Soldiers life threatened by his own side.

[liam]

What about combat engineers, cooks, etc? They're soldiers too.

I'd disagree with you on the naming of these folks, while I don't agree with supporting the war effort, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with cooking but the term 'soldier' would surely necessitate combat, the point at which it becomes immoral.

What about the majority of soldiers who miss their target? They have committed no murder -- can they be held accountable for an act they did not commit?

Well the action they undertook, shooting at others, would be wrong regardless of whether they were 'good enough' with their weapons or lucky enough to hit the target. This is simply a case of moral luck, as in the famous example of the inebriated drivers, if one kills by the same act that another does not, they are of no diminished responsibility for the action they took.

What about disaster relief, where the military is used to deploy supplies and assist?

Admittedly, this is a very honourable and good thing to do, yet this is peripheral, if somebody kills another person and then gives food to the hungry they are not absolved of their former crime.

I think your system ignores every subtlety of the military.

Perhaps, but the subtleties do not overrule the generalities, which is what I would condemn, so I hardly feel that the good they have done would go anywhere near far enough to make up for the atrocities of war. Yet it is not untrue that war creates more evil men than it may destroy, so we may not be entirely truthful in stating that their roles are good.

They're more than just thugs and guns -- they're a distinguished institution with laws, regulations and a history of ejecting 'unsuitable' candidates (to the point of abuse). But when you look even at that last piece, you see they'd rather have better quality whenever they can get it.

This isn't a personal criticism of people who become soldiers but rather of the occupation of being a soldier, the people are not, in my view, immoral until they don the mantle of soldier. Admittedly, the process does produce people who are good at what they do, but it is the 'what they do' that i disagree with, not who they are.

They contribute more than murder, magnitudes more. And you should recognize that and not paint them all with the criminal brush of the very few.

I never argued that they contribute nothing more, yet there is more evil in murder than there is goodness in the other contributions, however this is beside the point. What I wished to explain was that, irrespective of their other deeds, the act of killing others (or attempting to do so, as discussed earlier) is wrong and from my viewpoint there is nothing that may justify that. Thus those who do so are, and yet again I must stress in my opinion, immoral. I'm not so disposed as to be close-minded about this but it seems to me that there is no way around it as the unifying aspect of a soldier is that they fight wars and [at least attempt] to kill people.

I'm sorry if you're offended by this but if you are then we're at a fundamental disagreement and there is little i can do to change that.