More than simply betraying their nation, people working for the Kilrathi can be seen as someone betraying their own species. Why would someone do that?
As a sidenote, I find it hard to believe anybody would ever think in terms of species - though your comment is accurate, in so far as people in WC apparently do (like Blair's comments in WC4 about never expecting to fight his own species... though he had in the past). I guess it's just a hard thing for me to imagine, since, living in the alien-less 20/21st century, I'm kinda missing the whole "there's another race out there, and they want to kill not just our nation, but our entire species" context
.
Anyway, it's pretty clear the Mandarins don't regard it as betraying their own species, though it's not clear if they were just opportunists who wanted to get on top of the slave hierarchy after Confed's inevitably (in their eyes) defeat, or if they genuinely believed they could eventually "civilise" the Kilrathi.
(an interesting thing is that the Mandarins were correct in their belief about being able to "civilise" the Kilrathi - though they might not have known it. After all, that's exactly what happened to Jukaga, and it could have eventually happened to other Kilrathi, too. The only question is, did the Mandarins actually have any evidence, any reason to believe this was possible? If they did, then we can say they had a point - but if they didn't, then they would have been merely delusional, even if they were ultimately proven correct)
Jazz seem to be having fun by preferably spilling human blood. Betraying Confed to work for the Kilrathi sounds a lot worse than, say, human pirates. Lots of different people worked for the Kilrathi, and the common denominator is that it turned out bad for them.
Well, Jazz is bent on revenge, after all - so yeah, he likes spilling blood of the people he believed responsible. But as for betraying Confed to work for the Kilrathi being worse than human pirates... I'd disagree. It
can be worse (if you're actually doing it because you want to see humanity wiped out), but in most cases it would be just as bad (if your motivation was simply profit), or actually better (if your motivation was a genuine ideology, like if you seriously believed the Mandarins to be right). A traitor who at least believes he's doing the right thing is surely a less immoral figure than someone who does it just for his own profit? And remember, pirates were just as much traitors as anybody working for the Kilrathi - they were, after all, sabotaging the war effort.
Maybe theres some language barrier here I'm not sure but thats what I meant from my last post. That the Kilrathi would do whatever is neccessary to win and if that involves bioweapons, nuclear strikes, slave labour, assassinations and false truces then they would do it. No rules of engagement were ever formed during the war. Thats all my last point was. Although I'm not quite convinced that there was no desperation on behalf of the kilrathi.
Right. My last post didn't quite get across what I meant either, come to think of it. I wasn't suggesting that the Kilrathi weren't in the mood to do whatever it takes to win, and rules be damned - just that the false peace, although it was suggested in a situation where the Empire desperately needed to find a solution, wasn't such a desperate measure.
(though the Kilrathi clan leaders were still
very offended when Jukaga proposed this plan, and the Emperor did suggest their Gods wouldn't like it. Nonetheless, Jukaga offered this plan as alternative to a retreat, an option he rejected out of hand as something too dishonourable to consider - which is why I believe the Kilrathi don't regard the false peace as something dishonourable to them, because they would have otherwise rejected it like the retreat option)
In any case, you are correct - the Kilrathi were increasingly desperate in the last years of the war. Even after the false peace and the battle of Terra, when it seemed like the Confederation was on the verge of defeat, the Kilrathi were still very desperate - in the WC3 novel, the Emperor goes as far as to say that the Empire cannot sustain the war for another year (and since this conversation appears to be the first time they meet after the battle of Terra, it seems that this year is almost up by the time WC3 ends), that there had been two assassination plots already since the battle, and that the clans were on the verge of rebellion - another defeat, and they'd be overthrown.
In the same conversation, the Emperor even orders Thrakhath to use the "new weapon" on the Terrans, which Thrakhath protests against, saying it's not the Kilrathi way. So, they are definitely in a situation where they're forced to do things the Kilrathi would normally reject as dishonourable.
...The only thing I can't figure out is what on earth the Emperor could possibly be referring to. I mean, the book author presumably meant bioweapons... but he seemed to have forgotten that this was nothing new to the Kilrathi, and hardly any different to using those strontium weapons that would poison the entire planet.