>If this is still hard, think of WW2. It was justified historically because of how Germans treated the Jews. Everyone is on board with the presumed necessary la

>If this is still hard, think of WW2. It was justified historically because of how Germans treated the Jews. Everyone is on board with the presumed necessary large scale destruction of Europe because of the holocaust. It was the internal horrific politics of the Nazis on people they considered foreigners which justify this. This is just not true. The plight of the Jews was not a major factor in the United States entering the war, or in the war at all for that matter. The US entered in response to a direct attack, though we could say that that was just the tipping point that escalated America's involvement to outright war. The underlying factors were the defense of allied democracies, and particularly the fear of a hostile international order where America would stand alone against the massive totalitarian regimes in Germany, Russia, and Japan, who likely would have controlled the rest of the world (and thus people and resources, and thus industrial capacity, and thus military might) between them. As for how we look back at it, Lincoln's formulation for the Civil War could apply just as well: [...]that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.