Is genocide, or in the case of Ender's Game where an entire alien race is annihilated, xenocide, ever justified? Was the xenocide of the buggers inevitable?

I think one of the traits that separate humans from other species is that we are capable of wiping out whole cultures and populations. Humans are capable of doing good things but unfortunately our historical track record is pretty dismal. We have always been trying to annihilate each other based on all kinds of ethnic criteria. So to answer your question, we try to justify genocide but it looks pretty ugly any away you dress it up: genocide is never justifiable. I think the way that Ender and other boys were manipulated made xenocide a possibility. They just needed a guy like Ender to come along to pull it off.