A friend of mine wrote a very intriguing piece on two of the genocides mentioned in the book of Judges, specifically the slaughters of the Canaanites and of Amalekites, that used to be on his now-defunct About.com web site. I don't remember all the nitty-gritty, but he tackled the subject from the perspective of graded absolutism.
A simple example of graded absolutism: Violence is wrong. Letting someone be beat to death also is wrong. If you see someone being beat to death, are you justified in using force to stop the assailants? Of course you are, and depending on the circumstances, you probably could even see your way to using lethal force.
As I recall, the contention of Greg's piece -- and if it's still online, I don't know where it would be -- was that for God to order the destruction of the Amalekites and Canaanites, their sin was so grievous there was no other way to handle it. He also gave the whole thing an important perspective: the command to wholesale destruction of a people were not given as frequently as people usually think.
Me, I still feel uncomfortable thinking of those orders.
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