...and Gandalf suddenly had a brilliant idea of how to win the war.

[the phantom]

The point is that it couldn't be wielded safely precisely because it was a device of the Enemy.

Okay, I get what you're saying now.

I don't completely agree though. I think the ring was a special case. If a different weapon of the enemy had fallen into the the hands of Gandalf and Elrond, let's say a catapult, then it's no big deal to use it against Sauron, right? (maybe use it to toss the Ring into Mt Doom, for those of you who've clicked on all the links on the Mortor thread )

Of course, that's not to say that breeding orcs is fine and dandy.

In real life, things are a bit more complicated.

I don't think it's always quite that simple in Middle-Earth either. That's why there are so many threads.

There is another aspect of this and it hinges around the word "breeding." I think that if the opponents of Sauron, in an attempt to defeat him, engaged in this breeding are engaging in the same type of perversion of life that Melkor engaged in at the very beginning.

Well, Kuru, I think there's a difference between breeding or hiring an army of orcs and what Melkor did. I'll take a bit out of the quote you gave earlier.

They would be Morgoth’s greatest Sins, abuses of his highest privilege

What was this "highest privilege" Melkor was abusing? The power to breed things? No. The power to hire an army? No.

He was abusing his power of creation.

Morgoth created the orcs. He made them in mockery of the children of God. That's what was so evil.

If Gandalf and Aragorn had employed orc mercenaries or even bred orc armies, they still would not be guilty of creating the race of orcs. They would merely be making use of something that was already created. That is a major difference.