[Mrs. Don-o]

Your method of questioning me, was to offer me a hypothetical example with almost all of the morally relevant information omitted. For instance, that the boy is a combatant (a sentry) --- funny you didn't mention that.

This is a game I will not play. I'm off to the beanpatch. You may want to bolster your hypotheticals with the crucial details needed to make a judgment --- and then offer them elsewhere.

[ansel12]

Even if the sleeping person were a IED-planter, the fact that he asleep would presumably mean you have a way of stopping him without killing him. You have a moral obligation to stop him. Tie him up, surely. Throw him in a locked room, surely. Break his arm, possibly. You do not have a moral right to slit his throat.

Really? Read post 188, it answers you.

You don't seem to have any grasp of what the military has to do, it gets far worse than killing a sleeping sentry, you must not know that soldiers sometimes have to execute all of the enemy wounded, and in a worse case scenario, kill one of their own who is injured and can't travel, or even a young child who has seen them deep behind enemy lines.

If you think that is bad, then you sure don't want to contemplate bombings and artillery and Armor use, in city fighting.

Do you know how our soldiers cleared a house in WWII, not knowing if it was empty, or occupied by a SLEEPING family, or by enemy?

[ansel12]

When a long distance reconnaissance team of 4 or 5 men is far behind enemy lines, and captures a couple of enemy soldiers or even civilians who might have seen them, what options do you think are available in a situation where the mission needs to be completed?