[AChimp]

Ah, but they do. There are rules to war, or at least everyone talks about how there are.

It's hard to sympathize with an enemy who seems to break every rule in the book, though. Nobody can imagine our side intentionally destroying hospital ships, killing medics or sending POWs to their deaths in labour camps and yet Axis forces did all of these things and more.

It's easy for people to assume that there's an unwritten code for what can and can't be done, because all we can relate to is what our own culture would dictate. What happens if the enemy's culture says that it's best to kill everyone who surrenders? How do you hold to your principles in the face of something like that, when you're the one the gun is being pointed at?

Long wars inevitably turn into a gray mess where all that matters is that your side loses the least.