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I tried not to get into motives in my post. Why we fought the Civil War is an interesting question -- but no matter what motive tickles your fancy, the fact remains: if someone is 100% against war, then then American Civil War would not have been fought, and the slaves would not have been freed.

Likewise, why we fought Germany after Japan attacked us is an interesting thing to discuss. But apart from the discussion, the fact remains: without American intervention a great many more Jews would have died in death camps created for the purpose of genocide.

And I will maintain that we went to Iraq for purposes of regime change. We went there to free 26 million Iraqis.

I hope your not sorry we did that.

I tried not to get into motives in my post.

But you definitely suggested that the civil war was fought to free slaves and WWII was fought to save Jews and the current war is about freeing Iraqis. It all seems a little revisionist to me and the kind of moral high ground insinuated by this kind of historical interpretation reeks of propaganda.

I hope your not sorry we did that.

I do regret that Mr. Bush chose to invade Iraq on this premise ("to free 26 million Iraqis"), but I do not believe that this was his initial motivation. Merely an afterthought when his original case wasn't quite strong enough. It's much like Lincoln deciding to write the Emancipation Proclamation for strategic and political reasons a full two years after invading the south. It just shows that there is a segment of the population that finds it appealing to have this great ideological vision that its leaders can use to garner support and recruit loyal defenders.