US discovers larger nobler causes in the midst of battle

See October 21,2005 article “It may be news to certain Senators, but the U.S. always discovers larger, nobler causes in the midst of battle” by David Gelernter

“This week should have been a time of rejoicing in America. On Wednesday, Saddam Hussein went on trial — the ex-master butcher of Iraq, reeking of blood. And last Saturday, the newly freed Iraqi people pulled off a referendum right under the noses of terrorists whose hearts' desire is to blow democracy to bits.

Yet up on Capitol Hill, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had been called before a Senate committee. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) was one of those who questioned her.”
Rice answered that this is the way the world works. For example, we did not go into World War II to build a democratic Germany.

But Rice's analogy was exactly right. And by the way, using the Holocaust as a bat to beat political enemies over the head is demeaning to Jews and to human dignity. Having lost relatives in the Holocaust does not, in any case, confer expertise in U.S. history.

Democracies rarely declare war to improve the world, as Rice could have explained had she had the chance. They fight to protect themselves, sometimes to fulfill treaty obligations. But once a war is underway, free peoples tend to think things over deeply. Casualties concentrate the mind. We refuse to let our soldiers die for too little. America at war has lifted its sights again and again from danger, self-interest and self-defense to a larger, nobler goal.

…World War II. And, of course, Rice is dead right: Once the war was over, we spent years cultivating democracy in Japan and Germany. But we entered the war because Japan attacked us and, four days later, Adolf Hitler declared war on us.”