Odd Coincidence

After mentioning Errol Morris earlier today, the documentary channel ran The Fog of War tonight. Now, I own it so this isn't a big deal, but my brother hadn't seen it, so I've now seen the movie probably a half-dozen times.

There's a moment early on in the film where Robert McNamara asks "what makes an act moral if you win and immoral if you lose?" in reference to the firebombing of Japan. More than any other moment in the film, that question has stuck with me.

This is a big question in all wars, but especially in the case of World War II. More than any war in recent history, we can say (uncontroversially, I think) that politics and morality were aligned - roughly. More basically (and with the notable exception of our alliance with Stalin) we could say that the bad guys were in fact Bad Guys.

That being the case, to what extent are our actions by definition moral? Cromwell said that extremism in the pursuit of virtue was no vice (or something like that), and I don't want to sound absolutist, but there have got to be prices we're willing to pay when we're confronted with obvious evil. Do we in fact lose the moral high ground if, in the pursuit of victory, we do things we later regret or judge to have been disproportionate?

Note: For those wondering, I don't see any equivalence between WWII and the current "War on Terror/Terrorism/Radical Islam/Islamist/Jihadis/etc etc." So moral questions about our actions in WWII would not, in my mind, justify similar actions today - if Dresden was acceptable (not sure that it was, not yet sure it wasn't) that's not to say that firebombing Tehran would be.