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

[the phantom]

This first part is just sort of a side note, so forgive me for being off-topic.

things are much simpler in Middle-Earth, for one reason: Sauron is utterly corrupt and indisputably evil. He isn't a misguided leader, or even insane.

the philosophy behind them is remarkably simple. In Middle earth, where we are dealing with beings of utter evil

Why is Middle Earth so simple compared to our world? Because we are seeing it through the eyes of one man.

There is no doubt in my mind that if Middle Earth was real life that there would be orc-rights activists making speeches about how humans and dwarves especially had invaded their habitat and the orcs were merely fighting back, and that they are just as valuable a life from as a human.

There would be Sauron sympathizers who would say things like "Sauron's not really evil, he's just going about his goals in a different way. He's had different life experiences. Instead of fighting him, we should try to talk with him and work with him."

There would be those who would demand that the white tree be torn down because "It represents a tie to the Valar and spirituality and that sort of thing has no place in front of a government building".

There would be those who would say it was wrong to call Sauron or anything else "evil". They would ask "Who made you the judge of good and evil?"

Anyway, you get the point. Middle Earth would've been like that had it been real, so the real ME is comparable to our world. We just don't see it that way because we're viewing Middle Earth through the eyes of a single historian who paints things clearly from his viewpoint.

Heh heh, one reason why Middle Earth is so enjoyable is because Tolkien edited out many of the weirdo quack opinions we'd hear if it was real life.

They had a vision (or at least a sense) of how the world should be. And that vision or 'sense' did not include orcs at all.

So, are you trying to say that since orcs are basically evil and shouldn't even exist, making more of them goes against the cause? I suppose I would agree with that. But what about using existing orcs to fight Sauron? Isn't that a win win situation? In a battle of orc vs. orc, no matter who wins, there's going to be less orcs in the world.

I may use torture to find out where they were holding my child, but if I did I would be wrong.

Why in the world would you say that? I'd say that if you didn't do everything in your power to save your daughter, her innocent blood would be on your hands as well as the evil men who did it. That would be wrong.

Essentially the West is fighting a moral battle against 'Evil' itself.

Now, if this is how we look at the war with Sauron then you are completely right about using orcs and such. But I was looking at it as a physical battle in addition to a moral battle. If the west demonstrated perfect behavior and had impeccable table manners to boot, but Sauron takes over the world and kills all that is right, it's not really a victory, is it?

So even if in desperation ‘the West’ had bred or hired hordes of orcs and had cruelly ravaged the lands of other Men as allies of Sauron, or merely to prevent them from aiding him, their Cause would have remained indefeasibly right.

How is that different from what Saruman did?

It's different in a very major way. Saruman didn't attack Sauron with his orcs! He attacked the good guys!