that? I've no idea, but anyway what difference did it make other than to ensure that you had an utterly determined man at the helm?
War is terrible and the only certain way to conduct it is with every means at hand, in order to achieve victory all the sooner. This seems to be lost on some here.