The Morality of War (in Summary)

This is a difficult question to answer, and I do not claim to have all the answers, so rather than babble on I will give a concise answer. War is not intrinsically good or bad, although the cost of war is always high. Instead of looking at the tool to determine morality, we need to look at the overall goals of the war. In general, by your fruits ye shall know them. Look at what they try to accomplish, even if they fail. After all that, you will have a good idea of the morality of war.

How culpable soldiers are in their role in the war depends upon their span of control. Basically, if you have a way of influencing the outcome of the decision then you are culpable. Therefore, a single platoon leader is responsible if he carries out a platoon mission which is otherwise immoral. However, a platoon leader is not responsible if there is a corps level mission, which turns out to be immoral. Not only is he unable to change the nature of that mission, whether or not it is immoral is difficult to see from his position. In many cases, he cannot even tell what the objective of the whole mission is.

Most of the immoral actions were done on a minor level in the American military. My Lai, and Abu Ghraib are the two largest level actions I know of where people set out deliberately to do something illegal. Generally, it is something like individuals choosing to something bad, like rape, pillage, or murder, and for that the individuals and those who allow them to do it are responsible.