Friends' Argument 2

Weren't the actions of those soldiers in Panama the embodiment of Father's extreme ideology on the battlefield?

When hatred overwhelmed reason, when revenge replaced justice, it became only natural for soldiers to turn into butchers.

"Enough!" Yzak suddenly growled, his voice hoarse with agitation. "Stop talking, Dearka!"

He was not angry at Dearka so much as he was roaring at himself.

He could not accept, nor did he want to accept, everything Dearka had described.

Because accepting it would mean admitting that ZAFT, which he had been proud of and fought for, had begun to rot from within.

The "justice" he had always believed in had begun to crack.

"Why can't I say it?" Dearka met Yzak's gaze without backing down. "Because it's a 'truth' we don't want to see? Yzak, we can't keep burying our heads in the sand like before, thinking that as long as we shout 'For PLANT,' everything we do is right! You saw what happened in Alaska too! The Earth Alliance used the 'Cyclops System' to vaporize both us and their own troops! And us? In Panama, we fired on people who had laid down their weapons! What... what the hell is that supposed to be!?"

"That's different!" Yzak shot back, his voice sharp with emotion. "The Earth Alliance are cowards who will do anything to win! And we... we were only eliminating enemies who had to be eliminated!"

"Were we?" A sorrowful smile appeared on Dearka's face. **"Then who decides who 'has to be eliminated'? The PLANT Council? Frontline commanders? Or every soldier holding a gun, deciding based on their own likes and dislikes? If a Natural is just an ordinary person who was conscripted, if he doesn't want to fight and only wants to go home, when he lays down his weapon and