Now can we please move on because complaining about it won't magically change the past.
Why this reluctance to talk about it?
It is true that examining history cannot alter the past, but looking at history we may draw lessons for the presence in order to improve the future.
Perhaps it would be good to change the topic of the thread from "allied bombing of Germany/Europe" to bomb warfare in general.
I do not believe that there would be a very productive thread if we interpreted it to be about assigning blame to nations.
Make no mistake, not only had Germany unquestionably started the war in Europe but Germans had shown very little regard for civilian victims to bomb warfare whenever it was Germans dropping the bombs. German zeppelins and bombers dropped bombs on London (among other) in WW1 already, in Guernica they created a terrible precedent in 1937 (and any pretenses that it had been all about destroying a stone bridge are reduced to absurdity by the fact that the bombs dropped there included incendiary bombs), in September 1939 right after the beginning of the war the Luftwaffe caused terrible havoc on Warsaw and proceeded to do so among other in Rotterdam in May 1940, Coventry in November 1940, and London for much of late 1940. In 1944/45 German V1 and V2 rockets were fired especially on Antwerp and London. Those rockets were impossible to be fired so well aimed as to pick individual military targets and even their name "Vergeltungswaffe" (Weapon of vengeance) doesn't suggest even the remotest thought of any regard for civilians. If the destruction caused by German bombs in WW2 and the tons of bombs dropped by Germans fall far behind the degree of destruction and the tons of allied bombs I think it is safe to say that it didn't have anything to do with any greater concern for civilians (even saying that sounds cruelly ridiculous given the genocide Germans committed) but simply with the fact that Germany never bothered to built up a fleet of large long range bombers like those set up especially by the Royal Air Force and the US Air Force.
That being said, does any of this make bomb warfare any less cruel or any more justifiable? I think not. Bomb warfare against civilians is an act of extreme barbarism. In war things often get out of hand. In spite of the early bombarding of Warsaw the routinely and deliberate bombing of towns came about somewhat gradually each site feeling justified and even challenged to create more terror among the civilians of the other countries every time own civilians were killed or injured (which was at least to some degree an exception in the earliest phase of WW2).
The main idea (apart from "revenge") behind the deliberate bombing of civilians was the thought that bomb warfare would destroy the morale of the civilian population to a degree where they would revolt against the own government / regime forcing it to end the war by capitulation. However, the effects of bomb warfare against cities and civilians ultimately turned out to have a different effect. First there was the outcry of revenge and an initial increase of will to fight against those who would commit such horrors as those created by bomb warfare. Then after it became obvious that there wasn't going to be an end to the bombardments morale did decrease, but rather than developing into any spirit of resistance against the own government it put people into a very dull "keep your head down and hope to be among those who just happen to survive" kind of spirit.
The military aspects of bomb-warfare in Europe in WW2 are a matter of debate. On the one hand there are cases (like the bombardment of the oil refineries in Ploesti) which certainly did have an effect. On the other hand it is surprising that the production output of war materials in Germany was at its peak in 1944 and in the final year when most bombs fell and not least by the ruthless exploitation of forced laborers from other countries. It can be speculated about what the production would have been like if there had been no bombardments at all. But assuming that it would have been totally unaffected would be as short sighted as it would be to assume that the production would have been much higher without the bombardments. The production of Germany was not so much limited by need of factories and machinery (the target of most bombing attacks) as it was by the lack of raw materials (which is why attacks like the one on Ploesti) were usually so much more effective than the bombardment of the final factories or towns.
By far the most bombs were dropped in the final year of the war and there are cases where there can be pretty much no doubt whatsoever that some targets didn't have any military value whatsoever and would not have been a potential source for an uprising against the regime either. In the final months of the war it sometimes came down to bombarding farmhouses. The final target of a mass carpet bombing by the Royal Air Force in April 1945 was a place called "Bad Oldesloe". The very name is screaming "One horse village".
Bomb-warfare did kill hundreds of thousands and of course it did not discriminate between men, women, and children. I do not mean to play on anybodies heart strings but I do not think that the short mention of individual fates would automatically render this post unobjective. My grandma (born in 1929) told me about her best friend (who would have just reached teenagehood at the time). She was sitting in a bunker when it got a direct hit. The air pressure of the blast tore the lungs of the little girl apart. My grandma herself had an experience with strafers, having to witness the head of a farmer on a field being shot to pieces while she was crouching to an embankment hoping not to be shot herself. She was 15 at the time.
Given the expectations set in bomb warfare in books published in the 1920s and 30s and also by the high command which ordered the bombing the results fell way short of the expectations. Apart from the already mentioned loss of human live bomb-warfare caused immeasurable cultural damage. Houses predating the time of the war are relatively rare in Germany and compared to countries which have not seen as severe bomb-warfare there are very, very few medieval structures or classical historic town centers left. Up in flames went not only buildings but also uncountable unique historical documents, books, chronicles etc. WW2 created gaps in historical records which will never ever be filled again.
Mankind didn't learn from it and this more than anything is why I consider it important not to silence the topic because we feel it is uncomfortable to talk about a past which we can no longer change.
There must have been people who considered it a challenge to surpass what destruction bomb-warfare had caused in Europe (and we didn't even mention Japan yet where we tend to overlook the huge havoc caused by conventional bombardment preceding Hiroshima and Nagasaki). For bombs dropped on Korea and Vietnam (the later also involving the secret bombarding Combodia and Laos without Congress being consulted about it) during the wars named after the respective countries surpass the amount of bombs dropped on Europe in WW2.
However, same as in WW2 the expected results were not achieved. Even from the cold point of view of war economy the bomb-warfare in Vietnam was a total failure since the costs for the bombing campaign exceeded the monetary damage caused by far. The effect it had on the morale of people is probably best demonstrated by the effect the iconic photo of poor young Kim Ph?c had not on the Vietnamese but the American people.
Yet bomb-warfare against civilians continues. Sure enough there hasn't been any carpet bombing of towns in the more recent and continuing wars, but there are reports a plenty about civilians being hit by a ratio to the actual combatants that makes me wonder how anyone can buy stories about "surgical warfare", "smart bombs" and the like. I don't know if any member of the GOF ever comes into a situation in which he or she has to give an opinion about bomb warfare or the like. But in case this should happen I hope that he or she will at least remember some of the points I have mentioned.