When's the last time anyone won a defensive war?
Do you not see the distinction?? A defensive war is one in which we are attacked. Now we are launching preemptive wars thus junking the very principles of this country.
Hitler turned Germany into a superpower because England and France refused to engage in an offensive war against him. So a war that would have cost a few lives - one to take out Hitler when he was weak - ended up costing 60 million.
Such is the price of avoiding offensive war in the name of some abstract sanctimonious pseudo-morality that is anything but moral.