I have had a bit of an ongoing discussion with some family members about the morality of war. My position has been, and so far continues to be, even if you feel you are morally justified, you and your forces will commit highly immoral acts during, and even after, the conflict. The author , Nicholson Baker, in his new book "Inconvenient Facts about World War II" points out some of the policies from our treasured allied leaders that are very questionable in the least. The book doesn't bother to try and compare the evils of the axis powers, it just focuses on questionable tactics and policies the allied leadership and forces pursued in what is widely considered in Western countries as a morally justified conflict.
I find it difficult to see a justification in a policy to starve to death the children of an enemy country in the pursuit of victory. But this was an valid and defend policy of Winston Churchill in both World Wars. In fact, the embargo of World War I remained after the Armistice of November 11, 1918, which end the fighting, until the German's signed the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919 officially ending the war. It wouldn't be to difficult to argue that World War II was just the Collateral Damage issuing out from that Treaty.
http://mises.org/story/2966
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Morality of actions is always relative. Stealing is morally wrong but if a man steals a loaf of bread and gives all of it to his 2 kids who are on the brink of starvation we have sympathy. Now how do we feel about the shop owner who wants to press charges and put the man in jail which will certainly end in the death of the kids? Everything can be twisted. Nothing is black and white. Having said that, I think it is very important to have laws that are black and white. I also think we should allow no leniency in the hands of those executing the law.
I think the morality of the action isn't relative, the theft of the bread is still wrong, we do allow our response to be moderated by motivations, his children are starving so I won't react as harshly towards him.
However how should we react towards soldiers who were pressured by their leaders to produce information from people who speak a different language, have a very different culture, and we are not entirely sure they actually have any information. So these soldiers use methods start using questionable methods and from that point start moving toward explicit torture. They did have a choice, granted there would have been consequences. How guilty are we for allowing their leaders to put them in that position? From the current Canadian perspective, how guilty are we because we continue to collaborate with governments that continue to endorse methods we find objectionable?
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