You can be very emotional in your own personal life but It would be worst mistake to behave such thing in the professional life especially military or intelligent jobs which are tied hardly to national security and define It somehow. They must chose option third and did their mission successfully and pridefully in the name of the country and people but their emotions not only confused them and failed their duty but also caused the death of beautiful humans who trained hard with pure heart and were costed heavily.
They forgot that the issue is not related to them personally whether having mercy or not about the enemies but directly related to the national security and people. In the war, in all angles (cold, soft, classical, intelligence, complete or ....) anything is defined, regulated and decided so the rest of remnants among the problem must be cleaned.