He was as much a saint as Joan of Arc. Ito Hirobumi deserved to die and Christ never asked us to be pacifists when some maniac was trying to exterminate us.
Since I had Nolin (vol II, 1938, pg 318) sitting here per my prior reference, I've gotten distracted reading it again. And I considered 'the other hand' and found something I don't remember reading before.
Roughly translated, it says:
The aggressor in the law of life.
It is permissible to each other and also to defend their own life then are ye, when on the occasion of the unjust aggression, while maintaining an INNOCENT the direction of protection, both because his own life, every man has the right to life to be preferred over unjust aggressors, because otherwise, they shall bring the villains with the greatest loss of human society and other injuries. Therefore, repel force by force, even though by its very agression follows the death of the defense, the rights of all positive laws permit it.
I see that as Ito did good.
I'm glad this discussion happened and I got to do a little morality review. Always something to learn.
/johnny