“...I have sufficient confidence that those reading this thread who support the use of the atomic bombs will point out its absurdity in short order.” [Captain Walker, post 142]
A characteristic response from a moralizer. Unsurprisingly so: you claim authority, but you do nothing to earn it. That’s arrogant enough all by itself, but you go on to declare this authority is absolute and may never be questioned by us lesser mortals. Cheap and easy: a lazy man’s route to power.
In ttwo thousand years of Christianity there had never been a teaching that gave any support at all to the idea that the end of a war justified the means to it; the very idea would remove any concept of a war crime for the simple reason that your way of thinking could always be invoked in the defense of the accused.
The Rape of Nanking? "We just wanted to end this."
The Blitz? "We were trying to end the war."
My Lai? "We wanted to end the war. And if the generals who pushed for the incineration of civilians could use this in their defense, we will certainly use it in Lt. Calley's'."
Go back through the Geneva Conventions, go back to Aquinas, and go back to Augustine. (Go as far back as you need to.). Find any teaching that gave anyone approval to commit murder if they did so with the intent of ending the fighting.