I see that they are going to give the troops in Iraq lessons on the ethics of war. I guess I have trouble with the entire concept. I got the same training in bootcamp as these guys have already had and at the time I had trouble rationalizing it all. If you are at war in defense of your home and hearth then there are certains things which are not considered kosher. There are the things that you do to protect yourself and those that are just violence against your agressor for violence's sake. The latter is wrong in most respects.
The second part of the issue concerns agression. If you are an agressor then the rules change. You have already fundamentally demonstrated your lack of ethics and anything and everything you do is tainted and morally wrong in the sense that you shouldn't be where you are in the first place.
Vietnam showed us how the rules change when the fundamental justifiability of the conflict is in question. I usually go by the rule that if there is any doubt about the morality of a conflict then it is probably wrong. Honor has a hard time maintaining a foothold when there is no bedrock of moral justification for your actions.
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