The value of human life

The are a billion threads out there about the Isreal/Hezbolla fighting right now. Each side claims the other are murderers and whatnot. My question is this. What is the ratio of people you save vs people you kill that justifies killing an enemy? If Israel kills 1000 innocents in it's battle with Hezbolla, how many people would have to be saved to justify it. 1000, or 100,000 or 1,000,000 or 10,000,000? So put yourself in the shoes of an Israeli General. You can launch a missile into an apartment building that will immediatley stop the war by killing every Hezbolla leader. No more people would die in the conflict and peace would be acheived. How many innocent people would be acceptable collateral damage if you project a continued war would kill 100,000 people. This isn't an easy question, but something you must consider when deciding whether to go to war. It is also an individual question as well. If you side with Hezbolla in this conflict do the same thing for their side. I may be mistaken, but this is the logic Truman used in WWII with the bomb. His projections were that hundreds of thousands of US and Japanese soldiers would die if they invaded with troops. He figured that taking out two cities without troops would stop the war and save the lives of many more than would die by the tactic. This is where the cease fire logic fails. Sure it stops the killing now, but it fails to take into accout the deaths of all those people that die in future battles because it wasn't finished today. Any thoughts. I don't know if there is a right or wrong answer here. I personally give it a 1:1 ratio. Some may say this is a cold way to deal with human life, but why is it cold to try to save the most lives as possible. The only rationale I can think of for not minimizing the total death count is so you can feel secure in the knowledge that you did not pull the trigger. I'd agrue inaction to save a life is just as bad as pulling the trigger in moral sense.

what bothers me most inspite of the figures resulting is the hatred is bred into the next generation

Originally posted by Gammastyle
The are a billion threads out there about the Isreal/Hezbolla fighting right now. Each side claims the other are murderers and whatnot. My question is this. What is the ratio of people you save vs people you kill that justifies killing an enemy? If Israel kills 1000 innocents in it's battle with Hezbolla, how many people would have to be saved to just ...[text shortened]... r. I'd agrue inaction to save a life is just as bad as pulling the trigger in moral sense.