Comment by mananaysiempre

As an example of twisted logic this provokes, here’s one I’ve encountered in Schlosser’s Command and Control a couple of days ago:

> [Truman administration head of Joint Chiefs, General Omar] Bradley accused the Navy of being in “open rebellion” against the civilian leadership of the United States. The admirals were “Fancy Dans” and “aspiring martyrs” who just didn’t like to take orders. As for the accusation that [an “atomic blitz“] targeting [seventy] cities [hosting a plurality of the Soviet population] was immoral, Bradley responded, “As far as I am concerned, war itself is immoral.”

I can’t model or even try to imagine the mental gymnastics it takes to just stop at this—as opposed to continuing to “therefore we should not engage in it”, which is of course refuted by that (supposedly) being even more immoral, which in turn breaks the original assumption that all immoral things are equally bad.