'In war...stuff happens'. Very true, but if we refuse to pass any kind of judgement does that mean we must also refuse to pass judgement on, say, the actions of the Einsatzgruppen during World War II - actions, remember, that were carried out with the co-operation and support of the Wehrmacht? Or does the lack of judgement apply only to actions carried out before a certain point in history? And if so, what should we take as the cut-off point?
I wholly agree that we should not judge the actions of people in earlier centuries by the standards of our own time, but rather by the standards of their time. But surely, there must be some kind of judgement.- otherwise we end up with the kind of vacuous argument that says all points of view are equally valid, which clearly they are not (unless we want to argue that serial killers and paedophiles have valid points of view...points of view, certainly - but valid? I think not. Slippery slope there, folks.).