What's the difference between a soldier, an assassin, and a mercenary?

[onelifecrisis]

Originally Posted by Aramike

Killing is always distasteful, but it certainly is not always evil

Certainly?
My word, that's a bold statement.
By the way, just so you know, saying "certainly" does not make something certain.

Originally Posted by Aramike

inasmuch as there are times where to NOT kill would allow a greater evil to occur.

Did you read all of my post? Cos we're onto the whole "judging by results" thing again. Let's take your example to make things clearer, or at least more interesting...

Originally Posted by Aramike

For instance, if a sniper had in his sights a man who was about to detonate a nuclear bomb in a populated area, what would be evil: killing the man, or letting him kill millions?

Okay, lets say you kill the man. Then one of the millions that would have otherwise died grows up into Dr. Evil and detonates some fururistic device that kills a BILLION people. Now, if you could choose to (a) leave history as it is or (b) go back in time and undo the heashot, and save a BILLION lives then what would you do? Note that, for the sake of argument, (c) go back in time and kill both psychos is not an option (even if it were, I could just throw a third psycho into the mix or whatever). This is why intent, not results, is IMO the only basis on which to judge.

Either way, consider this classic thought experiment:

A train is hurtling towards a junction. You are standing by a lever which controls the junction. You cannot stop the train, but you can pull the lever if you want. You can see that if you pull the lever then the train will take the left track, to which one person is tethered, and that person will die. If you don't pull the lever then the train will continue on it's current course - the right track - to which two people are tethered, and they will both die. What do you do?

And now this one (which I've just made up):

You are offered a job in which you will be paid money to operate this lever on a regular basis. You will not get to choose when and whether you pull the lever; your superior officer will pass that order to you and each time he does you will have to do as he says or you'll get fired. But as long as you do as he says you'll get paid. Do you take the job?

That second one is a half-joke. Soldiering makes a mockery of what many would claim to be important matters.