Even if the outcome is a good thing I wont ever cheer when civilians get killed. I view it as a necessary evil in certain circumstances.
A noble sentiment, and I could never disparage you for holding it but consider the Palestinians in our own era. Here are a people that dress infants up as suicide bombers and indoctrinate their children with the most unreasoning and reckless hatred. Even if you defeat the instruments of their political state (do they even have any to any appreciable degree?) how do you contend with an entire culture whose children are raised on the worship of death?
How do you rehabilitate such a society?
Is their rehabilitation worth the gamble of other, more innocent, societies?
Perhaps the day is coming where we are compelled--in the name of our own safety and that of our friends--to say "**** it, it ain't worth the price" and scrape them into the ocean. It's easy to shed a tear for children; not so much if they're trussed-up in bomb belts. If their own parents have consigned them to death why should we cry except for the fact their own parents have consigned them to death? But again: how do you rehabilitate such people within the constraints of so-called "modern morality"?
Once upon a time ancient man had no international laws, only the laws of his own people. He had no concept of genocide, there was only the "others" living "over there". In time genocide became common practice. We recoil at teh thought of it today because of the evils of WW2 made it so vivid when it was practiced on those who were so clearly undeserving. But is there such a thing as "deserving"? The ancients thought so and they had the luxury of starting with a blank slate.
