The best reason of all

There are many motivations for killing people. Some of them seem to make a lot of sense...others not so much. Sometimes the motives make sense to the killer but to very few other people.

I guess one example would be the Muslims. Many of them are willing to kill over offensive cartoons in a newspaper, to kill a woman for not wearing a veil, to kill a man for shaving his beard, to kill a Sunni for not being a Shiite, to kill a Shiite for not being a Sunni, to kill anyone else for not being Sunni or Shiite, and so forth. To many of us this seems horrid...to them it makes a great deal of sense. They are willing to kill for what they believe is right.

It is not even a new argument. The debate over the necessity of Hiroshima was intense...much more intense than the more message-sending Nagasaki bombing. But even before that you had the London bombings, the horrific firebombings of Germany...there was not a lot of argument over whether it was right or not, the only argument was over scales of acceptability.

It is a disturbing truth that military commanders do indeed consider what is "acceptable loss" in order to achieve their wartime goals. They are willing to have their men killed to get where, when, and how they want.

How many wars make sense? Did the American Revolution make sense over "taxation without representation"? The Civil War over slavery and different economic needs? The Hundred Years War?

Different people will come up with different answers. Some people will find some killings justified, others won't. Some people find killing unborn babies fine, others are appalled by it. Some people find killing convicted murderers acceptable...others are horrified at the thought.

In fact, in all of history I think there is only one time, one place, one reason for killing that is universally accepted as being reasonable and correct. That would be when you ask for 10 packets of chili sauce and the fast food guy tells you company policy only allows him to give you 3. Of course you are going to shoot him!