[justcorrect]

The Death Star's destruction also killed thousands and thousands of soldiers, bureaucrats, and construction workers. A lot of who is good/bad in Star Wars is perspective. The Jedi can also be seen as religious extremists that kidnap children to indoctrinate in their ways, to lead in terrorist missions that help impose their view on an entire galaxy. Darth Vader is an emperor protecting his empire from a growing threat.

The moral is, multiple things can be true.

[pcnix]

By creating a weapon of mass destruction that destroys whole planets? I think the scale of that endeavor and the resulting destruction of Alderaan is justification enough for destroying the Death Star. But destroying Alderaan itself? I don't see any justification for that in the vein of him protecting his empire. They certainly didn't seem to pose a threat big enough for the planet to be destroyed.

When one side escalates to that point, and the other side takes away their weapon of escalation, it's false equivalency to try to equate the two.