Heh! Yes, I know, BB. That's an argument I can't take seriously...but I know that it's always possible to come up with such arguments if one wants to. That's how the human mind works. Hitler had the Germans convinced that his attack on Poland was legitimate defence too, after all. It's easy to convince people of anything that they want to be convinced of. You just tell them what they want to hear.

Young Japanese servicemen in 1941 were equally convinced that China had caused the war with Japan, and that Japan was legitimately defending itself against a conspiracy on the part of the USA, Britain, and China to destroy Japan. So they had no guilt whatsoever in hitting Clark Field, Hong Kong, the Dutch East Indies, and Pearl Harbor. It was "self-defence"!

People can justify anything in their own minds. Wars are started by choice. The one who starts them is the one who launches the attack. Wars that are "resumed" after a lengthy ceasfire are likewise again started by choice, are in fact a brand NEW war, and the one who starts them is the one who launches the attack. When he outguns the other side by 50:1 and he can't possibly lose, the sheer hypocrisy of it becomes so blatant to the surrounding community of nations that very few are fooled as to what is really going on (except among the ranks of the attackers themselves...they MUST convince themselves that they are "in the right"...morale would suffer badly otherwise, and that would imperil the mission).

Be assured that most German and Japanese soldiers in WWII believed implicity that they were doing "the right thing" when they went to war. They trusted their leaders and believed their country's war propaganda. This combination of patriotism and naivete is what warmongering demagogues depend on to achieve their aggressive ends. Most people are good people who would not dream of murdering their neighbours...but they will murder foreigners if given the order. There's a disconnect in their understanding of what they are really doing to other human beings.