Being A Tiny Bit Better Than Hitler Doesn’t Make You The Good Guy

“War is hell,” they say, when blowing little children to bits. The implication is that the good guys have to do some very bad things in order to defeat the other people, who are worse. The question then becomes, “How absolutely certain are you that you’re the good guys?” This question must not be lightly answered but must be scrupled over to a great degree. In fact, the more evil you do, the more you must question your good guy status. Not just at the outset, either. You have to continually monitor your actions and compare them to the actions of those you call the “bad guys”. Because even good guys are capable of losing their souls and their morals in war. And when that happens, when that happens, you are no longer a good guy.

And that’s the thing: in any war, there can only be one “right” side. If one side is right the other side must necessarily be wrong to use force to oppose “right”. But in most any conflict, both sides claim that they are right and might even genuinely believe it to be true. Certainly, for any nation to be dragged into war, the majority of its citizens must be convinced that they are on the right side. So it is certain that in any conflict, one side will be wrong but will quite likely believe that it is right. Therefore, if both sides sincerely weighed their own behavior against the behavior of the other, one of them would discover that they are committing more atrocities than the other, and would attempt to bring to an end the conflict. The other side, being the “good” side…