Exactly when do we expect the apology for Coventry? Not so many civilian losses as Dresden of course, but much less strategic or tactical justification too. Merely a careful experiment to prove the new German radio beam bombing system.
Anyone who denies that the bombing campaign had no effect on the industrial production of Germany and the outcome of the war deceives themselves. Dresden was, like any other German city, a valid target for both strategic and tactical reasons. The Russians had particularly requested its destruction to close the railhead. Consider what would have happened had the raid not taken place - Caen was flattened as comprehensively as Dresden while the Germans held on fast to prevent the allied advance towards Paris. How much more tightly would they have held on to Dresden in the face of the Russian advance?
It is interesting that the other major campaign for which no campaign medal was awarded also resulted in the participants suffering enormous casualty rates and great hardship. The Arctic campaign helped the Russians hold the Germans at Stalingrad, saving millions of Russian lives and the European bombing campaign helped bring the war to a swifter close, saving many more German lives than were lost.
In like manner the much criticised destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki actually prevented any need for an invasion of Japan, saving millions of Japanese lives as well as those of allied troops.
If Bomber Command had been obliged to go to war in Europe in the sixties the loss rate would have been over 90% while scores of cities would have vanished along with their populations. Such a war would not have lasted very long and the loss of civilian life would have far outnumbered military casualties. On the moral front, it is war itself that is unacceptable. Unfortunately, the only defence against attack is to fight back - no holds barred, to ensure the fastest possible end to hostilities. Far better to be prepared and stand fast in the face of threats as we of Bomber Command/2ATAF and the rest of NATO did in the fifities and sixties, than weakly allow hostilities to begin as they did in 1939.