John Spencer
You are not consistent. You said: “You assert that war and crime are separate moral universes because the system says so but never explain why killing innocents magically becomes moral because a flag is involved.” I said: “The application of morality DOES changes in civil life
Dissident Media
Neither Aquinas or Grotius support your claim that morality changes in war. War doesn’t invent new morality, war tests whether you maintain it under pressure. Aquinas didn’t say, “Sometimes murder is good if it’s in a different country.” He said violence must be just, limited, and ordered toward peace, because killing innocents is inherently wrong, regardless of theater. Grotius didn’t sanctify war either, he sought to place safeguards around it. No serious student of the law of armed conflict would pretend that “proportionality” creates new moral rights. Even the LOAC doesn’t grant moral legitimacy to collateral damage. It merely tolerates it under military necessity, within the strict framework of Additional Protocol “True religion looks for peace, not war, and it is only for the sake of securing peace, of punishing evildoers, and of uplifting the good that wars should be waged.” -Aquinas “The killing of innocent persons, even in war, is never lawful unless it is absolutely necessary to the achievement of a just and proportionate military objective.” -Grotius